Alien Woman examines the construction of sex and gender in the four Alien science-fiction films. The Alien saga stands alone in presenting an enduring, self-reliant female protaginist, Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, who in the first film end up as the sole survivor of the beleaguered starship Nostromo. Subsequent writers and directors in the 1980s and 1990s, left to grapple with this strong female protagonist, re-envision Ripley to fit differing social, political, and cultural imperatives for women. Alien Woman focuses on how these writers and directors have re-written Ripley, and how each revision informs our understanding of women in science-fiction. By examining the creation and commodification of Ripley as female hero, the book provides a useful lens through which to view woman's place in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.