The Female Man
Encyclopedia
The Female Man is a feminist science fiction
novel written by Joanna Russ
. It was originally written in 1970 and first published in 1975. Russ was an avid feminist and challenged sexist views during the 1970s with her novels, short stories, and nonfiction works. These works include We Who Are About To, "When It Changed
", and What Are We Fighting For?: Sex, Race, Class, and the Future of Feminism.
The novel follows the lives of four women living in parallel worlds that differ in time and place. When they cross over to each others’ worlds, their different views on gender roles startle each others’ preexisting notions of womanhood. In the end, their encounters influence them to evaluate their lives and shape their ideas of what it means to be a woman.
. Janet finds Jeannine at a Chinese New Year
festival and takes her to Joanna’s world. Joanna comes from a world that is beginning its feminist movement
.
Acting as a guide, Joanna takes Janet to a party in her world to show her how women and men interact with each other. Janet quickly finds herself the object of a man’s attention, and after he harasses her, Janet knocks the man down and mocks him. Because Joanna’s world believes that women are inferior to men, everyone is shocked. Janet expresses her desire to experience living with a typical family so Joanna takes Janet to the Wildings’ household. Janet meets their daughter Laura Rose who instantly admires Janet’s confidence and independence as a woman. Laura realizes that she is attracted to Janet and begins to pursue a sexual relationship with her. This is transgressive for both of them, as Whileaway's taboo against cross-generational relationships (having a relationship with someone old enough to be your parent or child) is as strong as the taboo against same-sex relationships on Laura's world.
The novel then follows Jeannine and Joanna as they accompany Janet back to Whileaway. They meet Vittoria, Janet’s wife, and stay at their home. Joanna finds herself under scrutiny when Vittoria uses a story about a bear trapped between two worlds as a metaphor for her life. Jeannine returns to her world with Joanna, and they both go to vacation at her brother’s house. Jeannine’s mother pesters her about her love life and whether she is going to get married soon. Jeannine goes on a few dates with some men but still finds herself dissatisfied. Jeannine begins to doubt her sense of reality, but soon decides that she wants to assimilate into her role as a woman. She calls Cal and agrees to marry him.
Joanna, Jeannine, Janet, and Laura are lounging in Laura's house. Laura tries to glorify Janet’s status in Whileaway, but Janet explains that her world does not value her particularly, but chose her as inter-dimensional explorer because she was more expendable than others ("I am stupid," she explains). At 3 a.m., Joanna comes down, unable to sleep, and finds Jeannine and Janet awake as well. Suddenly they are no longer at Laura’s house but in another world.
Joanna, Jeannine, and Janet have arrived in Jael’s world which is experiencing a 40-year old war between male and female societies. Jael explains that she works for the Bureau of Comparative Ethnology
, an organization that concentrates on people’s various counterparts in different parallel worlds. She reveals that she is the one who brought all of them together because they are essentially “four versions of the same woman” (p. 162). Jael takes all of them with her into enemy territory because she appears to be negotiating a deal with one of the male leaders. At first, the male leader appears to be promoting equality, but Jael quickly realizes that he still believes in the inferiority of women. Jael reveals herself as a ruthless assassin, kills the man, and shuttles all of the women back to her house. Jael finally tells the other women why she has assembled all of them. She wants to create bases in the other women’s worlds without the male society knowing and eventually empower women to overthrow oppressive men and their gender roles for women.
In the end, Jeannine and Joanna agree to help Jael and assimilate the women soldiers into their worlds, but Janet refuses, given the overall pacifism of Whileaway. Jeannine and Joanna appear to have become stronger individuals and are excited to rise up against their gender roles. Janet is not moved by Jael’s intentions so Jael tells Janet that the reason for the absence of men on Whileaway is not because of a plague but because the women won the war and killed all of the men in its timeline's past. Janet refuses to believe Jael, and the other women are annoyed at Janet’s resistance. The novel ends with the women separating and returning to their worlds, each with a new perspective on her life, her world, and her identity as a woman.
. She believes that “there is a barrier between [her] and real life which can be removed only by a man or marriage” (p. 120). She doubts her boyfriend Cal’s ability to make her happy, yet eventually she succumbs and becomes engaged to him. At the end of the novel, Jeannine appears to have broken from the expectations of marriage and welcomes the social revolution against men.
Joanna, living in the 1970s, comes from a world remarkably similar to Earth. The feminist movement
has just begun, and Joanna is determined to refute her world’s belief that women are inferior to men. Joanna is witty and smart; however, she struggles to assert her abilities and intelligence among her male peers. She repeatedly refers to herself as the “female man” (p. 5) to indicate her adoption of the male gender role and separate herself from being identified as just another woman.
Janet Evason Belin comes from a futuristic world called Whileaway where all the men died of a gender specific plague over 800 years ago. She is a Safety and Peace officer, similar to a police officer, and has just become an emissary to other worlds. She is married with Vittoria and has two children. In addition to being confident and assertive, Janet is perhaps the most independent from men because she has never experienced patriarchal domination.
Alice Jael Reasoner, often referred to as Jael, is an assassin living in a world where a 40-year old war has caused men and women to separate into warring societies. She is a radical and does not appeal much to her emotion but, focuses solely on facts as they are presented to her. Jael is the instigator behind the four women’s meeting and appears to be proposing a revolution against all men.
Cal is Jeannine’s boyfriend and soon-to-be fiancé. Jeannine does not believe that Cal is masculine enough to provide for her.
Mrs. Dadier is Jeannine’s mother who lives with Jeannine’s brother and his family. When Jeannine spends a vacation at her brother’s house, Mrs. Dadier plagues Jeannine with lectures regarding the importance of marriage.
was at its height, The Female Man studies how women struggle to retain their identity as women yet still assert themselves as equals to men. The novel’s main theme of gender roles occurs in each of the four characters’ worlds. Because of the different environments in which they were raised, each woman has a different idea on what it means to be a woman. Jeannine believes that only marriage can validate her existence while Janet, because of the absence of men in her world, does not understand how women can be inferior to men. Joanna searches to establish her identity as a strong individual and believes that she must adopt masculine characteristics in order to be viewed as an equal. Because Jael is in war with men, she believes that men are expendable and should be eliminated. The novel investigates each of the women’s views and questions how far women should go to break gender roles.
, the radical differences between the women’s views must be a result of their varying environments. The text sheds light on the importance of environment because the feminist movement sought to reconstruct society’s preexisting ideas of women’s roles.
, the ultimate independent woman warrior. Jeannine’s obsession with the moon is her unconscious desire to be free from society’s limitations on women. Joanna’s statement can be interpreted as her inability to ever achieve true independence since she must reject her femininity in order to be regarded as an equal to men. The moon is relevant only to Jeannine and Joanna because they live in worlds where women are considered subordinate to men. Janet recalls that her first sentence was also "see the moon" which provides support for the interpretation that the four J's are essentially the same person.
Joanna, Janet, and Jael’s perspectives are expressed through the first person narrative, but they often refer to themselves in the third person while the narration is still through their point of view. Jeannine’s perspective is initially told solely through a third person narrative. Jeannine does eventually adopt a first person narrative, indicating her emerging doubt of her dependence on a man and her fate as a dutiful wife. Joanna recognizes that her own style of narration reflects a feminine quality. Joanna says, “I have no structure…my thoughts seep out shapelessly like menstrual fluid, it is all very female and deep and full of essences, it is very primitive and full of ‘and’s,’ it is called ‘run-on sentences’” (p. 137). Joanna also inserts common conversations in the form of a script that demonstrate her frustration with men’s ignorance of women. Janet often gives background history on Whileaway to provide insight on the nature of her world. Jael is slightly introduced in part two, signaled by an italicized text; however, her story begins in part eight with a repetition of the italicized chapter. The novel mostly focuses on Jael’s perspective until the end of the novel except for a few moments when the narrative is told through the other three’s point-of-view.
was largely male-dominated, The Female Man was initially received as negative propaganda. As the feminist movement began to gain attention, however, many regarded the novel as one of the most influential works in feminist literature and its wide acceptance heralded the start of feminist science fiction
.
“A work of frightening power, but it is also a work of great fictional subtlety…it should appeal to all intelligent people who look for exciting ideation, crackling dialogue, provocative fictional games-playing in their reading.” – Douglas Barbour, Toronto Star
“A stunning book, a work to be read with great respect. It’s also screamingly funny.”- Elizabeth Lynn, San Francisco Review of books
"In sum, it is a superior SF novel, though perhaps too demanding in an emotional sense ever to be popular even with those expressing the currently fashionable opinions on women's liberation."
--R.D. Mullen
The character Janet, and a different version of Whileaway (a planet colonized from Earth, rather than a future version of Earth itself), exist in both the novel The Female Man and in the short story "When It Changed".
Joanna alludes to Grendel's mother to demonstrate that a woman can be both a nurturing mother and an aggressive, strong woman.
Joanna references Mill when she lists the many examples of how men have historically oppressed women.
Jael is named after Yael
, who kills Sisera
by driving a tent peg through his skull while he sleeps. At one point Russ describes Jael in words paraphrased from the Book of Judges
: "At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead" (Jdg. 5:27).
as shown through Janet’s utopian society. Though Janet’s world is extremely technologically advanced, the women choose to live in agrarian societies. Whileaway forms an idealistic image of an organic environment where nature is preserved despite the radical development of technology.
Joanna (the author) also mentions the Great Depression
, which occurs in 1929 when economies all over the world took a devastating turning point. In Jeannine’s world, however, the Great Depression never ended. The text suggests that the continuation of the Great Depression forced women to seek husbands for financial support and prohibited women from finding jobs of their own. As a result, the text implies that the Great Depression perpetuated gender roles.
Feminist science fiction
Feminist science fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction which tends to deal with women's roles in society. Feminist science fiction poses questions about social issues such as how society constructs gender roles, the role reproduction plays in defining gender and the unequal political and...
novel written by Joanna Russ
Joanna Russ
Joanna Russ was an American writer, academic and feminist. She is the author of a number of works of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism such as How to Suppress Women's Writing, as well as a contemporary novel, On Strike Against God, and one children's book, Kittatinny...
. It was originally written in 1970 and first published in 1975. Russ was an avid feminist and challenged sexist views during the 1970s with her novels, short stories, and nonfiction works. These works include We Who Are About To, "When It Changed
When It Changed
"When It Changed" is a science fiction short story by Joanna Russ. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story 1973, and won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story in 1972. It was included in Harlan Ellison's anthology Again, Dangerous Visions....
", and What Are We Fighting For?: Sex, Race, Class, and the Future of Feminism.
The novel follows the lives of four women living in parallel worlds that differ in time and place. When they cross over to each others’ worlds, their different views on gender roles startle each others’ preexisting notions of womanhood. In the end, their encounters influence them to evaluate their lives and shape their ideas of what it means to be a woman.
Explanation of the novel's title
The character Joanna calls herself the “female man” because she believes that she must forgo her identity as a woman in order to be respected (p. 5). She states that “there is one and only one way to possess that in which we are defective…Become it” (p. 139). Her metaphorical transformation refers to her decision to seek equality by rejecting women’s dependence on men.Setting
- The Female Man includes several fictional worlds.
- Joanna's World: Joanna exists in a world that similar to Earth in the 1970s.
- Jeannine's World: Jeannine lives in a world where the Great Depression never ended. The Second World WarThe Second World WarThe Second World War may refer to:*World War II, a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945*The Second World War , a history, originally published in six volumes, of the period from the end of the First World War to July 1945, written by Winston Churchill...
never happened because Adolf HitlerAdolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
was assassinated in 1936, and Chiang Kai-ShekChiang Kai-shekChiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
controls Hong Kong, as Japanese imperialism still dominates the Chinese mainland. - Whileaway (Janet's World): Whileaway is a utopian society in the far future where all the men died from a gender-specific plague over 800 years ago. After mastering parthenogenesisParthenogenesisParthenogenesis is a form of asexual reproduction found in females, where growth and development of embryos occur without fertilization by a male...
, women form lesbian relationships and parent children within them. Although the world is technologically advanced, their societies are mostly agrarian. Their technology enables them to genetically merge ova in order to procreate. Joanna Russ's Nebula AwardNebula AwardThe Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
winning short story When It ChangedWhen It Changed"When It Changed" is a science fiction short story by Joanna Russ. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story 1973, and won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story in 1972. It was included in Harlan Ellison's anthology Again, Dangerous Visions....
(1972) also takes place on Whileaway, but earlier. - Jael's World: Jael's world is a dystopia where men and women are literally engaged in a "battle of the sexes". Although they have been in conflict for over 40 years, the two societies still participate in trade with each other. Women trade children in exchange for resources. In order for men to cope with their sexual desires, young boys undergo cosmetic surgery that physically changes their appearance so that they look like women. Jael is heterosexual and has sex with Davey, a lobotomised adolescent male, at her home.
Plot summary
The novel begins when Janet Evason suddenly arrives in Jeannine Dadier’s world. Janet is from Whileaway, a futuristic world where a plague killed all of the men over 800 years ago, and Jeannine lives in a world that never experienced the end of the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. Janet finds Jeannine at a Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year – often called Chinese Lunar New Year although it actually is lunisolar – is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is an all East and South-East-Asia celebration...
festival and takes her to Joanna’s world. Joanna comes from a world that is beginning its feminist movement
Feminist movement
The feminist movement refers to a series of campaigns for reforms on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment and sexual violence...
.
Acting as a guide, Joanna takes Janet to a party in her world to show her how women and men interact with each other. Janet quickly finds herself the object of a man’s attention, and after he harasses her, Janet knocks the man down and mocks him. Because Joanna’s world believes that women are inferior to men, everyone is shocked. Janet expresses her desire to experience living with a typical family so Joanna takes Janet to the Wildings’ household. Janet meets their daughter Laura Rose who instantly admires Janet’s confidence and independence as a woman. Laura realizes that she is attracted to Janet and begins to pursue a sexual relationship with her. This is transgressive for both of them, as Whileaway's taboo against cross-generational relationships (having a relationship with someone old enough to be your parent or child) is as strong as the taboo against same-sex relationships on Laura's world.
The novel then follows Jeannine and Joanna as they accompany Janet back to Whileaway. They meet Vittoria, Janet’s wife, and stay at their home. Joanna finds herself under scrutiny when Vittoria uses a story about a bear trapped between two worlds as a metaphor for her life. Jeannine returns to her world with Joanna, and they both go to vacation at her brother’s house. Jeannine’s mother pesters her about her love life and whether she is going to get married soon. Jeannine goes on a few dates with some men but still finds herself dissatisfied. Jeannine begins to doubt her sense of reality, but soon decides that she wants to assimilate into her role as a woman. She calls Cal and agrees to marry him.
Joanna, Jeannine, Janet, and Laura are lounging in Laura's house. Laura tries to glorify Janet’s status in Whileaway, but Janet explains that her world does not value her particularly, but chose her as inter-dimensional explorer because she was more expendable than others ("I am stupid," she explains). At 3 a.m., Joanna comes down, unable to sleep, and finds Jeannine and Janet awake as well. Suddenly they are no longer at Laura’s house but in another world.
Joanna, Jeannine, and Janet have arrived in Jael’s world which is experiencing a 40-year old war between male and female societies. Jael explains that she works for the Bureau of Comparative Ethnology
Ethnology
Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
, an organization that concentrates on people’s various counterparts in different parallel worlds. She reveals that she is the one who brought all of them together because they are essentially “four versions of the same woman” (p. 162). Jael takes all of them with her into enemy territory because she appears to be negotiating a deal with one of the male leaders. At first, the male leader appears to be promoting equality, but Jael quickly realizes that he still believes in the inferiority of women. Jael reveals herself as a ruthless assassin, kills the man, and shuttles all of the women back to her house. Jael finally tells the other women why she has assembled all of them. She wants to create bases in the other women’s worlds without the male society knowing and eventually empower women to overthrow oppressive men and their gender roles for women.
In the end, Jeannine and Joanna agree to help Jael and assimilate the women soldiers into their worlds, but Janet refuses, given the overall pacifism of Whileaway. Jeannine and Joanna appear to have become stronger individuals and are excited to rise up against their gender roles. Janet is not moved by Jael’s intentions so Jael tells Janet that the reason for the absence of men on Whileaway is not because of a plague but because the women won the war and killed all of the men in its timeline's past. Janet refuses to believe Jael, and the other women are annoyed at Janet’s resistance. The novel ends with the women separating and returning to their worlds, each with a new perspective on her life, her world, and her identity as a woman.
Major characters
Jeannine Dadier is a librarian who lives in a world that never escaped the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. She believes that “there is a barrier between [her] and real life which can be removed only by a man or marriage” (p. 120). She doubts her boyfriend Cal’s ability to make her happy, yet eventually she succumbs and becomes engaged to him. At the end of the novel, Jeannine appears to have broken from the expectations of marriage and welcomes the social revolution against men.
Joanna, living in the 1970s, comes from a world remarkably similar to Earth. The feminist movement
Feminist movement
The feminist movement refers to a series of campaigns for reforms on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment and sexual violence...
has just begun, and Joanna is determined to refute her world’s belief that women are inferior to men. Joanna is witty and smart; however, she struggles to assert her abilities and intelligence among her male peers. She repeatedly refers to herself as the “female man” (p. 5) to indicate her adoption of the male gender role and separate herself from being identified as just another woman.
Janet Evason Belin comes from a futuristic world called Whileaway where all the men died of a gender specific plague over 800 years ago. She is a Safety and Peace officer, similar to a police officer, and has just become an emissary to other worlds. She is married with Vittoria and has two children. In addition to being confident and assertive, Janet is perhaps the most independent from men because she has never experienced patriarchal domination.
Alice Jael Reasoner, often referred to as Jael, is an assassin living in a world where a 40-year old war has caused men and women to separate into warring societies. She is a radical and does not appeal much to her emotion but, focuses solely on facts as they are presented to her. Jael is the instigator behind the four women’s meeting and appears to be proposing a revolution against all men.
Minor characters
Laura Rose is the daughter in the family that Janet stays with when she is visiting Joanna’s world. She proclaims to be a “victim of penis envy,” frustrated that she must stifle her potential in order to become a housewife (p. 65). Janet’s confidence and independence from men fascinates Laura, and Laura begins to pursue a sexual relationship with her. Laura is the only character other than the four major ones to have the narrative told through her perspective.Cal is Jeannine’s boyfriend and soon-to-be fiancé. Jeannine does not believe that Cal is masculine enough to provide for her.
Mrs. Dadier is Jeannine’s mother who lives with Jeannine’s brother and his family. When Jeannine spends a vacation at her brother’s house, Mrs. Dadier plagues Jeannine with lectures regarding the importance of marriage.
Gender roles
Written during the 1970’s, when the feminist movementFeminist movement
The feminist movement refers to a series of campaigns for reforms on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment and sexual violence...
was at its height, The Female Man studies how women struggle to retain their identity as women yet still assert themselves as equals to men. The novel’s main theme of gender roles occurs in each of the four characters’ worlds. Because of the different environments in which they were raised, each woman has a different idea on what it means to be a woman. Jeannine believes that only marriage can validate her existence while Janet, because of the absence of men in her world, does not understand how women can be inferior to men. Joanna searches to establish her identity as a strong individual and believes that she must adopt masculine characteristics in order to be viewed as an equal. Because Jael is in war with men, she believes that men are expendable and should be eliminated. The novel investigates each of the women’s views and questions how far women should go to break gender roles.
Sexuality
Sexuality becomes a recurring theme throughout the novel, primarily explored through Janet's experiences. Janet believes in an active sexual life, and her need for sexual relations with other women stems from her deep insecurity. Men do not exist in Janet’s world, and the women of Whileaway therefore have relationships only with other women.Nature vs. nurture
The differences between each of the women’s personalities suggest that the environment/civilization from which they come shape their beliefs and actions. Jael says, “Given a reasonable variation, we are the same racial type…what you see is essentially the same genotype, modified by age, by circumstances, by education, by, diet, by learning, by God knows what”(161). Through Jael’s revelation that they are in fact each other’s counterparts, the text shows that though the women have the same geneticsGenetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
, the radical differences between the women’s views must be a result of their varying environments. The text sheds light on the importance of environment because the feminist movement sought to reconstruct society’s preexisting ideas of women’s roles.
The moon
The moon is a recurring symbol that appears when the narrative focuses on Jeannine and Joanna’s perspectives. Jeannine’s first sentence is “See the moon,” and when Jeannine runs away from her family, Joanna finds her “looking at the moon” (111,113). Joanna realizes that all of the significant figures in any field are always male, and she laments that she was “never on the moon” (135). The moon may be a reference to the Greek goddess ArtemisArtemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, the ultimate independent woman warrior. Jeannine’s obsession with the moon is her unconscious desire to be free from society’s limitations on women. Joanna’s statement can be interpreted as her inability to ever achieve true independence since she must reject her femininity in order to be regarded as an equal to men. The moon is relevant only to Jeannine and Joanna because they live in worlds where women are considered subordinate to men. Janet recalls that her first sentence was also "see the moon" which provides support for the interpretation that the four J's are essentially the same person.
Technology
The symbol of technology is represented most prominently in Janet's all-female utopian future of Whileaway. The text implies that the futuristic technology of Whileaway is how the women of Whileaway can become the strongest, most advanced, best-equipped version of themselves to ensure ease in carrying out vocational and professional tasks. Technology on Whileaway is the factor that ensured an increased overall intelligence through genetic engineering. Technology is approached as something that is essential to Whileaway culture and its ability to grow and thrive. The women do not show either a strong appreciation for or disregard of their world's technology. They treat it, rather, as something that is just present and does not need explanation or background. Technology is used in Jael's dystopian, sex-warring world in much the same regard; simply as an integral, ever-present entity."Representations of technology provide [Russ] a way of talking about temporality and change, about historicity and futurity, including agential social change" (p. 406).
Structure and format
The novel is divided into nine parts, with each further divided into chapters. The sections of the novel are usually dedicated to one character’s perspective, but often the point-of-view changes between the four characters and skips from location and time. For example, part five begins in Jeannine’s world yet the narrative is through Joanna’s perspective. The novel never clearly indicates who is speaking and, as a result, often creates confusion in the narration. The novel does provide clues, however, so that the reader can infer the identity of the narrator.Joanna, Janet, and Jael’s perspectives are expressed through the first person narrative, but they often refer to themselves in the third person while the narration is still through their point of view. Jeannine’s perspective is initially told solely through a third person narrative. Jeannine does eventually adopt a first person narrative, indicating her emerging doubt of her dependence on a man and her fate as a dutiful wife. Joanna recognizes that her own style of narration reflects a feminine quality. Joanna says, “I have no structure…my thoughts seep out shapelessly like menstrual fluid, it is all very female and deep and full of essences, it is very primitive and full of ‘and’s,’ it is called ‘run-on sentences’” (p. 137). Joanna also inserts common conversations in the form of a script that demonstrate her frustration with men’s ignorance of women. Janet often gives background history on Whileaway to provide insight on the nature of her world. Jael is slightly introduced in part two, signaled by an italicized text; however, her story begins in part eight with a repetition of the italicized chapter. The novel mostly focuses on Jael’s perspective until the end of the novel except for a few moments when the narrative is told through the other three’s point-of-view.
Literary significance and reception
Because the field of science fictionScience fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
was largely male-dominated, The Female Man was initially received as negative propaganda. As the feminist movement began to gain attention, however, many regarded the novel as one of the most influential works in feminist literature and its wide acceptance heralded the start of feminist science fiction
Feminist science fiction
Feminist science fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction which tends to deal with women's roles in society. Feminist science fiction poses questions about social issues such as how society constructs gender roles, the role reproduction plays in defining gender and the unequal political and...
.
“A work of frightening power, but it is also a work of great fictional subtlety…it should appeal to all intelligent people who look for exciting ideation, crackling dialogue, provocative fictional games-playing in their reading.” – Douglas Barbour, Toronto Star
Toronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
“A stunning book, a work to be read with great respect. It’s also screamingly funny.”- Elizabeth Lynn, San Francisco Review of books
"In sum, it is a superior SF novel, though perhaps too demanding in an emotional sense ever to be popular even with those expressing the currently fashionable opinions on women's liberation."
--R.D. Mullen
Allusions to other works
- "When It ChangedWhen It Changed"When It Changed" is a science fiction short story by Joanna Russ. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story 1973, and won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story in 1972. It was included in Harlan Ellison's anthology Again, Dangerous Visions....
" by Joanna RussJoanna RussJoanna Russ was an American writer, academic and feminist. She is the author of a number of works of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism such as How to Suppress Women's Writing, as well as a contemporary novel, On Strike Against God, and one children's book, Kittatinny...
The character Janet, and a different version of Whileaway (a planet colonized from Earth, rather than a future version of Earth itself), exist in both the novel The Female Man and in the short story "When It Changed".
- BeowulfBeowulfBeowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
from oral traditionOral traditionOral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and traditions transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...
Joanna alludes to Grendel's mother to demonstrate that a woman can be both a nurturing mother and an aggressive, strong woman.
- The Subjection of WomenThe Subjection of WomenThe Subjection of Women is the title of an essay written by John Stuart Mill in 1869, possibly jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill, stating an argument in favour of equality between the sexes...
by John Stuart MillJohn Stuart MillJohn Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
Joanna references Mill when she lists the many examples of how men have historically oppressed women.
- The BibleBibleThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
Jael is named after Yael
Yael
Yael is a character mentioned in the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible, as the heroine who killed Sisera to deliver Israel from the troops of king Jabin...
, who kills Sisera
Sisera
Sisera was commander of the Canaanite army of King Jabin of Hazor mentioned in the of the Hebrew Bible. After being defeated by Barak, Sisera was killed by Jael, who hammered a tent peg into his temple....
by driving a tent peg through his skull while he sleeps. At one point Russ describes Jael in words paraphrased from the Book of Judges
Book of Judges
The Book of Judges is the seventh book of the Hebrew bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its title describes its contents: it contains the history of Biblical judges, divinely inspired prophets whose direct knowledge of Yahweh allows them to act as decision-makers for the Israelites, as...
: "At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead" (Jdg. 5:27).
Allusions to history
Russ’s novel refers to the problematic issues in the 1970s when the feminist movement rose to power. Because The Female Man was written during the 1970’s, the character Joanna’s world is most similar to the world the author lived in. The novel also addresses the environmental movementEnvironmental movement
The environmental movement, a term that includes the conservation and green politics, is a diverse scientific, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues....
as shown through Janet’s utopian society. Though Janet’s world is extremely technologically advanced, the women choose to live in agrarian societies. Whileaway forms an idealistic image of an organic environment where nature is preserved despite the radical development of technology.
Joanna (the author) also mentions the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, which occurs in 1929 when economies all over the world took a devastating turning point. In Jeannine’s world, however, the Great Depression never ended. The text suggests that the continuation of the Great Depression forced women to seek husbands for financial support and prohibited women from finding jobs of their own. As a result, the text implies that the Great Depression perpetuated gender roles.
Awards and nominations
After having been nominated for the 1975 Nebula Award for Best Novel, The Female Man won one of three Retrospective Tiptree Awards in 1996. It also won a 2002 Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of Fame Award.Publication history
- February 1975, United States, Bantam Books (A Frederik Pohl Selection), #Q8765, ISBN 0-807-06299-5, paperback.
- June 1977, United States,Gregg Press, ISBN 0-8398-2351-7, hardcover
- March 1978, United States, Bantam Books, ISBN 0-553-11175-2, paperback.
- 1985, Great Britain, The Women's Press, ISBN 0-7043-3949-8, paperback
- 1986, United States, Beacon Press, ISBN 0-8070-6313-4, trade paperback
- 1990, in Radical Utopias, Quality Paperback Book Club, trade paperback, omnibus
- 1994, Easton press (The Masterpieces of Science Fiction), hardcover
- March 2000, United States, Beacon Press, ISBN 0-807-06299-5, paperback.
- March 2002, Great Britain, The Women's Press, ISBN 0-7043-4737-7, trade paperback
- November 2010, Gollancz (Gollancz SF Masterworks), ISBN 978-0-575-09499-4, trade paperback
External links
- Book review dead link
- Ayres, Susan. "The "Straight Mind" in Russ’s The Female Man" Science Fiction Studies. #65, Vol. 22, part 1 (March 1995).