"I knew it was not wrong to be a girl because Mommy said so; cunts were all right if they were neutralized, one by one, by being hooked on to a man, but this orthodox arrangement only partly redeems them and every biological possessor of one know in her bones that radical inferiority which is only another name for Original Sin."
"The Female Man" was on a list of essential science fiction written by women. Joanna Russ has also been mentioned in various other books about literature by women. I had recently read "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Le Guin and was looking for authors like her. This wasn't as much like Le Guin as I had hoped. "The Female Man" was a hard read both because of the format and the message.
I read “The Man Who Folded Himself” in March for the same reason as "The Female Man," that it was recommended as essential science fiction. There are similarities between the two books. Both involve time travel and the resolution of paradox by allowing for alternate time streams ("my past is not your past."). In "The Female Man," time travel is foisted on some unsuspecting women who are being studied by another woman. The four women, Janet, Jeanine, Joanna and Jael, are really iterations of the same woman set in different circumstances, much as the Dan, Don, Danny, Dianne and others in "Folded" are different iterations of the same man, but the J-women are much more different from each other, even biologically, than the D-men.
I read “The Man Who Folded Himself” in March for the same reason as "The Female Man," that it was recommended as essential science fiction. There are similarities between the two books. Both involve time travel and the resolution of paradox by allowing for alternate time streams ("my past is not your past."). In "The Female Man," time travel is foisted on some unsuspecting women who are being studied by another woman. The four women, Janet, Jeanine, Joanna and Jael, are really iterations of the same woman set in different circumstances, much as the Dan, Don, Danny, Dianne and others in "Folded" are different iterations of the same man, but the J-women are much more different from each other, even biologically, than the D-men.
In both books, the men and women live in various situations. The D-men because of traveling back and forth in time and changing the time stream by altering reality to create a new future. The J-women of Russ live in alternate realities. Jeanine lives in a world where the depression of the 30s is still going on in the 70s, male and female roles are traditional to the time, and she is pressured to be married but doesn't really see the point. Joanna's world of the 1970s is more like our the U.S. at that time, and she is a feminist socialite appreciating (or not) the gender inequality of the time, making fun with sharp wit, and trying to survive in a man's world.
Janet is from a future world where men have all died from some virus (or purposefully killed?) Women have coped by developing the science to reproduce on their own. This is not the utopia once would expect, but it is culturally very different than our world. Women are more detached from each other than I would have expected. Jael is the most different, and although she camouflages her metal teeth and iron claws so she can fit in physically with the other women, she is an assassin with a body built for the job. In her world, men and women live in separate countries and have been at war for hundreds of years. Each has adapted, not by learning to reproduce without the other, but sadly by subjugating a portion of their population to serve as surrogate men or women as required.
Both "Female" and "Folded" raise questions of self, of the role of homosexuality, of the role of men and women in society. Both provide narrowly defined realities, although the world of Janet is the most well-developed of the societies. Neither has a story to tell, but instead raises questions. "Female" is much more of a rant, but neither book is easy to follow.
Janet is from a future world where men have all died from some virus (or purposefully killed?) Women have coped by developing the science to reproduce on their own. This is not the utopia once would expect, but it is culturally very different than our world. Women are more detached from each other than I would have expected. Jael is the most different, and although she camouflages her metal teeth and iron claws so she can fit in physically with the other women, she is an assassin with a body built for the job. In her world, men and women live in separate countries and have been at war for hundreds of years. Each has adapted, not by learning to reproduce without the other, but sadly by subjugating a portion of their population to serve as surrogate men or women as required.
Both "Female" and "Folded" raise questions of self, of the role of homosexuality, of the role of men and women in society. Both provide narrowly defined realities, although the world of Janet is the most well-developed of the societies. Neither has a story to tell, but instead raises questions. "Female" is much more of a rant, but neither book is easy to follow.
"The Female Man" would be recommended for those that have forgotten, or in the case of my students never knew, the problems of gender equality of the 70s. It is a representation of how some women were reacting to society at the time. But it is such a difficult read, I'm not sure I could entice my students to read it. It is also hard to hear the anger and desperation in the voices of Joanna and Jael. Of course, I am glad I read it, but don't see myself reading it again.
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