The Female Man

If I read this before, it was 40 years ago, so this was bracing. It’s metafiction—the author encountering other versions of herself or women like herself in different timelines. It’s more like scream of consciousness than stream of consciousness, as Russ explores all the conflicting demands of white womanhood. The way it uses the language of race would not be repeated today (I like the idea of “period-typical anti-racism”), but very little it said about gender was hard to comprehend today, and—as the book’s last sentences indicate—that means we are still not free.

An intense, messy, piece of speculative fiction that goes some interesting places but, I think, seldom succeeds and seems, at this point, a bit of a product of its time. Split into four female voices, including at least two that inhabit alternate realities and and one set in contemporary New York City, "The Female Man," the book seems less polyphonic than schizophrenic, as characters slide in and out of their settings and the text switches from fiction to polemic and then back again. The author's voice dominates the entire text, sometimes because Russ can't seem to differentiate her characters' internal monologues and sometimes because she doesn't hesitate to comment on her own text or, in many places, criticize her characters for their show more attitudes. At times optimistic and gentle and astonishingly cruel and reductive at others, it seems a book that born out of serious emotional and political turmoil. It reminded me a bit of Frantz Fannon's "The Wretched of the Earth," which, for all of its insight into the colonial mindset, also presents a bunch of rather indefensible moral conclusions. Of course, a forgiving reader could point out that it was written right in the middle of the Algerian War for Independence. In that same spirit, "The Female Man" probably could have only been written in feminist circles in 1974. But so much of it doesn't work now, and I suspect that many parts of it never really did.

The sections set Whileaway, an all-female future utopia are perhaps the ones that are most worth rescuing, if only because they demonstrate, once again, how much our fantasies can tell us about ourselves. At once futuristic and decidedly agrarian, these sections describe a society that is fluid and protean, where physical and societal structures are constantly being unmade and remade. It presents a charmingly optimistic take on the coming computer revolution, and -- very productively, I think -- attempts to describe how social relationships and personal qualities such as strength, aggression and resilience, might evolve in a world where our gender binaries no longer apply. I found myself wondering how much these sections of the book owed to situationism, whose critiques of planning and permanent structures had such influence on Paris '68 protests and, later, on punk rock In another section of the book, a teenage lesbian who's still struggling to accept her own sexuality attempts to navigate family life in the seventies, which may be of at least historical interest to readers. The other sections, which depict a world in which men are pitted against women in a bloody, long-term conflict and a portrait of a woman with pre-feminist ideals in contemporary New York have aged rather less well, particularly the latter. While it's certainly possible that many of the attitudes and social constraints that Jeannine, the protagonist that calls this setting home, are depicted realistically enough, the author somehow manages to condescend to her even more than the various men in her life do. This section of the book feels less like a story than a particularly brutal consciousness-raising session and is a particularly joyless read. "The Female Man" may have been a wake-up call for writers looking to create more explicitly political science fiction, but, forty years on, the book seems overwhelmed by its own contradictions and knocked too far out of balance by the very force of the emotions it contains. It's more recommendable as a fascinating document than as a novel. Not an easy or satisfying read. show less

The Female Man is a novel about feminism, identity, and a time-travelling assassin with metal teeth. All of these parts are equally important.

It's a howl of rage against decades of sexism, of "women should be happy in their place", of "give me a kiss/you frigid bitch!" Janet comes from Whileaway, a world where men died out centuries ago, which has evolved into a classic women's utopia. Whileawayans are busy, happy, peaceful, ecologically sound and sexually liberated. At worst, they're prone to soliphism and sudden bouts of interpersonal violence limited by a duels. Janet is an emissary, sent to a world where World War 2 never happened and the Great Depression trundles on, where she falls in with Jeannine, a librarian who is unhappily show more engaged and looking for a man to put her life to rights. They then encounter Joanna, from our 1970s, an accomplished professor of English and modern women who never meets the receding standards of male acceptance, and fumes with impotent rage. And finally, there's Jael, from a world defined by the Battle of Sexes, where men and women live in separated countries and wage a deadly war and covert trade for necessities. She's the one with the metal teeth, a killer who specializing in subverting male societies across the multiverse.

The writing is a kaleidoscope of post-modern structure, shifting points-of-view and narration at will, moving from the sweep of history to outpourings of emotion and sudden philosophical knocks. It is not an approachable book. Russ has a lot of anger, and a dark outlook, seeing humanity as two crippled co-species, the inner wounds of men extroverted into violence of women who lack effective means of resistance. Still, this is a powerful classic. show less

There is no point, with The Female Man, saying "i liked/didn't like it." It's very sharp, sharper than me, which is why I might have to simply start all over and read it again. I had to keep reading because I knew to let it go would be to lose the whole 'impression' of it, as it's more like a collage or a painting with lots of things going on in it, in an attempt to make it multi-dimensional, coming at you from many directions, so that, if you just stand there patiently and observantly, other things will gradually emerge, the lightbulb will eventually go on. What I think Russ is trying to do, ultimately, is break through into the place where what a woman does or doesn't do, thinks or doesn't think, won't be 'shocking' because 'a woman show more did it'. This appears obvious, but it isn't. It IS insidious, woman-think, and I found myself thinking hard about the ways in which I have embraced my 'inner man' and the ways I have not...... Russ is wickedly clever, anticipating responses, making fun of her characters, the reader, men, women...... it's quite a book! ****1/2 show less

This book dragged me along with it kicking and screaming. I did not like it in the beginning or the middle or the end, I complained loudly the whole time I was reading it that it was a TERRIBLE and FRUSTRATING book and OH MY GOD WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE WRITTEN IN SUCH A FRAGMENTED, CONFUSING MANNER.

But by the time I finished it I was feeling a sense of accomplishment, as well as a sense that it had all been worthwhile, like I'd just run a marathon.

The good: seldom has a book been written that is so necessary. I am surrounded in real life by people who think feminism is a movement for times gone by, that we live in a post-sexist world where the genders are truly equal and nobody is disenfranchised for differences as petty as that which show more is between our legs. I'd like to throw Janet Evason at their faces. And of course Joanna. My lovely, angry, hyperarticulate Joanna who is the ball-busting bitch I've always wished I could be.

The bad: seldom has a book been written that is so fucking confusing. The short passages alternate between the points of view of the three main characters and an unknown fourth character, often with no way to distinguish between them much less tell which passage belongs to whose eyes. This isn't even the kind of weird writing you get used to as you read along. I wish this book had been written a little more accessibly.

The ugly: it hasn't aged well, this book hasn't. I don't mean that it is too shrill, too feminist, too radical or whatever. I mean it isn't feminist ENOUGH: like the typical 2nd wave work it is, it seems to have blinkers on that restrict its feminism to white western middle-class able-bodied "normal-looking" women. If there is so much anger to be found in this narrow segment of women, imagine how much anger seethes in the breasts of the rest? Then again, every writer is a product of her times, and every book is a product of its. It would be very unfair to hold this book to the standards of four decades later. So this shortcoming is forgiven: I'm only mentioning it as a caveat emptor for current readers. show less

How I wish this book were more dated than it is. Russ shows a time traveler coming back to an America where the depression just kept going. She shows how women and men are trained for their roles, men in charge women cajoling, appeasing and appealing to their protective and sexual nature, men taking their dominance for granted. She shows a little blue book for accepted male actions with a little pink book for girls. They could be standard issue now. Baby, you haven't come such a long way after all. And that's not because Russ didn't point out exactly where we were but because the majority of people seem determined to stay there.

A classic of feminist science fiction that I put off for entirely too long. I loved it. Especially in this moment -- the #metoo, Trump presidency, #bluewave, #waveofwomen moment. That so much of this book is still so relatable is just disgusting. Four women from different moments in Earth's (alternate?) past/present/future and thus four different cultures, four different societal relations between men and women, are all brought together and their effects on each other and judgements of each other and their worlds are by turn spectacular/hilarious/tragic/questionable.

An intriguing, witty, surprisingly fresh take on humanity. Highly recommended.