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WoGF Review: The Female Man by Joanna Russ
Daniel Roy (Triseult) is a writer, slow traveler, backpack foodie, endurance runner, and SF junkie. He has lived in Canada, China, and India, and currently resides in South Korea.
Still Relevant and Powerful
If I taught SF literature in high school, I’d make The Female Man mandatory reading, knowing my students would hate me for it. It’s not an easy book by any means; its structure is complex and obfuscated on purpose, and its subject matter is uncomfortable and necessary. But really, this is why SF exists in the first place.
The book has been heralded as the quintessential feminist SF, and it saddens me to know that this automatically reduces its reach. It’s true that the book is singularly concerned with subjects articulated by feminism, but I think it should be required reading for everyone of either gender. I wish I could go back in time and force fifteen year-old me to read this. And boy, is there a lot of piss and vinegar in this book. Sometimes the anger just radiates off the page. It’s a visceral book of raw nerves and flayed skin. It’s amazing.
The SF elements are more than merely allegorical. Ms. Russ spent a lot of energy building her woman-only utopia of Whileaway. The result is fascinating in its own right, and not entirely as one-sided as a feminist polemic would imply. Likewise, Alice’s dystopia is fascinating SF in its own right, even as it serves as allegory for our world.
