The Female Man

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 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 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 the 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 specializes 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 against women who lack effective means of resistance. Still, this is a powerful classic.