The Female Man [Paperback]

Joanna Russ (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Beacon (1998)
• ASIN: B001AMKF6G
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 106 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking, for all genders, July 4, 2000

By 

Michael Battaglia - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Female Man (Bluestreak) (Paperback)

I'm a guy. Just thought I'd get that out of the way before I write this. I knew this was considered a classic of science fiction before I even found a used copy, but I have to admit that I wasn't looking all that forward to reading it. For one the cover (the old original one on the paperback) is a garish thing, basically a feathered woman putting on another skin. Plus I knew the book was about female issues and specifically issues that came up during movements that started in the seventies, when the book was written. At least it was short, I told myself. I'd get it over with quick. Boy, was I surprised. Not only does this rank among the best books I've ever read, but it gave me a lot to think about. Part of that has to do with Russ' style, she cascades all sorts of chapters together, bouncing back and forth, her prose is excellent, not just femenist rhetoric, she brings up all sorts of points about everything. And her contrast of the different worlds, there's Joanna's world, which is like ours (she's the female trying to be liberated), and Jeannine's world, where the Depression never ended (she's meek and just wants to go along with the group, essentially), then there's Janet's, where men don't exist at all (my favorite scene is where the newspeople ask how she has sex if there are no men and Janet explains to their dismay). There's one other too but that's a surprise. The style is sometimes confusing at first, sometimes you don't know who is narrating or which character is which but after a while it all starts falling together. Russ peppers it with her own observations throughout, my favorite being when she anticipates the reviews the book is going to get (not good ones). Is it angry? Sure but back then she had a lot to be angry about, and she comes across rationally through, her anger is righteous and not of the "all men should die!" type of rage. Like I said, it gives guys and gals lots to ponder and deserves to be wider read. The style may be off putting but the message is clear as anything. You just have to dig a little with thought to figure it out.

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What do the women in Whileaway do with their hair? , February 10, 2003

By 

"the_fanboy" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Female Man (Bluestreak) (Paperback)

... They chop it off with clamshells. There was a time when speculative-fiction (or science-fiction, pick your term) was filled with writers who experimented and challenged the status quo. These writers, people like Harlan Ellison, Samuel Delaney, and Joanna Russ, are challenging, talented, and even funny when they want to be. If you are open minded, try reading them and their peers.

That background out of the way, of all the books in the speculative fiction genre I've read, this is my favorite. First off, yes, "The Female Man" is a feminist book. Guys, getting scared off at this point would be a bad idea. Jeannine's tragic life is something anyone forced into a role they can't stand will identify with. Janet's life is hilarious and exhilarating, filled with Whileawayan philosophy and sayings. Jael, aka "Sweet Alice", lives in a world that is as dark as Jeannine's and as strange as Janet's, but she has the power to take control of it. Lastly, Joanna, the author's mouthpiece, is the glue that ties the other three women together. The book is entertaining and nearly impossible to put down. The humor is perfect and the feminist ideas presented by Russ are still relevant today. Be happy that Russ has the ability to fling her readers across time and space then shoot them back, because few can make a book this fun and yet this sad.

Many of the reviews here on Amazon.com are from people who just don't seem to "get it". Russ and her peers didn't always write novels that were neat and orderly, and this one in particular can drive the close-minded insane. Russ' style is closer to a James Joyce than a Charlotte Perkins Gillman or an Isaac Asimov, so be willing to read this book on her terms and hers alone. If you can do that, there is little to fear. Russ is a rebel, and at one point in the novel she even predicts the negative reaction of literary critics on her book and provides examples of the reviews she believed they would write. Think about that for a minute, she put fake negative reviews for "The Female Man" in "The Female Man" itself to prove a point about our uptight society. That's just a classic moment, and when you see that it perfectly mingles with the rest of the content and doesn't upset the flow, you can bow before this great novel yourself.

20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A complex, involving sci-fi novel about alternate realities, February 9, 2004

By 

gac1003 "gac1003" (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Female Man (Bluestreak) (Paperback)

Jeannine, anxiously awaiting marriage to her boyfriend, is a librarian on an Earth that never saw an end to The Great Depression. Joanna is a 1970s feminist trying to make it in a man's world by being just like a man. Janet Evason, a traveler from Whileaway which has not been home to a man in over 800 years, suddenly appears on a Broadway sidewalk. The three women are drawn to one another, presumably to learn and to share information. Things take a different track when they meet Jael Reasoner from an alternate Earth with separate, warring male and female societies. She has plans of her own for the three women.

This is a fantastic science fiction book centered on the idea that any given situation has a number of choices. What happens if all the choices actually occur, creating separate realities. What would the Earth be like in each of those realities? How would humans behave and act? Author Joanna Russ lays all these ideas at your feet, and then throws in: and what if you could travel between these realities?

Russ also gives the story a feminist flavor, having each of the characters represent a different aspect of a woman without being weak or vicitmized. They're very strong, very well-defined characters, challenging the reader to open his or her mind to all the possibilities around them.

The only difficulty I encountered with this book was sticking with the narrator. I never really knew who was talking at which time because the scenes would change from chapter to chapter. A little confusing at times, but if you stick with the book, the outcome is definitely worth it.