Customer Reviews

How to suppress women's writing

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Despite Russ' bitingly funny commentary and withering asides, in reading this book I found articulated so many things that I had always known and understood as givens. Women's writings have been systematically devalued, and so have women's contributions to academia. And, barring radical change, these trends will continue. (If nothing else, it explained the [outmoded and loathsome] world view of the English Department at my university.)

An important and eye opening work that should be read by all students and teachers of the Fine and Liberal Arts, but won't be, because, well, a woman wrote it. She wrote it, but...

This book is amazing. I won't bore you with a list of superlatives (which would take up this entire review if I did) but I will simply say that Russ's insights into the innumerable subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which women's art is censored or devalued are enraging and empowering, and are expressed with such wit and charm that you could it three times in one day and laugh out loud each time -- I know I did. Read it. Give it to your friends. It will change the way you think.

Having read the book (and the online reviews) I must comment that Russ's book is not a personal response to her own situation. Yes SF was male dominated (James Tiptree Jr. was a psuedonym used by a woman in the 50's and '60's so she could get published) but Russ is talking about womens' reception in the literary world in GENERAL. I find it interesting that the two negative reviews are not from people brave enough to sign in - they are also worded in a suspiciously similar fashion. It seems even books about feminist issues will be attacked by men who cannot understand the difference between general, historical issues and personal vendettas. Oye.

This book should be handed out to all women who are interested in writing or reading - and to all open-minded men as well, for that matter. An indispensible intellectual tool-kit for tackling the many ways in which prejudice and illogic can cloud supposedly "objective" literary criticism, it's also clear, concise (rare qualities in literary criticism), and very, very, very funny.

Had to read this for a master's class and was blown away by how good it was. If you like to challenge your patterns of thought, this is the book for you. Feminist masterpiece.

This book about women and art is a very accurate commentary, peppered with plenty of humour. All of what Joanna Russ writes about rings true with me, and at the same time I wished it wasn't so. I've always known what she says to be as it is, but I just accepted it, and didn't really give it much thought. All narrow-minded literary scholars (and I've met plenty...so many college profs. are) should read this book, and hopefully it will open their mind.

With the possible exception of the western, sci-fi has historically been about the most markedly gendered genre of fiction. Up until the 1970s, their were hardly any women writing in the field at all (Judith Merrill and Leigh Brackett being rare exceptions). The readership was likewise almost exclusively male. So that's what Joanna Russ was up against when she tried to break into the field in the 1970s. So, what kind of welcome did she get from the boys? Well, in short order the evil sexist curs of sci-fi community had bestowed upon Joanna Russ its two highest honors, the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award.Understandably outraged at this shabby treatment, Russ poured her anger into this prolonged whine of a book, this manual of grievance, this feminist masterpiece.