A story about "The Female Man (A Women's Press Classic)" — 1 year ago
Fascinating book. It’s in the genre of feminist science fiction which is itself quite interesting already. In this book it’s as if the author takes various feminist fantasies, from the mild to militant and puts them all together when four alternative selves from very different realities meet.
There’s Janet the explorer from Whileaway where men have been wiped out by a gender specific disease nine hundred years ago; Jeannine from our world as it would have been if WW1 didn’t happen and the Great Depression continued; Joanne from our present male dominated society; and Jael, a warrior and assassin (with a male sex slave) who comes from a place where an actual battle of the sexes is being waged.
The writing style is quite strange in that it’s non-linear and the narrative jumps from one woman to the next, perhaps symbolic of the different voices each of us have as women. At first it’s quite jarring, as it doesn’t appear to flow, but at the end of the book, it all fits together quite nicely. In the minds of these 4 women I was mirrored over and over, a voice given to many experiences I’ve had. What’s also worth noting is that this is not a man-bashing book. It just takes this thing called gender, and throws out some hypotheses worth considering.
Here’s an excerpt from the book:
MC: There have been no men on Whileaway for at least eight centuries – I don’t mean no human beings, of course, but no men – and this society, run entirely by women, has naturally attracted a great deal of attention since the appearance last week of it’s representative and it’s 1st ambassador, the lady on my left here. Janet Evason, can you tell us how you think your society on Whileaway will react to the reappearance of men from Earth after an isolation of eight hundred years?
Janet: Nine hundred years. What men?
MC: What men? Surely you expect men from our society to visit Whileaway?
Janet: Why?
MC: For information, trade, cultural contact, surely (laughs). When the plague you spoke of killed the men on Whileaway, weren’t they missed? Weren’t families broken up? Didn’t the whole pattern of life change?
Janet: I suppose people always miss what they’re used to. Yes, they were missed. Even a whole set of words like “he”, “man” and so on – those were banned. Then the 2nd generation use them to be daring, among themselves. And the 3rd generation doesn’t, to be polite and by the 4th, who cares? Who remembers?
MC: Don’t you want men to return to Whileaway Miss Evason?
Janet: Why?
MC: One sex is half a species, Miss Evason. Do you want to banish sex from Whileaway?
Janet: (with complete naturalness) Huh?
MC: Do you want to banish sex? Sex, family, love, erotic attraction – call it what you like – we all know that your people are competent and intelligent individuals, but do you think that’s enough? Surely you have the intellectual knowledge of biology in other species to know what I’m talking about.
Janet: I’m married. I have 2 children. What the devil do you mean?
MC: Well, we know you form what you call marriages, Miss Evason, that you reckon the descent of your children through both partners and that you even have “tribes”. We know these marriages or tribes form very good institutions for the economic support of the children and for some sort of genetic mixing since I confess you’re way beyond us in the biological sciences. But, Miss Evason, I am not talking about economic institutions or even affectionate ones. Of course the mothers of Whileaway love their children; nobody doubts that. And of course they have affection for each other, nobody doubts that, either. But there is more, much, much more – I am talking about sexual love.
Janet: Oh! You mean copulation.
MC: Yes.
Janet: And you say we don’t have that?
MC: Yes.
Janet: How foolish of you. Of course we do.
MC: Ah?
Janet: With each other. Allow me to explain…
