Joanna Russ papers (WisCon 31)

• 154 Destroying the Illusion of Traditional Gender Roles in Joanna Russ’ The Female Man / Weird Worlds, Warrior Women: The Cyberfeminists of Joanna Russ and William Gibson

Academic Papers•Conference Room 3• Sunday, 1:00-2:15 p.m.

1) This paper will show how The Female Man is both polemical essay and science fiction novel. By blending these two genres Russ produced a powerful work of fiction that is free to explore issues of feminism and gender in ways a traditional science fiction novel, or a traditional polemical essay, cannot.

2) The Female Man and Neuromancer contain two strong cyberfeminist warriors, Jael and Molly. Jael and Molly are warrior women entrenched in the middle of the war between genders. Jael is enmeshed in a literal war between the sexes, whereas Molly’s war is more symbolic. However, the similarities in the ways these women combat the patriarchy cannot be overlooked. Both women have had extensive body modifications to allow them greater capacity to compete with and protect themselves from the males, which aligns their feminism to that of Donna Haraway.

Skye Cervone, Taryne Jade Taylor