The Female Man
 | |
| The 1975 first paperback edition by Bantam Books.(A Frederik Pohl Selection.) | |
| Author | Joanna Russ |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science Fiction |
| Publisher | Bantam Books |
| Released | February 1975 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 214 pp |
| ISBN | 0-807-06299-5 |
The Female Man is a 1975 novel by Joanna Russ. It's a critical part of the feminist SF canon, and also a damn good book. One thread of the narrative takes place on Whileaway, a planet previously featured in the short story "When It Changed". The Female Man is one of the winners of the Retrospective Tiptree Award in 1996.
Discussion
No discussion of the 1970s wave of feminist utopias is complete without a mention of The Female Man (1975). This simultaneously hilarious and angry novel is based on the premise of alternate worlds. Its four protagonists share identical genes, but have developed into four very different women according to their environments. Jeannine, who lives in an economically depressed United States, is the most oppressed and unhappy character; the only life for a woman in her world is marriage, and she both longs for and dreads that destiny. Joanna (a fictionalized version of Russ) comes from a world familiar to the novel's readers -- America, 1969, with second-wave feminism on the move. Joanna has more choices than Jeannine, but she is still expected to orient herself around men and is constantly being told "women can't" or "women don't".... She longs to be something other than a woman and tries her hand at becoming a female man. Janet represents the ideal, a woman who grew up with no gender-based constraints on her life and thus developed her full human potential. She hails from the utopia Whileaway, a world in which all the men were killed off centuries ago in a plague (or, in a different version of the story, a war). Joanna wistfully calls Janet a woman "whom we don't believe in and whom we deride but who is in secret our savior from utter despair." Jael brings the other Js together in her world, a near future in which men and women wage a cold war. Jael's experience of being a woman is much like Joanna's, but her response is violence.
No summary can do justice to the complexity and energy of this novel. Whileaway is engagingly detailed in bits and pieces throughout the book; the first-person narrator switches from character to character with occasional intrusions by the author; Russ jumps from genre to genre (indeed, the label "utopia" is reductive); and there's good sex to be had, both lesbian and robotic.
Editions
- Feb 1975, New York: Bantam Books #Q8765, ISBN ISBN 0-807-06299-5. (paperback)
- Jun 1975, Boston, MA: Gregg Press, ISBN 0-8398-2351-7. (hardcover)
- Mar 1978, New York: Bantam Books, ISBN 0-553-11175-2. (paperback)
- Apr 1985, London, UK: The Women's Press, ISBN 0-7043-3949-8. (paperback) cover by Judith Clute
- 1986, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, ISBN 0-8070-6313-4. (trade paperback) cover by Louise Sullivan
- 1990, in Radical Utopias, Quality Paperback Book Club, (trade paperback, omnibus) cover by Donald David
- 1994, The Easton Press (The Masterpieces of Science Fiction). (deluxe hardcover, leather bound) cover by Clee Richeson
- Mar 2000, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, ISBN 0-807-06299-5. (paperback)
- Mar 2002, London, UK: The Women's Press, ISBN 0-7043-4737-7. (trade paperback)
- Nov 2010, London: Gollancz (Gollancz SF Masterworks), ISBN 978-0-575-09499-4. (trade paperback) cover by Dominic Harman
Translations
- Jan 1977, Paris, France: Robert Laffont, ISBN 2-221-03706-5. (1st French edition as l'Autre Moitié de l'homme)
- Jan 1979, München, Germany: Droemer Knaur (Knaur Science Fiction #709), ISBN 3-426-00709-6. (paperback, 1st German edition as Planet der Frauen) cover by Wojtek Siudmak
- 1980, Amsterdam, the Netherlands: De Arbeiderspers, ISBN 90-295-3676-4. (hardcover, 1st Dutch edition, transl. by Nan Lenders and Ester Liebenthaler as De Vrouw-Man) cover by Poen de Wijs
- 1985, Paris, France: Pocket, ISBN 2-266-01499-4. (2nd French edition as l'Autre Moitié de l'homme)
- 1986, Copenhagen, Denmark: Information, cop., ISBN 87-7514-048-9. (1st Danish edition, transl. by Inge-Lise Paulsen as Kvinde mennesket)
- 1986, Helsinki, Finland: Kirjayhtymä, ISBN 951-26-2885-6. (1st Finnish edition, transl. by Kristiina Drews as Naisten planeetta)
- 1987, Barcelona, Spain: Ultramar, ISBN 8-4738-6436-0. (1st Spanish edition, transl. by Maribel Martínez as El hombre hembra)
- Mar 1989, Milan, Italy: Editrice Nord, SF Narrativa d'Anticipazione n.46, ISBN ISBN 88-429-0651-4. (1st Italian edition, transl. by Oriana Palusci as Female Man)
- 1989, Barcelona, Spain: Alella Pleniluni, ISBN 8-4857-5209-0. (1st Catalan edition, transl. by Maria Sara Fons i Fleming as L'home femella)
- 1995, Paris, France: Pocket, ISBN 2-266-01499-4. (paperback, 3rd French edition as l'Autre Moitié de l'homme)
- 1996, Viken, Sweden: Replik Förlag, ISBN 91-88818-11-X. (1st Swedish edition as Honmänniskan)
- 2000, Hamburg, Germany: Argument Verlag, ISBN 3-886-19959-2. (paperback, 2nd German edition as Eine Weile entfernt)
- 2005, Xian Xindian Shi, Taiwan: Miu si chu ban you xian gong si, ISBN 98-6739-927-7. (1st Chinese edition, transl. by Hong Ling yi as 女身男人 / Nü shen nan ren)
Influences, Impacts, Connections
- The name of the lesbian feminist journal Sinister Wisdom, founded in the 1970s, was taken from The Female Man.
- This novel was the fourth entry in Gwyneth Jones' list of Top 10 Science Fiction Books by Women in 2003.
Further reading
- Book discussion group on feministSF mailing list (Feb. 1999)