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michaelmarshall 's review for:
The Female Man
by Joanna Russ
This book looms large in modern science fiction (my copy is from the SF Masterworks series). It has a lot of fiercely interesting stuff, but I found it hard going. It doesn't have a plot so much as it has a premise that spins out into some vignettes, it leaps between narrators without necessarily letting you know who's talking, and in general it does everything possible to be Difficult. But on the plus side, it has some riotous observations on late 20th-century society, a fantastically imagined female-only utopian future, and a lot of sly humour.
Unfortunately some aspects have not aged well. There is one futuristic scenario in which men and women are waging open war on each other, so are living separately. The men still want to have sex with women, though, so they force some of their own to undergo surgery and hormone treatments to become ersatz women. No doubt it was intended as a satire on sexist men's simultaneous contempt for women and desperate need for them, but in 2020 it reads as transphobic.
I'm glad I read it, because I got a lot out of it and some of its imagery and ideas will linger with me. But I can't recommend it as a book to read for pleasure: this was very much work.
Unfortunately some aspects have not aged well. There is one futuristic scenario in which men and women are waging open war on each other, so are living separately. The men still want to have sex with women, though, so they force some of their own to undergo surgery and hormone treatments to become ersatz women. No doubt it was intended as a satire on sexist men's simultaneous contempt for women and desperate need for them, but in 2020 it reads as transphobic.
I'm glad I read it, because I got a lot out of it and some of its imagery and ideas will linger with me. But I can't recommend it as a book to read for pleasure: this was very much work.