lauradoesnothing 's review for:

The Female Man by Joanna Russ

5.0

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Do not complain when at last you become quaint and old-fashioned, when you grow as outworn as the crinolines of a generation ago and are classed with Spicy Western Stories, Elsie Dinsmore, and The Son of the Sheik; do not mutter angrily to yourself when young persons read you to hrooch and hrch and guffaw, wondering what the dickens you were all about. Do not get glum when you are no longer understood, little book. Do not curse your fate. Do not reach up from readers' laps and punch the readers' noses.
Rejoice, little book!
For on that day, we will be free.

An interesting feminist time capsule, this one - a lot that's relatable, but more that isn't, or that I remember relating to in the past but haven't thought about in years now (every instance of men mocking women but not you, you know, those other women, you're not like those shrill nagging women...). It's easy to get wrapped up in the still-existent imbalances but it's also nice to see how far we've come - with every venomous rant from Joanna, Jael and Jeannine about something I don't worry about, I found myself a little happier, a little more hopeful.

The narrative structure is weird as all hell though (almost - almost! - too weird even for me) and it's kind of pretentious, but if anything that just made me like it all the more since I myself am weird and pretentious.

Not at all relevant to the review but I thought it was funny: my mum gave this to me as a birthday gift; it was given to her by a man she didn't know, who said that it completely changed the way he viewed women, and bought multiple copies to hand to strangers in public. So, good work Ms Russ on converting at least one man to the radical notion that women are people, and thank you to that man for bringing this book into my orbit.