Preview of The Female Man Summary:

The many modes of domination of women by men and the potential for the termination of that dominance in a new sociopolitical order are the primary themes of The Female Man.

Each of the four main characters embodies a different response to male oppression, depending in part on her social context. Russ creates several parallel universes in which the roles of men and women differ. In Whileaway, men have no roles, all of them having died centuries ago in a plague; women have evolved a society in which they fulfill all necessary roles (please see the separate entry on "When It Changed"). The very different world of Alice-Jael is in a constant state of war — the Men against the Women — and Alice-Jael is just as cunning and ruthless as the Biblical heroine after whom she is named, although her weapons are technologically...