At the end of The Female Man the reader is likely to realize that there is really only one "character" in the novel — the speculative imagination of the author who has subdivided herself into four women, each an aspect of (perhaps) her own personality, each responding in different possible ways to situations encountered or imagined by the author. It is rather a highly elaborated version of the after-the-fact musings of a person who wonders "what if I had — ?" Such a format is more or less typical of parallel universe narratives. As Alice-Jael explains in some detail, all four of the "characters" are the same person: "we started the same . . . We ought to think alike and feel alike and act alike, but of course we don't. So plastic is humankind . . .

Between our dress, and our opinions, and our habits, and our beliefs, and our values...