Russ's The Female Man is a key text of feminist science fiction. Writing in response to Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, Russ explores “gender, utopia, and the divided self” (xii) in her twisting narrative that spans multiple universes and hundreds of years. A key concept in this exploration is undoubtedly the theme of violence, which plays a prominent role in the various plots. Postulated as both a cause and response to female repression, female violence serves various purposes across the four different universes, from Joanna's attempt to subdue Janet's independence, to Jael's visceral murder of a man who propositions her. Russ's use of violence is at some points shocking, at others cathartic, but always thought-provoking as he seeks to bridge the gap between what his women essentially are and what (in the case of Joanna and Jeannine in particular) they pretend to be. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay While not a utopian text in and of itself, The Female Man contains within it a world that many critics describe as utopian: Whileaway. However, Whileaway also contains examples of violence, which instinctively seem to contradict the idea of ​​a perfect society, or a traditional utopia. However, viewing Whileaway as a response to and reflection on the shortcomings of female agency, it could be argued that the perpetration of violence could be read as a utopian element. Russ's narrative structure purposely blurs the lines between the four worlds he explores. . Through the segmentation of his chapters (parts), with an often inconspicuous continuation between speakers and events, Russ invites comparison between characters, episodes, worlds, and occasionally between the book's imaginary situations and reality. The reader is forced to piece together multiple plots and events, while exploring the minds and stories of four different women, all of whom turn out to be the same women, in different time continuums. This confusion of events and people forces the audience to reflect on the theme of the "Everywoman"; the shared experience of the female gender and the role to which women are relegated, despite cultural and social differences. In turn, the novel contains many different examples of violence, in many contexts and of varying severity. The treatment and purpose of female violence, in such a convoluted text, is difficult to ascertain and simplify. However, there are underlying themes and ideas that intersect with and are amplified by Russ's depiction of female violence, as well as the surrounding political structures that validate and condemn violence throughout the novel. Violence is therefore probably not only a novel inclusion here, but intrinsic to the effect of the text as a whole, helping to develop the characters, the conclusion and indeed the reader's understanding of reality through reflections on the limits to which women are subjects in society. The beginning of The Female Man is littered with examples not only of male oppression, but of female repression: “I will observe the ailanthus tree” (4) thinks Jeannine, agreeing to make love without wanting to. “Say it out loud. Someone will come to save you." (44) Joanna instructs Janet, while praying that she will not save herself. Although both Jeannine's and Joanna's social worlds are the product of previous male oppression, most of the action concerns women and their interactions with each other. The violence in The Female Man works primarily with this repression considered most important, part of the "divided self".repression, to combat repression and regulated in Whileaway's unrepressed society. In advocating repression, Joanna ineffectively attempts to contain Janet, working to "civilize" her. During Joanna's earth party, Joanna repeatedly kicks and even strangles Janet, in an attempt to prevent her from upending the status quo of male-female interactions. Interestingly, although depicted as quite cruel, it is unclear whether or not these actions are actually perpetrated, or whether they take place solely in Joanna's mind as she watches. The lack of reaction to Joanna's actions from their male companions suggests that Joanna was either incredibly subtle or had not actually touched Janet. However, a man notices a change in Janet's expression, presumably due to Joanna's restraint, and attributes this to his own effect on her, displaying a comical ignorance of women's actions outside of his assumptions. This last idea resonates strongly with other episodes in the book: the interview between Janet and the reporter at first contact, for example, or Cal's sexual persistence despite Jeannine's aversion. Joanna's violence, then, can be treated literally or metaphorically, although there are stronger reasons to read it literally. In any case he perpetuates the doctrine of his world; that women are secondary to men, to the point that women themselves will punish other women who overstep their boundaries. This episode also touches on the theme of invisibility, which both Joanna and Jeannine try to get around, and Janet and Jael are confused and ignored respectively. The final two women, accustomed to being seen and heard among the women of their worlds, break through this lack of recognition through violence: the novel's two main scenes of violence. In the first half of the book, Janet becomes the object of unwanted sexual attention, relegated to the position of an object to be forced upon rather than a person in her own right. Having already spent much of the evening attempting to at least partially follow the social mores of the partygoers, Janet loses her temper and physically subdues the male guest, although she causes no lasting harm. Conversely, when Jael is subjected to unwanted male attention while attempting to conduct business in Manland, she relishes the anger this stirs within her and violently kills the man in question. While each situation differs in context and outcome, the interactions between men and women in both episodes essentially follow the same structure. The men and women gather for a conversation, during which the men are presented as comically unaware of their own sense of exaggerated superiority. Men automatically treat women as inferior beings, seeing them first and foremost as sexual objects to boost their ego. The women initially silently refrain from upsetting the flow of things, until the men's overtures overstep their limits, resulting in the women quickly and physically subjugating them. The physical reactions of both Janet and Jael are cathartic in different ways. With Janet, we see a character who has already established herself as intelligent, independent, and entirely self-sufficient, pigeonholed into the position of helpless sexual object: if you scream, people say you're melodramatic; if you submit you are masochistic; if you insult, you're a bitch. Hit him and he will kill you. The best thing is to suffer in silence and long for a savior, but suppose the savior doesn't come? (45)This role is ill-suited to the stubborn Janet. The juxtaposition between what the audience knows her to be and what the party host assumes she is is incredibly comical. The misinterpretation of the word "wild",the insults he hurls at her, his flipping through his little blue instruction manual, all contribute to making him a figure of contempt and ridicule. However, the real humor of the interaction lies on Janet's part, who simply cannot be insulted by the idea that she will be undesirable to men. By using a character who cannot participate in the male/female dichotomy, simply because it doesn't exist for her, Russ conveys the implications of a world where women are believed to exist solely for the benefit of men. Likewise, Jael, also free from this dichotomy, is able to commit violence without fear of repercussions. She sincerely enjoys the accumulation of anger and frustration, caused by the domineering man's lack of awareness: This is the time for me to walk away, leaving behind half of my life's blood and promises, promises, promises; but you know what? I just can't do it. It happened too often. I have no more reservations. I sat down, smiling brightly in pure anticipation… (172)When both women defeat their respective men, the audience is primed for a release, a response to the outrage to which both women have been subjected. What differentiates the two scenes, however, is the gratuitous and satirical violence that Jael inflicts on his victims and the other women's reactions to his actions. Janet has already been shown to be against unnecessary violence in a conversation with Laura Rose, and here all three women are visibly scared. In contrast, Janet's violence leaves Joanna, and indeed the audience, questioning their experiences of similar interactions, rather than dismissing them. Her calm defense of herself makes the alternative – simply allowing the inappropriate behavior to continue – somewhat ridiculous. Both Jael and Janet seem justified for their actions in context, but in comparison, Jael's actions seem more morally questionable. “Was it necessary?” she is asked, and the answer is obviously no, but Jael instead responds with "I liked it" (177). The same question could be asked of Janet, but it isn't. Instead, Janet gently convinces Joanna to throw away her little pink book, a symbol of repression. This suggests that Russ's ideas about acceptable violence and female expression have limits. While Jael's violence befits the war her world is perpetuating, Janet's home planet of Whileaway is completely at peace with itself, but not entirely free of conflict. Whileawayan society encompasses a curious blend of freedom and regulation. The incredibly structured system of life milestones and social expectations is juxtaposed with fluid family structures, the freedom to travel, and the doctrine of personal independence amidst a strong social framework. Women are encouraged to be curious, to wander as far from home as they want, to form and break up families as needed, and to marry without monogamy. When compared to the other three worlds of the novel, Whileawayan society seems the most perfect model of happiness, and indeed it is openly stated to be so: "Janet...living like her in a bliss none of us will ever know." (206) . Yet, in Whileaway there is no emphasis on the importance of happiness over everything else. Instead, passages detailing life on Whileaway describe the various intense emotions that arise in the course of a normal life. Mothers and daughters “scream” when daughters are sent to school (45), the “disease” of falling in love (74), Janet's “pain” for (for)” Jael. Anger and violence are aspects of this freedom of emotion, obviously culminating in the perpetuation of duels. Comparable to duelsreal between men throughout history, often intrinsically linked to honor and convention, these duels are governed by both law and social expectations. There is also a clear difference between a duel and murder: “it is murder if he is sneaky or if he doesn't want to fight” (53). The duels on Whileaway, despite being the result of mutual antipathy, are not even born out of hatred: “For sport yes, okay, for hate no. Separate them." (48). Regulated as such, dueling does not become an escape from the constraints of society, but rather a part of the social structure. Whileawayan society seems organized to promote individual freedom over social conventions. This includes facilitating and regulate anger and violence, rather than condemn or ignore them. Violence is also treated as a normal part of growing up: “But maybe I have left everything behind; more importantly, violence is not an expectation of young women, nor the purview of a few, but a choice that everyone is capable of making. In the prequel story to The Female Man, Russ explores Whileawayan society when it is threatened by astronauts males from a land in decline. The character Katherina is described as more pacifist, less aggressive and openly self-confident than his wife. Yet she is the one who fires at her would-be conqueror, stating that the reason why she had never given herself a gun up until that point was not because he was afraid of violence, but because he was afraid of committing violence. in contrast to traditional ideas of men and women in reality, who are seen as inherently violent and non-violent and are treated accordingly. Likewise, the treatment of female violence in literature contemporary with The Female Man is quite atypical. In writing her satirical feminist treatise, the SCUM Manifesto, Valerie Solanas suggests a process of gratuitous violence by women "SCUM", in order to rid the world of men. At the time, it met with a certain amount of condemnation and disgust, and the treatise was used to vilify all feminists after Solanas' attempted murder of Andy Warhol. However, Solanas perpetuates this idea of ​​division between women capable and incapable of violence, condemning the latter to ruin. Another example of female violence, Tiptree Jr Houston's short story Do You Read?, focuses on explicit male violence and only hints at female physical aggression in the conclusion. Neither text presupposes violence as an intrinsic part of all female nature, but rather as a means to an end, and neither advocates violence as recreation (though the manifesto is lavish in its violent language). Although women were portrayed as strong in both examples, Whileaway is unique in its novel presentation of female violence for "sport", motivated by inclination rather than necessity. In this exclusively female world, violence is described as the ultimate liberation from the social expectations of bi-gender universes, the ultimate freedom. Many critics discuss Whileaway as an example of a utopian society. Whileaway certainly contains many conventions of utopias, but it is also based on some typical utopian ideals. Unlike other utopian books, which focus on the political, economic, and social organization of society, Russ's depiction of Whileaway focuses more on the human outcome, rather than the facilitating system. This is a departure from early writers of the genre, such as More, Morris, and Bellamy, whose novels are overly concerned with a possible political solution, however unlikely in practice, to the injustices of their time. Comparable to. 205-218