There are many different kinds of feminism, and The Female Man speaks to, well, a lot of them. However, its strongest affinities are clearly with the socialist feminist or radical feminist position that gender is a class system, one in which girls and women are ranked lower than boys and men, and in which women's access to economic resources and power is very limited. In the novel, gender is always reflective of social status. Although Joanna has considerable wealth and privilege as a white, upper-middle-class woman with a well-paying job, she's still treated as a second-class citizen by the men she meets.
Questions About Society and Class
- How exactly do class and gender intersect in Jeannine's and Joanna's worlds? What kinds of jobs do the women hold down, and how is their labor compensated?
- Are there class divisions in Whileawayan society? How does the Whileawayan economy work?
- What kinds of privileges does wealth guarantee in Jael's world? Do Manlanders and Womanlanders use their wealth differently? How does Jael's wealth compare to that of the Manland Boss?
Chew on This
The Female Man explores how social conventions create social hierarchies. In Jeannine's and Joanna's worlds, women are encouraged to choose domestic lives as wives and mothers, rather than work outside the home. In this way, their access to money is limited, and they are forced to depend upon the salaries earned by husbands, fathers, brothers, and other men.
The Female Man draws a number of connections between women's oppression in a patriarchal world and the oppression of African people in a white supremacist nation. Throughout the novel, women's experiences of sexism and misogyny are compared to the conditions of slavery and the ugliness of racist dehumanization.