Book description
A landmark book in the fields of science fiction and feminism.
Four women living in parallel worlds, each with a different gender landscape. When they begin to travel to each other's worlds each woman's preconceptions on gender and what it means to be a woman are challenged.
Acclaimed as one…
Why read it?
3 authors picked The Female Man as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This science fiction and mystery story is about an astronaut from a world without men crashes on Earth and blows all our minds… except we’re also reading a story about a woman living in our 1970s, and a parallel Earth where WWII never happened… it gets a little confusing, in a really fun way.
Russ uses this engaging, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic multiverse story to explore topics of sex essentialism and gender fluidity in a way that still feels bracing and mind-expanding today.
You could say this is as much a philosophical treatise as a novel but that makes…
From David's list on genre mashups in science fiction and fantasy.
Joanna Russ is one of the most bold, creative, sharp, and ruthless writers of feminist utopia.
I love to re-read her when I feel like I am losing my edge.
The Female Man is a revolutionary landmark in utopian storytelling from 1975. It is set in different probable realities ranging from an ironically utopian ideal of a “woman-only” world, to a dystopian 20th century USA stuck in economic depression, to a dystopian war zone populated by killer cyborgs.
Still, none of these settings are behaving as is suggested by these crude short descriptions. Russ’ writing is complex, witty, and…
From Karin's list on utopian visions of feminist economics.
The Female Man gives the reader a slice of the 1970s up close and personal from the perspective of young women who don’t fit it, who don’t want to be used as an object, who both come from and see into a different way of life. A challenging read, but as one of my students said when you get finished, you have so much to talk about you could talk for days. Russ, too, is somewhat overlooked today, which is a shame because she was brilliant, funny, and angry, really, really angry and somehow, I appreciate the depth of that…
From Stephanie's list on science fiction and fantasy about or by women.
If you love The Female Man...
These Blue Mountains
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
Want books like The Female Man?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like The Female Man.
Share your top 3 reads of 2025!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,340
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like The Female Man, you might also like...
Foxfire in the Snow
It's a time of change, between magic and alchemy.
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…
The Main Gate
Dr. Elise Marquette has spent years burying the past—until the past refuses to stay buried.
Hired to join Earth’s first interstellar contact team, she hopes the vastness of space will finally offer distance from the ghosts of war and the wounds left by a mother who never let her be…
