---
product_id: 5364071
title: "The Female Man (Bluestreak)"
brand: "joanna russ"
price: "15921 Ft"
currency: HUF
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.hu/products/5364071-the-female-man-bluestreak
store_origin: HU
region: Hungary
---

# The Female Man (Bluestreak)

**Brand:** joanna russ
**Price:** 15921 Ft
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** The Female Man (Bluestreak) by joanna russ
- **How much does it cost?** 15921 Ft with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.hu](https://www.desertcart.hu/products/5364071-the-female-man-bluestreak)

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- joanna russ enthusiasts

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## Description

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## Images

![The Female Man (Bluestreak) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51k-mQTk+LL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    This book is really interest but SO HARD TO READ I wish there was an audiobook....
  

*by C***N on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 18, 2023*

This book is really interest but SO HARD TO READ I wish there was an audiobook....

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    A foundational modern sf novel
  

*by M***A on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 15, 2010*

I recently finished The Female Man on a flight which happened to show a moment later an episode of Everyone Loves Raymond that was made sometime in this century. I thought, "Are we still in the 1960s?" Russ's "little book," as she calls it, cannot yet rejoice. That made me sad.I will now explain my reasons for giving the book four stars.Russ's inventiveness in this novel was cutting edge when it came out, and it's still a challenge to keep the character shifts straight. Given the idea of "probability travel" instead of "time travel," as Jael later explains, we find we may not have to keep them straight; there's even the possibility that all the major characters occupy a common psychological core as well as a common physical self. The interweaving and colliding of their stories keeps readers on their toes. The science fiction ideas propounded here have found their way into TV and movie sf, as well as many later stories and books. Despite that fact, in most of the futures and parallel worlds and matrices offered in/by the mass media, women are still portrayed from a 1960s "male-gaze" perspective, the occasional "tough" women of Battlestar Galactica and Alien notwithstanding. We can account for this in part by the fact that the little boys in charge of big companies haven't grown up and aren't likely to any time soon. (Just consider all the "alien" women on TV and in the movies who wear high heels, a hold-over of the Western imitation of the Chinese fetish of foot-binding. No intelligent beings would insist on such a practice.)As I reflected on the book, I thought of three others: The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois, where he speaks of the "double consciousness" that people of color feel in white-dominant societies like the US; The Disappearance by Philip Wylie, in which he posits two parallel worlds of men only and women only; and Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin, in which she considers the social practices of an assortment of different and not-so-different peoples one or more planes removed from us. The last work echoes for me Russ's theory of probability travel. The first work I found reflected in part 7, chapter 2, pages 137-140 in my copy. The second book came out in the late 1950s, I believe, and Russ may have read it or been aware of it.I suppose the parts of TFM that I didn't enjoy were the occasional screeds, such as on pages 140-141. (Which is why I gave it four stars, not five.) It's not that anything Russ said then wasn't justified; all her points are pretty much still justified, as witness many TV sitcoms, but especially ELR, which I mentioned above. Yet I cannot help thinking how much more effective it is to dramatize such points, as Russ effectively does throughout the book. Consider, for example, the exchange between Jael and the Manlander, culminating in Jael telling him to open his eyes (page 181). Speaking as a (white) male, I don't have any problem with Jael's actions there or even elsewhere, though I prefer Janet's approach, even when she has to deal with the old woman up in the wilderness.One other reviewer mentioned the absence of any direct discussion of race or class, both of which are important. (But see the bottom of page 161 re: race.) I suspect that including race and class would have doubled or tripled the size of the book. To see race, class, and gender treated in an sf context, see Nalo Hopkinson's Brown Girl in the Ring and her later novel Midnight Robber; Andrea Hairston's Mindscape is another well-rounded look at all these attitudes; much of Octavia E. Butler's work, too, deals with all three, though not always explicitly. (Sometimes we do have to make the effort and "read between the lines.")

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    interesting structure; very much a product of its time but still largely relevant today; not an easy read but an insightful one
  

*by M***C on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 9, 2014*

With the qualification that I've read more fantasy than sci-fi, I find this book unique. I certainly have not read a book like this before.Structurally, it is certainly different. It deliberately shifts between points of view and first and third person often and oftentimes without warning. This makes it difficult to identify the speaker at times, but if you can get comfortable with the complex structure and just settle into the dialogue and the story, there is a payoff.'The Female Man' presents four (five really, but the fifth is a sort of unofficial narrator) archetypal women living at different points on an imaginary timeline. Having these women living in the same world but at different times shows how society's expectations and role assignments color a female's options and choices.Structurally, it deliberately shifts between points of view and between first and third person often and oftentimes without warning. It is not always easy to identify whose voice is speaking sometimes. But if you can get comfortable with the complex structure and just settle into the dialogue and the story, there is a payoff.Joanna is an ambitious female whose skill at her job and being 'one of the boys' allows her to assimilate into a male-dominated workforce.Jeannine's tragedy is that she has come to see herself only as a reflection of a man. As a result, her life's goal is to attract a man. Her thoughts, words and actions are gauged according to how it furthers that goal.Janet is from Whileaway, an all-female society after all men were wiped out by disease. Though this seems to be presented as the utopian society, it actually highlights its flaws-- for all its independence, it's not quite ideal in Whileaway. Something is lost when the presence and uniqueness of each gender is absent and not celebrated.Jael is an assassin in the future where men and women are engaged in an actual protracted and violent war. The conflict is so protracted neither side really has no idea of the nature of the other gender.Sometimes, in the need to distinguish the unique aspects of each female, Russ almost makes her characters two-dimensional or caricatures. In retrospect, there might have been a need to skirt that line because each of the four needed to firmly represent a particular problematic aspect of femalehood.This is not quite an enjoyable read but it is certainly an interesting, thought-provoking and insightful one. It deals with a serious matter and treats it seriously. But it is not without humor occasionally injected in the discourse. I think the takeaway from this book is this: Expectations can mold and shape each female until society's expectations are all that's left of a woman' s self-worth, identity and goals.It doesn't have much of a story arch but I think it was sacrificed at the altar of dialogue to explain the female plight. Considering the year it was written, I would describe it as a book with an agenda. The strategic and frequent stream of consciousness commentary is certainly an indication. Indeed, one auto-commentary says that when the book becomes irrelevant, it would mean freedom and victory.

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*Product available on Desertcart Hungary*
*Store origin: HU*
*Last updated: 2026-02-10*