Prior to the 1960s female characters historically
had been consigned to support roles in science
fiction, and despite heightened awareness of the
disparity during the 1960s, there was little improvement in the years that followed. The 1970s
saw the emergence of a strong feminist movement
among genre critics and such writers as Joanna
RUSS, Pamela SARGENT, Ursula K. LE GUIN, Suzy
McKee CHARNAS, and Vonda N. McINTYRE, who
would soon make their presence and dissatisfaction
known in no uncertain terms. Russ was probably
the most controversial, and overtly angry, of this
group, and her novel The FEMALE MAN (1973)
provoked powerful emotional reactions, both pro
and con. That novel included sequences set on the
planet Whileaway, whose population was exclusively female. However, Whileaway had made an
earlier appearance in this, her most famous short
story, winner of the Nebula Award.
A plague wiped out all of the men on Whileway, and a global war back on Earth left the planet
isolated for 600 years, during which time the female survivors learned to reproduce themselves artificially and developed a thriving culture
characterized by hard work and patience. The
colony is not a utopian society; the narrator has
herself fought several duels for unspecified reasons
and has killed her opponent on more than one occasion. Their new culture is stable and progressive,
however, and their population has reached 30 million by the time an unexpected starship arrives
from Earth, bearing four representatives, all
male—the first men that anyone living on Whileaway has ever seen.
The two differing perceptions are quite striking. The men view the colonists as living in an unnatural lifestyle, and assume that the women will
welcome the return of the male half of the species
as a kind of liberation. The narrator and her companions consider the men uncouth, repulsive, and
threatening. Despite the claim that sexual equality
is the rule on Earth, the very fact that the visitors
are all male testifies to the contrary. We are left
with the impression that the men will once again
dominate the colony, and that this is not an improvement, that something will be lost. The inevitability of conflict among the sexes and the
male drive to dominate would be reflected in
“HOUSTON, HOUSTON, DO YOU READ?” (1976)
by James TIPTREE Jr., another excellent tale; but
not even Tiptree could convey such a depth of
feeling with so few words.