What is the opposite of misogyny? Misanthropy? No, that’s the dislike of humankind in general, rather than the specific dislike of males. Try again. Misandry is the word. As I type it into Microsoft Word and hit the spacebar, it becomes underlined in red. Misspelled? Quite possibly. No, a quick trip to the Oxford English dictionary confirms spelling and definition. So misandry simply isn’t recognized by Microsoft technology. It’s unfamiliar. It’s defamiliar. Perhaps, this just represents one of many omitted words and names, or maybe it signifies something greater and more telling about (wo)men and technology. Regardless, it offers point of entry into discussing Joanna Russ’ The Female Man.
Though Russ’ The Female Man can fit into many classifications of literature (e.g. postmodern fiction, science fiction, a feminist work, etc.), I am interested in how it functions as a satire. At the end of the text, Jael proposes the women (Janet, Jeannine, and Joanna) “do business with [Jael’s] Womanland” (211) and to incorporate women soldiers from each of their individual realities to wage war on the men. Jeannine and Joanna quickly acquiesce. Jeannie states, “‘Oh sure, I don’t mind. You can bring in all the soldiers you want. You can take the whole place over; I wish you would’” (Russ 211). The response is pert and off-the-cuff. Oh sure. Why not? Well, why not?
Janet, the woman from the all-female Whileaway, alone, resists. Moreover, she refuses Jael’s retelling of the plague as an act of female aggression. It is unclear whether this resistance comes from inexperience with males, stupidity, or a more simplistic view of conflict resolution (or perhaps, like Microsoft, Janet does not have a word for this construct). Still, we don’t know why she would resist or why anyone should resist? At first glance, it seems perfectly logical.
What’s wrong with a rebalancing of power? In Jeannine and Joann’s worlds, when woman are not being infantilized by the men in the text, they are being raped or arranging their lives so that they won’t be vulnerable to rape. Clearly, a master-slave relationship is at work, dominating the women at every opportunity, denying them “adult independence—namely money” (118). It is only through technology that Whileaway and Womanland the women regain their power. Why not take this to the next level?
Given the endless possibilities of technology, an inter-dimensional war with men may throw the balance of power in favor of the women. Most of the characters find that idea fairly attractive. In fact, Jael’s logic reflects that of an oppressed people made free. Rather than preach the ills of subjection, the free must, in turn, oppress to maintain their freedom. Freedom cannot exist without oppression; oppression cannot exist without freedom. On second glance, it simply replaces one societal ill with another: misandry with misogyny. So what’s the point of this exercise? By promoting misandry, The Female Man would undercut all its previous points about the master-slave power in male-female relations. But it doesn’t just do that. Misandry defamiliarizes misogyny. It gives us a new word, a new point of reference, a new context to highlight an old referential.
I really appreciate your introduction of the term misandry. How interesting that this loathing of men is so uncommon (artistically-speaking) that the word used to describe it is unfamiliar to us. I also like your conclusion, that the misandry that appears in the novel (epitomized perhaps by Jael’s use of Davy) defamiliarizes the more common misogyny we almost, sadly, take for granted.