Going off of the points made in “a misandristic proposal,” I sometimes found it hard to side with the women towards the end of the novel. At the end, the book’s message seems more woman based than society based. Although I am a woman and can sympathize with the plight to become a less oppressed sex, I am also a humanitarian. The turning point for me, where this book stopped being about the possibility of a Utopian community where women are free of oppression, was with the introduction of Davy. Davy, until we realize he is a machine, acts as the perfect subject for Jael’s misandristically driven motives.
Throughout most of the novel men are the voyeurs, watching the women and objectifying them with their gaze. Joanna, Janet, and even Jeannine are often disgusted with the men that crudely attempt to court them. They do not enjoy being looked at by these men, because the often only looked at as sexual objects, rather than intelligent, meaningful humans. At the beginning of Jael and Davy’s sex scene, the previous roles of voyeur and voyee are totally reversed: “I passed into his room barefoot and watched him cured in sleep, unconscious, the golden veils of his eyelashes shadowing his cheeks…” (196). Jael objectifys him, seduces him, and uses him until she is satisfied and goes off to handle business with the three Js.
Jael refers to Davy with diminutive terms, such as “little Davy,” which is another illustration of a role reversal between the sexes. In our male-dominated society, diminutive terms are typically reserved for babies and women, to show small, weak, and insignificant they are. In Jael’s world, these type of word seems to be reserved for the male house-pets. To complete the role reversal, the sex scene is finalized with Jael’s actually penetration of Davy: “that time I made him com by slipping my finger up his anus” (197). So much for Frued’s idea of penis envy. The penis has been reduced to a pleasure tool, that will eventually be eliminated entirely for the vibrators found in Janet’s world.
Men in Jael’s land are machines that live to serve. Davy is a mere puppy, controlled by “the implants in his brain” (199). It becomes clear that Jael does not simply want equality between the sexes, she wants totality. Woman as the sole rulers of the world. But Jael doesn’t stop there. She doesn’t just want one world, she seems to want women to have all of them. Although the conclusion of the novel does not spell out Jael’s plans, it does appear that she wishes to have soldiers on other worlds, which would inevitably lead to new wars.
By the end, I wasn’t sure what to make of Jael’s intentions and the creation of Janet’s world. I had previously found Janet’s world appealing. Like Janet, I was disturbed by Jael’s new information about how her world came to be. In a way, all the Js are feminists, but in varying degrees and temperaments. Perhaps the novel is cautioning us against extremist views like Jael’s. If this is the case, then Janet would be our herione. She is a fair feminist who knows when it has gone too far. She walks away from Jael’s plan to destroy the men, possibly altering the future of her own world and ending her women’s eutopia.