Joanna Russ passed away on April 29, 2011. She was a teacher, writer and feminist. She wrote children's stories, critiques, fiction, essays, poetry, and plays but was primarily known for her work in science fiction. She was nominated for multiple awards but won a Nebula award for "When it Changed", a Hugo for "Souls", and an O.Henry for "The Autobiography of My Mother".
I first learned of her when I came across a beat up and therefor cheap, copy of 'The Female Man' one afternoon while cutting class and hanging out at my favorite bookstore while a freshman in high school. 'The Female Man' is set in the future and follows the lives of four women who live in parallel worlds who then cross over into each others' worlds. I really don't want to give away the whole story but if you need a full synopsis here is a link to it on Wikipedia.
Joanna Russ was my first introduction to feminism in science fiction. Up til then I had read male authors, most of whom used women in their books as the sexual interest for their hero and nothing else. I had already started to migrate from science fiction because I wanted more in the stories that I read, although I wasn't aware of that at the time. At the time I thought that I was getting bored with science fiction. The science fiction that I had read, for example Robert Heinlein, had marginalized me unknowingly and I was over it. When you are in high school you want a protagonist to admire; a role model. I needed to read about thinking, emotional, committed women who were more than blow up dolls for guys to rescue. Actually, I need that as a reader now as well. Back then, I had moved on to fantasy where there were books that did have female protagonists or more frequently, male protagonists with female supporting characters that weren't limited to singular plot devices.
Because of this, I highly recommend 'The Female Man'. It's an entertaining story but more than that it is a statement and question for women on how we perceive our power and roles as women. Obviously, this is one of the basic concepts in feminism of which I was basically familiar at the time, however 'The Female Man' gave me a whole new context - that of science fiction.
There are a lot of ways to learn. Some people learn from lectures, some people find that they learn when they listen to music. For me, putting feminism in the context of science fiction helped me start questioning in ways that I hadn't before. I started questioning what I was reading and what I as a women, deserved, expected, needed and wanted. So I credit Joanna Russ with helping me to learn to read critically, to realize part of who and what I am as a woman and as a person, and to realize that science fiction could be a lot more than an exciting space battle followed by a scene in which the hero gets the girl.
One of Joanna Russ's books on women and writing ("How to suppress women's writing") is available for free on Google books. Check it out and let me know what you think.
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