Girls Girls Girls

Though I far from consider myself to be a feminist, I did find several points made by Joanna Russ in When it Changed to be quite insightful. Whereas many feminist authors tend to write in a way that places women in equality with men, Russ asks the question of why there is even a difference in the first place. It is near the end of the story when the narrator says, "Sometimes I laugh at the question those four men hedged about all evening and never quite dared to ask, 'Which of you plays the role of the man?'" (774). This, more so than the detailing of the responsibilities that women have taken on as their own since the absence of men, truly encompasses the idea that gender is solely a social construct. The need to take all of the women and, despite how far they have developed without men, separate them in terms of male or female characteristics, has absolutely nothing to do with the scientific notion of sex. Men no longer exist in this new world, and the need for their genetic contributions is long gone. If this is the case, if women can continue to survive and reproduce on their own, then why should it matter which females "play the role" of the man? This need is a result of the world we live in today, where specific duties have become the responsibility of a certain sex. These duties and behaviors make up a society's idea of gender, something that has become considered all too important by most if not all civilizations.

On a silly note, because as aforementioned I do not claim to be a feminist, I think this story is a good representation of what would happen should the sexes ever in fact become separated: the men were the ones to come crawling back to the women, women were content to continue living on their own as they had been ;)