I taught The Female Man last semester in a course on science fiction and
gender. Also did books or stories by LeGuin, Slonczewski, Bujold, Charnas,
Arnason, Tiptree, Heinlein, Piercy, Griffith, C.L.Moore, McCaffrey, Delany,
etc.
Of all the stories we read, The Female Man was clearly the least
successful, at least in terms of class participation. Most of the
students hated it and/or were totally confused by it. In part this was
simply because the novel is complex and hard to follow, but many felt
that it was dated, that too many of its literary and historical allusions
were obscure because they were so clearly tied to the 60s and 70s.
I'd be interested to hear from others who have taught this book. Did you
have a similar experience? Did you find successful avenues into the text?
It might be worth mentioning that in a poll conducted at the end of the
class the most popular stories were 1) McCaffrey's "The Ship Who Sang,"
2) Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time, 3) Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh
Mistress, 4 LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness, and 5) Griffith's
Ammonite tied with Bujold's Ethan of Athos. The McCaffrey and Heinlein
stories, of course, were in there to show old-fashioned, sexist attitudes.
Surprise!
The least popular stories were 1)The Female Man, 2)Tiptree's "The Women Men
Don't See," 3) Slonczewski's Door into Ocean, and 4) Arnason's Warlord of
Saturn's Moons.
The class, by the way, was about 1/2 women's studies majors and 75%
female.
Mike
Michael M. Levy levym@uwstout.edu
Department of English levymm@uwec.edu
University of Wisconsin-Stout off. ph: 715-834-6533
Menomonie, WI 54751 hm. ph: 715-834-6533
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:01 PDT