Character Clues

Character Analysis

Clothing

They say that clothes make the man, but you can tell a lot about a woman, and her society, from the clothes she wears. If you want to think a little bit about the symbolic significance of women's clothing in The Female Man, why not take a gander at our "Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory" section. Here, we'll be talking about some of the other things we can learn through Janet's, Jeannine's, Joanna's, and Jael's wardrobes.

When she isn't dressing up in the alien fashions of Jeannine's and Joanna's Earths, Janet wears typical Whileawayan clothing: a comfortable-slacks-and-shirt getup that look a lot like pajamas to the people of Joanna's world. On Whileaway, women's clothes are designed for comfort and utility, not visual appeal. And in the privacy of their own homes, Whileawayans don't bother with clothing at all.

Jeannine does her best to look attractive and neat, but her clothing reflects the economic depression she's been living through. When Joanna first meets her, she notices that Jeannine's clothes are a little too small, and since mending worn-out clothes is always on Jeannine's to-do list, we can assume that Jeannine hasn't had anything new for quite some time.

To Joanna, Jeannine's fashion sense makes her look like "she's wandering all over the place: hanging earrings, metal links for a belt, her hair escaping from a new, ruffles on her sleeves," and "that kind of shapeless, raglan sleeved coat that always looks as if it's dragging itself off the wearer's shoulders" (5.1.1). Flighty, flaky, and perpetually down in the dumps, Jeannine's inner confusion is aptly reflected in the clothes she wears.

Unlike Janet's Whileawayan pajamas, Joanna's clothing isn't designed for comfort, but for visual appeal. Desperate to look "as a woman should," and to make herself attractive to men, Joanna does her best to conform to her society's standards of feminine beauty. When she takes Janet to the party on Riverside Drive, she feels terrible before she even steps foot in the door: "my hair feels as if it's falling down, my makeup's too heavy, everything's out of place from the crotch of the panty-hose to the ridden-up bra to the ring whose stone drags it around under my knuckle" (3.2.1). When it comes to fashion, Joanna's motto seems to be: no pain, no gain.

When the other three J's first meet Jael, she seems invisible. Joanna soon realizes, though, that it's just a trick of the light. Jael dresses all in black, and the apartment she brings them to has a lot of black fabric and furniture. Jael's clothing allows her to blend into the shadows, making her a perfect intelligence agent and assassin, and an eerie figure to boot.

Physical Appearances

Janet, Jeannine, Joanna, and Jael are all variations on the same basic genotype, and apart from Jael—who's had major reconstructive surgery—they're all tall, Caucasian women with blue eyes and blond hair. But, for some reason, none of them recognize themselves in one another when they first meet, and it's not until Jael spells it all out for them that they start to notice their similarities.

The fact that they're all different ages is one of the reasons why the women don't recognize one another, but there are other factors too. As Jael puts it, each of them has been "modified by age, by circumstances, by education, by diet, by learning, by God knows what" (8.5.5).

When examining the details of the four women's physical appearances, it's important to do as a certain tentacled sea-witch once said: never underestimate the importance of body language.
A capable, intelligent, well-fed Whileawayan, Janet stands with the posture of an Earth-man, with "her hands in her pockets" and her "feet planted far apart" (1.7.7). Joanna and Jeannine both have a stoop, and Jeannine often sits and stands as though she's terrified by the world around her, with her hands over her ears and her eyes squeezed shut. Joanna, on the other hand, is "quick and jerky" and "sits with her spine like a ruler" (8.5.5).

These four women have essentially the same body, but the physical conditions and social conditioning that each has experienced over the course of her life makes her recognizably different from the others. This goes way beyond the old cartoon standby of the evil twin whose hair is darker than the hero's. Here, the women's same-but-different physical appearances reflect the novel's broader interest in exploring how societies mold women's bodies and minds.

Social Status

Imagine you walk into a room full of people. For some reason, everyone is wearing a nametag that lists their name, gender identity, marital status, and occupation. You count two librarians, a farmer, a police officer, a college professor, an intelligence agent-assassin, and seven members of a polka band. If someone asked you to guess, who in the room would you say has the highest social status?

In The Female Man, gender is the most important indicator of social status—in all worlds but one, that is—and representations of status tell us as much about the four protagonists' societies as they do about the characters themselves.

On Joanna's Earth, it doesn't matter that she has a Ph.D., a coveted professorship, a great big paycheck, a car, a house, a housekeeper, and a whole host of other status symbols that men in her world strive to attain. When push comes to shove, she knows she's a second-class citizen, that the men in her world will always consider it their right to treat her as an inferior.

Joanna's knowledge of her second-class citizenship is one of the things that distinguishes her from Jeannine. Jeannine is bored and depressed by her life, but it isn't until the very end of the novel that she finally realizes why. Single women like her are infantilized in her world, and unless she gives in and gets married, she will never be treated as anything but a child.

On Whileaway, Janet enjoys the same social status that all of her fellow citizens share, but once she enters Joanna's world and Jeannine's, even her status as a celebrity alien diplomat can't prevent her from being condescended to and manhandled at parties. Similarly, although Jael enjoys considerable wealth and privilege in Womanland, as soon as she steps foot into Manland, all bets are off. Like every other person there who isn't considered a "real-man," Jael has no more status than a servant or slave.