Foreignness and "the Other" is basically the science fiction theme, and so it's no surprise that The Female Man is all over it. Given its four protagonists and its reality-shifting structure, the novel makes a lot of room to explore various kinds of foreign identities and experiences. When Jeannine and Joanna travel back and forth between each other's Earths, they find that things are mostly similar, but just different enough to make them feel alien and out of place. For Janet, that experience is intensified (by about a million), and when Jeannine and Joanna find themselves in Whileaway and Jael's world, describing "the Other" becomes a major part of the novel's narrative technique.
Questions About Foreignness and "The Other"
- To Janet, the men of Joanna's Earth are a foreign species (3.1.31). Given what we know about genetic engineering on Whileaway, what distinguishes Janet from the women of Joanna's world? How "foreign" is her genetic make-up from theirs?
- Which of the novel's four versions of Earth is least similar to our own (or, our own as it was in the early 1970s)? Why do you think so?
- When narratives explore a foreigner's experience in a society that is unfamiliar to them but familiar to us, the reader, we are often prompted to see our own world in a different light. How does Joanna's Earth appear to us when seen through Janet's eyes?
Chew on This
In The Female Man, Janet's perspective as an outsider to Joanna's Earth makes "normal" human behaviour—especially interactions between women and men—seem abnormal, even ridiculous. Her perspective helps Joanna to realize that things don't have to be the way they are.
Although foreignness is a major theme in The Female Man, there are no truly foreign identities in the novel. Ultimately, foreign places, peoples, and experiences always reflect back on the "real world" being satirized.