How we cite our quotes: (Part.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #4
The Depression is still world-wide.
(But think—only think!—what might have happened if the world had not so luckily slowed down, if there had been a really big war, for big wars are forcing-houses of science, economics, politics; think what might have happened, what might not have happened. It's a lucky world. Jeannine is lucky to live in it.
She doesn't think so.) (2.10.2-4)
The Female Man suggests that the reason why Jeannine's America is so different from those of the other three J's is that there have been no major wars to incite technological and social change. How does this circumstance affect Jeannine's life, specifically?
Quote #5
Whileaway is engaged in the reorganization of industry consequent to the discovery of the induction principle.
The Whileawayan work-week is sixteen hours. (3.12.1-2)
Whileawayans feel as though they are always working, that the only leisure time they will ever experience is during the first five years of their daughters' lives. However, if the Whileawayan work-week is sixteen hours, that makes it at least three times shorter than what it takes to live above the poverty line in America today. What distinguishes Whileaway's economy from those in Joanna's and Jeannine's worlds?
Quote #6
Under the Mashopi mountain range is a town called Wounded Knee and beyond this the agricultural plain of Green Bay. Janet could not have told you where the equivalents of these landmarks are in the here-and-now of our world and neither can I, the author. (4.17.1)
Although the novel suggests that Whileaway is North and South America (more or less, and with colonies on a few extra planets to boot), it's not possible to cross-chart Whileawayan geography with precise locations in Jeannine's, Joanna's, and Jael's worlds. Is this ambiguity significant?