Joanna Russ’s 1972 story When It Changed depicts a world in which men have been extinct for hundreds of years. Without men, women are able to construct a society that collapses contemporary gender norms. Yet, when men return to the world, a gender-based class system is reintroduced. Russ uses the narrator’s simultaneous embodiment of stereotypically masculine characteristics and feeling of weakness in the men’s physical presence to demonstrate how social hierarchy between genders may be rooted in the threat of strength, not in any inherent superiority.
The story’s narrator embodies the ways in which contemporary distinctions between genders have been collapsed or reversed in the women’s society. When the narrator describes trying to explain her society to one of the men, she states, “He looked embarrassed. He looked insane. Finally, he said, ‘Where I come from, the women don’t dress so plainly.’ / ‘Like you?’ I said. ‘Like a bride?’ for the men were wearing silver from head to foot. I had never seen anything so gaudy” (Russ 511). The words employed by the narrator are telling. Her description of the man as “insane” and “gaudy,” conveys an air of disdain for the individual. Distinctions along gender lines are “insane.” The tone here reinforces the writing’s structural meaning. By criticizing the plain dress of the narrator and her compatriots, the man is stating that they do not look feminine, that their dress demonstrates a failure to adhere to the prescribed roles of the socially constructed gender binary that defines much of contemporary popular culture. The narrator’s response, implying that the man looks like a bride, flips the script and indicates that within the framework of a gender binary, the man looks feminine. This seeming reversal of contemporary gender roles is a consistent theme throughout Russ’s story. The narrator mentions several times that she is the winner of three duels, all of which ended with her opponent’s death. The narrator has a significant facial scar. When the women first meet the men, the narrator describes one of her fellows, saying, “Phyllis Helgason Spet, whom someday I shall kill” (Russ 510). These casual references to violence are a critical part of Russ’s characterization of the narrator and of her society as a whole. The references to “duels” indicate that dueling, using killing as a means of settling disputes, is an established practice in the narrator’s society. The duels, the scar, the narrator’s assurance of and willingness to participate in future violence are all characteristics traditionally ascribed to men within the contemporary gender binary. The narrator, in her words and deeds, is embodying traditional masculinity. The narrator is a chief of police, a stereotypically masculine job. The seeming gender reversal in the narrator’s dress and actions demonstrates the dissolution of the gender binary in the narrator’s society. These language and plot elements demonstrate that in Russ’s narrative, women are capable of performing whatever social roles necessary, regardless of the gendered implications of those social functions. In the narrator’s society, the construct of gender has been collapsed.
Despite the fact that these alien men intrude upon a society that has largely moved beyond the construct of gender and gender roles, their physical presence reasserts that construct. After meeting the second man in the story, the narrator states that he speaks, “With the self-confidence of someone who has always had money and strength to spare, who doesn’t know what it is to be second-class or provincial. Which is very odd, because the day before, I would have said that was an exact description of me” (Russ 512). Notwithstanding the narrator’s earlier comment that the men’s clothing makes them look feminine, this description of the man’s behavior mirrors contemporary male stereotypes. The man’s behavior conveys confidence in his strength and wealth, both of which are important parts of the performance of contemporary masculinity. Though the protagonist has no personal experience or frame of reference for the men’s physical strength, their physical presence and behavior make the narrator feel “second-class.” Russ’s language here runs parallel to the language used by contemporary feminists in their struggle for gender equality. So, despite the previously established evidence that the narrator’s society has collapsed the construct of gender, the behavior and physical presence of the men in this narrative reestablishes a gender binary that privileges men over women. This idea is underscored by Russ later in the story when she writes, “I will remember all my life those four people I first met who were muscled like bulls and who made me – if only for a moment – feel small” (Russ 514). Russ’s word choice here is significant. It is the men’s physicality that makes the narrator feel small, which makes her feel like a second-class citizen. Even though the narrator is a leader in her society, has feminized the men’s clothing, embodies traditionally masculine roles, and has demonstrated herself to be physically capable of killing, the physical threat of the men’s muscles makes her feel small. In the quote from page 512, the narrator is careful to emphasize how the man has “strength to spare.” How, then, should the reader resolve the seeming contradiction in Russ’s story? It seems that the reassertion of a contemporary gender binary in this narrative can be traced largely to the men’s physical threat. Russ constructs a society of women that no longer delineates its people into classes based on gender. Russ’s narrator demonstrates that women are capable of performing traditionally masculine violence and of moving beyond the confined roles stereotypically assigned women in a constructed gender binary. The physical threat of men makes even the toughest, deadly woman of this society feel second-class, demonstrating that any class separation between genders stems not from any inherent superiority of one gender, but from the threat of physical strength. Russ’s narrative may serve as a commentary on contemporary society as it speaks to the position that women hold as second-class citizens.
Work Cited
Russ, Joanna. “When It Changed” (1972). The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction. Ed. Arthur B. Evans, et al. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2019. 507-515.
