The Female Man

by Joanna Russ

HE: I can’t stand stupid, vulgar women who read Love Comix and have no intellectual interests. ME: Oh my, neither can I. HE: I really admire refined, cultivated, charming women who have careers. ME: Oh my, so do I. HE: Why do you think those awful, stupid, vulgar, commonplace women get so awful? ME: Well, probably, not wishing to give any offense and after considered judgment and all that and very tentatively, with the hope that you won’t jump on me—I think it’s at least partly your fault. (Long silence) HE: You know, on second thought, I think bitchy, castrating, unattractive, neurotic women are even worse. Besides, you’re showing your age. And your figure’s going. OR HE: Darling, why must you work part-time as a rug salesman? SHE: Because I wish to enter the marketplace and prove that in spite of my sex I can take a fruitful part in the life of the community and earn what our culture proposes as the sign and symbol of adult independence—namely money. HE: But darling, by the time we deduct the cost of a baby-sitter and nursery school, a higher tax bracket, and your box lunches from your pay, it actually costs us money for you to work. So you see, you aren’t making money at all. You can’t make money. Only I can make money. Stop working. SHE: I won’t. And I hate you. HE: But darling, why be irrational? It doesn’t matter that you can’t make money because I can make money. And after I’ve made it, I give it to you, because I love you. So you don't have to make money. Aren’t yo...