"When It Changed"

I thought it was very interesting how Joanna Russ put the story together, by separating a population of women on a distant planet from men on Earth. It was very similar to the Left Hand of Darkness by having to do with gender differences and relations. Both stories experimented with the idea of what a society would be like if one and only one gender lived in a planet and had a different gender visit their planet. Instead of an androgynous society, like in the Left Hand of Darkness, Russ showed how a society with only women would work like after 6 centuries with the absence of men. I think Russ was expressing how she felt about the male role in our society by criticizing its dominance in our society. It seemed like the female society adapted well with the absence of males, but when men from Earth came, the men pointed out that men were needed to return to the female society. They claimed that sexual equality had been established on Earth. If that was true, I think radiation or drugs, like “the real one” said wouldn’t have genetically damaged the people in Earth. Genders would have to be the same for every single person on Earth to achieve sexual equality.
The men that come to Whileaway seem monstrous in the women’s point of view. With the teasing of women to women marriage and asking who plays the role of the man in the female relationships, “the real one” makes the narrator and her friends feel like they’re weak, mocked, and unimportant or silly. Although “the real one” teases the women, the narrator feels that she will not throw away all the achievements women have made in the 6 centuries and will not change. She doesn’t really care if her life is taken, but she will not permit that men take the meaning of her life. I think the meaning of her life is what she represents for the female society, which is the 6 centuries of achievements.
I don’t really understand why Katy said that humanity is unnatural. “The real one” said it was unnatural because of what men have created in Earth, like how there are celibate and homosexual men in Earth. I’m not sure if Russ revealed why Katy said it, she only revealed what “the real one” had to say about it. I was also wondering why the shaking of hands was a custom of the past in Whileaway. I don’t think the shaking of hands is only for males. So why would women drop the custom of shaking hands? Maybe it’s a sign of no wars, while duels are still present.
Overall, I thought the story was interesting because it showed that with the absence of men in a female society, skills are more important than strength.