Two works of science fiction with unique understandings of gender, “When it Changed” by Joanna Russ and “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” by James Tiptree challenge the grasp on sexuality and gendered meaning. While these are two specific examples of feminist science fiction, these are not stand-alone examples. Feminist science fiction is not exactly a new phenomenon and pioneers in the genre including Ursula K. Le Guin who wrote the gender-bending science fiction classic “The left Hand of Darkness” have often toyed with the idea of gender as a construct specific to human society. More generally speaking, the feminist movement touched all areas of literary and cultural production, including the genre of science fiction, which was previously considered to be a domain that was exclusively male.

Female science fiction and utopian writers, including Joanna Russ and James Tiptree, Jr. (a.k.a. Alice Sheldon), however, began to contest the exclusivity of the science fiction genre, envisioning that science fiction could offer expressive possibilities that were not characteristic of any other literary genre. These opportunities include the fact that science fiction is completely imaginative; the community, society, or world created in the science fiction text represents—indeed, constructs– the future that the writer wants to inhabit, rather than the reality in which she or he actually lives. The other possible function of science fiction it that it allows the writer to offer a cautionary tale intended to call attention to contemporary problems by imagining the disasters that will occur if the problems are not arrested.

In Russ’s “When It Changed,” and Tiptree’s “The Girl Who Was Plugged In,” the reader sees both of these dynamics of science fiction at play. Russ seizes the former opportunity of science fiction—to create the world she wants to live in–, while Tiptree takes advantage of the latter—she warns against a dystopic future. Although both stories represent significant achievements for feminist science fiction, expanding female representation within the genre dramatically and expanding the very notion of the genre, the achievement of these feminist texts are undermined by certain limitations. In Russ’s story, the characters’ perceived need to be violent in defense of their society supports, rather than contests, traditional narratives written by men. In Tiptree’s story “The Girl Who Was Plugged In”, railing against the establishment does not provide clear guidance for how to produce meaning change. In addition, in “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” Tiptree neglects to consider whether women’s free choices to occupy certain roles that feminists may find demeaning actually constitutes an act of feminist determination. Ultimately, both “When It Changed” and “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” are interesting and important feminist contributions to the science fiction genre; however, their limitations restrict their usefulness as models for feminist behavior.

Before delving into a focused study of the story, it is important to give, at least in terms of themes, a short summary of “When It Changed” by Joanna Russ. Initially, as this analysis will discuss again later, the characters in “When It Changed” by Joanna Russ  are compelling because they are presented as competent, strong, self-sufficient women and are not a mere summary of stereotypes. This is reinforced by the fact that there is some ambiguity about the narrator’s sex/gender for much of “When It Changed” by Joanna Russ. If the reader of this work of science fiction is lulled into thinking that the narrator is a man, then the way in which Katy is portrayed is even more admirable.

Katy, the narrator’s wife, is a woman who has many skills, and most of them are traditionally associated with masculinity rather than femininity. The narrator begins by explaining admiration for Katy and her skills in one of the important quotes in “When it Changed” by Joanna Russ,  “Katy drives like a maniac; we must have been doing over 120 km/hr on those turns. She’s good, though, extremely good, and I’ve seen her take the whole car apart and put it together again in a day” (para. 1). The narrator continues by explaining that “my wife…has gone hiking in the forests above the 48th parallel without firearms, for days at a time” (para 1). The portrayal of Katy, then, is of a woman who is physically robust, and who is intellectually adept. In her interactions with the narrator, she is also depicted as wholly pragmatic and non-sentimental. The narrator remarks that despite having fought three duels, “I am afraid of far, far too much. I am getting old” (para. 3). When the narrator says this to Katy, her response is clipped and practical. She is not a woman who is distracted from her purpose or her work by nostalgia or sentiment.

All is moving very well in the story up until this point. The reader believes that Russ has created an alternative to traditional femininity that expands possible roles and characters for women. The reader of this work of feminist science fiction admires the strong, competent Katy, and wonders about the narrator’s insecurities, still unaware, though perhaps suspecting, that the narrator is not a man, but a woman. This fact is revealed when the men from Earth appear on While-Away and attempt to convince the women to return to Earth, where sexual equality has been re-established (it is interesting to note the use of the “re,” as if there every was sexual equality at one point in Earth’s history). The conversation moves back and forth between Janet, the narrator, and the Earth representatives.

The Earth representatives observe that the society of While-Away is unnatural, and they appeal to the women’s desire to create opportunities for their daughters as a means of convincing them that Earth is a more viable social structure than While-Away. Katy and Janet, however, are unconvinced, and they are not only willing to raise arms against the men, Katy actually does so, even though the narrator earlier explained Katy’s resistance to using guns. Although no actual violence is perpetrated against the Earth men, the idea that violence is the only means of resolving conflict merely mirrors the most destructive dynamics that characterize Earth. Further, the narrator’s pride in having won three duels, in which she killed someone, undermine the utopian project that her ancestors and her family worked so hard to establish.

The feminist message that Russ really wanted to convey in her work of science fiction is barely varnished, and appears at the end of the story, when Janet reflects on the encounter with the men, saying in one of the important quotes from “When It Changed” explained, “I do not like to think of myself mocked,” she says, or “of Katy deferred to as if she were weak, of Yuki made to feel unimportant or silly, of my other children cheated of their full humanity or turned into strangers” (para.52). She continues, “…I’m afraid that my …achievements will dwindle…to the… curiosa of the human race, the oddities you read about…, things to laugh at …because they are so exotic…. I find this more painful that I can say” (para. 52). Unfortunately, Janet is not able to ward against these reactions, as she appropriates the same tools used by men to dominate women and one another.