Centennial Honors College
Western Illinois University
Undergraduate Research Day 2014
Is Gender Important for the Survival of the Human Race?
Poster Presentation
Elisabeth DeCrane
Faculty Mentor: Everett Hamner
Liberal Arts
Joanna Russ’s short story “When It Changed” and her novel The Female Man
introduces the reader to a world where men no longer exist. Whileaway is a lost earth
colony whose men “perished in a shadowy plague” six centuries before the story takes
place. The women of the colony live, love, and reproduce quite contently. These stories
offer a subtle response to the importance of gender roles and stereotyping. It asks us to
think about if we, as humans, need both men and women to thrive as a species? Do we
limit ourselves and our capabilities as a species by imposing gender restrictions? When
you remove the limitations of gender roles, you are left with a world that functions more
smoothly and without discrimination. When you threaten a person’s way of existence,
they are left with fear and uncertainty. Joanna Russ challenges the reader to accept
what the world would be without the discrimination that comes with one sex believing
themselves to be superior to another. It also makes you question what would happen if
you lived in that world and someone threatened to change your entire way of life by
imposing their superiority. It is a scary reality that reflected the times when the story was
written and paralleled how women must have felt in the 1970’s as they fought for
equality.