When It Changed
| "When It Changed" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by Joanna Russ | |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| Publication | |
| Published in | Again, Dangerous Visions |
| Publication type | Short story |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
| Publication date | 1972 |
"When It Changed" is a science fiction short story by American writer Joanna Russ. It was first published in the anthology Again, Dangerous Visions.
Synopsis
[edit]"When it Changed," a short story by Joanna Russ (1972) features a planet inhabited by only women. On this planet, Whileaway , the women have adapted to their unique situation and enjoy living without men. They have learned how to create children by combining ova, and they participate in same sex marriages. The story follows the narrator, Janet, and her wife Katy. Janet and Katy have three children together through combination of ova and are emotionally very close. Both are stunned and dismayed when male astronauts land on the planet.
The men talk to Katy and Janet about the return of men and what it means. When they originally learn about the absence of men on the planet, the men assume a rescue mode. Instead of asking how the women feel about the return of men, they assure the women that their "ordeal" of living without men is over. They are bewildered when the women do not react the way they expected. They have difficulty believing that the women are happy on a single gender planet.
While the men are talking to Katy and Janet, they have difficulty understanding the lack of gender roles. Although they do not ever ask which partner is the man in the relationship, Janet senses their curiosity. They attempt to assign gender roles to Katy and Janet when they interact with the women. They seem to decide that Katy is the woman in the relationship because they find her attractive. They hint to her that her life will improve when men come to the planet because she will be able to find a satisfactory (male) mate.
The women are deeply disturbed about the developments. They resent the intrusion of the men and fear that they will be relegated to second class citizens when the men return.[1]
Reception
[edit]"When It Changed" won the 1972 Nebula Award for Best Short Story,[2] and was a finalist for the 1973 Hugo Award for Best Short Story.[3]
A science fiction novelist commented on "When it Changed", comparing it to his own experience. He wrote:
The hatred, the destructiveness that comes out in the story makes me sick for humanity. ... I've just come from the West Indies, where I spent three years being hated merely because my skin was white... [Now I] find that I am hated for another reason-because Joanna Russ hasn't got a prick.[4]
— Michael Coney
Themes and historical time period
[edit]In the afterword, Russ states that "When It Changed" was written to challenge ideas in science fiction that had not, at the time of writing, been addressed. These ideas were related to the way women—and societies consisting solely of women—were handled by writers who are male. She wrote:
I have read SF stories about manless worlds before; they are either full of busty girls in wisps of chiffon who slink about writhing with lust (Keith Laumer wrote a charming, funny one called "The War with the Yukks"), or the women have set up a static, beelike society in imitation of some presumed primitive matriarchy. These stories are written by men. Why women who have been alone for generations should "instinctively" turn their sexual desires toward persons of whom they have only intellectual knowledge, or why female people are presumed to have an innate preference for Byzantine rigidity, I don't know.[5]
(Note: The Laumer story was actually named “War Against the Yukks”.)
Russ also mentions Ursula K. Le Guin's novel The Left Hand of Darkness as an influence on the story.
In the "Image of Women in Science Fiction", Russ asserts that women have not been accurately portrayed in science fiction. She wrote:
There are plenty of images of women in science fiction. There are hardly any women.[6]
"When It Changed" contains themes of queer theory and its contribution to the non-rigid definition of women's image. This in turn gives women the opportunity to not follow the defined past role of feminism and partake in queer relationships. The story's conclusion alludes to the ending of such an ideal when masculine/heterosexual forces threaten the character's way of life, and in turn, queer as a concept.[7]The story emphasizes the rigidity of such forces through the steadfast beliefs of the alien species about the traditional gender roles. The alien's language equates the word people to men, implying the implicit sexist and masculine connotation behind the non-native's words, contrasting with Whileaway's current opinion on the role of women.[8]
When reading this story it is important to remember what was going on in the world at this time. Despite such dissension in its leadership and ranks, the women's rights movement achieved much in a short period of time. With the eventual backing of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1965), women gained access to jobs in every corner of the U.S. economy, and employers with long histories of discrimination were required to provide timetables for increasing the number of women in their workforces. Divorce laws were liberalized; employers were barred from firing pregnant women; and women's studies programs were created in colleges and universities. Record numbers of women ran for—and started winning—political office. In 1972 Congress passed Title IX of the Higher Education Act, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program receiving federal funds and thereby forced all-male schools to open their doors to women and athletic programs to sponsor and finance female sports teams. In 1973, in its controversial ruling on Roe v. Wade, the United States Supreme Court legalized abortion.[9]
Awards and nominations
[edit]- Nebula Award for Best Short Story, 1973
- Hugo Award for Best Short Story nominee, 1973
- James Tiptree, Jr. Award (retroactive, 1996)
References
[edit]- ^ http://academic.depauw.edu/aevans_web/HONR101-02/WebPages/Fall2009/Janelle/pages%20Thixton/new%20changed.html
- ^ When It Changed, at Science Fiction Writers of America; retrieved October 27, 20128
- ^ 1973 Hugo Awards, at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved October 28, 2018
- ^ McClay, B.D. (30 January 2020). "Joanna Russ, the Science-Fiction Writer Who Said No". The New Yorker. Retrieved 29 October 2024.
- ^ Russ, Joanna. "When It Changed". Sci Fiction. Archived from the original on May 14, 2008. Retrieved February 29, 2016.
- ^ Russ, Joanna (29 October 2024). "Women in SF". Sci Fiction.
- ^ Hollinger, Veronica (1999). "(Re)reading Queerly: Science Fiction, Feminism, and the Defamiliarization of Gender". Science Fiction Studies. 26 (1): 23–26. JSTOR 4240749 – via JSTOR.
- ^ Bülent, Somay (March 1984). "Towards an Open-Ended Utopia (Vers une utopie ouverte)". Science Fiction Studies. 11 (1): 27. JSTOR 4239585 – via JSTOR.
- ^ https://www.britannica.com/event/womens-movement/Successes-and-failures
External links
[edit]- When It Changed title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- http://academic.depauw.edu/aevans_web/HONR101-02/WebPages/Fall2009/Janelle/pages%20Thixton/new%20changed.html
