Can't Live with them, so We'll live Without them!: Women Only Worlds in Science Fiction

Joanna Russ

On February 22, 1937, the Russ family welcomed baby Joanna into their home in the Bronx. As a child, she was a very bright science student. She even was a top ten finalist in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search as a senior in high school.

Joanna identified as a lesbian when she was eleven; however, she quickly abandoned her same sex preferences because of societal and familial pressure. This stifling of her feelings for women caused Joanna to feel romantically numb for a long time. However, she eventually left her husband and fully embraced her sexual orientation.

Joanna obtained a graduate degree in English in 1957 from Cornell. While she was at school, she found that her story centering on the brutality and passion of male actions (fighting and rape) was praised and respected, but her work was dismissed when she tried to write about her emotions in high school. This convinced her that she would never write anything truly great because great literature came from a male perspective.

However, she has proven herself wrong. She has received numerous awards for her science fiction writing. She won the 1972 Nebula Award for "When It Changed," a Nebula Award and a Hugo Award in 1983 for "Souls," and recognition for The Female Man in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame collection in 1986.

Russ' sexual orientation and gender have impacted her work as an author. She confronts male dominance and argues that gender roles are influenced by society, not biology. Cooperation between women is another standard theme in her books; she feels that true feminist literature shows women cooperating to achieve a goal.

Today, Russ teaches English at the University of Washington in Seattle.