Russ' collection of non-linear science fiction tales departs from the intimate lives of four different characters living in dystopian times; Jeannine, Janet, Jael, and Joanna. One is a guilty cunt-warrior with steel teeth who’s ready for battle against Man, another is from a utopia called Whileaway (where only women dare exist). At a certain point Russ' characters connect through the story of a feminist from the 70's -who's trying desperately to succeed in “a mans world”. Literary critic Susan Ayers once postulated in an article for Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Mar., 1995): "her purpose in The Female Man is to trick the reader into recognizing the problem of "contrarieties": "You can't unite woman and human any more than you can unite matter and antimatter." Russ contrasts our present-day heterosexual society with two revolutionary alternatives: a utopian world of women and a dystopian world of women warring with men, to "pulverize the old forms and formal conventions", critiquing the “straight mind” -heterosexual institutions that regulate gender.”