Joanna Russ was born in 1937 in New York City. She was an academic and feminist who authored numerous works of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism such as How to Suppress Women's Writing. She is best known for her 1975 satirical utopian novel The Female Man; We Who Are About To was her fourth novel, originally published in 1977. Joanna Russ died in 2011 and her work is still widely taught on literature courses throughout the English speaking world.