The Women of He, She, and It

In Marge Piercy’s He, She, and It, there is an obviously parallel between the tales of Joseph the Golem and Yod the cyborg. It is no surprise that Yod feels a connection to Joseph, as a man-made creature that deviates from his original role as a mindless servant because he has emotions and is self-aware. The stories also contain another parallel, however, between Chava and Shira, the leading women.

Shira is the protagonist of the main story. After her return home, she becomes a member of the team that deals with the experiment called Yod. In her work with Yod, she, in one sense, gives him life. Each interaction with Yod and each lesson she gives increases his ability to feel and think like a human. Over time, he develops what we would call, human emotions, such as curiosity, loyalty, and love. His behavior comes to resemble more and more that of a human because of his contact with Shira. As Yod becomes increasingly more human-like, Shira begins to feel affection for him and takes him as her lover.

In the story of Joseph, Chava is the only female whose life the author delves into. She plays a significant role in Joseph’s life; similarly to how Shira teaches Yod how to be a human by teaching him how to experience different emotions, Chava teaches Joseph to be a human by not only teaching him book knowledge, but by bringing out emotions from within him. Joseph begins to feel the most powerful of all human emotions, love, particularly love towards Chava.

Both women fulfill the role of strong females. Shira is an incredibly smart and innovative techie, and is partly responsible for the design of Yod. She bravely helps fight against Y-S, one of the biggest and most powerful multis, to get back her son. As not only one of the few women who can read and write, but as the most intelligent women in her town Chava stands apart from the other women. She is one of the few people to know the true nature of Joseph, a discovery that she makes on her own. What is interesting is that though both women fulfill the role of strong females, they approach it in vastly differently ways, ways that seem to be almost opposite to each other. Shira is willing to commit to a lover and trust in someone to care for and protect her. She also seems to be more altruistic, sacrificing her own personal happiness for Josh’s happiness and risking her own life for Ari’s life. On the other hand, Chava willingly gives up her son for her own freedom. She refuses to marry one her many suitors, including Joseph. For her, the most important thing is her own intellectual freedom. When she refuses Yitzak she tells him that there was someone else, but in saying this she meant “the person she had in mind was herself. She is the person she wants at the center of her life” (370). Both women are strong women, but they approach their lives in very different ways. With the use of this contrast, is Piercy trying to convey some idea about the notion of a strong woman to the reader? I think she is saying that there is no one single idea of a strong female, that a strong woman is merely a woman who chooses her own path of actions, who can choose the type of lifestyle she wishes to pursue.