Joanna Russ in the context of The Female Man

The New Wave was a science fiction movement of the 1960s and 1970s, characterized by a great degree of experimentation with the form and content of stories, often influenced by the styles of non-science fiction literature, and an emphasis on the psychological and social sciences as opposed to the physical sciences. New Wave authors often considered themselves as part of the modernist tradition of fiction, and the New Wave was conceived as a deliberate change from the traditions of the science fiction characteristic of pulp magazines, which many of the writers involved considered irrelevant or unambitious.

The most prominent source of New Wave science fiction was the British magazine New Worlds, edited by Michael Moorcock, who became editor during 1964. In the United States, Judith Merril's anthologies and Harlan Ellison's 1967 anthology Dangerous Visions are often considered as the best early representations of the movement. Worldwide, Ursula K. Le Guin, Stanisław Lem, J. G. Ballard, Samuel R. Delany, Roger Zelazny, Joanna Russ, James Tiptree Jr. (a pseudonym of Alice Bradley Sheldon), Thomas M. Disch and Brian Aldiss were also major writers associated with the movement. Moorcock wanted writers to borrow from the genre's techniques but encouraged writers to develop their own styles. Apart from Moorcock and Ballard, authors included Hilary Bailey, Barrington Bayley, M. John Harrison, Pamela Zoline, Rachel Pollack and Christopher Priest.