Can't Live With'em, Can't Live Without'em

So yesterday, I read "When it Changed" by Joanna Russ and I found some of the views taken by the characters to be a little extreme. For the most part, I found that the characters who lived on Whileaway were very closed to the idea of men coming back. Upon first reading it, I thought that the male envoy person was condescending toward the women but after reflecting I found that he really wasn't as abrasive as I assumed he was. Although he suggests that Whileaway would do better with men, he does concede that men have their shortcomings in one paragraph. However, Katy and even the main character don't even give mankind (quite literally in this case) a chance. They really don't have any legitimate reasons to feel threatened by the men and yet they do. Katy nearly blows the envoy's head off merely because of an idea cooked up in her imagination that men would destroy their world when it simply is not so, or at least not to the degree that they would think it would. All in all, I end up sympathizing more with the male characters not necessarily because well, I am one but rather that the women in the story are just so closed off to the outside world.