Feminine Intuition

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Feminine Intuition
Author Isaac Asimov
Country Flag of United States USA
Language English
Series Robot Series
Genre(s) science fiction short story
Released in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
Publisher Mercury Publications
Media Type Magazine
Released October 1969
Preceded by Robot Dreams
Followed by Light Verse

Feminine Intuition is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov, originally published in the October 1969 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and collected in The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories (1976), The Complete Robot (1982), and Robot Visions.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Clinton Madarian, the successor to Susan Calvin at US Robots, who has just retired, initiates a project to create a "feminine" robot, which not only has female physical characteristics but will, it is hoped, have a brain with "feminine intuition". After several failures, JN-5 (aka Jane) is produced and the company plan to use it (her) to analyse astronomical data at the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona to calculate the most likely stars in the vicinity of Earth to have habitable planets. This will allow the most effective use of the hyperspace drive to explore those stars.

Madarian and Jane go to Flagstaff but are killed and destroyed respectively in an aircrash on the way back. Desperate to know what, if anything, Jane had discovered, US Robots calls Susan Calvin in. She solves the problem using her own version of feminine intuition - a combination of careful information gathering and astute psychological reasoning. The title of the story is thus highly ironic.

Preceded by: Included in: Series:
Followed by:
Robot Dreams
The Complete Robot
Robot Visions
Robot Series
Foundation Series
Light Verse


The Complete Robot
A Boy's Best Friend | Sally | Someday | Point of View | Think! | True Love | Robot AL-76 Goes Astray | Victory Unintentional | Stranger In Paradise | Light Verse | Segregationist | Robbie | Let's Get Together | Mirror Image | The Tercentenary Incident | First Law | Runaround | Reason | Catch that Rabbit | Liar! | Satisfaction Guaranteed | Lenny | Galley Slave | Little Lost Robot | Risk | Escape! | Evidence | The Evitable Conflict | Feminine Intuition | —That Thou art Mindful of Him | The Bicentennial Man
In other languages