Some critics have argued that in the figure of Susan Barton, Coetzee deliberately creates a character of weakness as a kind of rebuke to the way that male writers then and now have traditionally conceived female characters. Susan is very much a traditional male ideal of what a woman should be: an attractive, subordinate helpmeet who exists to satisfy the needs of men.

It’s instructive that although Susan goes through a number of different roles in the story, her voice is always projected through the words of the male author who created her. And yet this is a book which is supposed to be about a female castaway. Susan may have a voice, but it's a man's voice, all the same.

Whether stranded on the remote island or living in London, Susan lives her life through Cruso. On the island, she was nothing more than Crusoe’s woman; in England, the only role she has in life is as Cruso’s widow. In both cases, Susan is defined by her relationship to Cruso, not as an individual, as a woman in her own right.

In the character of Foe, Coetzee appears to be satirizing the tendency of successive generations of male writers to use the voice of women to tell stories not about themselves, but about men.