La puerta al país de las mujeres

by Sheri S. Tepper

Han pasado trescientos años desde que se produjera el gran holocausto nuclear. Para que no se repita un desastre parecido, la sociedad se ha organizado de otra forma, según la cual, por una vez, las mujeres no están obligadas a llevar siempre las de perder. En las amuralladas ciudades de las mujeres se mantiene una parte de la cultura del pasado. Más allá de las murallas, y tras la Puerta al País de las Mujeres, las guarniciones de guerreros cultivan la violencia y luchan sin cesar para defender las ciudades, al tiempo que traman la revolución y la alteración insurreccional del statu quo. Pero para las mujeres, los hombres de las guarniciones son sus propios hijos, hermanos y amantes, a los que pueden perder para siempre si, tras el periodo de formación militar de la adolescencia, deciden no volver a las ciudades.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Dystopia, Feminism, Post Apocalyptic, Speculative Fiction

429 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1987

About the author

Sheri Stewart Tepper was a prolific American author of science fiction, horror and mystery novels; she was particularly known as a feminist science fiction writer, often with an ecofeminist slant.

Born near Littleton, Colorado, for most of her career (1962-1986) she worked for Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood, where she eventually became Executive Director. She has two children and is married to Gene Tepper. She operated a guest ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

She wrote under several pseudonyms, including A.J. Orde, E.E. Horlak, and B.J. Oliphant. Her early work was published under the name Sheri S. Eberhart.

Reviews

[Emily May · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know what it is, but lately I've been feeling like a country where women make all their own decisions about politics, their bodies, human rights and pregnancy sounds pretty fucking great right now. I'm not an idealist by nature, and I went to high school so I know that women can be nasty fuckers too, yet still. Thinking I might take my chances. Because if I hear one more man voice his-- completely irrelevant, unneeded, and insulting --opinion about women's bodily autonomy, I might literally explode.

*mops sweaty brow*

This book is interesting, but dated. In some ways far more glaringly than others. Tepper has put a lot of thought into her "utopia" run by women, and she has a lot of interesting things to say about the problems with our own society-- namely, that too many men are violent controlling assholes and too many women go googly-eyed for said men because of "infatuation". She may be onto something. Either way, I can definitely agree that women don't always pursue their own interests in sex, love or politics.

What's the answer? Well, eugenics, of course. Make sure women only get jiggy with the kind, gentle men who will make more kind, gentle men (hmm, interesting) and get rid of those pesky homosexuals while you're at it (wait, what?!). Oh yes, don't forget that being gay is a disorder that can now thankfully be corrected before birth. Yikes.

I find Women's Country itself quite fascinating. It grew after a nuclear war nearly wiped out the human race and the survivors decided a world run by men just wasn't working out. So much thought and detail has gone into the creation of this world. But the ideology behind it? Needs some work, I have to say.

I am yet to be convinced that a world run solely by women would result in the utopian dream. I can believe-- based on statistical evidence --that Women's Country would be less physically violent than a patriarchal society. I do not, however, believe this necessarily equates to peace. Women can cut you in other ways.

Also, pretty sure the author is doing her best to excuse a scene that is clearly rape.

[Bridget Mckinney · Rating 4 out of 5]

One reviewer on Goodreads calls The Gate to Women's Country "gender essentialist, heterosexist, cissexist garbage," and it is, I suppose. First published in 1988, The Gate to Women's Country is very second-wave feminist and exhibits many of the problems one would expect from that description. It's also beautiful and sad and, while exclusionary, an otherwise excellent and enjoyable treatment of the issues that it did deal with.

The Gate to Women's Country examines an (honestly not-so-unlikely) hypothetical future in which a world ruled by men ended in an apocalypse that wrecked the planet and almost killed everyone. In the aftermath of disaster, women and women-supporting men took over, with a plan of breeding the violence out of humanity. The central question of the novel is dependent on the premise that this goal can possibly attained and it is, simply, "Is it worth it?" Tepper explores the ways in which the Women's Country plan makes life harder for the people who live there as well as the ways in which a plan that is intended to create a better humanity can be itself dehumanizing for nearly everyone involved.

Even though, by the end of the novel, we can see evidence of the success of the plan, we're still left wondering if being able to do something makes it right to actually do it. Does the end justify the means, or do we lose our humanity on the road to trying to save it?

[Katie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gender essentialist, heterosexist, cissexist garbage. Avoid at all costs.

[F.R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, here’s some fantastic feminist science fiction. ‘The Gate to Women’s Country’ takes gender roles, pushes them to the limit and sees a way to both destroy and rebuild them. It presents a compulsively drawn world, which looks forward and back as far as the ancient Greeks, to examine how defined the differences between society’s views of men and women are. On the surface, it’s about how these roles are fixed – with woman’s place as the mother and man’s as the warrior and the protector. But in reality it’s nothing so straightforward as that. Clearly it’s a book born from the twentieth century (and works as an anti-nuclear tract – although, really, are there many novels which are pro-nuclear tracts?), yet its focus is wider than that. Its subject is the way gender roles have been fixed and cemented for millennia, and where the power should really lie in the battle of the sexes.

In the future, after the conflations of nuclear war, it‘s the women who have control. They have their own cities where they run and administer everything. Outside the city walls are the men, who form the garrisons which offer protection. Despite the garrisons being military, the power lies in the knowledge, the skill and the organisation of the women. Although separated, the two sexes are not wholly apart, with various carnivals taken place which are (highly) organised to allow men and women to congregate. As a consequence children are born and at the age of five the boys are sent off to be with their fathers in the garrisons. And this is where the real divide between the sexes is apparent, as women hope their sons and brothers return when they are allowed to at fifteen, while the men of the garrison see it as a dishonour not to continue in the military until the day they meet a marvellous death. The narrative follows Stavia, daughter of one of the senior councilwomen and her relationship with Chernon – the son of a neighbour, who unbeknownst to her has been instructed by his superiors to woo her to try and find out the real secrets of what goes on through the gates to women’s country.

It’s a book which seems to be leading in one direction, to a conflict between men and women – and yet it doesn’t quite do that. Instead (like one of its characters, a magician) it uses misdirection and sleight of hand – raising Chekov’s pistol but palming it and revealing it to be something else. Cleverly it shows what could lie in the future of these characters is the return of man’s domination, but it knows that we already understand what that looks like and so actually steers us in a different direction. The book is more interested in showing how men’s roles and defined by women and vice versa. It takes a truly extreme view of the masculinity which exists outside of women’s country and not only examines it, drawing comparison with the world we have now, but then twists it around – giving another more extreme example – hitting readers again and again with the horror of what men can do. Those of us in the comfortable liberal west may pat ourselves on the back as to how far women’s rights and feminism have come, but of course more can be done. Furthermore there are places in the world – and we all know that such places exist, even if most of us do not keep it in the forefront of our minds – where terrible things are done to women because of the strictures of the society in to which they’re born. In that regard this is an angry book, angry about these things it pictures in the distant future but which we all know versions of are happening today, and it wants us to share its anger.

Without a doubt one of the best books I’ve read this year, a fascinating achievement which aims for and succeeds in real depth of character, heart breaking scenes, and hammers home a strident message without ever becoming pious or preachy.

[Amy H. Sturgis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tepper offers a fascinating meditation on how a post-apocalyptic people might seek to limit the potential for future violence and thus avoid another devastating (presumably nuclear) holocaust. The division of genders into Women's Country and the Warrior society is a deeply unsettling one. The men live a Hobbesian life that is nasty, brutish, and short, while the women preserve a disconcertingly passive-aggressive tyranny based on secrets and half-truths and closeted eugenics programs. The book suggests an easy answer to the question of where violence comes from -- men -- and then refuses to accept its own answer, because what else can the men become, if distrusted, denied education, and fed lies and propaganda? In the effort not to repeat the mistakes of the distant past, both the women and men of Women's Country have locked themselves into a cycle of more recent and still costly errors.

The novel would have been more compelling if not for its temporary detour into the caricaturish Holyland (with its cardboard stereotypes) and if only the reader came to know Servitors such as Joshua and Corrig better, these "real men" who choose to turn their back on the warriors and provide (in more ways than most realize) for the women. Tepper doesn't seem to know exactly what this alternative portrait of masculinity looks like up close, and her piece would be the stronger for some kind of three-dimensional image. Also, a few times, it seemed as though Tepper felt more sorry and apologetic for the Damned Few, the female decision-makers behind the curtain, than appropriately suspicious of the great authority they have granted themselves -- an authority capable of and sometimes amenable to wiping out entire populations.

This is a worthy classic for all of the difficult questions that it raises, even if its answers are incomplete and uncomfortable (and perhaps less unambiguous than Tepper herself wished), and I look forward to the discussions it yields in the classroom.

[Spider the Doof Warrior · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate this book. Maybe I should read it again, but there's so many other books I want to read, so many other books I'd rather read again than this one.
Maybe there was some sort of thing I missed the first time I read it in college, but mostly it made me mad.
They got rid of homosexuality, most of the men are brutes and fascist and violent, except for the servitors. Yet the women still have sex with the brutish men even as they are trying to breed them out of existence.
Then you get some random scary people who shave women's heads and don't allow them to have freedom, and you get this dippy irritating book which for some reason so many feminists like, but I don't know why!


Read it again in 2014 AND I STILL HATE IT! It still makes NO DAMN SENSE! I wonder if the Servitors even get to get any. It's just not believe enough to me. I think other books do After the End better and I don't think you'll get rid of war just by breeding it out of men. Come on! Be logical, woman!

This premise just doesn't work. You don't have wars because of men. Animals fight too! Folks fight over territory and over religion. They fight over all kinds of things. Even if you had everyone with enough food, enough clothes, enough money they would STILL find a reason to fight because some people are assholes and just like fighting.

You can't breed this out of people. To be fair, we can cooperate and work together. If you want less warlike men, wouldn't, I don't know, NOT LETTING A BUNCH OF ASSHOLE WARRIORS CARE FOR THEM FROM FIVE UP WORK BETTER?!

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a tough-minded, beautifully-written, multilayered exploration of the ways in which male-dominated human societies’ attitudes toward the rights and privileges and so-called “mysteries” of women have affected them, and by turns all of us.

It does bear mentioning that it is entirely a cisgender and (almost entirely) heterosexual novel, which is probably an indication of the era in which it was written and published as much as anything else. Although, at the same time, it’s not like trans or queer people weren’t also being talked and written about in the late-1980’s.

This is the first work of Sheri S. Tepper’s that I’ve read, but it won’t be the last. I found her writing to be utterly compelling, surprising, provocative, and deeply felt.

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

On my second reading: I don't think I gave Tepper enough credit the first time I read this book.

The treatment of homosexuality still bothers me. Although, as one commenter has said, it could be argued that this is simply an authorial choice to make it easier for Tepper to explore the specific issues she wishes to focus on, it strikes me as too simplistic to simply say, "Oh, teh gay, we fixed that a while back," especially since the book is so much about questions of biology and essential natures and this particular issue (as opposed to the issues of violence and masculinity) seems to be rather taken for granted where it could be explored in very interesting ways.

Where I think I sold Tepper short on first reading is in her treatment of gender differences and biology. Upon re-reading, her approach to the issue of masculine versus feminine natures is quite complex. Tepper reinforces biological essentialism through the plot mechanic of breeding for nonviolence among the men (and through discussions of women's inherent nurturing natures) but also simultaneously critiques it by painting the actions of the Council as, at the very least, morally ambiguous. In the end, the women seem to be making some progress toward a world with no violence and no war, but, Tepper leads the reader to ask, is that acceptable if, to reach that world, they must engage in violence themselves?

As is said in the play-within-the-novel, Iphigenia at Ilium,

Dead or damned, that's the choice we make. Either you men kill us and are honored for it, or we women kill you and are damned for it. Dead or damned. Women don't have to make choices like that in Hades. There's no love there, nothing to betray. . . . Hades is Women's Country.

The women who are in the know, therefore, are damned by their choices to kill men to save themselves and their sisters; the women who live in Women's Country all unknowing (most of the women there) are in Hades, which is "like dream without waking. Like carrying water in a sieve. Like coming into harbor after storm. Barren harbor where the empty river runs through an endless desert into the sea. Where all the burdens have been taken away." They live in a hell of ignorance, lost choices, and emptiness. This is quite a condemnation.

------------------------

This is a fascinating exploration of the relationship and differences between men and women. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, The Gate to Women's Country presents a society in which men and women have two very different cultures. The women live inside walled cities, growing food for both the men and the women, doing medicine and art and science and family; the men live in the garrison, outside the city walls, fighting and preparing for war. The women support the men and the men protect the women. Except for some men, who, after spending their childhood (from age 5) living in the garrison and being raised by the men to be warriors, choose to return to the city through the Women's Gate, to becomes servitors who live among the women and to learn to be productive members of that society instead of becoming warriors.

The book sets up several key dichotomies--men/women, warrior/servitor, strong/weak--and then calls them, or at least our assumptions about them, into question. In doing so, Tepper makes an argument for the women's cities as the beginning of a true feminist utopia, a utopia that is not without men but that is without a certain kind of men. Morgot, a powerful leader of the women's community, explains:

"Three hundred years ago almost everyone in the world had died in a great devastation brought about by men. It was men who made the weapons and men who were the diplomats and men who made the speeches about national pride and defense. And in the end it was men who did whatever they had to do, pushed the buttons or pulled the string to set the terrible things off. And we died. . . . Almost all of us. Women. Children. . . . Martha [a founder of women's country:] taught that the destruction had come about because of men's willingness--even eagerness--to fight, and she determined that this eagerness to fight must be bred out of our race, even though it might take a thousand years" (301-2).

Tepper, in this argument combines an argument against war as we know it with an argument for gender equality--for the violence and destruction unleashed by this war is mirrored in the violence and destruction that had existed within human society (e.g., domestic violence, rape, genital mutilation). She is very careful, however, to again make the distinction between types of men and types of society, as Morgot says that it wasn't "that bad as a general rule, I don't think. Love existed, after all. Some men and women have always loved one another. Not all cultures oppressed women" (292).

There are problems with this book, however. One is the essentialism of the argument. Although Tepper does allow for those men who are not warriors, who return to the cities as servitors, she still bases her argument on the assumption that men and women are fundamentally different. Men are, mostly, violent, aggressive, dominating; women are, mostly, cooperative, pacifist, nurturing. The fact that these things are changing as the women attempt to create a new kind of man, replacing the old kind through the process of genetic selection, could either be the saving grace or the final evidence that, in Tepper's world, men and women are fundamentally what biology says they are. The relationship between biology and culture definitely needs to be furthered explored.

Another major problem is the treatment of homosexuality. Basically, it doesn't exist any more. It's explained that "even in pre-convulsion times it was known that the so-called 'gay syndrome' was caused by aberrant hormone levels during pregnancy. The women doctors now identified the condition as 'hormonal reproductive maladaption' and corrected it before birth. There were very few actual HNRMS--called HenRams--either male or female, born in Women's Country" (76). This is troubling for the queer movement because it turns homosexuality into nothing more than a disease to be cured and reasserts the hegemony of heterosexuality. In a world where men and women are segregated, it seems that outlawing homosexual behavior or "curing" homosexuality as an orientation only serves to limit the kinds of love and desire available. Frankly, it seems unreasonable. It's an interesting counterpoint to other feminist utopias (for instance, Joanna Russ's The Female Man) and their treatment of female sexuality.

The other problem I have with the book is less theoretical and more aesthetic. Although I enjoyed the book greatly and found the ideas worth exploring (even if I didn't always agree with the assumptions made by Tepper), sometimes the prose itself grated on me. Mostly, it did this when it felt like Tepper was trying too hard to be artsy or complex. For example, here's the opening paragraph of the novel:

"Stavia saw herself as in a picture, from the outside, a darkly cloaked figure moving along a cobbled street, the stones sheened with a soft, early spring rain. On either side the gutters ran with an infant chuckle and gurgle, baby streams being amused with themselves. The corniced buildings smiled candlelit windows across at one another, their shoulders huddled protectively inward--though not enough to keep the rain from streaking the windows and making the candlelight seem the least bit weepy, a luxurious weepiness, as after a two-hanky drama of love lost or unrequited" (1).

Now while this does get the reader thinking immediately of love, loss, and children (important in the upcoming scene) and also introduces the concept of self-division that Stavia describes occurring to her repeatedly throughout the book, it also creates a rather garbled set of metaphors. There's joy in the gutters, protection in the windows, and sadness in the light--that's a lot of emotion to lay on one street.

One more example to make my point:

"Septemius and his people were in the street when they saw Stavia next, she coming along the walk with her marketing bag on her shoulder, brow furrowed with concentration over something or other, so she almost bumped them before hearing Kostia and Tonia's greeting, a vibrating 'Hello, Medic," which hung on the air like the reverberation of a gong" (170).

The contrived word order and the sheer length of this sentence serve only to complicate what should be a very simple encounter on the street. Not to mention the oddness of the description of Kostia and Tonia's greeting.

I mention the style because it is a recurring issue while reading the book, but it is only an infrequently occurring issue. Most of the time, Tepper's prose is perfectly clear and serves to advance the plot nicely. Some of the time, the style is even good (I particularly like the play-within-the-novel and some of the descriptions of the landscape outside the walls of the city).

In the end, because this is a book that I enjoyed, that raises interesting questions, and that isn't without ideological problems to be discussed and worked out, this would make a great book to teach, especially in conjunction with other feminist SF.

[Cara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of all the books by Sheri S. Tepper I have read, this is perhaps the most overtly feminist in that the post-apocalyptic society she describes is clearly matriarchal. Yet it is not an angry, man-bashing diatribe. Instead The Gate To Women's Country presents a fledgling eco-utopian society where the ultimate aim is balance and equality between the sexes within a pacifist, non-violent culture. The means by which the Women's Council set out to achieve this balance, however, are both morally and ethically questionable. As well as being a very well written story, with excellent characterisation and a strong plot, this book raises issues that stay with you long after the final page has been turned.

The book opens with Stavia, the central character, meeting with her fifteen-year old son who has made the decision to reject her and Women's Country for the life of a warrior in the garrison outside the town. From this poignant opening the story shifts between Stavia as an adult and member of the Women's Council and her earlier life from the age of eleven onwards. She grows up with her mother Morgot and older sister Myra in Marthatown; a place where sons are given to their fathers at the age of five to be trained as warriors for ten years after which they have the choice to remain in the Spartan-like garrison or return through the Women's Gate for a peaceful life of learning and servitude.

Women's Country is a low-tech culture, still recovering from the destruction that occurred in the time of the 'convulsions' when North America was devastated by nuclear war. Farming, manufacturing, metallurgy, trade, education, medicine; these are all undertaken by women within walled towns, protected by their warrior brothers, sons and lovers in the garrisons outside the gates. Stavia is the daughter of a doctor and Council member and looks set to follow in her mother's path until she breaks the rules or 'ordinances' by giving books to an older boy with whom she forms a close friendship. However, we know that his motives are not as benign as Stavia thinks. There are secrets in Women's Country and while the men in the garrisons do not know what these secrets are, they are very keen to find out, wanting more power and influence in a society that pretty much excludes them.

Without wishing to spoil the plot, the men are right to believe that the women are holding back significant information from them. By segregating the sexes and restricting mens' access to education and pre-destruction knowledge, the women are able to manipulate the technology they have to make advances towards a non-violent society. How this is achieved is the secret that could destroy everything should the men uncover the truth. It also raises a very real moral dilemma... do the means justify the hoped for end result? Certainly it gave me plenty to think about after I had finished reading the book.

Sheri S. Tepper's writing is gentle and allows the plot to develop gradually over time. I found Stavia to be a compelling narrator, particularly when she used her 'actor' persona to hide her conflicting emotions. I also really liked Joshua, the family servitor, who, although very much in the background, was wise and insightful and provided balance to an otherwise divided culture. To some degree he was presented as an idealised male archetype, something the society strived for, yet because he had rejected the warrior life, he was also somehow lacking in honour and not always given the respect he deserved. The men in the garrison, on the other hand, were largely stereotyped as aggressive, resentful and hungry for power and control. Another group, the 'Holylanders', misogynistic polygamous descendents of fundamentalist-type Christians were interesting in that they provided a stark contrast to the culture of the Women's Country.

Throughout The Gate to Women's Country are scenes from Iphigenia of Ilium, the traditional play that the Council put on every year before the summer carnival. This is a reworking of the Greek tragedy The Trojan Women and used as a guiding theme or leitmotif, as the adult Stavia prepares to play her part in the performance. I found this particularly interesting as it was treated almost as a religious text, and indeed, highlighted certain aspects of this post-apocalyptic society.

It is fair to say that I really enjoyed reading The Gate to Women's Country and found it gave me plenty to think about. Would I enjoy living in such a matriarchal society, where, apart from the servitors, contact with men was limited to two carnivals every year? While I appreciated the desire for a completely pacifist society, I am not sure I would be prepared to go along with the measures the Women’s Council practiced in their attempt to achieve this. To me this felt oppressive and lacking in basic respect for the men, and the secrecy surrounding this was deceitful to say the least. However, this is a society still trying to rebuild itself some three hundred years after a nuclear war; a war that was indiscriminate in selecting its millions of innocent victims and blighted large parts of the land; a war that was started and fought predominantly by men… our own current society.

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[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that introduced me to Sheri Tepper. It addresses questions of why humanity is so violent and possible solutions, of gender politics, of what a future might be like if men and women did not live together as a rule.
In this post-apocalyptic future, matriarchal women live in walled towns, carrying on agriculture, arts, crafts and politics. Men live outside the towns in warrior garrisons, to protect the women.
The story is about our heroine and how she learns some of the secrets of her society, secrets that are hidden by putting them right out there in the open so anyone with the wit to notice can see. Her personal story is framed beautifully by the device of a performance of Iphegenia at Ilium, a reworking of The Trojan Women, that examines the place of women, and their usual fates, in the patriarchal 'old times.'
I love this book.

[Allison Hurd · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Tepper and definitely not my last. A very measured and yet somehow outraged look at why the two major genders are so separate a la "Women are from Venus and Men are from Mars" type essentialist constructs.

CONTENT WARNING: Misogyny, rape and sexual assault, disparaging takes on sex work, eugenics, homophobia/genocide, religion, suicide, loss of a child, domestic violence

Things that were very interesting:

-The thought experiment. Say that people born with vaginas and people born with penises separated when they were 5 years old, and spent time only with those who share their anatomy and their puberty process. Say women were not allowed a say in the military or to stop their sons from joining it, and men were not allowed education beyond a third grade level. What would that world look like?

-The even tone. This book could have been an angry dystopia or a vicious utopia, but instead we're left with lots of ideas and consequences with very little attack on the reader's psyche. We see the victims here, and there are a lot of them.

-The choices. A lot of cause and effect with an interesting focus on how women have dealt with abuse and oppression over the centuries.

-The characters. There are very few black and white "good" or "bad" characters.

Things that were not as appealing:

-Very few black and white characters. I don't think race is really in here, which isn't necessarily bad because this idea the author was working through was very dependent on there not being "outsiders" other than those she constructed, and as we all know, humans really like to make as many "thems" as they can to squirrel away control. On this note, there's some pretty upsetting treatment of the human value of queer folks, and very little discussion on the negatives of eugenics, though it's also not paraded as salvation. Kinda messy on that front.

-The parts that weren't even handed. We are bashed over the head with a sort of Church of Latter Day Saints/scientology evangelicalism and the toxic parts of masculine identities in hierarchical societies. I'd have liked this to have received the same nuance. While we see how toxic aspects of masculinity are also harmful to the men, there could have been a lot more here. When you hate the feminine, you cut off half the human experience, and that's a true loss to those trapped by their own constructs of how to be a man. I'd like to see this explored more.

A very thoughtful and provocative book well written.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘The Gate to Women’s Country’ by Shari Tepper is brilliant! I think she nailed it - about men and women, about the value of education and those who want to avail themselves of using education for improvement and those who think education, especially history and science, a waste of time, about religious dogma, about sex/desire/youth, about the necessity of rebuilding a workable, and equitable, sane culture after a devastation (in this science fiction novel, it has been a nuclear war). Of course, I am a feminist, so. Tepper and I share that faith.

Oh, it also is a very well-written entertainment! ‘The Gate to Women’s Country’ isn’t simply a social treatise, but a thoughtful story. I think it has more than a touch of allegory threading its way throughout the plot - especially since it frequently makes reference to and sneakily reboots that classic story of everything supposedly worthy of the male gender and the glorious male entitlement men create to justify their worst selves - The Iliad.

I have copied the book blurb because it is accurate:

”Tepper's finest novel to date is set in a post-holocaust feminist dystopia that offers only two political alternatives: a repressive polygamist sect that is slowly self-destructing through inbreeding and the matriarchal dictatorship called Women's Country. Here, in a desperate effort to prevent another world war, the women have segregated most men into closed military garrisons and have taken on themselves every other function of government, industry, agriculture, science and learning.

The resulting manifold responsibilities are seen through the life of Stavia, from a dreaming 10-year-old to maturity as doctor, mother and member of the Marthatown Women's Council. As in Tepper's Awakeners series books, the rigid social systems are tempered by the voices of individual experience and, here, by an imaginative reworking of The Trojan Woman that runs through the text. A rewarding and challenging novel that is to be valued for its provocative ideas.”

I really enjoyed the reveals at the end! The ‘secrets’ of Women’s Country were absolutely logical and necessary for the survival of humanity. I kept feeling if only I had a magic wand….

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember reading this book for a Science Fiction class I took in college. Unlike probably everyone else in the class, except for my friend Chris, I hadn't ever gone through a scifi phase, or ever liked reading scifi books. The closest I ever came was really liking Star Wars and other movies as a kid. I'd even tried once reading a Star Wars novel as a kid and thought it was stupid and gave up on it.

So I took this class in a genre I had no interest in, and the teacher was all gung-ho about sf being all about being able to engage in interesting ideas and complex politics and stuff like that. This book was one of those complex ideas. What I remember is that women all live in this big gated community, with some eunuch like men who do their bidding, and I think they have some studs around to get them babies, oh wait no, now I remember they let the men in at one time each year to make babies with. The men live out in the wilderness and are kept out of the civilization of the gated community. Then there is someone who falls in love with a guy out in the wilderness or something like that and the women question their treatment of men or something. I don't really remember. I do remember thinking that the book was on the trite side, and it's grappling with serious issues was kind of weak and one dimensional.

I do remember that the book read really fast though and that while I withered in a chair in the school library about the simple-minded political discourse going on, I also found myself pretty engaged in the story and wanting to keep on reading. So three stars.

[YouKneeK · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Gate to Women’s Country is a standalone science fiction novel by Sheri Tepper. This was my first time reading anything she had written.

The story is set on earth, long after an apocalyptic event known as the “convulsions”. Most of the pre-convulsion technology was wiped out. In their society, women do most of the work for maintaining their communities, learning the sciences and the arts and the skills necessary for survival. The men mostly serve as warriors, living apart from the women, with some exceptions among men who have chosen to remain with the women as servitors. The story primarily follows Stavia, alternating between a timeline starting when she’s 37 and a timeline starting when she’s 10. The younger timeline gets the most page time, and takes Stavia into her early 20’s as she deals with life and begins to learn some of the secrets of the society she lives in.

I liked this. I put it down easily, but I enjoyed it when I picked it back up. There’s a lot of depth to the world-building here, and a lot of meat to chew on. There are a lot of gray areas with the society portrayed in this book. I could understand how and why the people made the choices they did to create their society, but I also thought it had a lot of flaws and found myself debating whether the benefits were worth those flaws.

The characters were as nuanced as the world-building, and I cared quite a bit about what happened to Stavia. Having the two timelines split up did remove some of the suspense about what would happen to Stavia whenever she was in danger in the earlier timeline, but the story from the earlier timeline was interesting enough despite that and it had plenty of other revelations to offer.

The story was satisfying as it is, but there was also enough depth to the world that I felt there could have been other interesting stories to tell in the same setting. I might have chosen to read them if they existed. I also have the author’s book Grass on my Kindle, so I look forward to getting around to that one someday.

The Kindle edition I read has a lot of random italics that don’t belong there. That got a little exasperating. I kept catching myself reading a sentence with odd emphasis because of the incorrect italics, then I’d compulsively re-read it without the emphasis so it didn’t sound so ridiculous.

[Wanda Pedersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very much a product of its time! Post-nuclear war, societies are sorting themselves out and we get to witness two ways of dealing with things. One is very, very matriarchal, the other over-the-top patriarchal. As I began reading, I started with the impression that I was exploring a very patriarchal set-up. Fooled me! Yes, the women and men live (mostly) separately and the women must present sons to the warriors to be raised in warrior culture. But women control almost everything else (medicine, agriculture, trading, education, etc.). Not very religious, but any references present are based on Greek mythology. Sex is viewed as healthy & desirable as long as disease is prevented.

On the other extreme is a community apparently organized much like the polygamist culture in Bountiful, B.C. and in Utah. Older men appropriate all the women & girls for their own “harems,” leaving the young men frustrated and angry. Sex is viewed as an evil necessity, but still avidly desired and “religiously” pursued. Very religious society, based on the Judaeo-Christian model.

Although the author does seem to favour the matriarchal culture, my impression from the book is that she wanted to show that NEITHER extreme is desirable and that both fail in crucial aspects. Perhaps influenced by Margaret Atwood’s excellent The Handmaid’s Tale as well as other post-apocalyptic novels of the 70s and 80s. A bit dated today, but worth reminding ourselves that we can co-operate together to run society fairly.

Book 247 in my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project.

[Alex Bright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Content warning: Rape, child abuse, suicide

4.5 stars... not sure whether to round up or down.

This novel was completely captivating from start to finish. A well-constructed, complex, and fascinating look at a post-apocalyptic society dominated by... who, exactly? Men or women? It's hard to understand at times, which is partly what makes the narrative so intriguing.

We follow the life of Stavia, from the age of 10 to the age of 37, as she makes decisions on how to best deal with the ordinances of her community. Within the walls of Women's Country are the women, girls, boys under five, and the non-warrior men referred to as servitors. Everything is run by an all-female council. At the age of five, all boys are given to their warrior fathers outside the walls, to be raised up to be soldiers in the garrison. To them, honour is everything, and women are to be protected... but never trusted.

The gender-split society is not a new concept by any means -- I literally read another book with that trope a few months ago -- but there is more care taken by Tepper to the purpose of it all. She unfolds her world and its characters slowly, never giving the reader too much at a time, but allowing us to react to new information as intimate puzzle pieces which eventually create a cohesive, expansive picture. A nightmarish one, at that. I especially enjoyed the mirrored story in the play performed (or at least rehearsed) throughout the main text.

Spoiler Reactions


I had a great deal of difficulty with this novel, and how I felt about it all. There's no doubt it's extremely good. As I said -- I was captivated. But it also made me angry at certain points, especially when we find out that the whole warrior system has been set up by the council of women, to essentially breed out aggression in all men. Hell, they even allow their entire garrison of over-25s to be massacred. Meanwhile, the warriors' sons aren't even theirs -- they're being lied to. So are most of the women, but it's the men that suffer.

I understand the point. I really do. Part of me wants to agree with what they're doing and that's what distresses me the most. Men are largely responsible for the wars of history and of oppressing women. But there's something here that smacks of eugenics and that makes me more than a little uncomfortable. Even worse, perhaps, is that the boys are barely given a chance. Sure, they are allowed to give up being warriors and re-enter Women's Country, but what are the chances of that when are not even allowed to be educated? To learn a better way? Instead, they are raised by warriors who *shock* indoctrinate them into wanting the warrior lifestyle. They are even bullied and abused if they show any signs of not wanting to live "honourably." Servitors are weak and despised in their eyes, and no child wants to be part of the out-group. It's the same way cults operate, and boys are just given over to the garrison with little help or hope. Selection is a long process and the male children are the righteous sacrifices.

The lies are required though, right? To create a better world? Otherwise, a place like Holyland is the only other option. Right?

The story is fiction, obviously. The characters are trying to solve the problem laid out before them, and the author obviously wanted to make a point, which she did in fantastic fashion. However, I hope no one comes across this novel and thinks its a good idea. Women can do evil as well.

I have to think on the rating.

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

My review just disappeared and I really don't feel like regurgitating the specifics of my dislike for this book again, so this will be shorter than my original. How annoying.

Basically, the book left a sour taste in my mouth... The only options for civilization (or anything resembling it) are a primitive, polygamous society that abuses its women and leaves infant girls out to die; roving bands of Gypsies that act as traveling whorehouses; and Women's Country where the "Damned Few" keep the truth from everyone else. The book raised issues such as nature vs. nurture, the nature of men and women, what freedoms we can/should give up in exchange for safety, and who should make those decisions, but it never really dealt with the issues in anything resembling a positive direction.

Sex is used as a tool to satiate the warriors twice a year, not as a demonstration of love or even for procreation. Marriage is spoken of only a couple of times as a brutal shudder-worthy pre-convulsion custom. There is little affection between characters except for a mother and her children, especially her sons, who are sent to live with the warriors at the ripe old age of 5. Seems to me that if you are trying to create a society that values peace, thoughtful intelligence, and compassion, sending half of your population into an environment that intentionally devalues those very qualities in favor of brute strength, cruelty, "honor," and selfishness is just a bit counterproductive. And though the Councilwomen's goal of a peaceful society is laudable, their methods, which included subterfuge, deception, selective forced sterilization, and assassination, were not.

I didn't care for the play rehearsals that formed the "present day" part from which the flashbacks occurred. The play was supposed to be a comedy? Children being thrown from city walls? Women raped and murdered? Ok... All in all, I could have lived quite happily my entire life without ever reading this book...

For more book reviews, visit my blog, Build Enough Bookshelves.

[l · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few comments:

1. I understand that we are now calling anything we find regressive "second wave feminism" but children, second wave feminists wrote extensively on male and female socialization, specifically wrt male socialization and violence. The idea that this book fails to address the connection between male socialization and violence because the writer was a backwards ~second wave feminist~ is absurd. Which is not to say that the author's line of thinking wasn't and isn't common either, but it's not a failing of "second wave feminism" per se. Read a book instead of relying on everydayfeminism.

2. It doesn't strike me as strange that a society composed almost entirely of women and formed in a post apocalyptic world would believe men inherently violent. The issue here is that the women fail to see the connection between the quasi spartan type training that the male children undergo and them becoming assholes. And this despite the narrative acknowledging it. The idea that the Right male children (those male children who have special genes and empath skills) will survive the training without succumbing to warrior culture... instead of thinking that warrior culture itself is toxic and should be stopped is strange.

If the belief was that men are inherently untrustworthy that would make more sense than a kind of reliance on the idea that right and wrong types of men exist and you can easily sort them out. The fact that none of the servitors have gone rogue seems unbelievable tbh. It seems as though the women are not trying to find/produce good men but rather that they're attempting to replace men with a more highly evolved form of male beings complete with special powers and devoid of the instincts that would ever allow them to behave in Patriarchal ways. Which is an odd, non solution to the problem of male violence. And that's acknowledged in the narrative as well with a servitor still feeling that he has to avenge "his" women etc. Because socialization will always be at issue...

3. I think it's funny that when female writers depict men as being inherently violent (which I don't believe they are but you can see how that belief forms given the enormity of male violence in our society and the seeming impossibility of addressing it), you get a huge outcry. Meanwhile having female characters who exist just to serve men and are inherently weak servile stupid etc... sure a few will call it sexist but do they call it gender essentialist? Cissexist? Lol. It's identified as a failing but never deemed "cissexist gender essentialist trash." Those are words reserved for women who write books with imperfect politics, apparently. And yes, it is imperfect. The throwaway mention of curing homosexuality for example. Amazing that she just stuck that in there with nothing to indicate how she wants us to feel about it - an example of how this society has lost so much in trying to fix itself, or a necessary evil? Who can say. I suspect it was just a throwaway idea and she never gave LG people any serious thought tbh. Which doesn't make it better but it's not something my gay ass cares too much about tbh.

4. Babes, I can't believe that I have to say this but there's nothing racist about the book drawing on a play by Euripides. (Sincerely, a woc who studied classics.)

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this one too much, honestly. I hadn’t heard 100% good things about Tepper’s work before, and some of the great feminist works of SF have been lost on me. (The Female Man, for example — The Gate to Women’s Country is from the same decade, so I wasn’t very hopeful.) And there were some cringe-worthy moments, to be honest; the whole bit about “gay syndrome” being cured now, for example.

Still, for the most part I really enjoyed this. It reminded me a little bit of Jo Walton’s The Just City, because it’s another attempt at building a perfect city and there’s a similar focus on the importance of art and learning. There’s a certain amount of Greco-Roman influence based on the play included in the text, Iphigenia at Ilium, too, and a rather Spartan set-up for the boys.

The relationships between the characters are interestingly done; the awkwardness of the relationship between Stavia and Chernon, particularly — his desire for real connection alongside his manipulative behaviour — but also family relationships, like those between Morgot and Myra, Myra and Stavia. There’s a lot of interesting stuff here: the ethical dilemmas about what the women do in the cause of ending violence, the unique empathy-related abilities which come out of it. In fact, the whole way the city is organised and ruled, the way violence is channelled and rebellion bled off. There’s some really brutal, horrible stuff here in the name of creating a better world. Tepper doesn’t shy away from showing us that, although sometimes I think she’s lacking in sympathy for the characters, judging them rather harshly and ascribing to a darker view of human nature than I’d like to accept.

Originally posted here.

[Petra · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had some issues with this novel that prevented me from giving it a higher rating:

1. not-so-subtle ramming of author's opinions down the reader's throat, and poor characterization as a result:
from evil inbred religious extremists, to equally cliched women-are-the-sufferers Iphigenia play (not to mention those evil hyper-masculine men that make sufferers out of women)...

2. depiction of homosexuality as an illness that gets successfully eliminated by some good ol' genetic manipulation



3. gender essentialism

[Kathleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have found Tepper to be frustratingly uneven as a writer. When her stories take on what might be called a "feminist" theme, they don't work as well for me as those who explore other themes.

This novel has a frame that I found especially irritating because the emotions described in the frame were never earned, and I did not find myself believing in or caring about them.

The inner story was, by contrast, quite engaging, and I found myself wishing that she had left out the frame entirely.

[Cheryl]

Read years ago. Decided to reread for SFFBC, August 2022. Got to p. 144 and got tired of how much darker and more bleak it is than I remembered it to be, and I know there's yuckier stuff coming. Not finishing, not rating.

[Ed Mestre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sheri Tepper has yet to let me down. I don't read a lot of science fiction, but when I do it is most often Philip K. Dick or Tepper. Dick for his street philosopher questioning the nature of reality, psychedelic prankster approach. And Tepper's imaginative & unique, often non-linear writing with a definite, but never strident, female perspective. In the 3 books of hers I've read, "Fresco", "Family Tree", & here "The Gate to Women's Country" the protagonists are women.

In this one she takes on nature of relations between & within the sexes head on with an allegory within an allegory approach. We are in some future world several centuries after some disaster that they allude to as the Convulsion. Is it a nuclear war? An ecological disaster? We are never told. We leap around the main character's, Stavia, life. Sometimes as a woman & others as a girl growing up in the Women's Country, a series of walled cities guarded by garrisons of male warriors. Inside are only women & non-warrior males known as Servitors. The two societies only come together for procreation at their so called carnivals.

Tepper creates an entire post-Convulsion world in fine detail. And not only one world, but several. In the woods beyond Marthaville & other towns are Gypsies, prostitutes, outcasts, & marauders. There are distant, isolated sheep stations. And far beyond that is Holyland. Which can only be described as a nightmarish patriarchal, Judeo-Christian Taliban.

But all this is not just an exercise in the imaginative. It presents us the many facets of what male-female relations can be. The good, the bad, & the ugly. This is far from male bashing. Both sexes can be flawed. But we are also given the hope that both can come together in a beautiful way and not just as lovers, but as fathers & daughters & sisters & brothers.

Throw in a twist or two at the end that not all is as it appears to be & this thought provoker is one hell of a read.

[Steelwhisper · Rating 1 out of 5]

Firstly, how can anyone rate such an atrociously written book as high as I see it done in hundreds of ratings? Dear me, I was wincing all the time while reading. The excruciatingly bad prose, including some horrific abuse of grammar, was having an effect like a severe toothache on me. Where was the fecking editor of this book? Because this sort of prose was in no way typical of writers of the 1980s (book is from 1987), when you get such female SciFi, Fantasy and spec authors as C.J. Cherryh, Ursula K. Le Guin, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Katherine Kurtz , Margaret Atwood, Anne McCaffrey or Tanith Lee. The sheer reading experience was awful enough already.

Then... why do I have the impression that a large amount of American feminist women hate men from the ground up? While I have read a couple of enlightening feminist books, even books which shoehorn feminism sideways into genre fiction (abovementioned female spec authors certainly did that now and then), there seems to be a large pool of female writers who have to hate men, who seem to hate their own gender as much in a way, who really carry boulder-like chips on their shoulders and somehow don't notice they entirely lost their grip on reality. Is it so easy to hate men in America? Does it come so naturally? Whatever the cause or reason: it disgusts me. It pushes me away from US feminism in a major way.

This book is misandrist, misogynic, gender essentialist, heterosexist, cissexist, homophobic, biphobic, trans*phobic and maniacally egotistic dross. It shocked me to learn that the author obviously supports the eugenics she writes about here! Good grief.

[Gretchen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A friend sent me this knowing full well that I didn't like futuristic novels-he said I am sending this to one of the strongest women I know! I have probably read it 100 plus times (it is like comfort food-I found myself reading it along with the New Testament the week my sweet husband died ). I like the empowerment given to some women even though the men can't or don't want to understand. The empowered women see themselves as the damned as they manipulate the DNA and the numbers of their civilization remaining after the last big atomic war. As more men choose to return to women's country more of an Eden can be established. My daughter knew how much I love this story and went on-line and found me a first edition! I have given many copies of this book away and will continue to read and encourage others to read it. Couldn't get my church group to read it as it has the "F" word in it a few times! Get past it--A GREAT READ

[Zach · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Gloria Steinem of second-wave-inspired post-apocalyptic novels of gender separation? (making Walk to the End of the World Shulamith Firestone, perhaps, and The Shore of Women... Simone de Beauvoir? I don't know, I haven't actually read those two yet) Anyway my point is that this is the sort-of-essentialist (but maybe not?) liberal feminist version of the story, wherein men and women are fundamentally different and need to be mostly kept separate for their own good, except for those "womanish" men who have opted out of the warrior lifestyle and live among the women (no, not gay men-homosexuality has been medically eliminated... I know, I know), and where women are just better suited to lead because of their biological drive to nurture.

Anyway 300 years after the "Convulsion" women live in towns while the male warriors are garrisoned outside of them, kept uneducated and without access to most tools or technology in order to prevent another war.* We explore this world through a Councilwoman's daughter, Stavia, whose main purpose appears to be making terrible choices in order to drive the narrative along. Not that there's that much narrative, anyway-this book is an exercise in social worldbuilding and little else. There's an "enemy" culture introduced like 2/3s of the way through to provide some conflict and a short adventure, but their whole episode feels rather tacked on, which is too bad, because if they had been developed from the beginning it would have strengthened the novel considerably.

I remain, I must confess, a little mystified as to whether Tepper was trying to reinforce or deconstruct this essentialist society-although much of that might be my own disdain for such ideas rendering it a little difficult for me to take this stuff seriously. I guess it didn't help that the society didn't really make any sense at all anyway.


* It must be noted too that a lot of negative reviews of this book on here center on Tepper's "unfair' characterization of men, which is great because A) turnabout is fair play, chumps, and B) these male characters are carbon copies of the heroes of most speculative novels.

[Olga Yolgina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have so many feelings about this one. Looking forward to the VBC discussion.

[Whitney (SecretSauceofStorycraft) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A critically acclaimed obscure and very unique book.

It takes place in a world where men and women live seperately- the men are roving warriors and the women and children stay in the city to keep the knowledge and run the farms. But as two young lovers are about to discover…. Nothing is what it really seems.

This books is about human nature and questioning if we can rise above it to become something more or not.

I was surprised with how easy it was to read and how it went in a different direction than expected. It was a bit slow and meandering but overall I enjoyed it. Tepper is a great writer and a good storyteller if you can settle in and listen.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

One thing I hate about many books is that they often starts off with flying colors with amazing prose and plotting, making me think it's going to be my new favorite book. And then they usually glided, or stumbled, down into disappointments by the end of the story, when the author clearly ran out of ideas or got simply lazy.

Not with this author.

In fact, I hated the first 25 pages. The writing was too forced, too 'overwrought,' as Tepper attempted to set up the background and history of her story. But the story gradually grabbed a hold of me with its relevant feminist interpretation of the Iliad/Odysseus (and maybe Aeneid), juxtaposing it with a eco-feminism dystopian reality. She kept her best cards until near the end, and I enjoyed the overlapping of her ideas with the characters' struggles, and how it blended together quite seamlessly. The writing seemed to improve by the conclusion as the plot became more driven and the ideas much clearer.

For thousands of years (and they still are), women have been raped, pillaged, murdered, objectified, and used as currency for men. Tapper imagines a walled city, a feminist utopia, where they are treated as equals and nothing of the aforementioned by the patriarchal hegemony will happen to them. However, outside the walls, the patriarchal flag still wave with all its ugliness. Basically, Women's Country is about a heroine, who remembers a terrible bildungsrowoman journey she had as a young woman that transformed her purview from a innocent girl's into a grown woman's. Along her journey, Tepper poses many problematic questions and themes arising from the two sexes - the ownership of women, the identity (or the lack thereof) behind the names, the nature of man, evolutionary biology, and the male gaze in literature.

**SPOILER**
It has been said the writer is guilty of essentialism, which means she reduces men into stereotypical evil beings. I think this is partially true, as she exhibits this somewhat with Chernon when he takes sides with the boys who kidnapped the heroine Stavia. But I am going to give Tepper some license on this, because of the simple enormity that men has done to women throughout history, and, besides, Tepper did write some male characters that does not reveal any ill-will or possessiveness towards women. What I didn't like out of her ideas was about eugenics - she posited the idea of trying to eliminate the combative and possessive nature of man through artificial selection by the women. Fascinating stuff, to be sure, and I enjoyed her radical ideas, but eugenics opens a can of worms that leads to a very slippery slope to more exclusion towards minorities (e.g.., Deaf people, people of color).
**SPOILER**

I read this book for a book club, and I groaned when this book was picked - I didn't want a sci-fi book about an apocalyptic future, but I am happy to say Tepper exceeded my expectations.

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a let down. Sure, the plot kept me going, but I resent anyone, male or female, who confuses feminism with man-hating. As a woman, I found this book profoundly insulting to the men I love, and even many of the men I don't. The only men who aren't lying, raping, manipulative butchers are some sort of mutant freaks that the women are trying to breed for? What kind of equality is that? What kind of dialogue of mutual understanding will come out of reading this? Ursula Le Guin can not only write circles around Tepper, she can address issues of gender, war, and oppression in various forms without ever sliding into this simplistic female=good, male=bad thinking, with the few exceptions just proving the rule, Sheesh. Rush Limbaugh would adore this book, because it proves all the nasty things he's been saying about feminists for years. I loved the first few things I read by Tepper but the last three I've tried have gone from bad to worse. I haven't been this ticked off at a book in a long time. I did finish it, because as I said, some of the characters and their story were interesting enough, but the background was entirely offensive.