Subject: Sheri S. Tepper - The Gate To Women's Country

From: [email-masked] (Leo Breebaart)
Date: 10 Jul 92 06:19:12 GMT

Sheri S. Tepper
The Gate To Women's Country (1988)
Corgi Books (UK)
ISBN 0 552 13419 8

Finally got around to reading Sheri S. Tepper's "The Gate To Women's 
Country". The occasional indignant mention this book had gotten here 
on the net had led me to expect a rabid, 'unfair' piece of militantly 
feminist propaganda. Or no, let me be frank: what I *really* 
expected was that my realistic, European sensitivities would be far 
less likely to be offended by a woman-oriented book than those of my 
American fellow-netters [gross generalization there -- no offense 
intended]. And in fact, that is just what happened.

"The Gate To Women's Country" is a very interesting, easily readable 
novel, and if some men are bothered by the book's admittedly less-
than-flattering approach to Manhood As We Know It, then I don't want 
to know how women must be feeling with all those thousands of other 
books around in which *they* are unflatteringly described, in which 
broad generalizations about their sex are made, or in which they are 
not even considered important enough to play a role of any 
relevance. Tepper does not believe that men are unimportant -- not 
at all.

The story takes place in a post-holocaust setting: humanity has 
survived, and there are no real radiation problems, but our numbers 
are small and almost all technical knowledge has been lost, along 
with most of our fauna and flora. After the War, it so happened that 
some smart women were the first to take steps towards a rebuilding 
of civilization, and by the time of the events in this book that has 
led to an intriguing society: Women's Country. A number of 
autonomous cities run and populated (mostly) by women, and each 
protected by a male-only military garrison *outside* the city. These 
male and female societies have only official contact, they live 
completely separate otherwise. There are no longer marriages or 
relationships between male and female: twice a year the men are let 
inside to help conceive children, and when they are five all little 
boys are delivered to the garrison to be raised. When the boys reach 
15 and again at 25 they have the option of 'coming home' and 
becoming a 'servitor': males who *do* get to live in Women's 
Country. Unfortunately, most boys get so indoctrinated into the 
ridiculously militaristic macho garrison society (always at war in 
order to 'protect' the women) that few of them actually do return.

Against this background "The Gate" tells the story of Stavia, first 
a young girl, later a Council member in Marthatown. This is 
typically a novel that is less concerned with telling a ripping yarn 
then it is with exploring its world and philosophizing about the 
roles of women and men in society. And I think Sheri Tepper succeeds 
nicely in that. She has been guilty previously of some horribly 
sloppy hackwork (most notably the True Game trilogy), but it is 
obvious that the subject matter of "The Gate" is close to her heart 
as well, and she pays great attention to detail. The novel is well-
structured, well-balanced, and is thankfully *not* pretentious. 
Neither does it attempt to explain everything, or to pass (too 
much) judgment.

As I said, the male sex is indeed not particularly flatteringly 
portrayed in this novel. The garrison societies are exaggerated 
stereotypes: most males there are evil villains and rapists who 
carry out ridiculous ceremonies with ribbons and honors, who build 
huge phallic monuments they parade to, who are constantly talking 
about 'honor' when in fact they will use it as an excuse to indulge 
in every type of despicable behavior. I could understand people 
getting mad at such an unfair portrayal, but I really think they 
have not understood Tepper's intentions correctly. To me, at the end 
of the novel, it becomes extremely obvious that Tepper's main point 
is *not* "Men are Evil, Women are Good", but something entirely 
different: "Maybe women are just as bad as men" -- not a very radical 
feminist thought, right?.

The rest of this review contains some SPOILERS.



Sure, Tepper at first strings us along the road of that first 
thought, but don't forget the story is told through the eyes of a 
young woman, who mostly accepts what she is told, and who turns out 
to know not much of what is *really* going on. It is only in the 
last chapters that we learn some things about Women's Country that 
make us question how utopic this female-run society really is. It 
turns out that a small elite of women (the aforementioned Council) 
are taking actions that the majority of the women are not allowed to 
know of. Among these actions are the use of extreme violence (in 
certain cases), the suppression of rebellions (rebellion? In 
peaceful Women's Country?), and a genetic breeding program involving 
both the males and the females, including sterilization of
'unsuitable' people and artificial insemination of 'suitable' ones -- 
without their consent or even knowledge. Add to that some more wholesale 
lying and deceiving of the masses, and a deliberate policy of keeping the 
men stupid and keeping them fighting by manufacturing fake war-threats. 
At the end of the novel it is decided that the *entire* Marthatown garrison 
has become too rebellious, and a war is concocted with explicit 
'instructions' that none of the men are to be allowed to survive. They don't.

I don't quite see how anybody who has read the book this far can 
still conclude that Tepper is advocating Women's Country as the 
ideal solution to the problem of male competitiveness and dominance. 
Yes, she does say that a society run by women will not have many of 
the standard problems that plague male-dominated societies, and yes, 
the intentions of the Council are honest and not evil in themselves, 
and even seem to be working out pretty ok. But who gives the Council 
the right to decide and lie and tamper on such a grand scale? And of 
course: who watches the watchwomen? These are the questions that I 
see this novel asking, and I suppose if anyone knew the answer we 
would all be a lot happier. That Women's Country *isn't* the answer 
is something that Tepper makes very clear in the next to last 
paragraph of the book, in which (in the context of a play) Iphigenia 
describes to Achilles what Hades is like: "What's Hades like? 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. You'll 
understand when you come there at last, Achilles... Hades is Women's 
Country."

Final Note: As you can tell, I liked the novel, but there were two 
parts in it that I find troubling, if not downright distasteful. 
Near the beginning there is a very nasty paragraph about how the 
disease homosexuality was finally diagnosed as a 'curable' hormonal 
imbalance. I don't know. This seems to me so in conflict with 
accepted ideas about the origins of homosexuality (or rather what 
those origins are *not*), that it has no place in even a science 
fiction story.

Second: I am no expert in biology and evolution theory, but I do 
think that Tepper's opinions about genetics and 'breeding' humans
are very simplistic if not downright ridiculous (the way in which 
nasty people in this story always get nasty children completely 
regardless of nurture environment, for instance). It doesn't really
matter for the plot, but I see no reason to be scientifically careless
about such an important issue.

%A      Sheri S. Tepper
%T      The Gate To Women's Country
%I      Corgi Books
%C      London
%D      1990 (Copyright 1988)
%G      ISBN 0-552-13419-8
%O      paperback, UKL3.99
%P      363pp

-- 
Leo Breebaart  (leo @ ph.tn.tudelft.nl)