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The Gate to Women Country Sheri S Tepper 9780006482703 Books

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The Gate to Women Country Sheri S Tepper 9780006482703 Books

Okay, I first read this probably around when it first came out. I was going through my own women's lib learning curve and thought this would be very interesting since I'd loved most of SST's other fantasy works. I however finished that reading with very mixed feelings. I reread it again when I was well into my own adulthood and had a more solid grasp on where my own liberation and "feminism" (I don't like that word and never felt it was defined properly) and still found myself disagreeing with the premise. Now that I'm a senior female, decided I needed to read it again and found it, again, kind of wrong. This time I questioned why things were done the way they were in the book--why relegate all male children to a military existence to begin with? Doesn't make much sense to me. Just sort out the male children with violent tendencies. But I guess nowadays we call that jail and prison. This is the one Sheri Tepper book and idea, that I have the most trouble with, although in many of her other books she does come down hard on ALL males. Maybe I've been very very lucky to have known a lot of liberated males during my lifetime, and learned how to get-around the more controlling ones. I think it is important for all society to be integrated in all ways and that both genders (or all genders) contribute to the wealth of knowledge. I also believe that if mothers raised their sons to be more responsible humans, not just responsible males but just responsible souls, we probably wouldn't have so many males who feel they should be privileged and who feel they are above everyone else. I do blame the mothers for a lot of the problems, I saw it in my own family and in the family. I don't think segregating the males from the females solves anything--no more than segregating black and white, or old and young, or rich from not rich, etc. That just creates more division and neither end understands the other, or even thinks of the other as human. I also never found the "servors" (not a good name for that status because it makes it sound too much like those people are just and never will be anything more than servants) to be appealing at all, to me they feel more like eunices with no sex appeal--so unless all those women are being artificially inseminated (and what's the fun in that?), then I don't know how procreation goes on in Women's Country. I also know men, the vast majority of men, need a certain amount of challenge and competition(? not quite right but I can't think of the word I want) for testosterone to continue to be high enough to feel like males--men need a certain kind of male dominance, not control or abuse or real dominance, but they need to feel they are manly men in order to procreate successfully. Emasculated males don't work well.


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The Gate to Women Country Sheri S Tepper 9780006482703 Books Reviews

In some future society, Tepper supposes, there will be a way to reduce the human impulse for war.

Although this will require a change in human nature, it can be managed by a simple strategy. Women will marry warriors, but their children will secretly be fathered only by the peaceful "servitors." The women and servitors will raise the children apart from the quasi-military cohorts of men. At puberty, boys will be sent to live with their nominal fathers; while girls must choose (without knowing, though with hints from their lessons) to do the same as their mothers.

Thus everyone gets what they want militant men get honor and the "naming of sons," women get a peaceful home, children, and a spouse-substitute help-meet, boys get a heroic role model until they are old enough to recognize the quiet power of the servitors.

At age 25, though, the young men face a choice; they may choose conflict and stay with the men, or they may return through the gate to Women's Country and become servitors—and be scorned by their military mates, their commanders and their nominal fathers.

Of all Tepper's novels, this is the one in which I find the most philosophic agreement. For one thing, the "pacifist" men are not helpless wimps; the servitor Joshua and the returned Corrig are both powerful fellows versed in self-defense. For another, women are not either/or some are strong, but focused on family; some are high-achievers, wielding leading their communities, but puzzled by rebellious daughters.

There is little of the "woman alone against men" flavor of Tepper's later novels. Households are woman plus man plus children, and only the division of woman-led Town versus warrior-led Garrison foreshadows the author's later work.

Tepper's novels often carry an obvious theme accented by a more-subtle leitmotif. "Gate" is one of the easiest to parse for these elements. Stavia and her mother Morgot, throughout the tale, are occupied with studying their lines to play a part in a recurrent performance of "Iphegenia at Ilium," a reworking of the Dionysian play "The Trojan Women" The Trojan Women.

The lines the women recite all concern the suffering of women in the aftermath of war, an overt reason for the divided structure of their utopian (or protopian) society. Underlying this overt theme is the careful husbandry of humanity in the hands of the women, symbolized by Finns with their reindeer herds. Even nearly thirty years after it was written, this poetic coupling of "why" with a plausible "how" gives power to the struggle to move humanity beyond war.

Together, they make this "Gate" worth opening.
Well, I thought I had already made my comments about this book but maybe not. I first read this book when it first came out. I had read some of the writer's books before and enjoyed them in varying degrees. I liked this book, and recommended it to my then teenage daughter. She liked it and passed the recommendation on to her friends. Although that was years ago memory of the book has stayed evergreen and I downloaded it on my kindle and re-read it. Memory, being fraught with lapses, didn't serve me all thate and most of the story was new to me. I enjoyed it almost as a first-time read. I had forgotten the use of the great tragedy "The Trojan Women" in the story, but I found it singularly appropriate for the book's story and theme. The book is regarded as a "feminist" tome, but it really is a human story and does address the sins and results of male-dominated society. The women in the story have taken actions to alliviate the effects of such a society and are successful in their efforts. This isn't a beautiful or elegant book--though there are isolated moments--but the writing is serviceable and readable; what makes it such a good work is its thought-provoking nature. I treasure this book and have no hesitation recommending it to anyone.
Okay, I first read this probably around when it first came out. I was going through my own women's lib learning curve and thought this would be very interesting since I'd loved most of SST's other fantasy works. I however finished that reading with very mixed feelings. I reread it again when I was well into my own adulthood and had a more solid grasp on where my own liberation and "feminism" (I don't like that word and never felt it was defined properly) and still found myself disagreeing with the premise. Now that I'm a senior female, decided I needed to read it again and found it, again, kind of wrong. This time I questioned why things were done the way they were in the book--why relegate all male children to a military existence to begin with? Doesn't make much sense to me. Just sort out the male children with violent tendencies. But I guess nowadays we call that jail and prison. This is the one Sheri Tepper book and idea, that I have the most trouble with, although in many of her other books she does come down hard on ALL males. Maybe I've been very very lucky to have known a lot of liberated males during my lifetime, and learned how to get-around the more controlling ones. I think it is important for all society to be integrated in all ways and that both genders (or all genders) contribute to the wealth of knowledge. I also believe that if mothers raised their sons to be more responsible humans, not just responsible males but just responsible souls, we probably wouldn't have so many males who feel they should be privileged and who feel they are above everyone else. I do blame the mothers for a lot of the problems, I saw it in my own family and in the family. I don't think segregating the males from the females solves anything--no more than segregating black and white, or old and young, or rich from not rich, etc. That just creates more division and neither end understands the other, or even thinks of the other as human. I also never found the "servors" (not a good name for that status because it makes it sound too much like those people are just and never will be anything more than servants) to be appealing at all, to me they feel more like eunices with no sex appeal--so unless all those women are being artificially inseminated (and what's the fun in that?), then I don't know how procreation goes on in Women's Country. I also know men, the vast majority of men, need a certain amount of challenge and competition(? not quite right but I can't think of the word I want) for testosterone to continue to be high enough to feel like males--men need a certain kind of male dominance, not control or abuse or real dominance, but they need to feel they are manly men in order to procreate successfully. Emasculated males don't work well.