Lady Land: Difference between revisions

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** Played much more straight in ''[[The Gate to Women's Country|The Gate to Womens Country]]''. The sexes are strictly separated; and the female ruling elite runs a program designed to breed out stereotypically "masculine" traits (aggression, dominance, etc). The sympathetic treatment of the female side, and the [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|somewhat caricatured portrayal of males]], strongly indicates that this is [[Author Tract|her idea of a feminist utopia]].

* Spoofed in [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld/Interesting Times|Interesting Times]]''. Rincewind is stuck on an island and is found by a tribe of lovely Amazons who have lost all their men to a highly specific plague and require him to repopulate their tribe. Sadly, Rincewind is magically "rescued" before he can obtain his greatest fantasy (potatoes).

* Subversion in [[Honor Harrington]]. The planet of Grayson has so much a genetic shortage of men that their religion permits polygamy. However and rather oddly, the men engage in the traditionally manly occupations like war, even though one would think them to valuable as reproducers. The society is definitely a patriarchy although to be fair the women are not treated as slaves (that is something done by distasteful fringe elements) but as wards. The Graysons take seriously the "fatherly" part of "patriarchy" for the most part. The planet is in many ways a paradise for men: plenty of women for everyone and no "uppity nonsense" about rights. That said most Grayson men seem pretty decent and it is not an intolerable place for women. But it is definitely not ruled by women even though they are the majority.

* ''[[Herland]]'' is the first work of fiction to take this premise at its serious roots- the male characters who have heard of the titular society make several assumptions about what it might be like, concluding that they'd soon be running the place with their superior rugged masculinity. They are naturally incorrect and are captured, but fortunately the women are deeply curious about male/female culture, having only heard about it through legend and keep the men around to discuss it. On comparison, the outside world compares poorly to the sexuality-less eugenicist [[Mary Suetopia]], and one of the male characters refuses to take his girlfriend out to see it since he doesn't want to disappoint her.

* Joanna Russ's [[Author Tract|polemical]] SF novel ''The Female Man'' has examples of various types of Lady Land, one where women and men are constantly at war, and a far-future one where men have been wiped out; at one point it's implied that the latter is a result of the former. She gets round the reproduction/relationship problem with gene-splicing tech and lesbianism. The plot is frequently pushed aside by the author [[Author Filibuster|talking, at length]] about how [[The Unfair Sex|men are oppressive]], and how women need to become [[Title Drop|"Female Men"]] to be treated as equals.

* In [[E. E. "Doc" Smith]]'s novel ''Second Stage [[Lensman]]'', the planet Lyrane II was ruled by women, who could be accurately described as highly telepathic Amazons. Their "males", by comparison, were almost dwarfish, subnormal in intelligence, and notably irrationally violent; their constant fighting among themselves (to the death, naturally) was seen as a form of "natural selection" by the ruling females. The "Persons" (as the Lyranian women referred to themselves) used the surviving males for breeding purposes (roughly one male to thirty "persons")- and then the last one "calmly blasted the male's mind and went about her business". The "persons" were quite capable of killing with mental force- well, except when the intended target was a Second Stage Lensman like Kimball Kinnison, that is. The fact that exactly none of the Lyranian "persons" was capable of even tolerating, let alone working with, a male of any species of Civilization for more than about three picoseconds (without at least trying to fry his brain) required the promotion of Clarissa MacDougall to Lensman ([[Unfortunate Implications|the first woman to be one]]) in order to perform an important mission there. The Lyranians defined MacDougall as a "near-person", most obviously because while she (a) not only shared their mental prowess, but actually exceeded it (even before she became an "L2" in "Children of the Lens"), she also (b) did not regard males as nothing but animals and (c) did not share their unconcern about public nudity.

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* David Patenude's ''Epitaph Road'', a society where the male population was decimated by an intentially released plague called Elisha's Bear. Men live on the fringes of society, have only the jobs women allow, and mostly only interact with the main female population to breed.

* The Hypolitan people in ''[[The Icemark Chronicles]]'' are basically this. Women are considered superior to men, and men only seem to gain status by association with a powerful woman. The ''southern'' Hypolitan in the third book take it [[Up to Eleven]]; their men are used as [[Cannon Fodder]], are literally slaves to their wives, and can be killed at any moment for insubordination or as a [[Human Sacrifice]].

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