Lady Land: Difference between revisions

{{quote|"Only ''female'' Zone Troopers are allowed to enter Ador!"|'''[[Otherworld]]''', ''I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar''}}

 

 

In a Lady Land, the most common feature is that the population is predominately female. Males in this country may be considered inferior, or in extreme cases be immediately forced to [[Gendercide|death or expulsion]]. This may create problems in that most of the time, this leaves said society with no obvious method of reproducing. There's a very good chance that this issue will be brought up in-story.

* ''[[One Piece]]'' recently introduced the island of Amazon Lily, home of the Kuja tribe, which consists entirely of women trained in the ways of the warrior and where men are forbidden. While it is stated that women of the island leave and return pregnant (and ''always'' give birth to daughters), the population at large knows so little about men that it takes the eldest one in a group to even ''identify'' a naked Luffy as male. In the one piece universe there is also the Momoiro Island, home to the Kamabakka Kingdom, where everybody is a transvestite

* ''[[Girls Bravo]]'': Seiren, a hidden moon where there are nine girls for every guy. And of course, the guy who is allergic to girls ends up there, and promptly runs away (the series' resident Kuno wannabe, however, is promptly kicked off of the moon when he ends up there).

* ''[[Vandread]]'' has planet Majarl.

* The Koorime race in ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'', who are of the [[One-Gender Race]], man-hating variety (with the known exceptions of Yukina and her mother). {{spoiler|The reason they tried killing Hiei via dropping him off their floating isle is simply because he's male.}}

 

== Comic Books ==

* In ''[[Y: The Last Man]]'', every male mammal on Earth (save two, [[There Is Another|or so it seems at first]]) die, leaving the entire world to the women. It's subverted in that society is no more or less screwed up than it was before, barring the simple effects of around half the populace suddenly up and dying, though one female character notes that since that applies to mammals, not just humans, the biosphere may be screwed up when the next generation of the shorter-lived mammals is supposed to take its place in the food chain.

* Themyscira in the ''[[Wonder Woman]]'' comic books is the home of the Amazons and their princess, the titular character. Whether men are even allowed on the island is a question that is answered in different ways over the years. (The typical answer is "No, unless Wonder Woman invites them".) Also, there are [[Les Yay|occasional jokes]] about what the Amazons do for fun on an island inhabited only by women...

* The [[Marvel Comics]] [http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/femt.htm Femizons], an [[Alternate History|alternate future]] society where women are warriors and the few men are either slaves or feral "beast-men" living in the wilderness. [[Fantastic Four]] [[Heel Face Turn|enemy-turned-ally]] Thundra came from this timeline.

* Cirin's Upper Felda (and later on, most of Estarcion) in ''[[Cerebus]]''. Matriarchal fascism, enforced with an iron fist! Swift death to any man who dares resist! Really damned creepy butch super-soldier women in masks meting out fatal justice!

* Due to [[Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism]], the Martians of the ''[[XXXenophile]]'' story "My Favorite Oitling" (a parody of green Martians from the [[John Carter of Mars]] novels) are this. They are fascinated by the concept of a male who can play an active role in having sex.

* The society in the "Futurequest" parts of ''[[Elf Quest]]'' (''The Rebels'' and ''Jink'') is a milder example, more or less modern Western sexism inverted in that you are more likely to see women than men in high ranks, from being in charge of the most prominent car race, or of research facilities, or being the head of the state (that spans very nearly the entire solar system). The most blatant example might be a male "starfleet" captain who caused a PR desaster being told to fix things and, "You're always claiming to be the equal of any female officer -- prove it!". There's also deliberate flipping of stereotypes in some places, like a woman glued to the screen watching a car race while the man she lives with calls it silly and prepares to cook dinner.

* The planet Femax in the Marvel ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]'' comic is like this; men are apparently genetically inferior and so have to scratch out a living in the barren regions of the planet, while the women live in a concealed paradise. Their leader ends up falling for Cloudburst when he proves himself the equal of any woman.

* One part in a longer arc of ''[[Mandrake the Magician]]'' featured an amazon island where women ruled and men were docile housekeepers. After being captured, Mandrake attempts to regain their freedom by hypnotising one of the docile males into regaining his male dominance (which, curiously enough, involves making his man-skirt look like a pair of shorts). The man leads his fellow men in a revolt, overthrows the queen and establishes a "proper" male-controlled society... until the men go on a hunt and gets chased up a tree by a smug-looking boar. Amazon society returns to its stable old ways immediately, and Mandrake instead has to threaten to magically [[A Fate Worse Than Death|make the queen ugly]] to secure freedom.

 

== Fan Works ==

 

 

* Despite the title, ''[[Abbott and Costello]] Go To Mars'', the comic duo (plus a few extras) end up on Venus, complete with the requisite all-female society, including the Queen and cabinet. The men are treated as interesting curiosities, but in the end are rejected in favor of mere holograms of the former King!

* ''The Last Man on Planet Earth'' (that's not entirely true) where a woman scientist successfully clones a man. It is revealed that many of the female ruling classes are "closet heteros".

* In the [[So Bad It's Good]] ([[Your Mileage May Vary]]) remake of ''[[The Wicker Man]]'', Summerisle is controlled by women. The few men we see are mute, cowed-looking drones.

* In ''[[The American Astronaut]]'' the entire planet of Venus is a [[Planet of Hats]] of [[Southern Belle|Southern Belles]], the only exception being the king who is needed to mate.

* Pamela Sargent's The Shore of Women

* R. A. Salvatore's ''[[Forgotten Realms|Drizzt Do'Urden]]'' novels feature the matriarchal drow elves, as described under Tabletop Games below.

* The trope is amusingly played with by [[Sheri S. Tepper]] in ''Six Moon Dance''. Due to their frustration at the treatment of women on Earth, the founding mothers on their newly adopted planet of Newholme create {{spoiler|an artificial scarcity of female babies,}} and a dominant ideology that females are the stronger sex and males are the weaker. This results in the women being in power and are regarded as more valuable than men. The women twist biology and psychology into an unsettling dogma that allows them to rule the population. The absurdity of this ideology (i.e men must wear veils so they won't incite lust in the women; men aren't seen in public and only work at home, because home is where they "belong") holds a mirror up to irrational and controlling nature of sexism in the real world.

** 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]].

* An all-female [[Lost Colony]] is discovered in [[Poul Anderson]]'s novel ''Virgin Planet'' (the [[Hide Your Lesbians|alternative]] was hardly mentionable in a 1959 mainstream-SF novel). A secretive cabal held the technology for artificial impregnation (and the political power resulting from this monopoly), and they were not pleased about the prospect of reestablishing contact with men. Despite the legends that men were super-human godlike beings -- the natural consequence of their presence being combined with a higher level of technology, and the mists of time. Which legends cause serious problems for the man who finds him, because he was, after all, only human. The first women who find him are convinced that he's a monster (a.k.a. alien).

* In the ''[[CoDominium|Warworld]]'' novel ''Blood Vengeance'', a hidden society of "Amazons" lives in an isolated valley and is largely regarded as legend. They reproduce by having a pact with several nomad tribes who, every few years, return to a meeting ground and mate with the women warriors; male children are given to the tribes (or [[Unusual Euphemism|"to the earth"]]-- i.e., killed), and females are kept and raised by the women. The pact also, of course, includes vows of absolute secrecy about the whole arrangement.

* This is Akasha's goal in the third book in [[Anne Rice]]'s ''[[Vampire Chronicles]]'', ''The Queen of the Damned''. She gets around the procreation problem by leaving one man for every hundred women. Notably, she's not so much a feminist as a psychopath trying to justify world domination.

* The Republic of Diana in ''Slow Train to Arcturus'' is one of these, with subjugated males. Not the worst-off of the deliberately created [[Planet of Hats|habitats of hats]] found there, but they have problems.

* The Dryads in [[David Eddings]]' ''[[Belgariad]]'' are a female-only race who reproduce with captive men. Also, the extinct Marags were a matriarchal society in which women naturally outnumbered men by a significant margin.

* A piece that could very well be the [[Trope Namer]] is the short story ''Sultana's Dream'' by Indian author Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, in which a woman kept in seclusion visits a magical Utopia for women called, you guessed it, [[Lady Land]], where traditional Indian gender roles are reversed (men are kept in seclusion and do domestic work), which results in solar powered flying cars and world peace.

** Notably, there's no feminist or anti-feminist message here--''both'' genders are ''totally psychotic.'' Arguably also serves as an [[Averted Trope|aversion]] to [[Insect Gender Bender]], since the Helmacrons seem to resemble bugs (including by being less than an inch tall).

* In ''[[Everworld]],'' the Amazons are shown among the series' many mythological elements. They apparently have a habit of attacking and conquering other nations, including Egypt (which was political unstable for [[Royally Screwed-Up|various]] [[The Gods Must Be Lazy|reasons]]). Feminist [[The Chick|April]] seems to like them, and Christopher was beginning to get cozy with their queen...until [[Villain Protagonist|Senna]] points out that according to the mythology, they murder male babies and sell weaker daughters into slavery. Whether or not this is true isn't shown, but they ''did'' apparently execute a man for fathering twin sons with one of them and were not generally portrayed as nice people.

** [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|They also]] [[It Makes Sense in Context|worshipped Madonna]].

* The book ''World Without Men'' (published in 1958, revised in 1972 under the title ''Alph'') by Charles Eric Maine concerns a male [[Human Popsicle]] child thawed into a world without men.

* The [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] has several. Hapes, Dathomir, Kuat...Usually there's some [[Author Appeal]] involved, e.g. Dathomiri using the Force to kidnap and enslave men.

* Tanith Lee plays with this in ''East of Midnight'', in which a charming rogue unwittingly travels from a male-dominated world to a parallel female-dominated one, in which he happens to resemble the consort of the (female) Moon King. It also happens that the man he resembles {{spoiler|is marked for execution.}}

* In ''[[Ecotopia]]'', the titular society's government is dominated by women.

* In ''If I Pay Thee Not in Gold'' by [[Mercedes Lackey]] and [[Piers Anthony]], the women of Mazonia are the ones with magic (of conjuration) and so are in charge, with men as slaves or treated as second-class citizens if they've been set free.

* The [[Ursula K. Le Guin]] short story ''The Matter of Seggri'' takes place on a planet where, due to unexplained genetic circumstances, there are sixteen adult women for every adult man. The result is a society in which women run everything, and men are made to live isolated from wider society in "castles". They're seen primarily as sources of sex and entertainment, and mentally unfit for education or participation in society.

* A [[Lady Land]] also appears in a 19c protofeminist Chinese classic ''Flowers in the Mirror (Jing Hua Yuan)'' by Li Ru Zhen.

* [[Jane Yolen]]'s ''Great White Alta'' trilogy revolves around this. Women live separately from men in small groups, and men are used only for the purpose of reproduction.

* 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]].

* The ''[[Outer Limits]]'' [[Revival]] episode "Lithia." In the year 2055, the world is populated only by women. Almost all of the men were [[Gendercide|killed years earlier]] in a war, and the plot starts with a male soldier being awakened from [[Human Popsicle|cryogenic suspension]]. He adjusts to the society, but is [[Fish Out of Temporal Water|unsettled]] by the fact that power must be churned manually through a mill when there's a power plant a relatively short distance away. His attempts to "solve" this problem escalate until someone gets killed, at which point he's frozen again after we get the [[Cruel Twist Ending]]--{{spoiler|he's not the only man in storage- the leaders of this society found several, and tried reintroducing them to the population with disastrous results every time. The ending doesn't reflect particularly well on either gender, since while the male soldiers may be over-aggressive, the female leadership wasn't helping matters by just unleashing them at random and hoping that this time things would be different}}.

** Actually, the end of the episode seems to imply that they expected nothing other than men to cause trouble.

* The ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' episode Angel One had a society where women were not only in charge of everything, but naturally physically stronger than the men, while the men (who all seem effiminate by earth standards) dress mainly for sex appeal and are the cooks, secretaries, servants, etc.

* The ''[[The Two Ronnies|Two Ronnies]]'' serial "The Worm That Turned". Diana Dors rules Britain, men are forced to wear dresses, and the rules keeping men in their place are upheld by [[Fetish Fuel|mini-skirted Gestapo]].

** This troper remembers a TV movie based on an unsold series idea by Gene Roddenberry that used that plot. Post-apocalypse Earth, and a hero from the past now living in a technologically-advanced enclave. The plot summary above is accurate if limited. (Troper does not remember a ''Buck Rogers'' episode with that plot.)

*** The Roddenberry series was called ''Genesis II'' about an organization trying to rebuild human civilization after the apocalypse. The Female dominated culture was one of several the organization was trying to influence. Interestingly the [[Aesop]] was not 'Female Dominance Bad' but that the men didn't need to be drugged into compliance but if treated with respect and kindness would happily submit to their female masters. [[Broken Aesop]]?

* An episode of ''[[Sliders]]'', "Love Gods," sees most of the men in the world having been killed via germ warfare. Women generally take over society, while the surviving men (at least those with a healthy sperm count) are kept in compounds. The men are to impregnate the best possible women in order to rebuild the population, especially before another country does so. (The men that succeed the most are afforded many luxuries.) Naturally, when our heroes get there, the male characters are instantly mobbed and taken into custody.

** Amusingly (or Fridge Logic-ally), it's apparent that the female-run government is utterly incompetent. Since a single male ejaculation contains millions of sperm, repopulation would be most effective if sperm was collected, diluted, and passed out to all fertile women. Instead, the men are expected to have romantic one-night stands with one woman per night. The standard for a woman to be selected (by female officials) is apparently attractiveness -- women complain about being rejected for being "not pretty enough". Corruption and abuse of authority are rampant, there are riots by frustrated would-be mothers, and the general impression is that women can't organize anything more complex than a bake sale, never mind a recovery program. Maybe the smart women died along with the men?

* In one episode of Boy Meets World, Mr. Feeny gives Corey's class an assignment to plan out their future. Topanga envisions a future that involves moving all men underground and using them solely for breeding stock.

* An episode of [[The Adventures of Brisco County Jr]] brought Brisco and Professor Wickwire (and eventually Lord Bowler too) to "No Man's Land," a ghost town that was colonized by disaffected women who felt that they were entitled to the same American Dream as men (instead of "[[Stay in the Kitchen|watch my man get successful and have a small army of babies]]"). For the most part they're okay with the idea of men, they'd just rather keep to themselves until men are ready to play on their terms; except for [[Straw Feminist|one particular hardass]] who's perfectly willing to throw Professor Wickwire and a gravely injured Brisco out of town just because [[Exact Words|the sign says "No Man's Land"]] and the person who needs medical attention has the wrong wedding tackle (fortunately for Brisco, she gets overruled).

 

 

* The subterranean Dark Elves, or Drow, in the [[Forgotten Realms]] and [[Greyhawk]] settings for ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' live in a vicious [[Religion of Evil|matriarchal theocracy]] devoted to the demonic spider-goddess Lolth ([[Spell My Name with an "S"|or Lloth, depending on who you ask]]). Almost all men are either warrior grunts, midlevel military commanders, sycophantic courtesans, or bitter mages, while the women are either [[Fan Service|bondage-gear-wearing sword-swinging dominatrix]] military commanders or bondage-gear-wearing [[Whip It Good|whip-wielding]] dominatrix priestesses.

* [[Forgotten Realms]] also gives use Rashemen, a barbarian society ruled by a group women called the Gray Witches. Somewhat subverted in that all "manly" activities (fighting, drinking, wrestling grizzly bears, etc.) is still done by men, they just happen to hold women in awe because women can use magic.

* In the Warband Game ''[[Necromunda]]'', a spin-off to ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'', House Escher is basically built on this trope. Some genetic defect means that males born to the House are either stillborn, or physically and/or mentally deficient (usually both). As a result, the women run everything, including the gangs. They tend to look down on males from outside of their House, due to the fact their own are so innately pathetic, and clash fiercely with the "machismo-poisoned" House Goliath.

* The feminist orbital colony Margaret in ''[[Transhuman Space]]''. Given the transhumanism of the setting, they have to be flexible about the definition of "female". Given the equality of the setting, many people aren't sure why they bother.

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' has several examples: The Asari are a [[One-Gender Race]] of women and the few men on their planets are all aliens. On Tuchanka, the female Krogan got fed up with all the [[Blood Knight]] shit of the males and formed their own all-female clans. Since they are just as big and strong as the males and there are only very few remaining fertile females in the entire species, all of the male clans want to be on their good side or they simply won't get any more chances to breed new sons for their own clans. And even if one clan would try to capture females, the female clans would just have to ask all the other male clans to get them back. And then there are also the Salarians who similar to insects consist of a small number of female matriarchs and much larger numbers of male drones. While only a very small minority, politics is the exclusive domain of women.

* In ''[[Overlord]]'', the Heaven's Peak Abyss is literally a hellish vision of this - the women (who have aquired [[Glowing Eyes of Doom]] and [[Waif Fu]] skills from the powers of the hellish dimension) are all holed up in a marble-halled mansion filled with beautiful and expensive things, while the men - who are apparently unable to stand upright, and thus crawl around on the ground - are put to work as cleaners, gardeners, and occasionally footstools. Being [[Villain Protagonist|who you are]], however, your response to this setup is, of course, to kick down their doors, beat them into submission, and then carry them back to your castle as servants.

* ''[http://amazoness.co.uk Amazoness!]'' is set in Themiskyra, city of the Amazons. Men are barred from entering the city on pain of death (with one... [[Wholesome Crossdresser|unique exception]]) and procreation seems to happen via an arrangement with a neighbouring tribe.

* The Vulpine race in ''[[Terinu]]'' skirts the edges of this. They have a monotheistic Goddess based religion, noble inheritance goes through the female line and [[All There in the Manual]] explains that female head of the household is considered the Holy Den Mother's representative in the household, and has final approval over any junior household members' choices for marriage. On the other hand they supposedly have functional equality of the sexes outside those restrictions.

* In ''[[The Law of Purple]]'', Myranian culture is extremely sexist in favor of the women, who can scramble a person's mind and/or memories through skin-to-skin contact. Myranian men lack these powers and are more often than not viewed merely as sex objects and breeding stock. We do see two Myranian women with much more moderate attitudes, but the Myranian with the most screentime, Shi Shi, is on record as saying that "Men's heads need to be ''empty'' so they can stay ''safe'' and ''inside''!" in complete earnestness. (This is why she's so antagonistic toward Lette--as far as she's concerned, Blue is ''her'' toy, and she doesn't feel like sharing.)

* In ''[[Draconia Chronicles]]'' a fantasy webcomic about warring nations of Dragon and Tiger people, both dominated by the respective females of the species. In a case of ''[[Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism]]'' while the females of the species are anthropomorphic, the males are feral with normal male tigers and huge dragons. The males of the Dragons abandoned the females for not stopping the war with the tigers, leaving the females to reproduce using an "elixir" and becoming an entirely female society. While the male Tigers are present, they are protected in sanctuaries for reproduction and such while the humanoid females take care of military fights and the like.

* Themyscira, Wonder Woman's home, in ''[[Justice League]]''. The fact that the League saved the inhabitants from Hades didn't save Wonder Woman from being banished for bringing men into their midst. Oddly, the men she was kicked out for bringing in were honored as heroes, as they enforced the rules more out of tradition and fear of the gods than genuine dislike, at least in that instance.

** Flash even tries to stand up against this, however Hawkgirl calms him down and points out it is just as hard or even harder for them to enforce the rule.

* The land of Vaginia in the sex cartoon ''[[The Big Bang]]''.

* Ponyland in ''[[My Little Pony]]''. The male ponies are nomadic, while the female ponies...[[Les Yay|make do]]. [[Freud Was Right|Okay, no]].

* The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival establishes an all-female enclave for the duration of the festival. There were some serious rumbles over who was oppressing whom when they banned transwomen from the festival.

* Some universities have Women's Centers that permit only female membership or have women-only "safe spaces". (These days they usually say a woman is anybody who chooses to identify herself as one.)

* In an aversion of the earlier aforementioned Greeks, the Spartans of all the city-states were the most surprisingly, free. Women could divorce at will, and could own property in their own name, among many other things. In fact, they were more or less running Sparta while the men were away fighting (often!). No one Greek city-state was the same as another. Queen Gorgo (wife of Leonidas) responded to a question from a woman in Attica along the lines of why Spartan women were the only women in the world who could rule men, she replied "Because we are the only women who are mothers of men".

* In an interesting case, the samurai women in Japan, though in a more "traditional" role, were indeed better educated than most other women in East Asia at the time, as one of their chief roles was to teach their children. They were also trained in combat (granted, on more-or-less outdated weapons) and some women were renowned as equal in skill to many male samurai. The training was of course because aside from education, samurai women were to protect the home when the men were away (and provide backup when they were not).

* [http://www.aristasia.co.uk Aristasia] is a role-playing community/book-series founded on the idea of a world in which there are two genders, both female (one blonde, one brunette), time moves geographically (as in one area of Aristasia is in the 1920s, whereas its neighbors might be in the 1880s), and Femininity itself is one of the fundamental forces of the universe. The creator of the community has a very small retreat for women only that on occasion gets mentioned in the press. Frequently portrayed as [[Lady Land]].

* Nineteenth century New Bedford partially qualifies. As all the men were away [[Moby Dick|killing big adorable sea mammals]] the wives often ruled much of the city.

* A now defunct micronation located within the Czech Republic called the Other World Kingdom was this, based entirely around the [[Fem Dom]] style of BDSM. The other wiki has an article on it [[wikipedia:Other World Kingdom|here]].

* A generational version has happened in the past after wars. After [[World War I]] and [[World War II]], some remote villages lost so many of their marriage-age male population to battle that the very few men returning were a valuable commodity indeed - even if they were missing an arm or a leg.