No Woman's Land/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A place where women are treated very badly, with the Hand Wave that it's part of the culture.

  • Played Straight: Mansworld is ruled by men. Women are encouraged or required to Stay in the Kitchen.
  • Exaggerated: If a woman does/says/wears/etc. something wrong (or a man just thinks she did), she can be publicly raped and then publicly executed. This happens for the tiniest infractions, such as looking at someone the "wrong" way, or burning the roast.
    • Women are not even accepted in Mansworld and are killed on sight if they ever venture in it. Reproduction is taken care of through technological means and female babies are automatically aborted.
  • Downplayed: While women aren't treated horribly in this foreign land, there is noticeable prejudice.
  • Justified: Mansworld is a religious nation, based around the worship of a Straw Misogynist war god and his ideals.
    • There really have been (and still are) places and cultures where women have been mistreated and seen as less than human on cultural grounds.
      • A high mortality rate has led to a drastic reduction in the population and the people will die out if birth rates do not increase significantly, so the law punishes those who are not in the process of making babies. This obviously demands more from women than from men.
  • Inverted: Lady Land
  • Subverted: Although women in Mansworld are not seen in positions of power or significance, beating and raping them is severely frowned upon and so is not the done thing; aside from being required to fulfill certain roles and ideals whether they want to or not, they are treated very well.
  • Double Subverted: This state is a form of Stepford Suburbia; a woman who does not conform to accepted standards of beauty, lifestyle, personality, aspirations, etc. (i.e. a Hollywood Homely Tsundere who wants to be a scientist rather than a housewife) is killed (or brainwashed) by her nearest male relative.
    • Female travelers are covertly kidnapped in the middle of the night and sold into prostitution or sexual slavery.
  • Parodied: See "Exaggerated"
    • The men of Mansworld are all homosexuals.
      • The men of Mansworld still fear the possibility of catching cooties from their female counterparts, just as grade-school children do.
      • Inferior women are required to wear leggings with an unsightly crease down the front and a matching ceremonial leash around their necks at all times. A suit and tie in other words. As the superior gender the ruling men all wear far less restrictive floral dresses.
  • Deconstructed: Mansworld was started by a bunch of straw misogynists, who believe mistreating and beating up women ensure the men to have a happy life. The abuse gets so bad that their women suddenly decide to mass-suicide themselves, leaving only men and boys in Mansworld.
    • Mansworld was started by escaped victims of Ladyland as a refuge for men who weren't taken seriously. Said victims became just what they tried to escape
    • The practices stemming from the lack of respect for women in Mansworld results in a heavily skewed gender ratio, whether from abuse, honour killings, female infanticide, or high female suicide rates. This results in a dire demographic crisis.
  • Reconstructed: This puts the rest of society in a win-win situtation. The residents of Mansworld must either learn that women are a great asset to their society or continue being too stupid and die off. Once the latter happens, feminists from other societies show Mansworld as a strong example of what would happen if men continue their patriarchal ways.
  • Zig Zagged: Depending on the king they have at any given time and how he feels women are to be treated, the society fluctuates between treating women as sub-human just because they are women, women are seen as inferior, but tolerated and not treated too badly, and women are seen as just as valuable and competent as men and treated accordingly.
  • Averted: The society in question is a society where men and women are seen as equally valuable and competent, and treated accordingly.
  • Enforced: The writer believes women are inferior, and this is his perfect society.
    • The writer Does Not Like Men, and fears that No Woman's Land is what happens when they are in charge.
      • The writer is discussing a time and place where women have historically been (or still are) mistreated.
  • Lampshaded: "This place doesn't seem very female friendly..."
  • Invoked: Some man takes over (whether by military means, winning an election, or simply being born into the Royal Family), and seeks to create a Utopia where men are in charge.
  • Defied: Lady Land
    • The laws (religious or secular or both) of that society specifically state that men and women are equal and are to be treated as such, and the society does just that.
  • Discussed: "Why do they treat the women so badly?"
  • Conversed: "Because they're bad people, and because they're insecure little boys in men's bodies."
  • Played For Laughs: A woman looks at a man the wrong way. Cue Black Comedy Rape.
  • Played For Drama: The plight of the abused women here in Mansworld make for lots of drama.

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