The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper
"The Gate to Women's Country" is a feminist post-apocalyptic novel by Sheri S. Tepper that explores a divided civilization following a devastating war that has left Earth largely radioactive. In this world, men and boys are raised in military garrisons, where they learn combat skills and martial values, while women and a few pacific male servitors inhabit separate communities, known as women's country, characterized by nurturing and nonviolent principles. The primary setting is Marthatown, a community led by Morgot, a chief medical officer, alongside her children and loyal male servitors. The story delves into the tension between these two societies, particularly as garrison leaders, suspicious of the women’s hidden strengths, attempt to uncover secrets that could enhance their power.
The narrative centers around Chernon, a young warrior who manipulates Morgot's daughter, Stavia, in his quest for knowledge about the women's advantages. As the plot unfolds, themes of deception, control, and the contrasting values of each society emerge, particularly through the revelation that the women have been secretly managing population dynamics through contraceptives and strategic relationships with their male servitors. The novel presents a critical examination of gender roles and highlights the complexities of societal structure and power dynamics in a world shaped by historical violence.
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The Gate to Women's Country
First published: 1988
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Science fiction—feminist
Time of work: The twenty-fourth century c.e.
Locale: The fictional community of Marthatown
The Plot
Three centuries after most of Earth is devastated and left radioactive by wars, human survivors have evolved a dual civilization. Most men, as well as boys from an early age, live in military garrisons learning martial arts and military values. All women, aided by a handful of pacific male servitors and small children, live in womens country, small communities dominated by females and by the feminine values of nurturance, nonviolence, and love. Sexual intercourse between members of the womens towns and garrison males is permitted only during periodic Carnival Times.
In The Gate to Women’s Country, Sheri S. Tepper’s feminist, post-holocaust novel, the principal womens community is Marthatown (there are a dozen others). Its main figures are Morgot, the chief medical officer and a Council member; her children, Stavia, Myra, and Jerby; and her old male servitors, Jik and Joshua. The male garrison, which has dwindled gradually in numbers, is led by Stephon, Michael, and Besset, officers who suspect that Marthatown’s women possess a secret that might strengthen garrison forces as they prepare for the day when they may conquer womens country.
To ferret out the women’s secret, the garrison command enlists Chernon, a young warrior eager to win their approval. He is the son of Morgot’s friend Sylvia. Cold-bloodedly, Chernon cultivates the affections of Morgots daughter, Stavia, in the hope that Stavia can learn and pass on to him the secret of whatever weapon the women possess. Stavia is an unwitting victim of Chernon’s guile until, on an expedition to find the limits of habitable territory, a magician, Septimius the Bird, and his two paranormal daughters alert Stavia to Chernon’s untrustworthiness.
Before learning the womens secret, however, the garrisons, Chernon among them, decimate one another in one of the periodic wars women arrange to keep down the number of violent men. The men never discover that the “weaker” sex, under Morgot’s auspices as medical officer, have been inoculating Marthatown’s girls with contraceptives and that the fathers of Marthatown’s children are not the garrisons warriors, as the warriors believe, but are Marthatown’s seemingly innocuous, usually nonviolent male servitors. The garrison warriors had boasted, amid their carouses and macho displays, of how well Marthatown’s women fed, clothed, and furnished them with sex and sons as recruits. They failed to comprehend why their numbers have been dwindling and that the women have always controlled their own as well as the warriors’ destinies. Garrison males never understand how subtly and effectively they have been deceived in the name of women’s reverence for life and love.