The Gate To Women's Country

The Gate To Women’s Country

by Sheri S. Tepper

First published in Great Britain in 1988.

The Gate to Women’s Country is one of my favourite books.  I feel like I say that a lot but I have a lot of favourites depending what mood I’m in.  This one is for when I’m in an ‘I wonder what the world would be like if women ruled and there were hardly any men’ mood.  I can’t remember how this book came to be on my bookcase – I can remember buying it but have no idea what led me to do so.

The story is about Women’s Country, where (as you might guess) women rule.  It is set three hundred years in the future, after a nuclear war has destroyed most of humanity and the United States has split into several different, new areas.  In Women’s Country the females live inside the city walls and educate themselves, with science and the arts flourishing.  They keep some men for servants, but most of the men live outside the walls in barracks and are the women’s army.

The main character is Stavia, a thirty-seven year old woman who we meet when she is summoned to meet her fifteen-year old son at the Defender’s Gate.  After a discussion in which her son decides to stay with the Warriors instead of returning home, Stavia tells us her life story from when she was ten and living with her older sister and mother.  As the story progresses we learn more about the separation of mother and son when the child is handed to the men outside the walls at age five.

Stavia is an interesting character.  She has always lived in Women’s Country, growing up with her doctor mother.  Her mother takes her along when she tests the gypsies who travel around in the wild for diseases, and Stavia is aware of her brother who was given to the Warriors.  With an older sister too, Stavia shows all sides to life in Women’s Country including that of their servant Joshua.  When Stavia meets a Warrior boy, Chernon, she has to make up her mind about how she feels about the rules she is supposed to obey.  I thought that Stavia was well-written and was relatable, even in a situation I couldn’t easily imagine.  She progresses from a child following rules ingrained into her, to questioning those rules and then following in her mother’s medical footsteps.

I found Stavia’s mother to be rather annoying at times – probably because I felt so much for Stavia as she tried to understand her family and why the city is how it is.  Her mother sometimes seemed quite cold, and it was the servant Joshua who was the most caring person for Stavia to turn to.  In this way it was as if the ‘traditional’ gender roles are reversed, with the few men providing the most support.

Although the men are shut outside the city, they stand together and bond as Warriors.  We get more details of the past from the men’s conversations than the women’s and learn that they have previously gone to war with other armies, with mixed results.  I found the men’s lives really interesting as they have to decide whether or not to return home.  By doing so they lose all respect, but by staying in the garrison they are more likely to die young.

Tepper’s future is not one that I found easy to imagine – for me it is set too far ahead in time.  I generally prefer books set ahead in time just enough for the world to be different, but still hold onto some parts of our present day so that I can picture the stories actually happening.  With this one I had to use my imagination a bit more, and try not to fixate on filling in the three hundred years between our now and Tepper’s future.  However once I got into the book the setting fit well and was simple enough to create a strong mental picture.  I particularly liked how even the towns were names after women, for example Marthaville, Susantown and Melissaville.  Everything the women could take charge of they had done, and done so explicitly.

Overall this is a book I enjoyed reading.  The story is great, the characters are developed and the message behind the plot is one which can be taken seriously in any time or place.  It’s one of those that leaves you wondering ‘what if?’  Oh, and there is a brilliant ending that I had to reread a few times to believe!