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The Gate to Women's Country

183 statements
35 feature instances
4 referencing feature instances

The Gate to Women's Country	type	TVTItem
The Gate to Women's Country	label	The Gate to Women's Country
The Gate to Women's Country	page	TheGateToWomensCountry
The Gate to Women's Country	comment	The Gate to Women's Country is a 1988 novel by Sheri S. Tepper.It's a familiar backstory. Three hundred years ago, humanity nearly destroyed itself in a nuclear war. Out of the ashes, a few survivors built a new society, Women's Country, which dedicated itself to making sure that no such destruction would ever happen again. They formed a new social order: the women would live inside their walled cities, dedicating themselves to education, farming, and rebuilding civilization, while the men would live outside the walls as warriors, dedicated to protecting the city.Twice a year, each city throws a carnival, when the men are allowed to visit inside the walls for a few weeks—and during which time all children are conceived. When a boy turns five, he goes to live with his father in the warriors' garrison. Then, when he turns fifteen, he must make a choice: stay in the garrison, and become a full-fledged warrior, or return to the city and live as a servitor (a domestic worker subservient to the women). In the macho culture of the warriors, becoming a servitor is seen as cowardly and dishonorable—not surprisingly, few boys choose to do it.The story opens with Stavia, a member of the ruling council of Marthatown, receiving a summons down to the garrison. Her son, Dawid, has just turned fifteen, and proudly declares he'll stay in the garrison. The two of them say the ritual words (he renounces all ties to her, and she tells him he's no longer her child), and Stavia sadly returns home to her two daughters and their family's servitor, Corrig.The rest of the story takes place in flashback, as Stavia thinks back to when she was ten years old, and her family went to bring her five-year-old brother to the garrison. While she was there, she caught the eye of a warrior boy named Chernon, and the future was set in motion...
The Gate to Women's Country	fetched	2024-03-18T12:15:22Z
The Gate to Women's Country	parsed	2024-03-18T12:15:22Z
The Gate to Women's Country	isPartOf	DBTropes
The Gate to Women's Country / int_22cf536c	type	Chekhov's Gun
The Gate to Women's Country / int_22cf536c	comment	Chekhov's Gun: The book about reindeer breeding. It's introduced as an inconsequential, simplistic schoolbook belonging to Stavia's friend, Beneda, that describes life and cultures before the apocalypse. Chernon then steals the book and reads from it daily as his personal act of contempt against Women's Country. However, as things are starting to come to a head towards the end, we find out that the book actually has the information that Chernon and the warriors were seeking all along: the Laplanders' bred violence and aggression out of their reindeer to ensure their survival, just as Women's Country is doing with the human race.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_2fd7200b	type	Dead Guy Junior
The Gate to Women's Country / int_2fd7200b	comment	Dead Guy Junior: Stavia's daughter Susannah is named for the Holyland woman who died while trying to help Stavia.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_334e48a1	type	After the End
The Gate to Women's Country / int_334e48a1	comment	After the End: The book takes place many, many generations after what is strongly hinted to be a nuclear apocalypse. It's so far After The End, in fact, that human society has completely reorganized itself and forgotten why it originally did so.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_372bc105	type	Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism
The Gate to Women's Country / int_372bc105	comment	Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Both the book and Women's Country itself are firmly on the cynicism side.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_3c5ae1a1	type	Schizo Tech
The Gate to Women's Country / int_3c5ae1a1	comment	Schizo Tech: A minor example. Women's Country depends on animals for transport, and most of the houses don't have electricity, but the country also maintains a hydroelectric dam (which runs a number of factories) and uses fairly advanced medical technology, including hormonal birth control implants. Justified by the After the End setting, and the fact that the country deliberately invokes Fantasy Gun Control.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_3d4d3dc9	type	Humans Are Bastards
The Gate to Women's Country / int_3d4d3dc9	comment	Humans Are Bastards: And Women's Country intends to breed it out of them.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_40cc0c7e	type	Bittersweet Ending
The Gate to Women's Country / int_40cc0c7e	comment	Bittersweet Ending: While we know Stavia survives the story from the very first page and that the rebellion was ultimately unsuccessful, the success comes with a high cost: Stavia is raped by Chernon and nearly dies at the hands of the Holylanders, and the entire Marthatown garrison is slaughtered due to the attempted coup that Chernon helped to forment.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_45fe3a2e	type	Utopia Justifies the Means
The Gate to Women's Country / int_45fe3a2e	comment	Utopia Justifies the Means: Inverted. It's actually the good guys who want to create a better world through a secret eugenics program.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_4eaa9b84	type	Author Tract
The Gate to Women's Country / int_4eaa9b84	comment	Author Tract: The book gets a little uncomfortably preachy in explaining why things like forced eugenics and periodic purges (such as orchestrating fake wars for the sole purpose of culling the male population) are not only good but necessary for society at large.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_4f6cf75	type	Mirroring Factions
The Gate to Women's Country / int_4f6cf75	comment	Mirroring Factions: One possible interpretation of Holyland. We see two societies in which one gender exercises absolute control while the other is reduced to servitude, and where being the wrong gender can get you killed. The main differences are that the men in Women's Country are treated well compared to the women of Holyland; and that the policies in Women's Country are designed to make the world a better place for both men and women, whereas the practices in Holyland are based on misplaced religious fundamentalism and are proving self-destructive.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_598513bb	type	Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling
The Gate to Women's Country / int_598513bb	comment	Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Myra and Stavia have this dynamic, with Stavia being the responsible one even though she's seven years younger. However, when Stavia does do something foolish, it ends up having far worse consequences than anything Myra's ever done.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_5c059fbd	type	Twin Telepathy
The Gate to Women's Country / int_5c059fbd	comment	Twin Telepathy: Kostia and Tonia share this, as well as general Psychic Powers, which come in handy in their family's magician act. Morgot is pleased when she finds out, since such powers are hardly ever seen in women.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_68a5e1c3	type	Humans Are Psychic in the Future
The Gate to Women's Country / int_68a5e1c3	comment	Humans Are Psychic in the Future: It's noted that many servitors have a hint of psychic power, which may or may not have influenced their choice to come back to the city. Joshua uses it for things like finding lost toys around the house, and for weeding out a rebellion in the garrison.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_6b4b3eba	type	Lady Land
The Gate to Women's Country / int_6b4b3eba	comment	Lady Land: "Women's Country" of the title. Boys are exiled at age five to the male Warriors outside. Starting at age fifteen and up to twenty-five, young men may return to Women's Country as Servitors.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_6bcfbc7e	type	Fantasy Gun Control
The Gate to Women's Country / int_6bcfbc7e	comment	Fantasy Gun Control: Women's Country purposely keeps its weapons technology at the "swords and spears" level, out of fear that if the warriors had better weapons, it could start an arms race that would lead to another nuclear war.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_6d332aea	type	Driven to Suicide
The Gate to Women's Country / int_6d332aea	comment	Driven to Suicide: Susannah Brome, who's supposedly descended from a captured Women's Country citizen and is not only horribly abused by the Holyland men, but has to deal with her young daughters married off and raped by much older men. When she sees her one hope of rescue assaulted and nearly killed — and is beaten for trying to protest — she hangs herself in the barn.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_80251be3	type	How We Got Here
The Gate to Women's Country / int_80251be3	comment	How We Got Here: The book begins in the present, with Stavia's son returning to the titular Gate to denounce his mother. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn how her son was conceived and how he came to despise her.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_8767b1f3	type	Black-and-Gray Morality
The Gate to Women's Country / int_8767b1f3	comment	Black-and-Gray Morality: The men in the garrison come off as misogynistic jerks who will gladly rape and kill if given the chance, and the Holyland makes the Taliban look 'reasonable', but the Councilwomen send their warrior men off to die in pointless wars in order to keep their population down and use contraceptive implants on the women without consent to prevent the warriors from breeding. They may be the least-bad group, as their goal is to breed war and violence out of the human race, but their means are still questionable.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_8a1215e0	type	Bratty Teenage Daughter
The Gate to Women's Country / int_8a1215e0	comment	Bratty Teenage Daughter: Myra, Stavia's older sister. She's presented as a female example of what the leaders of Women's Country are trying to breed out of humanity: mindlessly parroting beliefs without thinking, willing to hurt others just because they're different, antisocial, quick to fight and cause drama, and never accepting responsibility for her actions. Myra hates Joshua, Corrig, and other servitors just because her warrior-boyfriend does, and eventually leaves home because of it.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_974b47a7	type	Men Are the Expendable Gender
The Gate to Women's Country / int_974b47a7	comment	Men Are the Expendable Gender: Invoked by Morgot when she explains why warfare in Women's Country is more humane than it was in the pre-apocalyptic society. Only men who've chosen to be warriors have to fight and die, rather than women and children being slaughtered and whole cities being destroyed.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_9f74002a	type	Feminist Fantasy
The Gate to Women's Country / int_9f74002a	comment	Feminist Fantasy: Women are presented as the wise, nurturing leaders of all human knowledge and civilization and are in charge of the entire society.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_a8357dc2	type	No Woman's Land
The Gate to Women's Country / int_a8357dc2	comment	No Woman's Land: Holyland, descended from the worst kind of Mormon fundamentalism.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_af7d483f	type	Dreaming of Things to Come
The Gate to Women's Country / int_af7d483f	comment	Dreaming of Things to Come: Corrig is shown as having prophetic dreams. He not only warns Stavia against what she's planning on the exploration trip by claiming he had a dream of it, he also predicts her future children.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_b1a7cd14	type	Tap on the Head
The Gate to Women's Country / int_b1a7cd14	comment	Tap on the Head: Averted. Cappy Brome tries to play the trope straight when he whacks Stavia with a shovel, but ends up giving her a near-fatal brain injury.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_b2f4114e	type	Heir Club for Men
The Gate to Women's Country / int_b2f4114e	comment	Heir Club for Men: Subverted. All children are conceived during the carnival season, and the boys are sent to live with their warrior fathers when they turn five. Warriors are shown take pride in fathering sons, welcoming the little boys into the garrison and formally disowning their sons if they become servitors. The warriors are also shown to become violent over it; their philosophy is that women are useless unless they bear sons for the warriors, and that daughters are useless. Meanwhile, girls trace their lineage solely through their mother (for example, Stavia Morgotsdaughter), and aren't even supposed to ask who their fathers are. Ultimately subverted when we find out the warriors don't father any children at all. All children are sired by the servitors, and Women's Country deliberately lies to the warriors about it as part of their program to breed warlike traits out of humanity.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_b9d334b2	type	Aerith and Bob
The Gate to Women's Country / int_b9d334b2	comment	Aerith and Bob: Michael, Joshua, and Myra live alongside Chernon, Corrig, and Stavia.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_c83a589c	type	Luke, I Am Your Father
The Gate to Women's Country / int_c83a589c	comment	Luke, I Am Your Father: Joshua is Stavia's father, as well as her brothers'.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_ca5eda76	type	Heteronormative Crusader
The Gate to Women's Country / int_ca5eda76	comment	Heteronormative Crusader: Women's Country is run by these (oddly enough, as they're contrasted with religious fundamentalists), removing genetic traits for homosexuality in utero.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_ce0b2b21	type	Monochrome Casting
The Gate to Women's Country / int_ce0b2b21	comment	Monochrome Casting: It's pretty clear that the entire population of Women's Country is white. Might be justified by the fact that the Pacific Northwest was mostly white when the book was written, and three hundred years of isolation could have meant other races blended into the majority.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_d22a7df2	type	Troubled, but Cute
The Gate to Women's Country / int_d22a7df2	comment	Troubled, but Cute: Chernon plays on this trope to woo Stavia.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_d4937788	type	Days of Future Past
The Gate to Women's Country / int_d4937788	comment	Days of Future Past: Some of the social structure of Women's Country borrows heavily from Ancient Greece and Rome. The Warrior garrisons are structured like Roman legions, and there is a huge amount of emphasis placed on the book's in-universe play, "Iphigenia at Ilium", which mirrors the unfolding plot and themes of the book.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_e2f5760	type	House Husband
The Gate to Women's Country / int_e2f5760	comment	House Husband: The basic function of the servitors. They do many of the household chores and help to raise the children and in general are assumed to be subservient to the women. Fitting the trope, they are looked down on by the more traditionally masculine warriors. Subverted, though, in that they aren't married or involved with the women whose households they serve, and have many more abilities and responsibilities that the warriors aren't aware of.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_f76842b1	type	The Fundamentalist
The Gate to Women's Country / int_f76842b1	comment	The Fundamentalist: The Holylanders are a whole society of them.
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The Gate to Women's Country / int_fccd06b6	type	Beware the Nice Ones
The Gate to Women's Country / int_fccd06b6	comment	Beware the Nice Ones: Joshua,and the servitors in general. At first, they're presented as willing servants to the women and described as "calm and judicious men", but as the story goes along, we find out that not only are many of the servitors gifted with psychic abilities that cause those in the garrisons to hate and fear them, but the servitors are also trained in martial arts and will ruthlessly kill any threat to Women's Country.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

The Gate to Women's Country	hasFeature	Designer Babies / int_af46a4b7
The Gate to Women's Country	hasFeature	Heteronormative Crusader / int_af46a4b7
The Gate to Women's Country	hasFeature	Lady Land / int_af46a4b7
The Gate To Womens Country	seeAlso	The Gate to Women's Country

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