The Gate to Women’s Country

By: Sheri S. Tepper

Narrated by: Emily Durante

Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Women rule in Women's Country. Women live apart from men, sheltering the remains of civilization. They have cut themselves off with walls and by ordinance from marauding males. Waging war is all men are good for. Men are allowed to fight their barbaric battles among themselves, garrison against garrison. For the sake of his pride, each boy child ritualistically rejects his mother when he comes of age to be a warrior. But all the secrets of civilization are strictly the possession of women.

Naturally, there are men who want to know what the women know. And when Stavia meets Chernon, the battle of the sexes begins all over again. Foolishly, she provides books for Chernon to read. Before long, Chernon is hatching a plan of revenge against women.

©1988 Sheri S. Tepper (P)2018 Tantor

Perhaps Tepper's greatest work in audio book form!!

I highly recommend listening to this book. It is an excellent future dystopian/post-catastrophe story that explores how patriarchy might be eliminated from the human race. Sheri S. Tepper often wrote about gender conflicts and the toxicity of patriarchy - I think this story may be her greatest achievement. I re-read this book just about every year since I found it in 1989; it's been out of print for several years and TRULY deserves to be far better known than it is! The narrator does a fine job differentiating between the different characters and I like her performance in most ways (I think my love for this book is so great that almost no narrator could perfectly satisfy me, except for perhaps Davina Porter....). As someone else said, if you like "The Handmaid's Tale", you'll enjoy this. Now if we could only get "Raising the Stones" as an audio book!!

If you liked “A Handmaid’s Tale” you will love “The Gate to Women’s Country”

One of the quintessential feminist SF novels, Sheri Tepper yet again creates a world where multiple issues and engaging characters are carefully crafted into an engaging story that draws you in and carries you along. A must read book.

Beyond Grass

Good to visit this vintage Teppler feminist gem. While nothing can compare to the strange and quietly terrifying illuminations of Grass, Gate to Women's Country earns its five stars in the galaxy of classic sci-fi.

Classic feminist SF... if you MUST call it that!

Tepper has created here a seemingly bucolic, female-run post-holocaust culture that looks a lot like a utopia, and probably is to most of its citizens. Under the surface, however, lies a set of driving principles as ruthless as they are logical, enforced by a select minority of women (and men...Tepper's vision is only selectively anti-male). The way all these secrets are gradually revealed is the true strength of the novel: each revelation is woven into the life story of one very human woman, and allegorically embroidered with periodic selections from a play which uses the "heroic" backdrop of the fall of troy to illustrate man's brutality against woman. This is not Tepper's most entertaining novel, but it is clearly the most important. It’s an anti-war fable wrapped around a draconian peace plan, and a truly amazing tract on religion and gender relations. Kudos to Audible for bringing this one to audio!

solid read

Interesting read but I almost stopped a few times because I got bored with it. I wish the women had been completely cut off from the warrior men, they were intertwined more than I expected. So although the warrior men got to go fight their battles, it still greatly affected the women in many ways, particularly emotionally. I thought it would be more about the women thriving in their own community without any effects of the violence of the men, but it wasn't quite that. I also wish there were more details in some areas. The narrator was fantastic.

Dark, classic

I have loved this book since I first read it many years ago. It’s a bit dark, as expected give the post-apocalyptic setting, but not super graphic. In the novel, it’s been many generations since the time of “convulsions” and the tale is of a society that has rebuilt itself to new standards. The story stands the test of time, and is ultimately both a warning and a fantasy of how things could be in one alternate reality.

A must listen

Sheri Tepper was an amazing author. Her stories address complex social problems in very creative ways. This story addresses humans propensity for violence and war with the cost to everyone involved. She proposes unique and creative solutions to these problems.

Bleak

The overall feel is bleak. Not a lot of character development. Too many holes in the story. The reader is excellent. She adds some depth nd color.

Good but underdeveloped

I was surprised when it ended, I was just starting to get into it. The world building was intriguing, but more of a teasing reveal at the end. It'd make more sense as the first in a trilogy.

The narrator did an excellent job, but the story is lacking.

It was fine. Not gripping, not thought provoking, not memorable. It was entertaining and worthy of a read, but overall definitely not worthy of a re-read.