Book Recommendation-Isolated women

Cafe Society
#1

I have been working on a remote island for the last 4 months. I have about 3-4 months left to go. I have done work like this before. I love to study the way interactions change and how men change when there is no women around. We can make phone calls and such but the sight of a woman is super rare or not at all.

I am looking for a simalar situation but with women. I would love to read what happens to women and what kind of social structers are created with the lack of men around.

I prefer no religious or cultism. Just workers or something similar. no children preferably.

Got a recommendation for me.

Kindle hopefully: The mail system is unreliable and super slow.

#2

A work of science fiction but I’d recommend Glory Season by David Brin.

#3

A note, *Glory Season *is not devoid of men. Men are rarer than women, because of the reproduction strategies. The society is mostly run by women, though. It’s an interesting book, well worth reading.

Another science fiction book about this situation is *The Gate to Women’s Country *by Sheri S. Tepper. Women and little boys and servitors live in gated communities. Most men live outside the cities, in warriors’ garrisons or just outside the community, period, though some do come back through the gates as servitors. Warriors are welcomed into the cities at Carnival time, which is basically a time (I think it’s a week or two) of partying…and getting pregnant. If women bear daughters, then most of the daughters will stay in the city (some go outside the city to become, basically, whores). If a woman bears a son, he is given to his warrior father to raise when the boy turns 5. At fifteen, a boy can choose to become a city defender (stay with the garrison) or return through the gate to women’s country. He has this choice until he is 25. There’s another community, the Fatherland, which seems to be based on the fundamentalist polygynous societies of our time. This book is set on Earth, sometime in the future, after what was apparently a limited nuclear war.

If you like graphic novels, the series Y: The Last Man is completed, and well worth reading. Every male mammal dies off, as far as anyone can tell. One man lives through this event, and must hide the fact that he’s male. Eventually, several women learn that he’s alive, and of course everyone schemes to capture and hold him. I think that the ending was a bit rushed and could have used more work, but overall it’s a great series.

#4

This is a good start. Thanks

It seems there are so many scenarios with men away from women working, exploring and such. I figured there would be a few non-fiction accounts of women doing the same or similar.

#5

Folly, by Laurie R. King, about a woman working on a remote island.

She’s not entirely mentally balanced, but that’s part of the plot. She’s a master woodworker, and inherited an island where she’s gone to rebuild the ruins of her great-uncle’s house. Some of the reviews weren’t good, but I loved it.

It is available on Kindle. I don’t see how you can come closer.

#6

Karen Armstong Through the Narrow Gate - about her experiences as a nun.

They weren’t remote, but from what I remember of the book, they were plenty isolated.

ETA - oops, just re-read your criteria. Still, it seems to be the first non-fiction on the list, so I’m going to keep it in.

#7

Molly Gloss’s The Jump-Off Creek – it’s about a pioneer woman in Oregon homesteading by herself. There are other characters she interacts with, including men, but the bulk of the book is a woman having to tend her land alone without a husband or hired help.

Edit: I haven’t read it, but a good friend’s favorite book is May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude, which is non-fiction. From the review:

#8

Missed the edit window – I think I misread your OP. You want stories about women (plural) living together without men, not one woman who lives all alone, correct?

#9

Bingo!!

Sorry, I could have been clearer.

This remoteness is getting to me/us.

I may make a thread about my experience. I am defiantly noticing some signs.

#10

There’s a Poul Anderson novella called Virgin Planet* about an all-female world (the result of an expedition mishap with no male survivors, IIRC). The population survived by using biotech for artificial impregnation – over the generations, the whole thing has become a bit shrouded in myth to everyone but the keepers of the technology (who derive obvious political and economic benefits from their monopoly on reproduction). Needless to say, the people in power are not pleased by the rediscovery of their world by outsiders…

*Back in the day the fact that women with no men had obvious alternatives to virginity wasn’t talked about.

#11

Not exactly what you’re looking for, but We Band of Angels is about the “Angels of Bataan” - army nurses trapped and imprisoned on Bataan and Corregidor in WWII.

I found it interesting how they organized themselves into a microcosm of society so they could take care of everybody.

#12

We are getting closer. I will probably read some of these recommendations. Thanks for the help.
Still not on target though. Maybe there is not a non-fiction account of isolated women similar to my situation.

#13

Gonna give**Herland** by Charlotte Perkins Gilman a shot.

.99 Kindle book. Hardly close but interesting and cheap. I will then take a stab at the other suggestions.

#14

Well, it’s isolated woman, but there’s Joan Vinge’s short story View from a Height, about a female astronaut on a one-way trip out of the solar system.

#15

Not quite what you’re looking for, but you’d probably appreciate Houston, Houston, Do you Read, by James Tiptree Jr. In fact, most of her stories seem to revolve around gender relations.

#16

Thanks Chronos and everyone.

I was discussing some light male drama going on in camp, due most likely to tiredness and isolation, with a friend online. She asked if women would handle this type of situation better. It just got me to thinking. And try as I might I can not seem to find the answer. Maybe I will find one in these books.

#17

Wen Spencer wrote a book set in what I would guess to be a parallel universe, called A Brother’s Price. There are between 10 and 30 females for every one male (who survives), and males are thus pretty valuable for breeding, and are also in charge of doing most of the childrearing and cooking and such. Males are never left unguarded, if the male’s sisters or mothers or wives have anything to say about it, as they are subject to kidnapping and being installed in a brothel. It’s told mostly from the point of view of a 15 year old boy, who is going to be betrothed at his next birthday. Oh, his sisters love him…but they do need to get him married off, so that they in turn can buy a groom.

Now, the females in this universe bear children, but they are also in charge of almost every other facet of life, other than domestic life. This probably isn’t what you’re looking for, but I thought I’d mention it.

Also, LeGuin’s Left Hand of Darkness is about a planet where most people are neither male nor female for three weeks out of four. On that fourth week, though, they become male or female with a vengeance. A person can change into either sex, depending on outside cues. Again, not exactly what you’re looking for, but it’s a great book and well worth reading.

#18

All, or almost all female small communities sometimes results from abandoned populations on small islands, where the men are killed in accidents or by each other. Check out some of the history of Pitcairn Island or Clipperton Island circa 1917.

I’m curious where you are now!