# Stories about female uprisings-Male authors vs. female authors **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 12, 2018, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-about-female-uprisings-male-authors-vs-female-authors/808710 "2018-02-12T19:17:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2018, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-about-female-uprisings-male-authors-vs-female-authors/808710/21 "2018-02-13T19:41:04Z")
The only two “serious” (as in, not satire or erotica) portrayals of a female uprising I can think of were both genocidal. One was a short story set in one men were being rounded up and forced into disintegration booths, with much philosophizing about how killing all men was neither genocide nor violence because only men can be violent. The other was a novel set in a world where almost all men had been killed off using a genetically engineered plague named “Diana”, with the few survivors been hunted down by teams of female executioners. In both settings, women in general were shown as strongly approving of all this. I don’t recall the titles or authors of either, though. > [@CarnalK](#): > > I finally found the book I was thinking of which I didn’t mention because it’s not quite a women’s revolution. It’s about an off world colony that is female dominated, with successful female clans reproducing by cloning, less successful ones by the old fashioned method. [Glory Season by David Brin](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_Season) I recall that novel. My mother found the society repulsive enough that she commented that it would be improved by carpet bombing it with neutron bombs. _Not_ the kind of comment she normally made about fiction. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2018, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-about-female-uprisings-male-authors-vs-female-authors/808710/22 "2018-02-13T20:02:17Z")
Apart from cheesy, campy Fifties sci-fi like “Queen of Outer Space,” I never knew there were any books or movies about a planet ruled by a matriarchy. So sorry, Sally, I never gave the subject even a moment’s thought. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2018, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-about-female-uprisings-male-authors-vs-female-authors/808710/23 "2018-02-13T23:14:00Z")
> [@Lightray](#): > > [The Gate to Women’s Country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheri_S._Tepper) by Sherri S Tepper doesn’t show the women’s uprising itself (it’s set hundreds of years later) To the best of my recollection, the society depicted in _The Gate to Women’s Country_ isn’t the result of a female uprising. The book is set in a post-apocalyptic world, and IIRC the “Women’s Country” culture was founded by a group of survivors that consisted mostly of women and children. There are other cultures in the book as well, notably the patriarchal “Holylanders” who are apparently descended from some isolated fundamentalist Mormon splinter group. > [@](#): > > That sort of setup is right in Tepper’s wheelhouse. I think _Six Moon Dance_ has a planet where the women secretly keep the gender balance at 90% girls, 10% boys. Tepper is more traditional in that set-up: the men are kept as playthings and breeders by wealthy women, who otherwise own everything. You are thinking of _Six Moon Dance_, but while you’ve got the gist of it you’re a bit off on the details. (I apologize if the following seems like pedantic nitpicking, I just happen to have read this book relatively recently.) This matriarchy is actually majority male (2:1), with the scarcity of women making them more valuable to society. Upper class women do keep male concubines (“hunks”) – this is seen as something owed to them in return for the important and demanding work of being mothers – but it’s a fairly small number of men who are in this role. IIRC the religious and political leaders in this society are all women, but otherwise they have fairly traditional gender roles. Some men do manual labor, others run businesses, etc. The twist is that men’s work is devalued by this society, and there are a lot of sexist stereotypes about men (e.g. their hormones mean they’re naturally unsuited to leadership) that are basically the mirror of sexist stereotypes about women in our world. I think Tepper pulls her punches a bit on this point, but the book does indicate that both men and women suffer in a sexist society with rigid gender roles, even if it’s a matriarchy instead of a patriarchy. One character is a young woman who _doesn’t_ want to be a mother, and disguises herself as a boy and runs away to pursue her dream of becoming a sailor. ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2018, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-about-female-uprisings-male-authors-vs-female-authors/808710/24 "2018-02-13T23:26:36Z")
Just to add to the list of tangential examples, there is _Late August at the Hotel Ozone_ (1967), a Czech film written and directed by men set in a post-apocalyptic world wherein a roaming gang of uncivilized young ladies led by an older and more knowledgeable woman looks for food and men (to perpetuate the species). Remarkably non-exploitative, it’s more about survival than uprising or ruling. There is only one (older, generally passive) male in a prominent role and when the leader of the women dies, the rest of the gang abuses their power over the man out of ignorance. A pretty bleak film overall. > **[Late August at the Hotel Ozone (1967) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061879/?ref_=rvi_tt)** > > Late August at the Hotel Ozone: Directed by Jan Schmidt. With Vladimír Hlavatý, Jitka Horejsi, Ondrej Jariabek, Vanda Kalinová. A troupe of young women on post-apocalyptic earth are lead around by a mistress born before the war, eventually stumbling... ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-about-female-uprisings-male-authors-vs-female-authors/808710/25 "2018-02-14T00:22:40Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > You are thinking of _Six Moon Dance_, but while you’ve got the gist of it you’re a bit off on the details. (I apologize if the following seems like pedantic nitpicking, I just happen to have read this book relatively recently.) Thanks, it’s been a long time since I’ve read it. And since it’s well into the period of her writing where her feminism became shrill and almost a caricature of itself, I’m unlikely to re-read it. I vaguely recall that’s the book with one evil bad guy who has some sort of poison whip penis, and another whose penis is so large he’s basically been wedged into the cavemouth he’s been humping for ages? She went _a bit_ over the top at some point in her writing. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-about-female-uprisings-male-authors-vs-female-authors/808710/26 "2018-02-14T02:21:59Z")
> [@Lightray](#): > > Thanks, it’s been a long time since I’ve read it. And since it’s well into the period of her writing where her feminism became shrill and almost a caricature of itself, I’m unlikely to re-read it. > > I vaguely recall that’s the book with one evil bad guy who has some sort of poison whip penis, and another whose penis is so large he’s basically been wedged into the cavemouth he’s been humping for ages? She went _a bit_ over the top at some point in her writing. Regarding the spoiler boxed info, there is indeed a rather grotesque subplot involving mutant evil bad guys, and while I’ve thankfully already forgotten most of that part of the story, your recollection seems accurate to me. I will add though that there is also a _female_ evil bad guy who’s a sexually sadistic murderer. IMHO the book would have been better off without any of these villain characters – they’re kind of pointless in addition to being really, really unpleasant to read about – but in fairness to Tepper she wasn’t depicting evil, violence, or out-of-control sexual behavior as being strictly male problems. Thinking of other Tepper novels with female-dominated societies, _Sideshow_ (which I don’t particularly recommend, FWIW) features a world where there are a variety of very different cultures that mostly avoid each other. Much of the conflict involves an oppressive patriarchy, but some of the heroes have to travel through a negatively-depicted matriarchal society where men are treated as childlike inferiors. ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-about-female-uprisings-male-authors-vs-female-authors/808710/27 "2018-02-14T13:09:36Z")
> [@naita](#): > > What the OP asked about is quite obvious, I was asking about the intent of the quote from Sally Kempton used in posing the question. Your post was clear to me. FWIW, I agree with you. Kempton only says “when (men/women) _imagine_a a female uprising…” That doesn’t specify (or even imply, IMO) authors, just people in general. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-about-female-uprisings-male-authors-vs-female-authors/808710/28 "2018-02-14T13:54:11Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I recall that novel. My mother found the society repulsive enough that she commented that it would be improved by carpet bombing it with neutron bombs. _Not_ the kind of comment she normally made about fiction. But on the plus side, it introduced me to the “Game of Life” which was fun to fool around with. > **[Play John Conway’s Game of Life](https://playgameoflife.com/)** > > Play the Game of Life online, a single player game invented in 1970 by Cambridge mathematician John Conway. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-about-female-uprisings-male-authors-vs-female-authors/808710/29 "2018-02-15T16:44:31Z")
In the pulp novel _Tarzan and the Ant Men_, there is a subplot about a primitive species of humans where the females are much bigger than the males, and capture them to mate with. Then Tarzan teaches the men how to use spears and arrows, and the men subjugate the women, who then fawn on them slavishly. Burroughs was a man. Maybe if had been a woman, the idea would have been handled differently. I hope so - this is not IMO his best work, or even close. Not necessarily for the sexism - ERB was rewriting a formulaic Tarzan novel for the umpteenth time. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-about-female-uprisings-male-authors-vs-female-authors/808710.md?page=1)