Gynotopian Links

Fiction Online

Herland
The classic of the gynotopian genre.

Sultana's Dream
An Indian fantasy about a world where men are secluded in a sort of reverse purdah. "Men, who do or at least are capable of doing no end of mischief, are let loose and the innocent women, shut up in the zenana! How can you trust those untrained men out of doors?"

Angel Island
This novel does not really fit, but I have included it because it was on some of the lists I used in my research. It is about a few young men who settle on a deserted island and discover that lovely winged women visit it. The winged women apparently come from a mysterious land where everyone is winged, but whether there are men there or not is never explained. Certainly they don't seem to have any understanding of the male sex. The men capture the winged women, cut off their wings, and marry them, and all sorts of feminist metaphors ensue.

Consider Her Ways
Famous science fiction story. Was made into a Night Gallery episode.

Breathmoss
Science Fiction story reviewed on my Feminists page.

Y: The Last Man On Earth
PDF file of the first issue.
Interview with the author.
This is a highly intelligent series about a plague that instantly kills all of the males on earth except one. It does contain the anti-Republican potshots which are apparently required by law and perpetuates the myth of Israeli female soldiers (in real life, a woman in the Israeli army is called a "filing clerk"), but in most respects this is a convincing exploration of how women might fare without men.

THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF A MISOGYNIST by Jack London

Reviews, Essays and Guides

TV Tropes pages about gynotopias
One Gender Race
Mars Needs Women

Feminist Science Fiction, Fantasy & Utopia
This was an invaluable source for me to find gynotopias.

Women's Worlds: A Bundle of Feminist Utopias
Reviews of Herland, Mizora and Sultana's Dream.

Carrying Over: Analysing Female Utopias and Narratives of Female Education from17th century France to 18th Century Britain and 20th century India
PDF file
Focuses on feminist literature set in the real world, but includes a discussion of Sultana's Dream.

The Politics of Feminine Retreat in Margaret Cavendish's The Female Academy and The Convent of Pleasure
PDF file
These are not about all-female societies as such, but rather about all-female retreats within the real world.

"Women's town" to put men in their place
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese tourism authorities are seeking investment to build a novel concept attraction -- the world's first "women's town," where men get punished for disobedience, an official said Thursday.
The 2.3-square-km Longshuihu village in the Shuangqiao district of Chongqing municipality, also known as "women's town," was based on the local traditional concept of "women rule and men obey," a tourism official told Reuters.
"Traditional women dominate and men have to be obedient in the areas of Sichuan province and Chongqing, and now we are using it as an idea to attract tourists and boost tourism," the official, surname Li, said by telephone.

A Place Where Women Rule
All-Female Village in Kenya Is a Sign Of Burgeoning Feminism Across Africa

Amazon Heroic Fantasy
A critical overview by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

Femizons
A militaristic Amazon race in Marvel Comics.

What would the world be like without men?
Human hybrids by the million. Clones bred in the lab. And men exterminated. In the week MPs voted to change what it means to be human, A.N. WILSON imagines a truly terrifying future

Self-fertilizing females to take over the world
Just kidding. But research suggests female-only conception may be possible.

Shojo Kageki
In the Orient, all-female opera or theatre troupes have been a custom for some time.