GATE TO WOMAN'S COUNTRY
SHERI TEPPER



300 pages
5 parts like classical play
each part consists of 7chapters (35 chaps)
past, present and future are interwoven
names - stavia corrig, cheron

PART 1

Chap. 1
Stavia going through Marthatown. Seeing Dawid, her son, whom she has given up
when she was 5. She was 22. Now she is 37 and he is 15. He is choosing to
become a warrior. He decides to stay with the garrison. Gives up his mother.
*Use of ritualistic language.
*Refuses to go through the Gate to Women's Country.
*She has to give him up. He has become someone else.
*Difficult for her anyway.
*Soldiers hiss at her. Irony because she and the council are in power.
*Gate to Women's Country is simple and unpretentious. Men who pass through
there are never treated the same.
*She is met by Septimus Bird and Benida. We find out her other, Morgot.
Septemius gives her comfort. We also hear about Corrig - who cannot appear
with her because he is an S.
*Joshua and Corrig (S) both said that they didn't think D would return. She
had hopes that he would change his mind.

Women give up their sons to become warriors at 5. At 15, the ones who want
to return.

Chap. 2. p. 8
Stavia's older sister, Myra, Morgot is her mother. Myra is an airhead.
Benida is her mother's friend.
Stavia is ten. They are taking Jerby,her brother, to the garrison. Margot
is tying not to cry.
They are always talking about the play which reminds them of the way things
used to be.
Morgot says that they all have things to do that hurt them in WC, but they
have to do them because the alternative would be worse. This is the reason
they keep going over the play – they need to be reminded that not to do what
they are doing would result in a society in which women would be
repressed.This point is reinforced by the later experiences in the outlands.

Gives Jerby to Michael who was one of the handsomest of the warriors in the
garrison. This is also a mention of the carnivals. Michael is supposed
Jerby's father - is probably Stavia's father also.

Jerby will stray until he is 15 - returning to WC only during the carnivals
which are held twice each year.

Rewrite history. 13 yo boy watching Stavia. Chernon is Sylvia's son -
friend of Margot - Benita's brother.

Telemachus (son) and Ulysses (father) are the heroes of Warriors.

Set up romance between Stav and Cheron (10 and 13).

Chap. 3
Stavia is 37 again. She is thinking about the past. Her brother. Now her
son has gone to the garrison.


ACT 2
Chap. 4, p. 28
Morgot is grieving. Stav is grieving. She asks Morgot about why Chernon
didn't come home for carnival. She tells her that when Cher wqas 9 or 10 he
came home and said some terrible things that he shouldn't have. Then Sylivia
decided that he shouldn't come home at all. WHAT DID CHERNON SAY ABOUT HIS
MOTHER? DO WE EVER FIND OUT?

One of the warrior's had told him to say these things - said it was a joke -
this sets up Cher as being a flunky for the older warriors even as a child.
Syl reported this to Michael - Vincas is the one who put Cher up to it - Mike
did not punisih Cher - Vincas was using the boy to get in with Sylvia - Cher
spent carnival at his Aunt Erika's.

No one in WC has fathers – carnivals are the only time they have sex -
children are the result of women and men having sex – twice a year – men take
babies at 5, they decide what to do at 15.

We are also given a sense of how the women are educated. The key to women's
country is education. Every woman must have an art, scinece and a craft.
Woman's Country Ordinances.

Women's Studies – management, communication and sexual skills. Women are
allowed to follow their own spirits.

Joshua is a servitor. p. 24. They are the men who decided not to stay with
the warriors at 15. Names towns - Susanville, Marthatown.

Chap. 5, p. 27
Corrig finds Stavia in kitchen. Age 37 again. She is studying her part in
the play - Iphrigenia at Illum. Morgot has done Iphrigenia. Now Stavy will
do it.

The play is a reminder of the past. It is a social ritual. It must be perfor
med.

Preface to play. p. 28. Rewriting history.

Appendices. Explains play - origins and signicance.

Stavy tells Corrig that Joshua will play Achilles. Narrator hints that there
is a special relationship between Stav and Josh.

Back to Stavy at 10. p. 37 Myra is Stav's bimbo sister. She says that Barton
says that servitors are cowards and impotent. This is the irony of the
novel. What is it to be potent - to have power - warrior say that servitors
are gelded.

Mentions carnivals again. Myra's in love with Barton who is in Michael's
command.

Men are not allowed to fight until they are 25. The time to father babies is
18-25. They're most viral then.

Josha is Morgot's age. Myra treats him rudely - like a servant.

Assignation houses - where the warriors have sex with the women during
carnivals. Taverns. amusements.

Talks about sending Stavy to the medical institute at Abbeyville in a few
years. Myra and Stavia fight about Joshua. Her Bimbo mind shows - infatuated
with Barton - Morgot warns Stavy about the danders of infatuation.
Biological forces. But upsetting.

Talk about quarrantines and going to the gypsy camp. Morgot is a doctor –
wants to take Myra - worried about her.

p. 41-42.

The garrisons are very feudal. Barracks.

Morgot goes to give vacinations to gypsies. Takes Myra and Stav.

WOMAN'S COUNTRY 2


Chap. 20

The introduction of Bird has allowed her to give background explanations of
WC.

Introduced to Jepson and the good old boys. Men are supreme and women are
the servants.


Chap. 21, p. 211

Now we are on the wagon with Bird and Chernon disguised as a servitor.
We realize that Bird's twins are the castaways of Chastity and Jepson. So
they are going back into their original homeland because of C's desire to
meet with Stavia. B doesn't like anything about this trip. Wishes he had
left girls at Marthatown.

No one likes C but she is the only one who doesn't see this. He spends all
his time lusting after her. Twins tell his fortune.

Find out that when warriors make love they never see the women's faces.

Chernon tells them about the book he found about the Laplanders. He talks
about how the used to be before the holocaust. C is very stupid because he
talks like a warrior even though he's supposed to be a servitor. Later
confesses. He gets drunk. Talks like an idiot. Tells what garrison thinks
about women -
Brotherhood of the Ram - secret society of warriors.

Chap. 22, p. 220

Went to sheep camp. Camp manager tells Stavia that someone has been spying
on them and stealing their rams. (Emphasis in primitive societies on
aggression and male fertility.)

What animals survived.

Stavia finds dogs. They belong to someone. Stavia sends a report.

Chap. 23, p. 224

Back with Holylanders - life as it used to be. Had mistreated dogs - which
is why they had run away - three idiot boys.

Taking rams that were not suffering from the aftereffects of radiation.




Chap. 24 - 28, p. 227

This is like Stavia going back in time to see how life was before the women
took over.

Cheron shows how this mentality continues to exist. He has the contraceptive
device taken out of her arm so he will know whose baby it is that she has.
He suspects that women have been deceiving the warriors all along. This is
one of their secrets.

He makes a deal with the shepherds. He wants to be in power.

He confesses to her what he has been up to all these years with Michael and
Stephon - she doesn't know why they are so eager to rebell.

She tries to escape and is beaten.

Chap. 29 , p. 263-64
Present again. She is rehearsing the play.

Chap. 30
Back to the past. Morgot feels that Stavia is in trouble - she sends Corrig
and Joshua.

Chap, 31, p. 267
Back at Holyland. Harvest rituals. Irony of all the Christian names.

Bird gave Corrig and Joshua a plan to save Stavia. She has been tied and
beaten. They came as Angels, - said that Chernon was a Devil. Christians
chasing Demons.

Bird says he saw that Chernon was a jerk.

Chap. 32, p. 281

Stavia tells Morgot that Chernon accuses women of secrets. She says that she
told him about the contraceptive implants - so what he did cut it out - it
was a mess - he didn't care whether he hurt her or not. She asked her
whether she wants the child or not.

We know she does - and that he choses to stay with the warriors as the son of
Chernon.

Morgot tells her the truth about Myra and the principle of selection they use
- like the Laplanders and the reindeer.

Chap. 33, p. 284

Present. Stavia is Iphregenia. Joshua is Achilles.
Play again. Rape.

It's clear that Stavia has been raped by Chernon.

Chap. 34
Past again. Stavia is trying to recover.

Septemius Bird talks to Morgot and said he knew what was happening all along.
As an outsider, he did not believe everything the warriors did. He said
that saw how much medical attention was given to women before and after the
carnivals. To prevent pregnancy during, to assure pregancy after.
Servitors' sperm was used.

With each generation, Bird said, more and more men where coming back through
the gates to WC. Artificial selection seemed to be working.

Many books in WC refer to genetics and selective breeding. Bird said it
wasn't difficult to guess what has happening.


He also notices that the servitors like Joshua have martial arts skills and
are also clairvoyant – as are the two twins of his.

This talent seens to breed truer in men than women. Men and women have
genetic differences.

He defends Stavia's giving the books to Chernon. She says that S fell victim
to the largest chink in the female armor - believing that those who abuse you
LOVE YOU AND NEED YOU AND MAKE YOU FEEL GUILTY FOR NOT DOING AS THEY WANT.
THEY ALSO FEEL THEY HAVE A NATURAL RIGHT TO DO AS THEY DO.

The also weed women out - to make sure they don't breed.

Do you ever feel guilty, he asks. The Council calls themselves the Damned
Few - none will go to heaven.

p. 292: Not all cultures abused women and sometimes women accepted their
place. She talks about DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.

The Laplanders tried to select the reindeer bulls that didn't fight and that
weren't abusive. They wanted the ones that were kind and gentle. They
castrated all the rest.

Joshua is Stavia's father - Jerby, Habby – Myra's father was different – a
misfit servitor – her father was retired - he was also Chernon's father –

Most of the councul women are medical officers. Most women don't even know.

Stavia might have had to have been executed because of what she had done.

They wanted Stavia to be able to know the truth - 1/20 if warrior is father,
1/5 if the father is servitor.

They want all their sons to come home - they want no more wars.

She asks Corrig if he will remain with her – he says he loves her and will
remain loyal to her.

They want to have a child and name her Suzanna after the woman who hung
herself. They will have another baby named Spring. They will go into the
hinterlands and bring the women back.

He tells her that Chernon is back. He was not killed after all but stayed
with the gypsies. He wants to brag about his boy. He also wants to tell the
other warriors about what he has learned in the holyland about enslaving
women.

He has heard that Stavia has had amnesia, he is making up anything he wants.

She is asked to join the Council even though she is young.

Action is taken. Michael and Stephon are lured out into a trap and they are
assassinated.

300 years ago was the catastrophe in which the world was destroyed in a war.
Martha survived to start a race that would breed this eagerness to fight out
of the human race. Morgot tells him this story – some of the early warriors
were women – later only men were warriors – but every rebellion was put down
by women and their servitors – she challenges Stephon and kills him. Joshua
fights Michael and kills him. Corrig was there too.

Michael and Stephon were hung at the penis and Tabithatown is blamed. So
Marthatown goes to war against them. They watch the garrison march out.

But five of the other towns have set a trap for them. It has been decided
that none of the warriors from Marthatown will return, including Jerby.

Stavia is 37. Right before the summer carnival.

Michael was blamed for the ambush. Afterwards, Susantown sent two centuries
of young men that would be fair and just. They would whip the young men of
Marthatown into shape.

Stavia learned to be an actress as a Councilwoman. She learned not to show
her inner, her true self.

The actress Stavia played Iphregenia - there had to be the play to remind
people of what needed to be done - at the Carnival. Very few who watched
knew.

What's Hades like? they ask. The answer is, Hades is Women's Country.
So Stavia and Joshua weep for all the boys who died.