A Woman-Only Country

[greasyshoes]

Just a random thought; what if there was a country in which only women were allowed to live?

Googled and found very little on the topic, so decided to start a thread. Would it work in practice? Would it be beneficial? Would such a country have any problems, and what would those problems be?

Narutocrazyfox is a good example of women who would self select out and with that help making the place a haven.

It would be amazing.
As long as men don’t find out about it and ruin it, like they always do with everything.

Be ok for lesbians, but not sure straight women would necessarily be happy with a sexfree life. And no one would want to give up their sons.

I'm not sure.
I was walking home late at night and feeling vulnerable as usual.
My road was blocked off and they were repaving it overnight.

Due to the no doubt sexist nature of the work* all the people who were laying the road were men.

So I think in all woman society I'd be safer but the infrastructure that we take for granted might not be up to much.

*sarcasm

The reason so many women have had issues with other women eg at work, is largely due to the fact that patriarchy thrives on women's insecurities and sets women up to compete with each other in order to distract them from the actual issues of the patriarchy itself.

In a man-free state the sisterhood would flourish ❤️

It would fail because no one would want to be a bin woman and we’d sicken and die surrounded by heaps of our own rubbish.

Also I don’t think with that group there would be much of ”bitching” (seriously, on feminism board?)

Is feminism only for women who have some idealized version of what women are like? Lots of us have lived in women only environments, and while there are some nice things about them, They are also prone to particular types of social issues, which are different from the social issues you tend to see in male-only living arrangements and groups.

Very thought provoking book here on the subject.

@123ZYX

Maybe as a place women can visit as a gap year/ years, then return to later in life to lead, support and influence. Somewhere between a commune and a country

With the poor standard of women I've worked under, it would certainly be worthwhile for women to be able to develop their training and leadership skills more thoroughly.

Unfortunately, there are too many women like Elizabeth Holmes, who think leadership means dominating other people and putting on a deep voice (which was somewhat cringe-inducing, because she sounds like a 10 year old boy impersonating his dad). Now she's going to be sentenced for fraud.

Leadership is about listening and understanding, not domination, and the more people that are able to learn that, the better.

'Leadership is about listening and understanding, not domination, and the more people that are able to learn that, the better.'

That's your (noble) opinion and there are plenty of people who would disagree. The lady who just won the Apprentice would most certainly be one of them!
Plenty of people like this would end up on this colony. What then?

The lady who just won the Apprentice would most certainly be one of them!

That's a TV show.

As someone who has worked with sociopaths, believe me; people with dominating personalities are bad leaders.

@User310

I couldn’t think of anything worse! 80% of the problems I have encountered both at work and socially have been caused by nasty, bitchy, insecure women.. I work in the NHS!

Yeah but they're only like that because Patriarchy, you see.

There are a few villages around the world that are women only. Kenya has one called Umoja Uaso, it was founded by a group of women who were rape survivors and now takes in women who have suffered various abuse at the hands of males.
I'm pretty sure that some men attempted set up a male only village in retaliation but it failed fairly quickly.

@gettingfedupagain

The reason so many women have had issues with other women eg at work, is largely due to the fact that patriarchy thrives on women's insecurities and sets women up to compete with each other in order to distract them from the actual issues of the patriarchy itself.

In a man-free state the sisterhood would flourish ❤️

No that isn't the reason. It's perfectly possible for women simply to be unpleasant all on their own initiative.

@gettingfedupagain

The reason so many women have had issues with other women eg at work, is largely due to the fact that patriarchy thrives on women's insecurities and sets women up to compete with each other in order to distract them from the actual issues of the patriarchy itself.

In a man-free state the sisterhood would flourish ❤️

When men are horrible it's because they're men and when women are horrible it's because of men? Right.

@greasyshoes

The lady who just won the Apprentice would most certainly be one of them!

That's a TV show.

As someone who has worked with sociopaths, believe me; people with dominating personalities are bad leaders.

I didn't say they were good leaders. I said that those people exist, male and female, and that they would end up in your colony. And what then?

As for it being a tv show, yes you're right. And amazingly they're not robots and their individual personalities do get aired occasionally. If you watch the show across the season then you would understand what I mean. She was different to the others. Because she is different.
Might as well just have had 10 robots to watch!

@greasyshoes

Would never work - the little boys raised there wouldn't be citizens as adults of their own country. You can't raise children to be stateless adults.

What if technology had developed to the point where it was widely, and cheaply, possible to select the sex of a child, so all women could just select girls?

I don't think there's anything remotely ethical about sex selective abortions or IVF treatments.

I don't think there's anything remotely ethical about sex selective abortions or IVF treatments.

Yes, this is true. I was kind of thinking of the original post as a thought experiment rather than something viable. But if we are talking about something viable, I think sex selection is very immoral. And you could question about the relationship of babies born in such a place to their fathers, or whether it's ethical for a community to expel members - male infants born there whether at birth or some later time - because of their sex. These things don't become ok because the are done to male people.

Proposals like that quickly become dystopian.

Maybe it could only work then if it was possible for women to freely leave and go to another country.

I would have hoped this was assumed?!

You might be interested in this OP www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/aug/16/village-where-men-are-banned-womens-rights-kenya

Tbh I don't live in a female only country but I may as well do! I'm a lesbian, I only have female friends and I'm a freelancer so tend to choose to work with other women. I have no use for men in my everyday life

I read this 20 odd years ago in higher English, I remember it being fab but really should read again as an adult.

Herland is a utopian novel from 1915, written by American feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The book describes an isolated society composed entirely of women, who bear children without men. The result is an ideal social order: free of war, conflict, and domination. Wikipedia

I am pretty sure Ursula Le Guin wrote a few sci-fi novels on this subject.

There's one where society is largely rural and women live in settled communities, but men are solitary and nomadic, and do not come within a certain distance of the women's villages. All courtship takes place beyond those boundaries.

Interestingly, most Greek islands in the 19th century were largely female societies because most of the men went to sea for years at a time. On some islands, the only male inhabitants were the local priest and the local cafe owner. Papadiamantis wrote about it quite a bit, and explains how hard it was for the women to do all the work required for survival.

Domestic abuse/violence does occur in same sex relationships. Not all abusers are male. I think things would probably be just as bad as they are now in the long term.

What would happen if there was a spider infestation? The whole country would grind to a halt.

It could be part of NATO or something, then it would be safe.

NATO has minimum military spending obligations to meet in order to be eligible for membership.

Would a nation "free of war, conflict, and domination" be willing to maintain a military, and send them to fight in defence of other members?