On the evening of August 26, men disappeared, including those who were pregnant in the womb. Some feel anguish and despair, others are relieved: abusive husbands, “unfortunate ex-lovers, bosses and stepfathers who abuse their daughters” have also been wiped out from the Earth. Novel ‘A world without men’It raises a simple premise like the title, published in Spanish by Seix Barral. Are we really facing a better world, “a world of lambs without wolves,” as the author originally described? Sandra Newman? Or, on the contrary, are things deteriorating, albeit from boredom at one half of humanity being deprived of the other?
the hero of this dystopiaJane Pearson will face the dilemma of saving the husband and son she loves and misses, or she’ll bet on a theoretically safer and less violent feminized society she’ll never see again. To make matters worse, a black and lesbian woman led by Evangelyne, with whom Jane had a close relationship during her college years, decides to return with the belief that she is the only one who can help bring hers. . Evangelyne is the founder of a party called Pacom and is on the front lines to become president in the new era.
Sandra Newman (Boston, 1965) is not new to creating dystopian scenarios. Right now Working on a feminist version of 1984In this sci-fi classic about totalitarian states that derives the concept of Big Brother, the lead character Winston Smith will examine his partner Julia’s point of view, written by George Orwell. He published his first novel translated into Spanish, before ‘A Worldless A World’. “Heavens”where utopia blends with a love story and time travel. She admits she was inspired for ‘A world without man’. Feminist science fiction written in the 1970s and 1980s and especially in Joanna Russ’ movie ‘The Female Man’. “Do I want the men gone? No” identified Sandra Newman in an interview in ‘The Guardian’ before predictable accusations of gender essentialism because of the approach of her novel. Women’s roles are already part of our legacy, and they won’t evaporate tomorrow, even in the hypothetical case of men disappearing, she thought.
accusations of transphobia
The author’s avoidance has become more complex transphobia criticisms. Sandra Newman chooses a Suleymanian decision not to ignore trans people outright, as feminist science fiction could afford in the ’70s: All humans with a Y chromosome are wiped off the planet with the stroke of a pen, so trans women are as deficient as cisgender men. The book also describes an attack on a transgender man. In the midst of the first seizure, which faces the disappearance of men and children, a “crowd of angry women” pull a transgender man’s pants down to his knees to check for a vulva and beat him. his girlfriend’s inability to defend him. This is one of the first episodes of ‘A world without man’, which already announces what another teacher of the genre claims, Margaret AtwoodAuthor of The Handmaid’s Tale, ‘Am I a bad feminist?’ published in 2018. In his article entitled: women are not angels incapable of evilbut humans with the full spectrum of seraphic and demonic behavior, including criminals.
And so it is, even though the main character, Jane Pearson, confuses the fateful event of August 26 with angels or children, “the voice of a hundred women and no men”, it won’t be long before reality takes her out of her dreams. The biggest reproach that can be made against ‘a world without people’ It’s not moral because it’s fiction, if only it would take almost 400 pages to finish something that was predictable. She is a racist neighbor woman who harasses Evangelyne, who calls the police every once in a while and knocks on her door under any pretext, thus discouraging her from living in a white neighborhood. Another is Poppy, the mentally ill man she fell in love with as a teenager and proved her fall. Before Sandra Newman, George Orwell had already talked about it, even if it wasn’t in ‘1984’ but ‘Animal Farm’. The coming to power of the oppressed does not mean the end of abuse, but is easily derived in an equivalent regime. It happens in women too. It is appreciated when a ‘world without humans’ ends. At least the circle is closed.