Herland

 A summary of Herland written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman:

The United States of America was established by the European civilized men in the hope of bringing a Utopia into existence. As an American writer, sociologist, and a woman, Charlotte P. Gilman is truly unsatisfied with her land, and instead dreams of Herland in which the dire problems of the inequality and population growth have been dealt rather differently in the country of mothers.

Where motherhood -the symbol of love and endless mercy- is the religion, one cannot conceive the concept of inequality. "What is POOR, exactly?" Moadine asked. Though "ours is the best country in the world as to poverty", Terry said, "at least a third of women are wage earners", the women who are poor and not "loved and honored". While men, innately competitors, interpret the huge gap between rich and poor simply as "the laws of nature", this law does not exist in the country of mothers. As far as education is concerned, even in America, the modern Utopia, it is not equally accessible to all children, highly depending on the economic class of the child's family, whereas in Herland "in everywhere there was the same level of intelligence ... all of them knew more about everything than is the case with us", the protagonist sadly said.

Facing population explosion, we have learned, in our men-devised world, to struggle for existence to the expense of others' life by invading other countries for more food and land. In Herland, women did not innately dare to think of sacrificing other beings, instead, they decided to spread their desire of love to others' children, though not born from their womb, and call them "our children".

After reading this provocative novel, I have started dreaming of a world in which feminists do not strive to show women as merely unbearded men, but instead, attempt to show what the unique invaluable treasure women are for our world.