ABSTRACT
One way to find out just how men and women really differ might be to catch them by themselves. Look at the way women behave when there are no men around to bluster or be wrapped around little fingers. Watch the men when no women can rescue them from their own messes or hold them back from adventure. Ryman depicts a harsh revolutionary society in which heterosexual men are sent to extermination camps and homosexuals are tolerated so long as they collaborate with the unseen female overseers. Women's groups now include feminist political caucuses, rugby teams, and assembly lines in Asian shoe factories. In it, the women of a world called Whileaway confront the return of men to their stable, varied, pragmatic society. A central premise of Utopian thought is that the cluster of attitudes and behaviors that we call 'human nature' is not fixed but can be altered by indoctrination and by social systems that favor certain behaviors over others.
