Amazonian Dystopia

FEMINIST hatred of men might be trending at the moment, but even the misandrists get themselves into hot water from time to time. In a new science-fiction novel by Sandra Newman (The Men), all human beings and foetuses with a Y chromosome disappear overnight and the world is left completely bereft of the male organism. In the words of one reviewer, "if the world turned out to be a better place without your loved one, would you sacrifice the greater good to turn the clock back?"

As male-dominated institutions collapse and sexual violence is dramatically reduced, it eventually transpires that the environmental desolation which remains was always "a future world in which the men had never disappeared" and that it "was the hell to which we would have been condemned, the Earth they would have made." Men, therefore, have not merely become conspicuous by their absence but are expected to shoulder the blame posthumously. At the same time, Newman (pictured) has come in for a large degree of criticism from those she was seeking to impress. As the Guardian reports:

"There were vehement charges of gender essentialism and transphobia; in Newman's scenario the disappearance of anyone with a Y chromosome means trans, intersex and non-binary people being swept away."

Ideally, I suppose, Newman would now like to write a sequel in which men are blamed for that as well.