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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Satire of the sexes, February 19, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Egalia's Daughters: A Satire of the Sexes (Paperback)
This book is both hilarious and makes you think. It's subtitled "A satire of the sexes", and that basically says it all. It's an upside-down society, in which men are repressed and taken advantage of, and women have all the power. There men wear the skirts and have to cover their unattractive, flat chests, while women wear the pants and can walk around topless if they want to. And the men take care of the kids, once the woman has decided she wants to have one. The whole language reflects this society's views, e.g. by referring to humanity as Woman, rather than Man. It's written in Norwegian originally, and I really feel sorry for the translator who had to find culturally and linguistically comparable expressions. I've read the original, and the language "switch" is even more successful there. (... that "history" was left in the original form, which it should rightfully be, as this has nothing to do with the pronoun "his") It does lose a bit of the wordplay-effect of the original, which is inevitable. Still I think the translation is good, considering the differences between the languages. Because of the "creative" language it's a bit heavy to read, especially in the beginning. At least I found myself trying to "translate" back to the usual way of saying things - the patriarcaic way. But if you're looking for a book out of the ordinary and don't mind the effort, this is an interesting read.
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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Egalia - a true reversal of gender roles, June 1, 2000
This review is from: Egalia's Daughters: A Satire of the Sexes (Paperback)
Although the English version has about twenty to fifty editing errors and is not the original language it was written in, Egalia's Daughters by Gerd Brantenberg, is a highly inventive study of female oppression through every stratum of society, down to the smallest detail, such as how women are oppressed liguistically. The english language denotes girls as females and women and denotes boys a simpler version or primary version of those words, male and men. Thus Egalia equates women with wym and males with mafeles, making the every word (except history) switch to give women a dominance over males. The most interesting part, however, is not the lurid sex scenes, which are probably more accepted in Norway(is she from Norway?) or the hard to grasp linguistic switch Gerd presents, but rather the success of the menwym (men) to find freedom and some level of equality within an obviously biased and completely unfair society in which menwym are nothing more than sex objects. I would suggest this book to anyone who does not agree with feminist thought. If you think women are treated fairly, read this book. It's not only completely entertaining, but educational as well. It made me think thrice.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For all who use cod biology to explain the position of women, January 15, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Egalia's Daughters: A Satire of the Sexes (Paperback)
This book describes a world in which gender roles have been reversed and in particular the fortunes of one "masculinist" boy who tries to fight against the opression of his gender. When you first start reading it lots of the reversals may seem artificial and a bit trite and you might think that this is nothing more than a feminist take on the UK comedians the two Ronnies' long run sketch "the worm that turned". Even at this level it is very much worth reading if your sense of humour is in anyway childish and scatalogical. This book goes further than this in two ways. First it has brilliant justifications for why women (or wim) have the power in the society described in the book which are just as convincing as the usual psuedo-biological "survival of the fittest" type arguements most recently put forward by a certain US law professor. This undelines the point that a story consistent with the facts is not necessarily "true" , even if a "true" story could be used as justification for the status quo. Second, by ascribing to the men in the book the characteristics usually asociated with women (so men are now from venus and women are from mars!) it also undermines the 70/80s feminst view that a society run by women would be much "bettter" than a society run by men. While none of this points are very profound it is after all a novell rather than an essay in feminist theory, it is a brilliant satire and should definately be read.
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