What if women ruled the world? 4 feminist utopias that defy gender norms
From Ladyland to Herland, these feminist utopias imagine worlds where women reshape society and leadership.
Updated: June 25, 2025 02:06 PM IST

What happens when women imagine a world free of patriarchy? Not just improved, but completely reimagined? Long before feminism became a mainstream movement, a few writers dared to build utopias, imaginary ideal worlds, that broke every rule of the world we live in. They gave us feminist visions of a better future.
Over a century apart, these novels speak across time to a shared desire, not just to survive in the world as it is, but to imagine it otherwise. From secluded all women societies to a world where gender roles are entirely reversed, these four feminist utopias challenge the norms of their times and continue to feel radical even today.
Sultana’s Dream

“We shut our men indoors”
This brave and inventive tale shows a utopian society where gender roles are entirely reversed. In her dream, Sultana visits Ladyland, a peaceful nation where science and reason rule, and crime is nonexistent. Men are kept indoors while women run the country. Women take positions of power and govern wisely. Wars do not happen because, as the story cheekily suggests, men’s egos and aggression have been removed from public life. With satire, this utopia critiques patriarchy and gives us a vision of what peace and progress might look like if women were in charge.
Herland

“They were inconveniently reasonable, these women”
Shows an all women utopia hidden from the world and thriving without men. Reproduction happens asexually and the women live in perfect harmony. Everything is peaceful and cooperative. This world is free from any kind of conflict. When three men arrive, expecting chaos, they’re stunned by a society that challenges every notion of male superiority. The question that looms in the minds of the men is that how could women achieve all that without them? Well, women figured it out, and built something far better in the process.
Woman on the Edge of Time

“The powerful don’t make revolutions”
A woman, Connie is institutionalised in the present day United States, where she is abused and disempowered. But she gains mental access to a future world, where gender roles no longer exist, parenting is shared and decisions are made through consensus. This novel moves between a grim present and a gender equal future. But that hopeful future is at a risk of being lost. The utopia shown here is as close to reality as possible. It’s fragile and its survival depends on whether people in the present can choose a different path. Woman on the Edge of Time is both a warning and a possibility.
The Female Man

“I’m not a girl. I’m a genius.”
Shows four women from parallel worlds, each shaped by drastically different systems: a world without men, another locked in domestic norms, one at war and one navigating everyday sexism. One woman believes she must think like a man to be taken seriously, another leads a society that has entirely rejected male dominance. As these women begin to move across each other’s realities, their beliefs about gender, power, sexuality and survival collide. Each world shows a different version of how women survive and fight. The Female Man does not point to a single utopia, but instead shows that the world women live in shape who they become. And when those worlds fall short, it’s a sign that society must evolve.
(The writer is an intern with indianexpress.com)
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