In this book, men have to shove their penises inside of a little box and then tie a string around it to hold it secure and then their testicles hang in a "shame bag" underneath. This all goes outside of a skirt they wear, where there's a little hole cut in it to shove this thing called a "peho" through. When boys get their first peho, it's embarrassing for them: "If Dad came with him, he and the shop assistant would stand there discussing the length, colour and quality interminably. Ought he to have a size 5 with a B- tube or a size 6 with an A-tube, and they would debate, sizing him up with their heads cocked to one side, pretending that having a penis was the most natural thing in the world." P.13

When women give birth, it takes place in a room at The Palace of Birth: "The door opened and in came the celebrant in full regalia--with her broad redcape, embroidered in gold--and thumped three times on the floor with her staff. That meant that the child bearer was approaching. Behind her came the choir girls with their short, red smocks and their pyramid - shaped black hats. They were naked from the navel down. They formed three rows between the head of the bed and the organ so that their pubic hair formed a long row of dark triangles. They were all the same height. At the end came Ruth Bram, accompanied by two midwives in their usual white coats. Bram was wearing the black birth - coat. The organ was playing a tranquil Prelude as she crossed to the head of the bed in front of the choir. Here, she threw off the black birth - coat and stood before them in all her mighty nakedness. And at exactly this moment, as she flung away the coat, the organ and choir burst into the Divine prenatal cantata, and Bram swung herself elegantly up onto the birth bed." P.129

In the society depicted in Brantenberg's book, women have all the power. It's just delightful to read, but the reader may catch a twinge of a feeling that things are not fair for the men. But this is quickly remedied when the reader remembers how things are in the real society. "This is what we in the Masculine League call a 'have-your-cake-and-eat-it' ideology, because the purpose of the system is to allow wim to have their cake and eat it. They have achieved the advantage of having overcome a possible inferiority in physical strength, by undertaking no hard work whatsoever. This is most clearly visible in the upper classes, where most wim are in fact physically stronger than menwim. And it is the upper-class manwim that is held up as the ideal, which all menwim are meant to look like--fat, sagging and over decorated with every kind of ornament, utterly lacking in any will of his own. We're supposed to be fat so we emphasize the value we have as luxury attributes for women. And this ideal of the upper - class manwim is held up for the entire population, despite the fact that the great majority of men cannot live up to it, because they have to work constantly. As a result they become the direct opposite of what menwim are supposed to be --thin, strong, and--finally --worn out. And rejected as sex objects." P.224 ( )

I picked up this book mostly because the author is Norwegian and I have may have some feminist tendencies. Getting into the first few chapters I wasn't expecting much, thinking it is a little out of date feminism wise, and the idea of "but what if men were treated like women" isn't anything revolutionary. I have to say by the time I was about a fourth of the way through the book I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did I thoroughly enjoy the characters and identify with their struggles, there were also a few times were the novel did make me question constructs that I previously never thought to. I would recommend this book to feminists, seasoned and new, all women, all men, and anyone who just like a good book with well developed characters and a hint of dry and dark humor. ( )

Menwim can't wear trousers, there wouldn't be room in there for their penises and shamebags!

Cleaning in the kitchen, we have this one shelf that tends to accumulate... stuff. And on it, I found my copy of this book, and realised I'd never reviewed it. I also realised, bye-the-bye, that to have got on that shelf, my daughter must have had it in the kitchen, which somehow makes me quite proud, because this is not obviously a book a 15 year old girl would pick up, but it is one that perhaps more should read.

The plot is simple, almost non-existent, although pleasant enough. A coming of age story, a young man making forays into the adult world, finding out it's not all a bed of roses, and just "being a grown-up" doesn't mean you get what you want. The plot is not the point though.

What Brantenberg did, is simply flip the genders. On absolutely everything. Every place in our language, clothing, rituals, societal makeup, everywhere. I imagine she wrote a simple story about a young woman learning about feminism in the 70's, and then simply reversed everything, and therein lies the satire.

Instead of men and women, we have wim, and manwim. Adolescent boys are taken on excruciating expeditions with their stay-at-home-dad's to the mall to buy their first peho's, and then complain how stupid and uncomfortable it is to have to cram their penises into those stupid boxes. The symbols of sporting prowess are the symbols of menstruation, not masculinity.

The genius is that the author more or less doesn't comment on most of it, it just is what it is. And there's a lot of things that are so utterly invisible to us most of the time, but are cringe-worthy when they have a light shone on them in this way.

Of course it's dated, in that it was written in the 70's, and it is oh so very 70's in tone. A lot has changed, but then, a lot hasn't.

The only real reason to not read this, is that the language can be a little difficult. I'm not exactly a feminist scholar, there's probably a lot more to say about this than I can manage. But I do think this is something that is very worth picking up if you run across a copy. As an adult woman, old enough to remember the time depicted here, even for me the depth of impact gender has on language was illuminating in itself. The writing is otherwise clear enough that you get the hang of the reversal within a chapter or two. I say that having read it in Swedish, which like the author's native Norwegian, has neutral gender pronouns available which to some extent mute the effect of biological sex. Reading it again in English made the whole thing even stronger.

Recommended to: Everyone who says they are a feminist, everyone who says they are not a feminist, everyone who is in favour of gender equality, and everyone who is a member of a dominant social class (here's looking at you, white middle class men) and therefore has no actual idea what it feels like to not be that. And every teenager, ever.

You may not precisely enjoy it (or you might, the characters are quite engaging, and there are places it's drop dead funny), but I don't think it's possible to read this book without experiencing at least a small moment of revelation. ( )

Here's a little delicious tid bit from Egalia's Daughters in which wim are the dominant sex and poor housebound menwim stay home to care for the children and mop the floors:

This description is of the annual Menstruation Games:

At the front were two big, dark red banners, symbolizing menstrual blood, then came the musicians - a band composed of twenty pregnant wim playing a victory march, followed by a troop of fifteen more wim waving blood towels of various colours, throwing them up into the air and catching them, juggling with them -- at least five at once -- in time with the music. At the tail end came the menwim, with children in their arms or holding them by the hand. When the pregnant brass-players had finished their march, the menwim began singing the 'Hymn to the Life-force', which was about the pregnant daughters of the motherland.

Now, Egalia is not an egalitarian state, and the menwim are oppressed, but damn, the wim know how to celebrate being wim! Brantenberg takes on sexism by examining all the ways men, or rather menwim, would be discriminated against if women, or wim, were the dominant gender. She examines everything from the idea of which human characteristics "naturally" belong to which gender, to how language shapes our view of the world, to sexualizing clothing to the idea that one gender is "used" by the other for sex in such a way that one gender cannot think of the other without thinking of sex, to the idea that if a gender decides to stand up for its rights the people in the movement are thought to be haters of the other gender and homosexual so easily ignored. All these arguments would work either way, depending on which gender is being discriminated against. What is different in this book is that in a matriarchy, female (or rather fele) domination is based on the dominant sex's affiliation with the natural world based on the ability to menstruate. Because of this affinity environmentalism is natural and governmentally protected. Women are with nature as opposed to the patriarchal idea of men fighting against nature. This is an excellent book recommended to anyone interested in feminism, humanism or environmentalism. ( )

My review is here:
http://moosplace.blogspot.com/2009/10/egalias-daughters.html ( )