What many people do not realize is the GS has a “curriculum” that is followed. So, the reading material & program that the troops follow is set by national leadership. Recently, it was reported that a GS publication “Girltopia” featured this little diddy as a recommended book for pre-teen girls: The Gate to Women’s Country, authored by former Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood Director Sheri S. Tepper, a well-known eco-feminist and feminist science fiction writer.
Read the following overview written by Sue Brinkman & tell me if this is what you want your daughter reading:
“Tepper’s tale takes place 300 years into the future after a catastrophic war splits the U.S. into several nations with ‘Women’s Country’ being established in the Pacific northwest. The society within this country is matriarchal with all women, girl children and boys under the age of five living inside the town walls. All of the men live outside the town in ‘warrior camps.’ When the boys are five years old, they must leave Women’s Country and can only return at the age of 15 and only if they agree to be servants and castrated.
The book also incorporates Tepper’s eco-feminist ideology. Women’s Country exists within the framework of a sustainable economy with the people living off foods grown by low-tech local agriculture.
The citizens of Women’s Country are also very concerned with breeding violence out of society which they believe is biologically determined. ‘Medical Officers’ weed out undesirable men but women are also given hysterectomies and tubal ligations if they are deemed unfit to breed. The men from the warrior camps are only seen twice a year for a “Carnival” where women are encouraged to have sex with them either to satiate themselves and/or pro-create.”
Sir, you are Catholic. This pagan garbage does not follow suit with Catholic values & teachings. This parish was right to pull the plug on this GS troop. I pray for you that you & your wife will do the same. There are many more suitable options available including the American Heritage Girls (Christian) and my favorite, the Little Flowers.
I like Tepper's books but they are most definitely not for kids.
In writing that particular book she departed from her usual style and got really, really preachy. More along the lines of Marion Zimmer Bradley (who is a truly awful and predictably feminist/lesbian writer who is unreadable because she spends so little time on dialogue and character development and at least 10 pages every chapter on stating in exhaustive detail her crazy theories.) Probably some buddy on the PP board persuaded Tepper to write it.
The take-away from "Gate to Women's Country", however, is that it doesn't work. Everyone involved is miserable. The straw man of the evil neighboring "Christian" polygamists is completely transparent, so it doesn't really function as a contrast. The bio-engineering is a dismal failure, and the idea that violence can somehow be broken down genetically into "violence we like" and "violence we don't like" is absurd. And of course it's all based on a lie. All children are artificially conceived in a lab - sex is fruitless.
All in all not one of Tepper's typical books (I think she was trying to take the selective breeding idea to a logical extreme) and not particularly successful. Prefer her True Game series, which is not so heavy-handed.
It figures that the loons at the Girl Scouts would take the least successful, most atypical book from a pretty good SF writer and run with it. I bet their reading list also includes Marion ZB and Mercedes Lackey - another feminist/lesbian idiot.