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Determined Homesteaders Wife has been merged to Determined Homesteader. Example lacks context and seems to have nothing to do with homesteading, so probably misuse anyway
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* DeterminedHomesteadersWife: [[spoiler:Former lieutenant Rura]] eventually becomes this when hiding from the Anglians with her husband. They are forced away from their home, however.
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Not So Different has been renamed, and it needs to be dewicked/moved
* MirroringFactions: Both sides in the war accuse each other of horrible war crimes against captives, including rape, torture and worse. Diarmid admits that [[BothSidesHaveAPoint both are right]] when called on it by Rura--though he still thinks the Anglians are worse, since his own side is at least not outright genocidal like they are.
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* NotSoDifferent: Both sides in the war accuse each other of horrible war crimes against captives, including rape, torture and worse. Diarmid admits that [[BothSidesHaveAPoint both are right]] when called on it by Rura--though he still thinks the Anglians are worse, since his own side is at least not outright genocidal like they are.
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Frickin' Laser Beams entry amended in accordance with this Trope Repair Shop Thread
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.* EnergyWeapon: As befits the 25th century setting, lasers have largely replaced traditional rifles and guns, at least in high-tech Anglia. Their standard rifle is a laser, with its lack of recoil making it perhaps especially well suited for their relatively physically weaker and more slightly built female soldiers.
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* FrickinLaserBeams: As befits the 25th century setting, lasers have largely replaced traditional rifles and guns, at least in high-tech Anglia. Their standard rifle is a laser, with its lack of recoil making it perhaps especially well suited for their relatively physically weaker and more slightly built female soldiers.
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Badass Gay isn't a trope anymore.
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* BadassGay: Rura, who is at least bisexual as well as a military action heroine. Also true for Moryn, Kayt and several other Anglian military characters, since their Amazonian society is largely lesbian culturally.
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Woman In White is no longer a trope per TRS.
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* WomanInWhite: Cadet Jolan, whom Rura briefly mentors. In general, Anglian cadets wear a white dress uniform for formal occasions, rather than the officers' black they receive on graduation.
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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/who_needs_men.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Typically for the 1970s, the cover art has [[CoversAlwaysLie nothing]] to do with the story within.]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Typically for the 1970s, the cover art has [[CoversAlwaysLie nothing]] to do with the story within.]]
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[[caption-width-right:350:Typically for the 1970s, the cover art has [[CoversAlwaysLie nothing]] to do with the story within.]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Typically for the 1970s, the cover art has [[CoversAlwaysLie nothing]] to do with the story within.]]
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Hello Nurse Renamed per TRS
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* HelloNurse: Curie Milford is described as the most beautiful woman anyone in Anglia has seen, [[OlderThanTheyLook even at seventy]], and the response to her public speeches looks a lot like fangirling as much as regular CultOfPersonality stuff. Rumor has it that three of her lovers were DrivenToSuicide when she broke up with them.
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* HelloNurse: HeadTurningBeauty: Curie Milford is described as the [[WorldsMostBeautifulWoman most beautiful woman woman]] anyone in Anglia has seen, [[OlderThanTheyLook even at seventy]], and the response to her public speeches looks a lot like fangirling as much as regular CultOfPersonality stuff. Rumor has it that three of her lovers were DrivenToSuicide when she broke up with them.
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Contrast with ''Literature/TheHandmaidsTale'', its SpiritualAntithesis about a NoWomansLand run by {{Straw Misogynist}}s.
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"Bisexual" is really a misnomer here.
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* TheSocialDarwinist: Anglia's ideology proclaims that their all-female society is a higher stage of evolution than bisexual humanity. They are the stronger, the inheritors of the world, and so the vestiges of the obsolete species must be wiped out to make way for progress and development, and prevent the possibility of regression into lower forms of life.
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* TheSocialDarwinist: Anglia's ideology proclaims that their all-female society is a higher stage of evolution than bisexual two-sexed humanity. They are the stronger, the inheritors of the world, and so the vestiges of the obsolete species must be wiped out to make way for progress and development, and prevent the possibility of regression into lower forms of life.
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One of those tasked with realizing this aim is Rura Alexander, a conscientious and idealistic young cadet in her final year at the principal Anglian military academy. Though regretting the violence of the war, Rura understands its necessity for making a better and safer future for her sisters--or so she thinks. As she is deployed and experiences more of the actual conflict, however, she begins increasingly to doubt her own side's rectitude. The familiar propaganda notwithstanding, the horrible enemy, when seen up close, appears still strangely... human.
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One of those tasked with realizing this aim is Rura Alexander, Alexandra, a conscientious and idealistic young cadet in her final year at the principal Anglian military academy. Though regretting the violence of the war, Rura understands its necessity for making a better and safer future for her sisters--or so she thinks. As she is deployed and experiences more of the actual conflict, however, she begins increasingly to doubt her own side's rectitude. The familiar propaganda notwithstanding, the horrible enemy, when seen up close, appears still strangely... human.
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[[caption-width-right:350:Typically for the 1970s, this cover has [[CoversAlwaysLie nothing]] to do with the story within.]]
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[[caption-width-right:350:Typically for the 1970s, this the cover art has [[CoversAlwaysLie nothing]] to do with the story within.]]
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[[caption-width-right:350:Typically for the 1970s, this cover has [[CoversAlwaysLie nothing]] to do with the story within.]]
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* AffablyEvil: Kayt. She is always portrayed and nice and friendly to everyone, is impersonally professional rather than sadistic about her work, and tries to be understanding and sympathetic to Rura when the latter reveals her secret doubts about the regime's genocidal policies. Still, there is never any hint that Kayt sees anything wrong with the evil things they do, herself.
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* AffablyEvil: Kayt. She is always portrayed and as nice and friendly to everyone, is impersonally professional rather than sadistic about her work, and tries to be understanding and sympathetic to Rura when the latter reveals her secret doubts about the regime's genocidal policies. Still, there is never any hint that Kayt sees anything wrong with the evil things they do, herself.
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----
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->''Animals have a right to live, if they can.''
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->''"It is more than two and a half centuries now since we threw off the yoke of slavery, since we expelled the last men, the last troublemakers, from the civilised society of the Republic of Anglia. They thought they were indispensable. They thought that womankind could not get along without them. History shows how wrong they were. How very wrong they were."''
-->-- '''Prime Minister Curie Milford'''
-->-- '''Prime Minister Curie Milford'''
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* CulturedBadass: [[spoiler:Rura becomes this when she joins the Northerners. She is somewhat above-averagely interested in history and such things even before, but this is mainly due to the relatively lower cultural standards there; Diarmid, for example, can't even read.]]
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* CulturedBadass: [[spoiler:Rura becomes this when she joins the Northerners. She is somewhat above-averagely interested in history and such things even before, but this her new status is mainly due to the relatively lower cultural standards there; Diarmid, for example, can't even read.]]
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* HelloNurse: Curie Milford is described as the most beautiful woman anyone in Anglia has seen, [[OlderThanTheyLook even at seventy]], and the response to her public speeches looks a lot like fangirling as much as regular CultOfPersonality stuff. Rumor has it that three of her lovers have committed suicide when she broke up with them.
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* HelloNurse: Curie Milford is described as the most beautiful woman anyone in Anglia has seen, [[OlderThanTheyLook even at seventy]], and the response to her public speeches looks a lot like fangirling as much as regular CultOfPersonality stuff. Rumor has it that three of her lovers have committed suicide were DrivenToSuicide when she broke up with them.
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* MildlyMilitary: The Anglian military, at least the units seen in any detail, comes across as rather corrupt, apathetic, unnecessarily brutal, and sloppy, the exceptions of a few idealistic young officers and "commissar"-type ideological fanatics notwithstanding. Drug abuse, promiscuity and wanton violence is somewhat widespread, yielding a stereotypically "Vietnam"-like overall impression. Of course, Rura's regiment has been fighting a horrible guerrilla war for a long time, and apparently without relief, so this is not necessarily unrealistic. By the same token, it is likely that other units are in a better condition, at least relatively.
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* MildlyMilitary: The Anglian military, at least the units seen in any detail, comes across as rather corrupt, apathetic, unnecessarily brutal, and sloppy, the exceptions of a few idealistic young officers and "commissar"-type ideological fanatics notwithstanding. Drug abuse, promiscuity and wanton violence is somewhat widespread, yielding a stereotypically "Vietnam"-like "[[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam]]"-like overall impression. Of course, Rura's regiment has been fighting a horrible guerrilla war for a long time, and apparently without relief, so this is not necessarily unrealistic. By the same token, it is likely that other units are in a better condition, at least relatively.
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* CultOfPersonality: In Anglia, Curie Milford is all but literally worshiped much like Mussolini was in Italy, or Stalin in the USSR.
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* CultOfPersonality: In Anglia, Curie Milford is all but literally worshiped much like Mussolini UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini was in Italy, UsefulNotes/{{Italy}}, or Stalin UsefulNotes/JosefStalin in the USSR.[[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet Union]].
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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/who_needs_men.jpg]]
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!!''Who Needs Men?'' provides examples of the following tropes:
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!!''Who Needs Men?'' provides examples of the following tropes:Tropes?'':
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* YouCannotKillAnIdea: Diarmid gives a BadassBoast to the effect that while a Northerner victory might seem unlikely, Anglia will not have won the war, either, while there is still even one man left alive fighting back.
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* YouCannotKillAnIdea: Diarmid gives a BadassBoast to the effect that while a Northerner victory might seem unlikely, Anglia will not have won the war, either, while there is still even one man left alive fighting back.back.
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''Who Needs Men?'' provides examples of the following tropes:
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!!''Who Needs Men?'' provides examples of the following tropes:
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''Who Needs Men?'' is a 1972 [[{{Dystopia}} dystopian]] {{science fiction}} novel by British poet, author, journalist and former merchant mariner Edmund Cooper. Its American edition was published under the title ''Gender Genocide'', hinting even more clearly at its central conflict.
In the 25th century, following apocalyptic disasters including large-scale biological warfare, the Republic of Anglia (in what was formerly England) is a scientifically advanced all-female state, its inhabitants reproducing through a vaguely ''Literature/BraveNewWorld''-like system of mass-scale cloning. It is also an effectively totalitarian state, perpetually at war with the struggling remnants of the former patriarchal order that still linger in the Northlands. The aim of Anglia's leaders is that these "regressives" should, eventually, be completely exterminated.
One of those tasked with realizing this aim is Rura Alexander, a conscientious and idealistic young cadet in her final year at the principal Anglian military academy. Though regretting the violence of the war, Rura understands its necessity for making a better and safer future for her sisters--or so she thinks. As she is deployed and experiences more of the actual conflict, however, she begins increasingly to doubt her own side's rectitude. The familiar propaganda notwithstanding, the horrible enemy, when seen up close, appears still strangely... human.
''Who Needs Men?'' provides examples of the following tropes:
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* AccidentalHero: Rura's first real combat deployment ends up a disaster, with her the only survivor of her unit. She expects to be cashiered, but instead she is [[PropagandaHero made a hero]] for salvaging the situation, and decorated and held up as an example to the other cadets.
* TheAce: Kayt, an older and more experienced officer in the borderland troops, who becomes a sort of mentor figure (and lover) to Rura.
* ActionGirl: Rura, who is decorated and graduates with distinction after her first live-fire mission. Generally, most of the more developed Anglian characters are this, being combat-arm military officers.
* AffablyEvil: Kayt. She is always portrayed and nice and friendly to everyone, is impersonally professional rather than sadistic about her work, and tries to be understanding and sympathetic to Rura when the latter reveals her secret doubts about the regime's genocidal policies. Still, there is never any hint that Kayt sees anything wrong with the evil things they do, herself.
* TheAlcoholic: Olane is heavily implied to be one, due to the stress of being forced through the academy without really wanting a military career.
* AllLovingHeroine: Rura has empathy for everyone, whether soldiers on her own side or the enemy. Naturally, this does not make her happy as a soldier. She always tries to spare defeated enemies if at all possible, and asks others to do so as well, with varying results.
* AmazonBrigade: Since the Republic of Anglia is a LadyLand, with no men at all in it, its military is this by default.
* AmazonianBeauty: Kayt is tall and rather muscular, yet still conventionally attractive. Rura herself is a somewhat downplayed example, neither quite as much of a Valkyrie nor quite as beautiful.
* AntiHero: Diarmid [=McDiarmid=]. He is a highly successful guerrilla leader (to the point of becoming TheDreaded to the Anglians), and as such is (as he must realistically be) extremely ruthless. All the same, he remains (mostly) a KnightInSourArmor who retains a realistic view both of his own actions and those of the enemy.
* AnyoneCanDie: A large number of named characters die over the course of the story, starting quite early. This includes among others [[spoiler: Olane, Moryn, Mirage, the Douglas, Diarmid, Kayt]] and even [[spoiler:Rura herself]].
* AppealToNature: The main argument of the Northerners is that Anglia's LadyLand is unsustainable in the long run, since it runs contrary to human nature. Thus, it leads to an increasingly dysfunctional and depressed society, and even the most powerful indoctrination cannot halt this downward slide. The Anglians disagree, of course, thinking a LadyLand is a natural next step in humanity's evolution.
* AppealToTradition: Rura finds the "blooding" ceremony in the military (similar to the [[http://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/blogs/dan-schmidt-deer-blog-whitetail-wisdom/deer-hunters-smear-blood-faces-kill real-life hunting ritual]]) unpleasant and even revolting, but accepts it because it is part of the martial traditions.
* BadassGay: Rura, who is at least bisexual as well as a military action heroine. Also true for Moryn, Kayt and several other Anglian military characters, since their Amazonian society is largely lesbian culturally.
* BeautyEqualsGoodness: Zig-zagged. Many of the Anglian characters are beautiful despite being evil (or at any rate, not ''good''), which may be due to eugenics in part. However, it is also acknowledged that the Northerners, in spite of not having access to cosmetics and such, possess an often startling, more "natural" attractiveness.
* BeingEvilSucks: The widespread alcoholism, promiscuity and drug abuse among the Anglian soldiers would seem to imply Diarmid is right in claiming that their society produces disturbed and unhappy people. Of course, some part of it might also be due to them being soldiers fighting out a depressing ForeverWar. Either way, most of TheEmpire's soldiers don't really seem to be having all that much fun being evil.
* BeingGoodSucks: Rura eventually ends up being punished for her sympathy for the enemy, but she is more tormented by her own doubts and guilt. The Northerners are an example in another way, being free but suffering every material deprivation, as well as the horrors of a genocidal war against them.
* BelligerentSexualTension: Between Rura and Diarmid, when they meet. [[spoiler:Eventually, they are married, and Rura joins the Northerners.]]
* BerserkButton: Among the Anglians, it is a severe insult to suggest that a woman was naturally born, as opposed to cloned (much as with "Freebirths" among the Clans in the ''[[Franchise/BattleTechExpandedUniverse BattleTech]]'' setting). Likewise, to be called a "wife" is considered very demeaning, implying both abnormal sexuality (by their lesbian society's standards) and servility.
* BigBad: Prime Minister Curie Milford, the leader of the Anglian Republic, who pushes for a more aggressive military policy. Both friends and foes speak of "Curie Milford's Republic" and "Curie Milford's war," identifying her completely with the state.
* BigBrotherIsEmployingYou: All of the major characters on the Anglian side, and notably the protagonist Rura, are regular military officers serving in the armed forces of their totalitarian state.
* BlackAndGrayMorality: The Northerners have a rather primitive society, and tolerate rape of Anglian prisoners (though this is more because their leader can't effectively enforce any law against it than because he likes it). On the other hand, the Anglians are trying to exterminate them down to every last child (and they also rape and torture their Northerner captives more or less regularly, in addition to that).
* BuryYourGays: Played with. More gay characters than straight die in the story, but this is due to them being the majority of the characters in the book, as well. In fact, the trope is arguably ''inverted'' in this book, since straight characters are both rarer and statistically more likely to come to a bad end.
* CastFullOfGay: Justified, since most of the characters are from Anglia, a LadyLand where everyone is lesbian, or at least socialized as such.
* ChickMagnet: Rura picks up a number of admirers and girlfriends without really trying, even when she becomes increasingly depressed. Some of this is due to Anglia's FreeLoveFuture setting, but she is implied to be unusually pursued even so.
* CloneArmy: Most Anglian soldiers are clones, with a few created through another, seemingly more exclusive biochemical process called parthenogenesis. While thus biologically identical to their templates, they are raised as individuals with names, downplaying most of the common associations of the trope.
* ColdBloodedTorture: Willa and Garnet beat, kick and otherwise abuse "Jenny Lindsay" to make her tell them where her husband is. From the casual way everyone treats it, this seems to be more or less standard procedure.
* ConditionedToAcceptHorror: Both sides in the war think the other suffers from this, with people able to live in such horrible cultures only due to brainwashing. To the Northerners, Anglia's unnatural, dehumanized and totalitarian all-female society is monstrous, while a patriarchal nation where women are wives and mothers seems horrifying to most Anglians.
* TheConscience: Rura. At first, she is filled with PatrioticFervor like the others; after that wears off, she tries to be professional. Even so, she never stops caring about people, even the enemy.
* CrapsackWorld: Anglia is a totalitarian state that looks a lot like a StrawFeminist version of ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'' with a somewhat less competent Thought Police, while the Northerners live in squalor and privation under the effective rule of warlords. It is said that most of the rest of the world is roughly the same, though the details are vague.
* CultOfPersonality: In Anglia, Curie Milford is all but literally worshiped much like Mussolini was in Italy, or Stalin in the USSR.
* CultureClash: When Rura is captured by the Northerners, she is exposed to their culture, which severely clashes with her own upbringing in Anglia. This concerns both trivialities (e.g., forms of address) and the fundamental core assumptions of their respective societies.
* CulturedBadass: [[spoiler:Rura becomes this when she joins the Northerners. She is somewhat above-averagely interested in history and such things even before, but this is mainly due to the relatively lower cultural standards there; Diarmid, for example, can't even read.]]
* CureYourGays: Inverted by the Anglians, who try to force Northerner women they capture to become lesbians. Averted by Diarmid, who instead makes an AppealToNature: as he sees it, most Anglian women would simply cure themselves of the unnatural ideas forced on them by their regime's indoctrination and propaganda if they were only exposed to a healthier environment, without any coercion.
* DarkActionGirl: Mirage, who leads the attack on the Northerner camp during Rura's first real campaign.
* DefectingForLove: [[spoiler:Rura eventually joins the Northerners, both because she comes to view them as the less evil side and because she falls in love with Diarmid.]]
* DefiantCaptive: Double-subverted. At first, "Jenny Lindsay" is defiant, but then she plays along when Garnet rather forcefully tries to seduce her -- but only because she is looking for an opportunity to break free once they are alone together.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Neither of the societies in the story has the same values as real life "Western" culture. Anglia is a LadyLand with socially normative lesbianism and FantasticRacism against men, as well as a vaguely ''1984''-like militaristic totalitarian dictatorship, while Northerner society is rugged, primitive and sexist in much the same manner as a warrior band or full-time military unit. Characters from both sides generally consider their own way to live the only reasonable one, though the more thoughtful of them are also able to reflect on and criticize faults they perceive among themselves. Even then, though, they rarely sound like 21st-century Europeans.
* DeterminedHomesteadersWife: [[spoiler:Former lieutenant Rura]] eventually becomes this when hiding from the Anglians with her husband. They are forced away from their home, however.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything:
** The low morale and poor discipline among the Anglian units Rura serves with rather resembles the stereotype of Americans in Vietnam (which, of course, was current at the time of writing), or more darkly, some of the reports of the Nazi counterinsurgency forces on the Eastern Front in WWII (that also took part in genocidal operations). Also, depending on how uncharitable one wishes to be, Prime Minister Curie Milford can be read as inspired by either Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy or Hitler/Stalin-type dictators.
** Rura's horrified reaction when [[spoiler:she realizes that she might be in love with a ''man'', as well as how she progresses from there. Since lesbianism is normative in Anglia and male-female attractions heavily stigmatized, and Rura herself has only been with women before, her thoughts are confused, ashamed and guilty in a somewhat similar way as one might have expected if she had found herself homosexual in a more traditional society]].
* TheDreaded: Diarmid [=McDiarmid=] is this in Anglia for being the most successful patriarchal guerrilla leader. His cruelty and dangerousness (the former exaggerated, the latter not so much) are proverbial not only among soldiers, but even in the civilian population.
* TheEmpire: The Republic of Anglia, which tries to conquer all of the former Great Britain and impose its own social model and ruthless totalitarian rule on it. It also seems to be ruling parts of continental Europe, though this is somewhat unclear.
* EvilMentor: Kayt plays this role to Rura as a slightly older and more experienced officer, being her mentor, lover and role model, as well as a sympathetic personal voice reinforcing the Anglian regime's horrible ideology and propaganda.
* EvilReactionary: The Northerners are viewed this way in Anglia, for refusing to accept their "modern" society. Naturally, they don't consider themselves evil, though they are certainly against that sort of progress.
* {{Fanservice}}: While justified by the internal dynamics of the setting, there are a lot of girl-girl love affairs going on.
* FantasticRacism: A variant that overlaps with sexism, since the Anglians are effectively a OneGenderRace and view men as a despised foreign race, if not another species altogether. The women in the Northerner nation are seen either as victims or (more often) as [[CategoryTraitor race-traitors]] for being part of a patriarchal society.
* FantasticSlurs: The Anglians use various demeaning appellations for the Northerners, but the most common one is simply "pig" (or "sow" for women). Anglian soldiers in turn are often called "hellbitches" by the Northerners.
* FascistButInefficient: Much like a real Communist state, Anglia is shown to be massively corrupt, with personal connections crucial to advancement and success. Ordinary citizens live out their rather drab lives under a depressing regime reminiscent of [[Literature/NineteenEightyFour Oceania's]] permanent war economy.
* FemaleMisogynist: Women in both of the setting's cultures hate and despise the women in the enemy society. Specifically:
** The Amazons of Anglia's StrawFeminist culture view the feminine Northerner women as, at best, contemptibly weak and pitiable victims of the men in their society, and more usually as willfully perverse traitors to their own [[OneGenderRace sex/race]] for upholding their culture's patriarchal values.
** Contrariwise, the women of the North (that we see, at least) think of the Anglians as murderous oppressors as well as representatives of a horribly unnatural and sick society: no real women at all, but some sort of distorted monstrosities.
* FeministFantasy: Deconstructed, with the ActionGirl heroine part of a glamorous elite military combat unit fighting dangerous barbarians... and finding that her life still is not very enviable. Her country is a LadyLand, and yet it has all the same problems of corruption, fanaticism, etc. as any other totalitarian state. Just having women as the rulers instead of men changes nothing, either for better or worse. And WarIsHell whether the military is male or female.
* ForeverWar: The genocidal war against the still-patriarchal Northerners. It has been going on for over a hundred years as a sort of low-intensity conflict, and still does; at the preset time, however, the new Premier, Curie Milford, wants to step up the pace.
* FreeLoveFuture: From what we see of it, Anglia seems to view sexual liaisons very casually. To be fair, this may be because most of the major Anglian characters are military cadets or young officers, but there is not even any mention of such a thing as marriage, the closest thing being lovers in regular (but still informal) relationships.
* FrickinLaserBeams: As befits the 25th century setting, lasers have largely replaced traditional rifles and guns, at least in high-tech Anglia. Their standard rifle is a laser, with its lack of recoil making it perhaps especially well suited for their relatively physically weaker and more slightly built female soldiers.
* FutureImperfect: Both sides in the war have distorted and incomplete images of the past: in the case of the Northerners, simply because they have lost most of their records and rely largely on oral traditions, and in Anglia due to the regime's historiographical falsifications and propaganda. For one example, children are taught that Shakespeare was really a woman hiding behind a male pseudonym.
* {{Gendercide}}: The rise of the Anglian Republic was enabled by a biological weapon that was disproportionately lethal to males. Ever since, the Republic has also been trying to finish the job.
* GirlOnGirlIsHot: Defied in-universe by Diarmid, who has only contempt for the "homosexual nonsense" of the Anglians.
* GoodCopBadCop: Garnet and Willa when they grab "Jenny Lindsay" for interrogation. The latter beats and kicks her, while the former attempts to appear friendly and promises good treatment if she will do as she is told. Later subverted, however, when Willa leaves and Garnet tries to seduce/rape Jenny.
* GoodLookingPrivates: When she is on leave as a decorated lieutenant while awaiting redeployment, Rura notices this effect, with a number of pretty young civilian girls who are "obviously in love with uniforms" semi-modestly trying to flirt with her.
* HeelRealization: Garnet, when [[spoiler:the former Lieutenant Rura]] pleads with [=McDiarmid=] to spare her--this after she burned down her home and beat and tried to rape the woman herself. Understandably, she was rather subdued when she apologized to her later.
* HelloNurse: Curie Milford is described as the most beautiful woman anyone in Anglia has seen, [[OlderThanTheyLook even at seventy]], and the response to her public speeches looks a lot like fangirling as much as regular CultOfPersonality stuff. Rumor has it that three of her lovers have committed suicide when she broke up with them.
* HeteronormativeCrusader: Inverted. Anglian culture has lesbianism as its norm, and considers voluntary relations with men depraved. They even attempt to resocialize Northerner women who are taken prisoner in the war into their own models of behavior.
* HobbesWasRight: Neither side in the war is democratic: the Northerners are ruled by warlords, while Anglia is a PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny. No one thinks democracy ''could'' work under their respective circumstances, either.
* HomosexualReproduction: Anglia's amazons live in a lesbian-normative society and reproduce through cloning. Naturally giving birth to children is considered abhorrent, but at least some girls are raised by their "parents" rather than in creches or schools (though it is implied most grow up in the latter).
* HopelessWar: For the Northerners, the war against Anglia is this. While "merely" a gruelling ForeverWar to the latter, the Northerners see themselves slowly but steadily reduced as the lumbering Anglian war machine plods further northward and grinds down their resistance. Unless the trend changes, they appear bound to lose in the end.
* HopeSpringsEternal: A very downplayed example, in light of the comprehensively depressing DownerEnding, but [[spoiler:Garnet was still alive when last seen, and seemed to have honestly reformed after Rura's [[TurnTheOtherCheek forgiveness]] shamed her. It is possible (if perhaps unlikely) that she could be the new ember of reform among the Anglians that Rura herself ultimately failed to be]].
* InappropriatelyCloseComrades: Kayt and Rura, being officers in the same unit. This is, strictly speaking, against regulations; but the Anglian military is corrupt (and/or just apathetic) enough that this causes them few difficulties in practice.
* InnocenceLost: Rura's character arc chronicles her development from idealistic cadet to depressed soldier to increasingly overt dissident.
* KnightTemplar: The Douglas. He fights against a brutal enemy doing its best to commit genocide on his entire people, but his own methods are also inhumane.
* LadyLand: The Republic of Anglia is an all-female society, with a policy of genocide against all males. Their feminism is organized as a sort of [[ANaziByAnyOtherName totalitarian ideology]], making them the more hostile kind of this sort of setting.
* LaResistance: The Northerners essentially function as this, being organized in fairly small local groups with little modern industry. They can fight back effectively against the Anglians only through the use of guerrilla tactics.
* LipstickLesbian: Most of the Anglian characters are described in terms of conventional attractiveness, even those in the military. Rura does meet some construction workers who are more "masculine" at one point, but they are the only real exception.
* MalignedMixedMarriage: Any marriage between men and women is considered to be this in Anglia, since men are viewed as a foreign race, and furthermore an undesirable one that is to be exterminated.
* MildlyMilitary: The Anglian military, at least the units seen in any detail, comes across as rather corrupt, apathetic, unnecessarily brutal, and sloppy, the exceptions of a few idealistic young officers and "commissar"-type ideological fanatics notwithstanding. Drug abuse, promiscuity and wanton violence is somewhat widespread, yielding a stereotypically "Vietnam"-like overall impression. Of course, Rura's regiment has been fighting a horrible guerrilla war for a long time, and apparently without relief, so this is not necessarily unrealistic. By the same token, it is likely that other units are in a better condition, at least relatively.
* MilitaryAcademy: The Anglian military officers are trained and educated in the military college at Liberation House, or at least this is the principal military academy. The standard course lasts for only two years, so either the curriculum has been reduced, as compared to real life, or the candidates enter with at least some previous training from other institutions.
* MyCountryRightOrWrong: This is Kayt's attitude to the war, and also Rura's at first. Right or wrong is less important than who wins, and the Northerners will destroy Anglia if they are not destroyed first. However, Rura increasingly comes to question this, as what she sees of the war with her own eyes does not agree with the propaganda she has been taught.
* MyNaymeIs: Perhaps to invoke a futuristic language shift, many (though not all) of the Anglian characters' names are abbreviated forms, and spelled in ways that look strange to early 21st-century eyes. Some examples include Kayt (Katherine/Kate), Sharl ([[GenderBlenderName Charles]], with French pronunciation), and perhaps Rura's own name (if it is to be read as a form of Aurora).
* ANaziByAnyOtherName: Anglia is a "Feminazi" LadyLand complete with public rallies, [[PuttingOnTheReich snappy black uniforms]], supremacist ideology, totalitarian politics and literal genocide.
* NeverLearnedToRead: Diarmid, since he was raised in a postapocalyptic chaos. [[spoiler:Rura wants to teach him, but there is never the time for it.]]
* NoHeterosexualSexAllowed: Most Anglian amazons think heterosexuality is disgusting and depraved, and it is also illegal in their state. Basically, they treat it as homosexuality would be treated in the most stereotypically conservative 1950s, only with the polarity reversed.
* NonActionBigBad: Rather realistically, in this case. Curie Milford is the dictator of Anglia who pushes for increased genocide of the Northerners, but does so from her office (or the speaker's podium) rather than the front lines.
* NotSoDifferent: Both sides in the war accuse each other of horrible war crimes against captives, including rape, torture and worse. Diarmid admits that [[BothSidesHaveAPoint both are right]] when called on it by Rura--though he still thinks the Anglians are worse, since his own side is at least not outright genocidal like they are.
* OlderThanTheyLook: Curie Milford is seventy, but still has long, blond hair, bright eyes, and remains captivatingly beautiful.
* PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny: The Republic of Anglia. While the specifics of its political system are not described in great depth, no mention is made of a parliament, elections or the like, and the Prime Minister's power is to all seeming absolute. If anything, it resembles a vaguely communist military dictatorship; certainly the military is greatly influential, with the principal MilitaryAcademy noted as the place anyone ambitious to be anything applies (or sends her daughters).
* PersecutionFlip: A straight example, with the white Christian men of the North being subjected to an exaggerated, genocidal Vietnam War by a totalitarian LadyLand. The story also explores what it can mean to be sexually abnormal by showing the experiences of heterosexual women in a rigidly lesbian-normative society.
* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Some of Diarmid's views come across as rather sexist in the 21st century, and probably did even when the book was written in the 1970s. For example, he assumes as a matter of course that women cannot run a long-term viable society... though given that the only female-run society he knows of is a massively corrupt totalitarian dictatorship, that sort of makes sense at least within the story.
* PresidentEvil: Curie Milford, Prime Minister of Anglia and thus basically the leader of a totalitarian state.
* PropagandaHero: Rura herself. After she returns alone from her combat patrol mission, she is decorated and presented as a hero for defeating the Northerner ambush and accomplishing their objective even though the rest of the women were lost in action. Actually, as she well knows, all she did was survive--and moreover [[spoiler:she let [=McDiarmid=] go, which would itself be a court-martial offense if found out]].
* PropagandaMachine: The Anglian educational system and media are geared toward telling the citizens how horribly oppressed women were under the former regime and that they now live in the best of all possible worlds. Such problems as still remain (and can't be covered up) are blamed on the surviving patriarchal enclaves.
* PsychoLesbian: Since almost all Anglians are lesbians, those soldiers who are evil or sadistic generally qualify by default. Moryn would be an example for her sadism, and there are a number of others.
* PunchClockVillain: While some of the Anglian servicewomen (such as Moryn) are [[SociopathicSoldier evil and sadistic]], many others are simply soldiering on, thinking that they have a job to do that has to be done (even if it's sometimes a DirtyBusiness).
* PunishedForSympathy: Rura becomes unpopular among her fellow soldiers when she questions the morality of the genocide, and is eventually threatened with court martial proceedings when she refuses to shoot children and civilian women.
* PuttingOnTheReich: The uniforms for Anglia's AmazonBrigade are smart and black with a skull and crossbones symbol. Downplayed for cadets prior to graduation, who wear white uniforms of the same general cut without the skull badge.
* ARealManIsAKiller: Or woman, in this case. The Anglian cadets are not considered real soldiers until they have seen battle and helped kill an enemy. There is even a semi-formalized ritual about this called the Blooding.
* RealWomenDontWearDresses: Averted, as most women in Anglia still use makeup, jewelry and other accessories according to what they can afford (though fashion is somewhat different than in the present day), and there is no apparent negative correlation between this and competence or efficiency. Rura and the other military women have short haircuts due to practicality (and regulations), and of course wear uniforms while on duty, but are generally happy to dress up the same way when on leave.
* RebelLeader: Diarmid [=McDiarmid=], one of the Northern leaders. He tries to keep his people alive, as well as to strike back against the Anglians when possible.
* RevengeAgainstMen: The Republic of Anglia is basically a totalitarian state that has this as its state ideology, seeking to exterminate men for their perceived crimes in the past.
* RockBeatsLaser: Deconstructed. The Northerners, with most of their industrial base destroyed, are shown to be able to pose a very real threat against smaller units of Anglian troops with their primitive/improvised/scavenged weapons, especially when using clever guerrilla tactics... but in any sort of straight-up battle, they invariably lose horribly, and the long-term trend of the war looks very negative for them.
* ShowSomeLeg: "Jenny Lindsay" at first seemingly (if rather nervously) complies when Garnet forcefully tries to seduce her. Actually, she's looking for an opening to fight back.
* TheSocialDarwinist: Anglia's ideology proclaims that their all-female society is a higher stage of evolution than bisexual humanity. They are the stronger, the inheritors of the world, and so the vestiges of the obsolete species must be wiped out to make way for progress and development, and prevent the possibility of regression into lower forms of life.
* SociopathicSoldier:
** Rura's fellow cadet Moryn, who is violent and sadistic. She is also unprofessional, bringing prohibited alcohol with her on a raid behind enemy lines.
** Willa and Garnet. When they capture a young Northerner woman, the former beats and abuses her, while the latter tries to seduce/rape her.
* SpeculativeFictionLGBT: The Republic of Anglia is a LadyLand where lesbianism is considered normal and socially approved.
* StatuesqueStunner: Kayt, who is an AmazonianBeauty. Even more so Curie Milford, who is described as almost two meters tall (but perfectly proportioned), and stunningly beautiful [[OlderThanTheyLook even at the age of seventy]].
* StrawFeminist: The totalitarian Anglian regime, which is literally "Feminazi" in the sense that it is a fascist LadyLand with its [[OneGenderRace racism]] aimed against men.
* TechnologicallyAdvancedFoe: Anglia for the Northerners. They have the standard science fiction arsenal of flying cars, laser weapons and the like, while the freedom fighters for the most part can't really produce modern weapons in any significant quantities anymore; some of them even fight with nothing more advanced than crossbows.
* WarIsGlorious: The Anglian propaganda portrays the war against the Northerner as this. The most glamorous (and yet also dutiful) thing one can do is to join the military and help wage it.
* WarIsHell: In reality, the war is more like this, a ForeverWar that has ground on for centuries and might take equally long still to finish. The soldiers struggle against the guerrillas, suffering boredom, stress and much higher casualties than the new cadets had expected, and genocide of helpless innocents is an integral part of it. Naturally, the war is even worse from the Northerner POV, on the receiving end of the genocidal high-tech military's exhaustion and fitful rage.
* WomanInWhite: Cadet Jolan, whom Rura briefly mentors. In general, Anglian cadets wear a white dress uniform for formal occasions, rather than the officers' black they receive on graduation.
* TheWomenAreSafeWithUs: Defied by both sides, as both are shown as well as said to mistreat and rape captives. The war is one of extermination, and there do not appear to be any recognized legal mechanisms for the protection of prisoners.
* WrittenByTheWinners: The history taught in Anglia's schools is substantially falsified, and paints a nightmarish picture of the past when men held most positions of power in society, with women supposedly enslaved and oppressed.
* YouCannotKillAnIdea: Diarmid gives a BadassBoast to the effect that while a Northerner victory might seem unlikely, Anglia will not have won the war, either, while there is still even one man left alive fighting back.
In the 25th century, following apocalyptic disasters including large-scale biological warfare, the Republic of Anglia (in what was formerly England) is a scientifically advanced all-female state, its inhabitants reproducing through a vaguely ''Literature/BraveNewWorld''-like system of mass-scale cloning. It is also an effectively totalitarian state, perpetually at war with the struggling remnants of the former patriarchal order that still linger in the Northlands. The aim of Anglia's leaders is that these "regressives" should, eventually, be completely exterminated.
One of those tasked with realizing this aim is Rura Alexander, a conscientious and idealistic young cadet in her final year at the principal Anglian military academy. Though regretting the violence of the war, Rura understands its necessity for making a better and safer future for her sisters--or so she thinks. As she is deployed and experiences more of the actual conflict, however, she begins increasingly to doubt her own side's rectitude. The familiar propaganda notwithstanding, the horrible enemy, when seen up close, appears still strangely... human.
''Who Needs Men?'' provides examples of the following tropes:
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* AccidentalHero: Rura's first real combat deployment ends up a disaster, with her the only survivor of her unit. She expects to be cashiered, but instead she is [[PropagandaHero made a hero]] for salvaging the situation, and decorated and held up as an example to the other cadets.
* TheAce: Kayt, an older and more experienced officer in the borderland troops, who becomes a sort of mentor figure (and lover) to Rura.
* ActionGirl: Rura, who is decorated and graduates with distinction after her first live-fire mission. Generally, most of the more developed Anglian characters are this, being combat-arm military officers.
* AffablyEvil: Kayt. She is always portrayed and nice and friendly to everyone, is impersonally professional rather than sadistic about her work, and tries to be understanding and sympathetic to Rura when the latter reveals her secret doubts about the regime's genocidal policies. Still, there is never any hint that Kayt sees anything wrong with the evil things they do, herself.
* TheAlcoholic: Olane is heavily implied to be one, due to the stress of being forced through the academy without really wanting a military career.
* AllLovingHeroine: Rura has empathy for everyone, whether soldiers on her own side or the enemy. Naturally, this does not make her happy as a soldier. She always tries to spare defeated enemies if at all possible, and asks others to do so as well, with varying results.
* AmazonBrigade: Since the Republic of Anglia is a LadyLand, with no men at all in it, its military is this by default.
* AmazonianBeauty: Kayt is tall and rather muscular, yet still conventionally attractive. Rura herself is a somewhat downplayed example, neither quite as much of a Valkyrie nor quite as beautiful.
* AntiHero: Diarmid [=McDiarmid=]. He is a highly successful guerrilla leader (to the point of becoming TheDreaded to the Anglians), and as such is (as he must realistically be) extremely ruthless. All the same, he remains (mostly) a KnightInSourArmor who retains a realistic view both of his own actions and those of the enemy.
* AnyoneCanDie: A large number of named characters die over the course of the story, starting quite early. This includes among others [[spoiler: Olane, Moryn, Mirage, the Douglas, Diarmid, Kayt]] and even [[spoiler:Rura herself]].
* AppealToNature: The main argument of the Northerners is that Anglia's LadyLand is unsustainable in the long run, since it runs contrary to human nature. Thus, it leads to an increasingly dysfunctional and depressed society, and even the most powerful indoctrination cannot halt this downward slide. The Anglians disagree, of course, thinking a LadyLand is a natural next step in humanity's evolution.
* AppealToTradition: Rura finds the "blooding" ceremony in the military (similar to the [[http://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/blogs/dan-schmidt-deer-blog-whitetail-wisdom/deer-hunters-smear-blood-faces-kill real-life hunting ritual]]) unpleasant and even revolting, but accepts it because it is part of the martial traditions.
* BadassGay: Rura, who is at least bisexual as well as a military action heroine. Also true for Moryn, Kayt and several other Anglian military characters, since their Amazonian society is largely lesbian culturally.
* BeautyEqualsGoodness: Zig-zagged. Many of the Anglian characters are beautiful despite being evil (or at any rate, not ''good''), which may be due to eugenics in part. However, it is also acknowledged that the Northerners, in spite of not having access to cosmetics and such, possess an often startling, more "natural" attractiveness.
* BeingEvilSucks: The widespread alcoholism, promiscuity and drug abuse among the Anglian soldiers would seem to imply Diarmid is right in claiming that their society produces disturbed and unhappy people. Of course, some part of it might also be due to them being soldiers fighting out a depressing ForeverWar. Either way, most of TheEmpire's soldiers don't really seem to be having all that much fun being evil.
* BeingGoodSucks: Rura eventually ends up being punished for her sympathy for the enemy, but she is more tormented by her own doubts and guilt. The Northerners are an example in another way, being free but suffering every material deprivation, as well as the horrors of a genocidal war against them.
* BelligerentSexualTension: Between Rura and Diarmid, when they meet. [[spoiler:Eventually, they are married, and Rura joins the Northerners.]]
* BerserkButton: Among the Anglians, it is a severe insult to suggest that a woman was naturally born, as opposed to cloned (much as with "Freebirths" among the Clans in the ''[[Franchise/BattleTechExpandedUniverse BattleTech]]'' setting). Likewise, to be called a "wife" is considered very demeaning, implying both abnormal sexuality (by their lesbian society's standards) and servility.
* BigBad: Prime Minister Curie Milford, the leader of the Anglian Republic, who pushes for a more aggressive military policy. Both friends and foes speak of "Curie Milford's Republic" and "Curie Milford's war," identifying her completely with the state.
* BigBrotherIsEmployingYou: All of the major characters on the Anglian side, and notably the protagonist Rura, are regular military officers serving in the armed forces of their totalitarian state.
* BlackAndGrayMorality: The Northerners have a rather primitive society, and tolerate rape of Anglian prisoners (though this is more because their leader can't effectively enforce any law against it than because he likes it). On the other hand, the Anglians are trying to exterminate them down to every last child (and they also rape and torture their Northerner captives more or less regularly, in addition to that).
* BuryYourGays: Played with. More gay characters than straight die in the story, but this is due to them being the majority of the characters in the book, as well. In fact, the trope is arguably ''inverted'' in this book, since straight characters are both rarer and statistically more likely to come to a bad end.
* CastFullOfGay: Justified, since most of the characters are from Anglia, a LadyLand where everyone is lesbian, or at least socialized as such.
* ChickMagnet: Rura picks up a number of admirers and girlfriends without really trying, even when she becomes increasingly depressed. Some of this is due to Anglia's FreeLoveFuture setting, but she is implied to be unusually pursued even so.
* CloneArmy: Most Anglian soldiers are clones, with a few created through another, seemingly more exclusive biochemical process called parthenogenesis. While thus biologically identical to their templates, they are raised as individuals with names, downplaying most of the common associations of the trope.
* ColdBloodedTorture: Willa and Garnet beat, kick and otherwise abuse "Jenny Lindsay" to make her tell them where her husband is. From the casual way everyone treats it, this seems to be more or less standard procedure.
* ConditionedToAcceptHorror: Both sides in the war think the other suffers from this, with people able to live in such horrible cultures only due to brainwashing. To the Northerners, Anglia's unnatural, dehumanized and totalitarian all-female society is monstrous, while a patriarchal nation where women are wives and mothers seems horrifying to most Anglians.
* TheConscience: Rura. At first, she is filled with PatrioticFervor like the others; after that wears off, she tries to be professional. Even so, she never stops caring about people, even the enemy.
* CrapsackWorld: Anglia is a totalitarian state that looks a lot like a StrawFeminist version of ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'' with a somewhat less competent Thought Police, while the Northerners live in squalor and privation under the effective rule of warlords. It is said that most of the rest of the world is roughly the same, though the details are vague.
* CultOfPersonality: In Anglia, Curie Milford is all but literally worshiped much like Mussolini was in Italy, or Stalin in the USSR.
* CultureClash: When Rura is captured by the Northerners, she is exposed to their culture, which severely clashes with her own upbringing in Anglia. This concerns both trivialities (e.g., forms of address) and the fundamental core assumptions of their respective societies.
* CulturedBadass: [[spoiler:Rura becomes this when she joins the Northerners. She is somewhat above-averagely interested in history and such things even before, but this is mainly due to the relatively lower cultural standards there; Diarmid, for example, can't even read.]]
* CureYourGays: Inverted by the Anglians, who try to force Northerner women they capture to become lesbians. Averted by Diarmid, who instead makes an AppealToNature: as he sees it, most Anglian women would simply cure themselves of the unnatural ideas forced on them by their regime's indoctrination and propaganda if they were only exposed to a healthier environment, without any coercion.
* DarkActionGirl: Mirage, who leads the attack on the Northerner camp during Rura's first real campaign.
* DefectingForLove: [[spoiler:Rura eventually joins the Northerners, both because she comes to view them as the less evil side and because she falls in love with Diarmid.]]
* DefiantCaptive: Double-subverted. At first, "Jenny Lindsay" is defiant, but then she plays along when Garnet rather forcefully tries to seduce her -- but only because she is looking for an opportunity to break free once they are alone together.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Neither of the societies in the story has the same values as real life "Western" culture. Anglia is a LadyLand with socially normative lesbianism and FantasticRacism against men, as well as a vaguely ''1984''-like militaristic totalitarian dictatorship, while Northerner society is rugged, primitive and sexist in much the same manner as a warrior band or full-time military unit. Characters from both sides generally consider their own way to live the only reasonable one, though the more thoughtful of them are also able to reflect on and criticize faults they perceive among themselves. Even then, though, they rarely sound like 21st-century Europeans.
* DeterminedHomesteadersWife: [[spoiler:Former lieutenant Rura]] eventually becomes this when hiding from the Anglians with her husband. They are forced away from their home, however.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything:
** The low morale and poor discipline among the Anglian units Rura serves with rather resembles the stereotype of Americans in Vietnam (which, of course, was current at the time of writing), or more darkly, some of the reports of the Nazi counterinsurgency forces on the Eastern Front in WWII (that also took part in genocidal operations). Also, depending on how uncharitable one wishes to be, Prime Minister Curie Milford can be read as inspired by either Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy or Hitler/Stalin-type dictators.
** Rura's horrified reaction when [[spoiler:she realizes that she might be in love with a ''man'', as well as how she progresses from there. Since lesbianism is normative in Anglia and male-female attractions heavily stigmatized, and Rura herself has only been with women before, her thoughts are confused, ashamed and guilty in a somewhat similar way as one might have expected if she had found herself homosexual in a more traditional society]].
* TheDreaded: Diarmid [=McDiarmid=] is this in Anglia for being the most successful patriarchal guerrilla leader. His cruelty and dangerousness (the former exaggerated, the latter not so much) are proverbial not only among soldiers, but even in the civilian population.
* TheEmpire: The Republic of Anglia, which tries to conquer all of the former Great Britain and impose its own social model and ruthless totalitarian rule on it. It also seems to be ruling parts of continental Europe, though this is somewhat unclear.
* EvilMentor: Kayt plays this role to Rura as a slightly older and more experienced officer, being her mentor, lover and role model, as well as a sympathetic personal voice reinforcing the Anglian regime's horrible ideology and propaganda.
* EvilReactionary: The Northerners are viewed this way in Anglia, for refusing to accept their "modern" society. Naturally, they don't consider themselves evil, though they are certainly against that sort of progress.
* {{Fanservice}}: While justified by the internal dynamics of the setting, there are a lot of girl-girl love affairs going on.
* FantasticRacism: A variant that overlaps with sexism, since the Anglians are effectively a OneGenderRace and view men as a despised foreign race, if not another species altogether. The women in the Northerner nation are seen either as victims or (more often) as [[CategoryTraitor race-traitors]] for being part of a patriarchal society.
* FantasticSlurs: The Anglians use various demeaning appellations for the Northerners, but the most common one is simply "pig" (or "sow" for women). Anglian soldiers in turn are often called "hellbitches" by the Northerners.
* FascistButInefficient: Much like a real Communist state, Anglia is shown to be massively corrupt, with personal connections crucial to advancement and success. Ordinary citizens live out their rather drab lives under a depressing regime reminiscent of [[Literature/NineteenEightyFour Oceania's]] permanent war economy.
* FemaleMisogynist: Women in both of the setting's cultures hate and despise the women in the enemy society. Specifically:
** The Amazons of Anglia's StrawFeminist culture view the feminine Northerner women as, at best, contemptibly weak and pitiable victims of the men in their society, and more usually as willfully perverse traitors to their own [[OneGenderRace sex/race]] for upholding their culture's patriarchal values.
** Contrariwise, the women of the North (that we see, at least) think of the Anglians as murderous oppressors as well as representatives of a horribly unnatural and sick society: no real women at all, but some sort of distorted monstrosities.
* FeministFantasy: Deconstructed, with the ActionGirl heroine part of a glamorous elite military combat unit fighting dangerous barbarians... and finding that her life still is not very enviable. Her country is a LadyLand, and yet it has all the same problems of corruption, fanaticism, etc. as any other totalitarian state. Just having women as the rulers instead of men changes nothing, either for better or worse. And WarIsHell whether the military is male or female.
* ForeverWar: The genocidal war against the still-patriarchal Northerners. It has been going on for over a hundred years as a sort of low-intensity conflict, and still does; at the preset time, however, the new Premier, Curie Milford, wants to step up the pace.
* FreeLoveFuture: From what we see of it, Anglia seems to view sexual liaisons very casually. To be fair, this may be because most of the major Anglian characters are military cadets or young officers, but there is not even any mention of such a thing as marriage, the closest thing being lovers in regular (but still informal) relationships.
* FrickinLaserBeams: As befits the 25th century setting, lasers have largely replaced traditional rifles and guns, at least in high-tech Anglia. Their standard rifle is a laser, with its lack of recoil making it perhaps especially well suited for their relatively physically weaker and more slightly built female soldiers.
* FutureImperfect: Both sides in the war have distorted and incomplete images of the past: in the case of the Northerners, simply because they have lost most of their records and rely largely on oral traditions, and in Anglia due to the regime's historiographical falsifications and propaganda. For one example, children are taught that Shakespeare was really a woman hiding behind a male pseudonym.
* {{Gendercide}}: The rise of the Anglian Republic was enabled by a biological weapon that was disproportionately lethal to males. Ever since, the Republic has also been trying to finish the job.
* GirlOnGirlIsHot: Defied in-universe by Diarmid, who has only contempt for the "homosexual nonsense" of the Anglians.
* GoodCopBadCop: Garnet and Willa when they grab "Jenny Lindsay" for interrogation. The latter beats and kicks her, while the former attempts to appear friendly and promises good treatment if she will do as she is told. Later subverted, however, when Willa leaves and Garnet tries to seduce/rape Jenny.
* GoodLookingPrivates: When she is on leave as a decorated lieutenant while awaiting redeployment, Rura notices this effect, with a number of pretty young civilian girls who are "obviously in love with uniforms" semi-modestly trying to flirt with her.
* HeelRealization: Garnet, when [[spoiler:the former Lieutenant Rura]] pleads with [=McDiarmid=] to spare her--this after she burned down her home and beat and tried to rape the woman herself. Understandably, she was rather subdued when she apologized to her later.
* HelloNurse: Curie Milford is described as the most beautiful woman anyone in Anglia has seen, [[OlderThanTheyLook even at seventy]], and the response to her public speeches looks a lot like fangirling as much as regular CultOfPersonality stuff. Rumor has it that three of her lovers have committed suicide when she broke up with them.
* HeteronormativeCrusader: Inverted. Anglian culture has lesbianism as its norm, and considers voluntary relations with men depraved. They even attempt to resocialize Northerner women who are taken prisoner in the war into their own models of behavior.
* HobbesWasRight: Neither side in the war is democratic: the Northerners are ruled by warlords, while Anglia is a PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny. No one thinks democracy ''could'' work under their respective circumstances, either.
* HomosexualReproduction: Anglia's amazons live in a lesbian-normative society and reproduce through cloning. Naturally giving birth to children is considered abhorrent, but at least some girls are raised by their "parents" rather than in creches or schools (though it is implied most grow up in the latter).
* HopelessWar: For the Northerners, the war against Anglia is this. While "merely" a gruelling ForeverWar to the latter, the Northerners see themselves slowly but steadily reduced as the lumbering Anglian war machine plods further northward and grinds down their resistance. Unless the trend changes, they appear bound to lose in the end.
* HopeSpringsEternal: A very downplayed example, in light of the comprehensively depressing DownerEnding, but [[spoiler:Garnet was still alive when last seen, and seemed to have honestly reformed after Rura's [[TurnTheOtherCheek forgiveness]] shamed her. It is possible (if perhaps unlikely) that she could be the new ember of reform among the Anglians that Rura herself ultimately failed to be]].
* InappropriatelyCloseComrades: Kayt and Rura, being officers in the same unit. This is, strictly speaking, against regulations; but the Anglian military is corrupt (and/or just apathetic) enough that this causes them few difficulties in practice.
* InnocenceLost: Rura's character arc chronicles her development from idealistic cadet to depressed soldier to increasingly overt dissident.
* KnightTemplar: The Douglas. He fights against a brutal enemy doing its best to commit genocide on his entire people, but his own methods are also inhumane.
* LadyLand: The Republic of Anglia is an all-female society, with a policy of genocide against all males. Their feminism is organized as a sort of [[ANaziByAnyOtherName totalitarian ideology]], making them the more hostile kind of this sort of setting.
* LaResistance: The Northerners essentially function as this, being organized in fairly small local groups with little modern industry. They can fight back effectively against the Anglians only through the use of guerrilla tactics.
* LipstickLesbian: Most of the Anglian characters are described in terms of conventional attractiveness, even those in the military. Rura does meet some construction workers who are more "masculine" at one point, but they are the only real exception.
* MalignedMixedMarriage: Any marriage between men and women is considered to be this in Anglia, since men are viewed as a foreign race, and furthermore an undesirable one that is to be exterminated.
* MildlyMilitary: The Anglian military, at least the units seen in any detail, comes across as rather corrupt, apathetic, unnecessarily brutal, and sloppy, the exceptions of a few idealistic young officers and "commissar"-type ideological fanatics notwithstanding. Drug abuse, promiscuity and wanton violence is somewhat widespread, yielding a stereotypically "Vietnam"-like overall impression. Of course, Rura's regiment has been fighting a horrible guerrilla war for a long time, and apparently without relief, so this is not necessarily unrealistic. By the same token, it is likely that other units are in a better condition, at least relatively.
* MilitaryAcademy: The Anglian military officers are trained and educated in the military college at Liberation House, or at least this is the principal military academy. The standard course lasts for only two years, so either the curriculum has been reduced, as compared to real life, or the candidates enter with at least some previous training from other institutions.
* MyCountryRightOrWrong: This is Kayt's attitude to the war, and also Rura's at first. Right or wrong is less important than who wins, and the Northerners will destroy Anglia if they are not destroyed first. However, Rura increasingly comes to question this, as what she sees of the war with her own eyes does not agree with the propaganda she has been taught.
* MyNaymeIs: Perhaps to invoke a futuristic language shift, many (though not all) of the Anglian characters' names are abbreviated forms, and spelled in ways that look strange to early 21st-century eyes. Some examples include Kayt (Katherine/Kate), Sharl ([[GenderBlenderName Charles]], with French pronunciation), and perhaps Rura's own name (if it is to be read as a form of Aurora).
* ANaziByAnyOtherName: Anglia is a "Feminazi" LadyLand complete with public rallies, [[PuttingOnTheReich snappy black uniforms]], supremacist ideology, totalitarian politics and literal genocide.
* NeverLearnedToRead: Diarmid, since he was raised in a postapocalyptic chaos. [[spoiler:Rura wants to teach him, but there is never the time for it.]]
* NoHeterosexualSexAllowed: Most Anglian amazons think heterosexuality is disgusting and depraved, and it is also illegal in their state. Basically, they treat it as homosexuality would be treated in the most stereotypically conservative 1950s, only with the polarity reversed.
* NonActionBigBad: Rather realistically, in this case. Curie Milford is the dictator of Anglia who pushes for increased genocide of the Northerners, but does so from her office (or the speaker's podium) rather than the front lines.
* NotSoDifferent: Both sides in the war accuse each other of horrible war crimes against captives, including rape, torture and worse. Diarmid admits that [[BothSidesHaveAPoint both are right]] when called on it by Rura--though he still thinks the Anglians are worse, since his own side is at least not outright genocidal like they are.
* OlderThanTheyLook: Curie Milford is seventy, but still has long, blond hair, bright eyes, and remains captivatingly beautiful.
* PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny: The Republic of Anglia. While the specifics of its political system are not described in great depth, no mention is made of a parliament, elections or the like, and the Prime Minister's power is to all seeming absolute. If anything, it resembles a vaguely communist military dictatorship; certainly the military is greatly influential, with the principal MilitaryAcademy noted as the place anyone ambitious to be anything applies (or sends her daughters).
* PersecutionFlip: A straight example, with the white Christian men of the North being subjected to an exaggerated, genocidal Vietnam War by a totalitarian LadyLand. The story also explores what it can mean to be sexually abnormal by showing the experiences of heterosexual women in a rigidly lesbian-normative society.
* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Some of Diarmid's views come across as rather sexist in the 21st century, and probably did even when the book was written in the 1970s. For example, he assumes as a matter of course that women cannot run a long-term viable society... though given that the only female-run society he knows of is a massively corrupt totalitarian dictatorship, that sort of makes sense at least within the story.
* PresidentEvil: Curie Milford, Prime Minister of Anglia and thus basically the leader of a totalitarian state.
* PropagandaHero: Rura herself. After she returns alone from her combat patrol mission, she is decorated and presented as a hero for defeating the Northerner ambush and accomplishing their objective even though the rest of the women were lost in action. Actually, as she well knows, all she did was survive--and moreover [[spoiler:she let [=McDiarmid=] go, which would itself be a court-martial offense if found out]].
* PropagandaMachine: The Anglian educational system and media are geared toward telling the citizens how horribly oppressed women were under the former regime and that they now live in the best of all possible worlds. Such problems as still remain (and can't be covered up) are blamed on the surviving patriarchal enclaves.
* PsychoLesbian: Since almost all Anglians are lesbians, those soldiers who are evil or sadistic generally qualify by default. Moryn would be an example for her sadism, and there are a number of others.
* PunchClockVillain: While some of the Anglian servicewomen (such as Moryn) are [[SociopathicSoldier evil and sadistic]], many others are simply soldiering on, thinking that they have a job to do that has to be done (even if it's sometimes a DirtyBusiness).
* PunishedForSympathy: Rura becomes unpopular among her fellow soldiers when she questions the morality of the genocide, and is eventually threatened with court martial proceedings when she refuses to shoot children and civilian women.
* PuttingOnTheReich: The uniforms for Anglia's AmazonBrigade are smart and black with a skull and crossbones symbol. Downplayed for cadets prior to graduation, who wear white uniforms of the same general cut without the skull badge.
* ARealManIsAKiller: Or woman, in this case. The Anglian cadets are not considered real soldiers until they have seen battle and helped kill an enemy. There is even a semi-formalized ritual about this called the Blooding.
* RealWomenDontWearDresses: Averted, as most women in Anglia still use makeup, jewelry and other accessories according to what they can afford (though fashion is somewhat different than in the present day), and there is no apparent negative correlation between this and competence or efficiency. Rura and the other military women have short haircuts due to practicality (and regulations), and of course wear uniforms while on duty, but are generally happy to dress up the same way when on leave.
* RebelLeader: Diarmid [=McDiarmid=], one of the Northern leaders. He tries to keep his people alive, as well as to strike back against the Anglians when possible.
* RevengeAgainstMen: The Republic of Anglia is basically a totalitarian state that has this as its state ideology, seeking to exterminate men for their perceived crimes in the past.
* RockBeatsLaser: Deconstructed. The Northerners, with most of their industrial base destroyed, are shown to be able to pose a very real threat against smaller units of Anglian troops with their primitive/improvised/scavenged weapons, especially when using clever guerrilla tactics... but in any sort of straight-up battle, they invariably lose horribly, and the long-term trend of the war looks very negative for them.
* ShowSomeLeg: "Jenny Lindsay" at first seemingly (if rather nervously) complies when Garnet forcefully tries to seduce her. Actually, she's looking for an opening to fight back.
* TheSocialDarwinist: Anglia's ideology proclaims that their all-female society is a higher stage of evolution than bisexual humanity. They are the stronger, the inheritors of the world, and so the vestiges of the obsolete species must be wiped out to make way for progress and development, and prevent the possibility of regression into lower forms of life.
* SociopathicSoldier:
** Rura's fellow cadet Moryn, who is violent and sadistic. She is also unprofessional, bringing prohibited alcohol with her on a raid behind enemy lines.
** Willa and Garnet. When they capture a young Northerner woman, the former beats and abuses her, while the latter tries to seduce/rape her.
* SpeculativeFictionLGBT: The Republic of Anglia is a LadyLand where lesbianism is considered normal and socially approved.
* StatuesqueStunner: Kayt, who is an AmazonianBeauty. Even more so Curie Milford, who is described as almost two meters tall (but perfectly proportioned), and stunningly beautiful [[OlderThanTheyLook even at the age of seventy]].
* StrawFeminist: The totalitarian Anglian regime, which is literally "Feminazi" in the sense that it is a fascist LadyLand with its [[OneGenderRace racism]] aimed against men.
* TechnologicallyAdvancedFoe: Anglia for the Northerners. They have the standard science fiction arsenal of flying cars, laser weapons and the like, while the freedom fighters for the most part can't really produce modern weapons in any significant quantities anymore; some of them even fight with nothing more advanced than crossbows.
* WarIsGlorious: The Anglian propaganda portrays the war against the Northerner as this. The most glamorous (and yet also dutiful) thing one can do is to join the military and help wage it.
* WarIsHell: In reality, the war is more like this, a ForeverWar that has ground on for centuries and might take equally long still to finish. The soldiers struggle against the guerrillas, suffering boredom, stress and much higher casualties than the new cadets had expected, and genocide of helpless innocents is an integral part of it. Naturally, the war is even worse from the Northerner POV, on the receiving end of the genocidal high-tech military's exhaustion and fitful rage.
* WomanInWhite: Cadet Jolan, whom Rura briefly mentors. In general, Anglian cadets wear a white dress uniform for formal occasions, rather than the officers' black they receive on graduation.
* TheWomenAreSafeWithUs: Defied by both sides, as both are shown as well as said to mistreat and rape captives. The war is one of extermination, and there do not appear to be any recognized legal mechanisms for the protection of prisoners.
* WrittenByTheWinners: The history taught in Anglia's schools is substantially falsified, and paints a nightmarish picture of the past when men held most positions of power in society, with women supposedly enslaved and oppressed.
* YouCannotKillAnIdea: Diarmid gives a BadassBoast to the effect that while a Northerner victory might seem unlikely, Anglia will not have won the war, either, while there is still even one man left alive fighting back.
