Man's World
Man's World is a feminist dystopia in which the state regulates reproduction, rendering many women sterile and reserving procreation for the genetically “fit.” The first edition was published in 1926 by Chatto & Windus.
This new edition in paperback is part of MIT Press’s Radium Age Book Series and includes an introduction by Phillipa Levine.
Softcover. First Paperback Edition. Octavo, pictorial wrappers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2024. ISBN: 9780262547635. #11388.
Near Fine.
This new edition in paperback is part of MIT Press’s Radium Age Book Series and includes an introduction by Phillipa Levine.
Softcover. First Paperback Edition. Octavo, pictorial wrappers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2024. ISBN: 9780262547635. #11388.
Near Fine.
Additional Details
Charlotte Haldane’s Man’s World (1926) is one of the earliest feminist dystopias and an unusually personal vision of a eugenic future. Written soon after Haldane’s marriage to biologist J. B. S. Haldane, the novel imagines a society in which reproduction is state-controlled, women are classified as either “mothers” or sterile “neuters,” and men are ranked by intellect into scientists, administrators, and laborers. It is literally a “man’s world,” designed to produce more men than women, a policy rooted in post-World War I anxieties about depopulation and the perceived need to restore masculine strength.
The story centers on siblings Christopher and Nicolette, whose deep and sometimes unsettling attachment shapes how they navigate this rigidly ordered society. Christopher struggles to meet the expectations of manhood. His effeminate nature is described as a biological defect, the result of his mother’s failure to perform the prescribed prenatal exercises meant to ensure a male child. Nicolette, meanwhile, resists the limited choices available to women and refuses to commit to the suitors chosen for her. In an act of rebellion, she undergoes a temporary sterilization procedure that allows her to reject motherhood without being permanently sterilized by the state. When she later falls in love and chooses to become a mother, the decision marks a passage into adulthood for her, but for Christopher, it represents an irreparable loss. His dependence on his sister and his inability to adapt to a world that has no place for him form the novel’s quiet tragedy.
Haldane’s novel reflects the moral and intellectual contradictions of its age. Written amid widespread fascination with eugenics, it engages with the scientific rhetoric of progress while exposing the psychological and emotional costs of such thinking. The narrative’s ambiguity, which neither fully condemns nor endorses the society it portrays, invites questions about gender, biology, and the price of conformity. As Philippa Levine notes in her introduction to the MIT Press edition, Man’s World “reveals both the allure and the anxiety of scientific management,” anticipating later dystopias such as Brave New World in its examination of reproductive politics, emotional dependence, and individual freedom.
The story centers on siblings Christopher and Nicolette, whose deep and sometimes unsettling attachment shapes how they navigate this rigidly ordered society. Christopher struggles to meet the expectations of manhood. His effeminate nature is described as a biological defect, the result of his mother’s failure to perform the prescribed prenatal exercises meant to ensure a male child. Nicolette, meanwhile, resists the limited choices available to women and refuses to commit to the suitors chosen for her. In an act of rebellion, she undergoes a temporary sterilization procedure that allows her to reject motherhood without being permanently sterilized by the state. When she later falls in love and chooses to become a mother, the decision marks a passage into adulthood for her, but for Christopher, it represents an irreparable loss. His dependence on his sister and his inability to adapt to a world that has no place for him form the novel’s quiet tragedy.
Haldane’s novel reflects the moral and intellectual contradictions of its age. Written amid widespread fascination with eugenics, it engages with the scientific rhetoric of progress while exposing the psychological and emotional costs of such thinking. The narrative’s ambiguity, which neither fully condemns nor endorses the society it portrays, invites questions about gender, biology, and the price of conformity. As Philippa Levine notes in her introduction to the MIT Press edition, Man’s World “reveals both the allure and the anxiety of scientific management,” anticipating later dystopias such as Brave New World in its examination of reproductive politics, emotional dependence, and individual freedom.
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