History Main / NoWomansLand

* ''Literature/{{Victoria}}'' is strongly implied to be this as the Victorians are harshly opposed to feminism and hostile to the idea of women working and particularly in the military, in favor of minding their 'sphere' of the home. When the Victorians defeat the armies of LadyLand Azania, those who do not become good housewives are sold into slavery in the Middle East to "experience ''real'' patriarchal oppression." Not to mention the novel begins and ends with a woman being burned at the stake for claiming to be a Christian bishop. [[AuthorTract Note that the narrative portrays all of this positively.]]

This is commonly used as to depict either a specific nation or region or just "the other place with people who are different from us and therefore inferior", the StrawMisogynist trope applied on a wider scope. While the Islamic world is one of the most frequent receivers of this stereotype, India, {{Mayincatec}} societies,[[note]]Which is more or less true, only that Spain and other European countries that colonized the Americas weren't terribly egalitarian at the time either. In fact, before the rise of ritual militarism in Mesoamerica left their women with fewer possibilities of gaining social prestige, those cultures--like various other UsefulNotes/PreColumbianCivilizations--might have qualified as actually ''less'' patriarchal than old Christian Europe.[[/note]] Southeast Asia, the whole African continent, and sometimes ''even'' developed Asian countries like Japan and South Korea don't get off well either (along with the implication that [[WhiteMansBurden only westerners that can save them]]). Asian movies have been known to depict Western nations this way, as well. Historical and period settings, especially those set in medieval and ancient societies, or barbarian settings, will also invoke this, as well as future dystopic settings, all to symbolize something backward, evil, regressive and far from normality as possible. Violence and oppression towards women is a handy, instant, visceral visual shorthand to communicate to an audience and economically conveys a lot about a particular setting. Of course, used the wrong way, it can be accused of RomanticizedAbuse and such elements (especially in {{B Movie}}s, and dodgy {{romance novel}}s like ''Literature/TheSheik'', which are marketed explicitly on exploitative appeal) or, especially if contrasted with a LadyLand, [[TheUnfairSex misandry]] (men as a whole are depicted as hateful, evil creatures in contrast with [[WomenAreDelicate pure, innocent women]] who would run the world as a {{Utopia}} if [[WomenAreWiser they were in charge]]). If a fictional society is portrayed this way by another ficitional society in the same universe, but it isn't actually true, then it's FantasticRacism. Saying that your enemies abuse their women is an AbominationAccusationAttack, and pretty much the oldest racial slur out there.

Generally speaking there is no particular reason given for why the place is like this. The creator usually expects the audience to assume that this is what all (human) societies would look like if not for modern governments (with the {{Unfortunate Implication|s}} that only the government stands between women and [[TheUnfairSex naturally violent men]]: in reality governments are often part of the problem). It is worth remembering that, like any other cultural practice, misogyny becomes a thing for certain reasons. Those reasons dictate what type of misogyny will be present in a given culture, and how brutally it will be enforced. While the inhabitants of this society probably have no idea why they do this other than AppealToTradition, outsiders can either speculate or may in fact know the reasons why this society operates this way: or might be able to glean clues from the setting itself.

* ''The Mage With Special Circumstances Wants To Live Peacefully'' is one of the very rare positive example.

* This is the case with Silverland, in ''Manga/PrincessKnight''. Women aren't allowed to vote or own property and generally are considered inferior to the men. In fact, one of the driving conflicts in the series is that the King and Queen's child, Sapphire, was born a girl and thus is ineligible for the throne. [[spoiler:It's subverted at the end when Plastic mans up, gets all women in the kingdom equal rights, and gives Sapphire the crown.]] Considering that the comic was written in TheFifties, this resolution was very much FairForItsDay.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheBreadwinner'': The Taliban enforce extremely strict rules on women. They are not even allowed to leave their home without being accompanied by a male family member and are beaten at best when confronted for doing so no matter the cause.

** The unfortunate Persian messenger is astounded to see that the Spartans allow women (or at least, the queen) to speak at a council. This is generally assumed to be part of the film's attempt to portray the Greco-Persian war as an allegory for UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror. In reality, while on the one hand Spartan women did enjoy more rights than in any other Greek city-state (Gorgo's line, "Only Spartan women give birth to real men," was directed at the Athenians in "[[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory historical]]" record), Persian women on the other hand enjoyed more rights than Spartan women at the time, and Spartan women were only given self-defense lessons because they believed that [[LamarckWasRight women who could fight gave birth to strong babies]]. [[TruthInTelevision On the other hand, the historical Queen Gorgo actually was an adviser for her husband, as well as the ruler before him.]] Ironically, according to the historian Herodotus it was the Macedonians who were offended when Persian guests insisted on eating meals together with women and Alexander the Great often ran into trouble getting the Macedonians to accept the now conquered and assimilated Persians as equals.

* ''Film/{{Chinatown}}'' is a film noir GenreDeconstruction that more or less depicts the classic noir setting of TheThirties as a patriarchal CrapsackWorld where all the women in the film meet sticky ends: [[spoiler:The Fake Mrs Mulwray, the actress Ida Sessions, gets whacked to tie up loose ends. The real Evelyn Mulwray dies ignominiously like a criminal, her daughter/sister Katharine enters Noah Cross' clutches, very likely being raped in turn. Even Curly's wife, the woman who was caught cheating by Jakes at the start of the film, is revealed to sport a very new and fresh-looking black-eye, hinting that Jake's investigation condemned her to a life of DomesticAbuse, and she has nothing but contempt for the "hero". The film also points out that even the hero, Jake is a sexist, a person who initially takes Noah Cross' words that his "daughter" is damaged over that of Evelyn who accurately tells him that her father is a dangerous man]].

** His film, ''Film/BarryLyndon'' was one of the few period films of its time, and times afterwards, that really put across how misogynist and sexist the aristocratic setting romanticized in earlier literary adaptations are. A society where the only careers available to women is marriage and children, is not healthy either for women, for children or for their spouses. Depressingly, this seems to have gotten worse in his "contemporary" ''Film/EyesWideShut'' where by the turn of the millennium, women are once again trapped in boring marriages, with careers as prostitutes and DisposableSexWorker, and/or TrophyWife being their primary roles in bourgeois society. Whether this reflects how Kubrick believes society to be, or reflected his own imagination is, of course, a separate issue.

* ''Film/{{Suffragette}}'' takes care to portray the suffrage movement's England in a nuanced way, but to any modern woman, it nevertheless comes across as misogynist hellhole, simply because it ''was'' like that. Especially the fact that the men have no scruples about violence against women, domestic violence as well as PoliceBrutality, and the protagonist's husband is legally entitled to [[spoiler: give her child, for whom she is the primary carer, up for adoption without her consent]] makes England look extremely backward compared to America's usually idealized view of British culture. Not to mention the fact that the protagonist's employer [[spoiler: is implied to rape all his underage employees, or at least the pretty ones, and get away with it.]] The fact that men are paid more than women for less work almost seems insignificant compared to the horrors of the time.

* ''Literature/AlexisCarew'': New London has a habit of encouraging people with backwards ideas to go to other planets and colonize them instead of combating the ideas, which means that sexism is much more common and accepted on the Fringe, up to and including banning women from inheritance (which is unconstitutional, but enforcement is lax to nonexistent). Naturally, this means that Alexis frequently takes crap just for having two X chromosomes, though she tends to win over the common spacers with her AMotherToHerMen tendencies. {{Exaggerated}} in ''Mutineer'' when she is taken aboard by Captain Neals, who makes it his personal mission to drive her to resignation. This is not true of the other major star nations: the first recurring Hanoverese officer we're introduced to, Balestra, is a female commodore. Women are also more common in New London's ''Army'', since they have the attitude that if the Army is needed within New London's space, then they've got bigger fish to fry than worrying about pissing off some male-chauvinist fringeworld lord.

* In ''Literature/{{Caliphate}}'' portrays an [[{{Eurabia}} Western Europe taken over by an Taliban-like government]] where a woman's testimony is worth half a male's and have no say when being abused by men. Non-Muslims in general are treated like second-class citizens, but female Christians can be taken as sex slaves and concubines. Female Muslims have it ''slightly'' better than Christians, but that isn't saying much since they are forced to wear headscarves on pain of being disfigured, are forbidden from reading and expected to be only mothers and homemakers, and at least [[spoiler:one prominent Muslim divorces his wife and sends her a brothel]]. The one exception is Besma, Abdul Mohsem's daughter, who is his favorite child and said to be his heir, despite her being born from a Christian concubine and having a younger brother from a Muslim stepmother and even then, this is noted to be unusual [[spoiler:until she marries later down the line where she is subjected to an {{domestic abuse}}r]]. Their treatment of women appalls characters so much that the USA (which has turned into a fascist Christian theocratic empire) comes across as a ALighterShadeOfBlack because for all its [[TheEmpire many]], ''[[NukeEm many]]'' [[PresidentEvil faults]], they note it at least [[EqualOpportunityEvil grants greater freedom to women such as the right to join the military]].
* ''Literature/ChroniclesOfAncientDarkness'': The Narwal Clan from ''Viper's Daughter'' is highly oppressive of their women. The men call women "half-men", provide them with less suitable food, clothing and shelter, believe they can't be mages or archers (they think Renn is capable of Magecraft only because she has the souls of a man), and punish them violently if they think they're acting out of line. The Narwals have to buy women from other clans that aren't nearly as chauvinistic as them.
* ''Literature/ACourtOfThornsAndRoses'': Prythian generally isn't an ideal place for women, though it varies across the land as to how well women are treated. All the Courts are ruled by men and Tamlin explicitly says that if he and Feyre were to marry, she wouldn't be considered High Lady and hold any power herself; the primary role of a High Lord's consort is to plan parties and give her husband heirs. Illyrians treat women extremely poorly; they don't allow them to become warriors and think their main purpose is to breed. The moment a girl gets her first period (and thus 'comes of age'), their wings are forcibly clipped so they can't fly, making it easier to control them. Fae men in general also tend to be rather possessive and jealous over their female significant others. However, the Night Court (surprisingly) is more progressive for women; Rhysand has tried to stamp out the Illyrian practice of wing-clipping and when he and Feyre get together, he officially names her High Lady, insisting she is his equal and co-ruler.

** However, this isn't entirely their fault. Some of the entrenched gender roles are not so much cultural as they are ''biological''; over generations, the Clan became so used to having one sex perform particular tasks and roles, they [[GenderRestrictedAbility lost the genetic memories]] they rely on to do the opposite. In other words, most Clan women are ''incapable'' of learning how to hunt, nor would they have the desire to do so. The same applies to men and because of this, they are dependent on each other for survival. For this reason, Iza believes that despite outward appearances, deep down the Clan know that men and women are both equally important. As such, most women don't feel any lesser and most men treat them with respect and dignity - a man who fixates on tormenting and abusing a woman, such as in the case of Ayla and Broud, is seen as shameful and lacking in character. Medicine women are also very powerful; they're the only women in the Clan who have status in their own right, are deferred to by everyone in regards to medical matters, and believed to wield strong magic to heal people effectively. Clan men have been known to appreciate strength and courage in a woman; Brun, though it makes him a bit uncomfortable and he rarely openly shows it, is clearly impressed by Ayla's skill with a sling and ability to survive the death curse, and comes to respect her, whilst Guban is pleasantly surprised when Yorga begins fighting off the gang that attacked them to protect him. Clan women also [[AllWomenAreLustful feel sexual desire like Cro-Magnon women]] and can display this in their own way; they have certain postures and gestures they use to try and encourage a man to 'make the Signal' at her and do other things to get a man's attention. Of course, this is only referring to ''Clan'' women. For Cro-Magnon women living amongst the Clan, it's a ''lot'' more difficult and oppressive.
* The trials and tribulations of the female characters in ''Literature/TheGoodEarth'' remind readers that pre-revolution China was a scary place to be female. Men had absolute authority over their wives, concubines, and children. The social acceptability of polygyny and concubinage meant that a wife's status in the home was never secure. The absence of contraception meant that women could expect to bear large numbers of children and suffer reproductive health problems as a result. Girls born to impoverished families could be killed as infants or sold into slavery, where a life of servitude, physical abuse, and sexual violence awaited them. Middle and upper class girls were subjected to foot binding and child marriage.

* Margret Atwood's ''Literature/TheHandmaidsTale'' gives us the future {{Dystopia}} of Gilead, where women are second and-third-class citizens whose status is determined by their fertility. Taking it a step further, lesbians, rebellious women, and women with compromised fertility (which is the majority of them due to contamination and disease) are forced into prostitution if they're lucky or sent to work as slaves in toxic environments until they die horribly if they're not. This is made more disturbing by the fact that those who are charged with the task of indoctrinating women into such a life of servitude, The Aunts, [[BoomerangBigot are other women]].

** The settings are all hostile to women to varying extents, although Dorne is better than most and in at least one tribe of wildlings, women are encouraged to deal with an abusive husband by stabbing him in his sleep. The writer often uses female characters' story arcs to explore the essentially patriarchal nature of medieval society and most standard fantasy settings (which as a rule don't dwell on this) and take it to a whole new level. For example, Sansa Stark becomes disillusioned when she realizes that highborn girls are treated like chattel by their fathers and husbands, Daenerys explicitly considers arranged marriage [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil a form of slavery]], and Arya witnesses firsthand the horrible brutality inflicted on peasant women. Cersei Lannister despite being in high position as Queen regent, her power and authority greatly depended on her son(s) being the king of Westeros, and she is mostly a pawn to other people, her Father Tywin Lannister, [[spoiler:along with [[ManipulativeBastard Littlefinger and Varys]]]].
** The Ironborn is something of an weird spot. In addition to the same Westeros restrictions for women applying there, they also encourage [[AbductionIsLove abducting women into raids to serve as "salt wives"]] (concubines) and its completely fine to [[HonorRelatedAbuse kill them if someone else sleeps with them]] or Gods forbid, if they were [[DefiledForever raped]]. On the other hand, they do tolerate female fighters if they prove capable enough like [[PirateGirl Asha Greyjoy]], but they also won't abide having female rulers.
** The society most hostile to women in the setting are the Dothraki, an hyper-masculine BarbarianTribe that expects women and girls to be only mothers and wives, are little better than slaves that can be beaten and raped by whoever wants them until one man decides he wishes to keep them. Even then, a woman is only safe so long as her "husband" is strong enough to scare off or kill any man who tries to steal her from him and sometimes not even from ''[[DomesticAbuse him]]''. One Lhazareen dosh kaleen reminisces how she was forced to have a khal's child and he broke her ribs when it turned out to be a female - she was less than 16 when that happened. Even the ''dosh khaleen'', the widows of deceased khals that serve as the spiritual leaders of the Dothraki, are still forced to live as prisoners in a gilded cage, forbidden from ever leaving Vaes Dothrak and sworn to celibacy, whether they want to or not. And they are the most respected out of their women.
* In ''Literature/SorcererToTheCrown'', only men are allowed to become sorcerers; magical talent is seen as very embarrassing in an upper class girl, and there is a school where young ladies are taught to ''not'' use magic, and even to use a spell based on an illegal, lethal spell on ''themselves'' to drain themselves of magic. (Though the protagonist, Zacharias, initially agrees that women should not be taught magic, the use of this spell horrifies him enough to reconsider his stance.)
* In a story from the Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse anthology ''Tales of the New Republic'', Mara Jade accepts a mission to rescue a man's daughter from an extremely misogynistic and speciesist alien who ''loathes'' human women, and subjects them to extremely humiliating and abusive forced labor on his private moon. [[CurbStompBattle It's pretty clear where things go once the former Emperor's Hand infiltrates his slave pits...]]

* {{Subverted}} in ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive''. While there are many societal roles that women are banned from filling (women can't be soldiers, rulers, or most kinds of artisan, for example), there are equally important societal roles that ''men'' are banned from filling. For example, it is considered profoundly immoral for men to learn to read or write, meaning that nearly all scholarly pursuits are woman-exclusive.

%%* Creator/SheriSTepper plays this trope for all it's worth. As her novels are primarily sci-fi/fantasy, example's of No Woman's Land are not so much abroad as they are off-planet. ''Raising the Stones'', ''Sideshow'', ''Shadow's End'', ''Gibbon's Decline and Fall'' offer examples of ''entire planets'' that are women-unfriendly. Subverted in ''Six Moon Dance''.

** Barrayar is a unique example where the No Woman's Land is both the protagonist's home country and is neither presented as a {{utopia}} nor {{dystopia}}, and they are becoming saner by the time of the story. Barrayaran women have no citizenship rights, and in ''Memory'', when serving as the "Second" (read Best Man) at the Emperor Gregor's engagement party, Miles reads from a long list of traditional Admonitions to the bride which are clearly instructions for obedience. Pretty much every non-Barrayaran person Miles meets thinks of his country as a hellhole on this score. Then you meet Lady Alys, the Professora, etc. and learn law and practice are two different things.

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'': The season 1 episode "[[Recap/AngelS01E13She She]]" features female demons, who turn out to be refugees from another dimension where the female of the species has her personality removed when she comes of age to make them easier to control. This is done by removing part of their spine and renders the subject docile.

* The adaptation of ''Series/TheHandmaidsTale'' has the Republic of Gilead, where woman cannot own property, work, read or write, or do anything else freely, and effectively have no rights now. Women who are seen as proper can become Wives (of the ruling elite), Econowives (married to ordinary men), Aunts (who train Handmaids), or Marthas (domestic workers) and be treated with a measure of respect. However, women who are seen as "fallen" (i.e. anyone whose life before Gilead doesn't mesh with a strict, fundamentalist Christian worldview), are forced to become Handmaids (concubines of the elite men whose bear children in place of an infertile wife) or Jezebels (prostitutes). Fallen women who refuse to become Handmaids or Jezebels are executed or become Unwomen, prisoners who are sent to the Colonies to die a slow death from radiation poisoning as they clean up toxic waste. Flashbacks show scenes of the process of women losing their rights, where Offred's [[spoiler:(then June)]] credit and debit cards stop working, and all the women are then fired from their jobs under the eyes of armed guards. Serena Joy, one of the architects of the formation of Gilead, is now [[HoistByHisOwnPetard one of its victims]], being subject to the same disciplinary actions as all women are under the authority of Gilead's male figures.

* In ''Franchise/StarTrek'', the Ferengi exemplify this trope ''to an extreme''. Ferengi women aren't allowed to handle money, think for themselves, or ''wear clothes''. They also [[{{Squick}} pre-chew their sons' food]]. This begins to change when one Ferengi woman points out that the society is handicapping its ability to turn a profit by disenfranchising half its population. Given that the planet's [[PlanetOfHats hat]] is materialism, this is seen as a very [[SeriousBusiness valid point]], and begins to bring about change.

-->'''C.J. Cregg:''' Outraged? I'm barely surprised. This is a country where women aren't allowed to drive a car. They're not allowed to be in the company of any man other than a close relative. They're required to adhere to a dress code that would make a Maryknoll nun look like Malibu Barbie. They beheaded 121 people last year for robbery, rape, and drug trafficking. No free press, no elected government, no political parties. And the royal family allows the religious police to travel in groups of six, carrying nightsticks, and they freely and publicly beat women. But "Brutus is an honorable man." Seventeen schoolgirls were forced to burn alive because they weren't wearing the proper clothing. Am I outraged? No, Steve. No, Chris. No, Mark. That is Saudi Arabia, our partners in peace...[[note]]...[[http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show/the-west-wing/enemies-foreign-and-domestic/3/ However, this not Islamic. Sorkin could have made this clear and didn't.[[/note]]

* It is rumoured that no woman was allowed to enter the Czech castle [[http://www.hrad-karlstejn.com/en/ Karlstein]], as it was supposed to be a place of relaxation and meditation. It is likely a misconception coming from a ban on sleeping with women in a room which would later be dedicated to holding a chapel. Nevertheless, the myth gave birth to a play ''A Night at Karlstein'' by Jaroslav Vrchlický (and later a [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070452/ musical film]]) in which Empress Elise of Pomerania (who could purportedly bend iron rods) and a girl named Alena visit their beloved -- Emperor Charles IV and a cup-bearer Pešek -- while disguised as men.

* ''TabletopGame/RenegadeLegion'': Under the Terran Overlord Government, women are property of their fathers or husbands. They are allowed to join the military, but are limited in rank to Centurion Maximus. Many women defected to the Renegade Legions after the law was enacted.
* In ''TabletopGame/SpawnOfFashan'', the basic rules assume that your character is male. If you want to play a female, you have to divide your die rolls for strength by 2, and multiply your die rolls for charisma by 1.5. Since the rules are already obscure and hard-to-follow enough as it is, most players (if there were any) would choose to play a male just because it would simplify their lives. (But don't worry, the game [[BlatantLies isn't sexist]], because the authors say in the introduction that they're not sexist so it must be true.)

** The female Skaven have been relegated into mindless sex slaves and breeding machines. The person who created the brood mothers has pointed out that although they're the only females explicitly mentioned, that doesn't mean they're the only female Skaven that exist, but it doesn't make their situation any less horrifying.

** The Tevinter Imperium which has this reputation across Thedas because unlike other countries influenced by the Chantry (which is controlled by an [[FeministFantasy always female Divine]]), Tevinter has its own Chantry where the Divine is always male. In addition, many tales are spread about how women from non-Tevinter [[IHaveYouNowMyPretty countries are kidnapped]] and forced into [[SexSlave sexual slavery]]. While this is true, they do it to everyone else regardless of gender. Also female magisters are just as common (and as wicked) as their male counterparts and with the exception of becoming Divine, no office is barred from them - just like men are barred from being Divines in Southern Thedas.
** Played with the Qunari. They have very strict gender roles that bar women from fighting (which sticks out in a WorldOfActionGirls) and they are relegated to spiritual or teacher roles. Having said that, they aren't necessarily considered ''lesser'' (nor are men considered better) but play an very integral role in their society. Even then, the Qunari find the concept of female warriors so unusual that they view them as ''male'' instead.

* Intentionally exaggerated by Amita in ''VideoGame/FarCry4'': Yes, Kyrat was a horribly misogynistic country where girls were expected to be engaged at the age of ''six'', but the religion that enforces this worships a goddess as their CrystalDragonJesus, and the effective pope of the land was always a woman by tradition. In recent years, the reign of tyrant leader Pagan Min has pushed LaResistance to enlist female soldiers with Pagan himself is also an EqualOpportunityEvil despot who have no qualms on employing women in many important positions and roles of his regime, and the arena is run by topless ladies with assault rifles.

* This turns out to be the case in at least one of the Puritan Territories called Sybion in ''Webcomic/Collar6'', [[spoiler:Laura]]'s homeland. Because of a severe gender imbalance, [[http://collar6.com/2011/collar-6-211 women are required to submit to men sexually]] in the hopes of conceiving a male child, and women are ranked by their fertility. The main setting consists of characters in consensual BDSM relationships as a contrast, with the exception of one villain who explicitly uses force on her slaves.
* ''Webcomic/TwoKinds'': Wolf clans are extremely sexist; Natani had to hide her gender because they wouldn't accept female soldiers. Everywhere else has equal-gender rights, even if racism is at an all-time high during the story. Though, the Basitins segregate the men's houses from the women's, but that's mainly because they have a low libido so it works out.
* ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'' Duane Adelier's home country of Alderode doesn't give you a ton of options if you're female; women are meant to be wives and mothers (or if they're of the Platinum caste, 'encouraged' to go into the sex trade) and little else. They're not expected to have jobs, and they're not allowed to own property, vote or even use pymary, this world's version of magic. It says a lot when a woman's best option for real power and autonomy is to choose to become a Third Option and legally become a man; plenty of women from the Copper caste, who are relatively more liberated thanks to their long lifespans, take this route. The other countries on the continent, particularly the matriarchal Cresce, condemn such misogyny.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'', Francine stands up to the treatment of Saudi women with a musical number, and gets arrested for singing in public and dressing indecently. Later Haley gets arrested for beating up a guy who she thought was terrorist but actually works in a shawarma stand. [[note]] she didn't beat him because she thought he was a terrorist, she beat him because he ''wasn't''; he had led her to believe that he was and [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys she dug that]].[[/note]] Steve sells Roger (dressed as a woman) into sex slavery, and it's treated as perfectly normal.
* In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanGothamKnight'', the flashback sequences of the "Working Through Pain" vignette where Bruce Wayne goes to India for pain-control training seemed to be set in one of these. The female mentor Bruce Wayne seeks out is a pariah by her local community because she dared to undergo TrainingFromHell reserved for Men Only. This is in spite of the fact that in real life India women who make it as female warriors are highly respected and have led ''entire armies'' as far back the ''twelfth century''.
* Cromania in ''WesternAnimation/CloseEnough'' is an exaggerated example of this, having such a sexist regime that women are jailed for not laughing at their husband's jokes and have to ask permission to even ''speak''. The leader of the country thinks that Emily and Bridgettte's ironic, tongue-in-cheek song "Men Rock" is actually a song ''praising'' men for treating women like dirt and arranged to have them sing it as propaganda for a nationally televised broadcast. When they realize this, they sing a new song encouraging the women live as they choose and stand up for themselves. This encourages the women to rise up against the regime. However, they apparently [[{{Gendercide}} went too far with it]], and Cromania is now [[LadyLand the exact opposite of what it once was.]]

* ''LightNovel/OrcHeroStory'':

* The Old Arcadia Empire in ''LightNovel/UndefeatedBahamutChronicle''. Women weren't allowed to use [[MiniMecha Drag-Rides]], commoner women were often abducted by male nobles to satisfy their desires, noble women were treated as tools for political marriages, and young girls (regardless of status) were subjected to horrific experiments to develop weapons. Women who were unable to give birth were treated even worse, as shown by how Raffi Atismata was treated poorly by her own family for getting a childbirth-preventing disease. From later information in the light novels, this society may have been a reaction to [[spoiler:the Holy Arcadia Empire, which was toppled and replaced by the Old Arcadia Empire in a revolution. The known leaders of the Holy Arcadia Empire have all been female, though it's unclear if their society was actually matriarchal.]]

** Barrayar is a unique example where the No Woman's Land is both the protagonist's home country and is neither presented as a {{utopia}} nor {{dystopia}}, and they are becoming saner by the time of the story. Barrayaran women have no citizenship rights, and in ''Literature/{{Memory}}'', when serving as the "Second" (read Best Man) at the Emperor Gregor's engagement party, Miles reads from a long list of traditional Admonitions to the bride which are clearly instructions for obedience. Pretty much every non-Barrayaran person Miles meets thinks of his country as a hellhole on this score. Then you meet Lady Alys, the Professora, etc. and learn law and practice are two different things.
** In ''Literature/EthanOfAthos'', Athos is a planet composed entirely of men, no women allowed whatsoever. It was founded by a gynophobic sect of Christianity, making it a CultColony as well. Thanks to UterineReplicator technology they can actually make it work, though a sudden shortage of viable eggs kicks off the plot of the short story "Ethan of Athos" as the aforementioned Ethan ventures into the wider galaxy in search of replacements. [[FishOutOfWater It's a bit of a learning experience for him.]]

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'': The season 1 episode "She" featured female demons, who turned out to be refugees from another dimension, where the female of the species has her personality removed when she comes of age to make them easier to control. This is done by removing part of their spine and renders the subject docile.

** In the episode "Our Mrs Reynolds", Saffron says that on her planet a woman is always subservient to the male until her father/brother uses her as payment for something, or sells her. [[spoiler:[[UnreliableExpositor This may or may not be true]], but the crew of ''Serenity'' certainly buys her story.]]
** "Heart of Gold" features a planet (or at least those in charge) of {{Straw Misogynist}}s, to the point that working in a brothel is seen as a better life for those who work there simply because the owner is a woman who treats them with basic human decency.

* A particularly horrifying example in "The Screwfly Solution", an episode of ''Series/MastersOfHorror'' directed by Creator/JoeDante and based on a story by James Tiptree, Jr., a.k.a. Alice Sheldon. Every man on the planet becomes violently misogynistic and kills every woman they can find, ending the future of the human race. [[spoiler:This is later revealed to be an alien HatePlague plot to depopulate the Earth and take over.]]

* ''Series/StargateSG1'': Occurs with the Jaffa. "Birthright" introduces Ishta and the Hak'tyl ("liberation"), a group of female Jaffa who have fled the domain of Moloch, a Goa'uld who has female infants put to death. Ishta also tells Teal'c that she is from a world where "women aren't held in such high regard", that she was one wife of many, and that she was mistreated. Later, after the downfall of the Goa'uld, Ka'lel (the representative of the Hak'tyl to the Jaffa high council) reveals that many regions oppose giving any rights to female Jaffa.

* ''The Mage With Special Circumstances Wants To Live Peacefully'' is one of the very few example of an (somewhat)
good no-woman land.

* ''The Mage With Special Circumstances Wants To Live Peacefully'' is one of the very few example of an (somewhat) good
no-woman land.

* ''The Mage With Special Circumstances Wants To Live Peacefully'' is one of the very few example of an(somewhat) good
no-woman land.

* ''The Mage With Special Circumstances Wants To Live Peacefully'' is one of the very few example of an(somewhat good
no-woman land.

* ''The Mage With Special Circumstances Wants To Live Peacefully'' is one of the very few example of an (somewhat) good

* Subverted in Literature/TheBible. While the scriptures were written by relatively patriarchal cultures and do have a number of examples of mistreatment of women (and have been misused to justify it), this is generally disapproved of, particularly in the New Testament.
** Ephesians 5:22-33 is often {{quote mine}}d as saying "Wives, submit to your husbands". People who quote that line tend to conveniently forget the part right after that where Paul says, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her," indicating that husbands must love their wives self-sacrificially.
** 1st Peter 3:1-6 also quotes the same injunction for women, but it also has in the following verse that men are to give honor unto their wives "as unto a weaker vessel" and as co-heirs to the grace of life so that their prayers are not hindered or cut off.
** Another of the Epistles actually states that wives are ''not'' to just put up with an un-Christian husband, but rather to work to convert him if possible (with the implication being that if all else fails, ''get out of there'').
** Additionally, it is also generally subverted in both Literature/TheQuran and the Torah, and many other similar books of the time period.

This is commonly used as to depict either a specific nation or region or just "the other place with people who are different from us and therefore inferior", the StrawMisogynist trope applied on a wider scope. While the Middle East is one of the most frequent receivers of this stereotype, India, {{Mayincatec}} societies,[[note]]Which is more or less true, only that Spain and other European countries that colonized the Americas weren't terribly egalitarian at the time either. In fact, before the rise of ritual militarism in Mesoamerica left their women with fewer possibilities of gaining social prestige, those cultures--like various other UsefulNotes/PreColumbianCivilizations--might have qualified as actually ''less'' patriarchal than old Christian Europe.[[/note]] Southeast Asia, the whole African continent, and sometimes ''even'' developed Asian countries like Japan and South Korea don't get off well either (along with the implication that [[WhiteMansBurden only westerners that can save them]]). Asian movies have been known to depict Western nations this way, as well. Historical and period settings, especially those set in medieval and ancient societies, or barbarian settings, will also invoke this, as well as future dystopic settings, all to symbolize something backward, evil, regressive and far from normality as possible. Violence and oppression towards women is a handy, instant, visceral visual shorthand to communicate to an audience and economically conveys a lot about a particular setting. Of course, used the wrong way, it can be accused of RomanticizedAbuse and such elements (especially in {{B Movie}}s, and dodgy {{romance novel}}s like ''Literature/TheSheik'', which are marketed explicitly on exploitative appeal) or, especially if contrasted with a LadyLand, [[TheUnfairSex misandry]] (men as a whole are depicted as hateful, evil creatures in contrast with [[WomenAreDelicate pure, innocent women]] who would run the world as a {{Utopia}} if [[WomenAreWiser they were in charge]]). If a fictional society is portrayed this way by another ficitional society in the same universe, but it isn't actually true, then it's FantasticRacism. Saying that your enemies abuse their women is an AbominationAccusationAttack, and pretty much the oldest racial slur out there.

** His film, ''Film/BarryLyndon'' was one of the few period films of its time, and times afterwards, that really put across how misoghynist and sexist the aristocratic setting romanticized in earlier literary adaptations are. A society where the only careers available to women is marriage and children, is not healthy either for women, for children or for their spouses. Depresssingly, this seems to have gotten worse in his "contemporary" ''Film/EyesWideShut'' where by the turn of the millennium, women are once again trapped in boring marriages, with careers as prostitutes and DisposableSexWorker, and/or TrophyWife being their primary roles in bourgeois society. Whether this reflects how Kubrick believes society to be, or reflected his own imagination is, of course, a separate issue.

Generally speaking there is no particular reason given for why the place is like this. The creator usually expects the audience to assume that this is what all (human) societies would look like if not for modern governments (with the UnfortunateImplication that only the government stands between women and [[TheUnfairSex naturally violent men]]: in reality governments are often part of the problem). It is worth remembering that, like any other cultural practice, misogyny becomes a thing for certain reasons. Those reasons dictate what type of misogyny will be present in a given culture, and how brutally it will be enforced. While the inhabitants of this society probably have no idea why they do this other than AppealToTradition, outsiders can either speculate or may in fact know the reasons why this society operates this way: or might be able to glean clues from the setting itself.

This is commonly used as to depict either a specific nation or region or just "the other place with people who are different from us and therefore inferior", the StrawMisogynist trope applied on a wider scope. While the Arabic world is one of the most frequent receivers of this stereotype, India, {{Mayincatec}} societies,[[note]]Which is more or less true, only that Spain and other European countries that colonized the Americas weren't terribly egalitarian at the time either. In fact, before the rise of ritual militarism in Mesoamerica left their women with fewer possibilities of gaining social prestige, those cultures--like various other UsefulNotes/PreColumbianCivilizations--might have qualified as actually ''less'' patriarchal than old Christian Europe.[[/note]] Southeast Asia, and the whole African continent don't get off well either. Asian movies have been known to depict Western nations this way, as well. Historical and period settings, especially those set in medieval and ancient societies, or barbarian settings, will also invoke this, as well as future dystopic settings, all to symbolize something backward, evil, regressive and far from normality as possible. Violence and oppression towards women is a handy, instant, visceral visual shorthand to communicate to an audience and economically conveys a lot about a particular setting. Of course, used the wrong way, it can be accused of RomanticizedAbuse and such elements (especially in {{B Movie}}s, and dodgy {{romance novel}}s like ''Literature/TheSheik'', which are marketed explicitly on exploitative appeal) or, especially if contrasted with a LadyLand, [[TheUnfairSex misandry]] (men as a whole are depicted as hateful, evil creatures in contrast with [[WomenAreDelicate pure, innocent women]] who would run the world as a {{Utopia}} if [[WomenAreWiser they were in charge]]). If a fictional society is portrayed this way by another ficitional society in the same universe, but it isn't actually true, then it's FantasticRacism. Saying that your enemies abuse their women is an AbominationAccusationAttack, and pretty much the oldest racial slur out there.

* The ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fan-universe ''Fanfic/FallOfEquestria'' takes this UpToEleven: born from a now-defunct Tumblr blog, the basic premise is that Equestria is overrun [[AlwaysChaoticEvil by a nation of misogynistic caribou]] and the mares [[GratuitousRape are little more than sex slaves and toys]] to the males.

** However, this isn't entirely their fault. Some of the entrenched gender roles are not so much cultural as they are ''biological''; over generations, the Clan became so used to having one sex perform particular tasks and roles, they [[GenderRestrictedAbility lost the genetic memories]] they rely on to do the opposite. In other words, most Clan women are ''incapable'' of learning how to hunt, nor would they have the desire to do so. The same applies to men and because of this, they are dependent on each other for survival. For this reason, Iza believes that despite outward appearances, deep down the Clan know that men and women are both equally important. As such, most women don't feel any lesser and most men treat them with respect and dignity - a man who fixates on tormenting and abusing a woman, such as in the case of Ayla and Broud, is seen as shameful and lacking in character. Medicine women are also very powerful; they're the only women in the Clan who have status in their own right, are deferred to by everyone in regards to medical matters, and believed to wield strong magic to heal people effectively. Clan men have been known to appreciate strength and courage in a woman; Brun, though it makes him a bit uncomfortable and he rarely openly shows it, is clearly impressed by Ayla's skill with a sling and ability to survive the death curse, and comes to respect her, whilst Guban is pleasantly surprised when Yorga begins fighting off the gang that attacked them to protect him. Clan women also [[AllWomenAreLustful feel sexual desire like Cro-Magnon women]] and can display this in their own way; they have certain postures and gestures they use to try and encourage a man to 'make the Signal' at her and do other things to get a man's attention. Of course, this is only referring to ''Clan'' women. For Cro-Magnon women living amongst the Clan, it's a ''lot'' more difficult and oppressive.* The trials and tribulations of the female characters in ''Literature/TheGoodEarth'' remind readers that pre-revolution China was a scary place to be female. Men had absolute authority over their wives, concubines, and children. The social acceptability of polygyny and concubinage meant that a wife's status in the home was never secure. The absence of contraception meant that women could expect to bear large numbers of children and suffer reproductive health problems as a result. Girls born to impoverished families could be killed as infants or sold into slavery, where a life of servitude, physical abuse, and sexual violence awaited them. Middle and upper class girls were subjected to foot binding and child marriage.

* The ''VideoGame/FireEmblemJugdral'' games (''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Genealogy of the Holy War]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemThracia776 Thracia 776]]'') are set on a continent where women do not have easy lives. Bandits frequently RapePillageAndBurn, but even noblewomen who nominally have the protection of a castle are in danger of abduction and forced marriage if everyone else in the country is busy. It gets worse in the second half, particularly in the occupied country of Isaach. Two potential party members speak of the dangers they've personally faced, and a third becomes visibly unsettled if a male unit stands near her for multiple turns.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

Remember that real-life "examples" would be ''very'' controversial, and are therefore [[Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease forbidden]]. While most societies throughout history have discriminated against women to some extent, this trope is for fictional portrayals that are virulently misogynistic even by the standards of their respective time periods. [[noreallife]]

* Sweden is portrayed like this in ''Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy''. If you're a female character in this trilogy, you will be discriminated against, abused, [[RapeAsDrama raped]], and/or [[DisposableWoman killed]]. [[AuthorTract There are no exceptions]]. A healthy bit of FridgeHorror as well, since the author was Swedish and supposedly based on the book on real observations. If Sweden, vaunted for its gender equality, is such a [[CrapsackWorld Crapsack Country]], what about the rest of the world?

* In ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'', Francine stands up to the treatment of Saudi women with a musical number, and gets arrested for singing in public and dressing indecently. Later Haley gets arrested for beating up a guy who she thought was terrorist but actually works in a shawarma stand. (Note: she didn't beat him because she thought he was a terrorist, she beat him because he ''wasn't''; he had led her to believe that he was and [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys she dug that]]). Steve sells Roger (dressed as a woman) into sex slavery, and it's treated as perfectly normal.

%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.

* ''Manga/{{Shitsurakuen}}''. A metaphor for the [[SchoolBullyingIsHarmless callous ambivalence towards students being bullied]] pushed to {{Anvilicious}} levels. Girls in Utopia Gakuen are nothing but objects to be hoarded, fought over, abused, and discarded at leisure by [[AllAbusersAreMale the boys]], who are [[TheUnfairSex universally depicted as doing so]].

* Implied to be the case in the towns the women of Iron Town came from, in ''Anime/PrincessMononoke''. When Ashitaka comments on how hard they must work to run the furnace, they tell him that it's far better than the brothels they used to work at, mentioning that they're given plenty of food and protection from men harassing them. The men of Iron Town don't seem overly thrilled by how much freedom the women have, but everyone respects [[LadyOfWar Lady Eboshi]] and she insists on the women being treated well.

* ''ComicBook/BitchPlanet'' is set in a world where Non-Compliant women get sent to a PenalColony. Non-Compliance in the world of ''Bitch Planet'' can mean anything from murder, causing your husband to have an affair, not keeping yourself looking suitably attractive for men, or basically anything else that'll give men a reason to get rid of you.

* In ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'', the Elbonians act like jerks to Alice, calling the engineer a "coffee wench" leading to frustration and Elbonians being kicked into their own hats. "I'm going to Elbonia, the land of waist-deep mud and misogyny" - Alice, in the March 11, 1998 strip.

* In one ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' fanfic, ''Fanfic/TheLastWar'', the author goes on a particularly {{Anvilicious}} rant about how the wizarding world "denied the sacred healing acts of witchcraft in favor of the violent virility of wizardry, [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything the way it covered women in hideous robes to conceal their natural beauty.]]"

* ''Literature/TheHobbit'' fanfic ''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/4661757/chapters/10636026 Amazons of Erebor]]'' portrays the culture of the Tolkien's dwarves like this. The dwarves are all women and their quest for the Lonely Mountain is mainly to have a place to live free of male rule.

* ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'' is set in an 18th-century French village that is not kind to a girl like Belle, as everyone considers her crazy for liking to read and back ''Gaston'' in his [[EntitledToHaveYou behavior]] towards her, even though he does things that are rude at best and worthy of a restraining order at most drastic. The only people who consider Belle's opinions or desires are her father (who's also considered crazy), the castle servants, and the Beast.

%%* See also ''Bangkok Hilton'', which is a female-centred version of ''Midnight Express''.

* A particularly notorious use of the trope is the Hong Kong "Women in Prison" sexploitation flick ''Bamboo House of Dolls'', in which the Japanese capture a bunch of American nurses in China during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and subject them and their Chinese cellmates to various forms of torture and sexual abuse. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women While several tens of thousands of women (including a few thousand ethnic-Europeans) really were made sex slaves for the IJA's use, besides the hundreds of thousands who were sexually assaulted in other capacities,]] the film is a ''far'' cry from a documentary.
* ''Film/ThreeHundred'' has the unfortunate Persian messenger astounded to see that the Spartans allow women (or at least, the queen) to speak at a council. This is generally assumed to be part of the film's attempt to portray the Greco-Persian war as an allegory for UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror. In reality, while on the one hand Spartan women did enjoy more rights than in any other Greek city-state (Gorgo's line, "Only Spartan women give birth to real men," was directed at the Athenians in "[[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory historical]]" record), Persian women on the other hand enjoyed more rights than Spartan women at the time, and Spartan women were only given self-defense lessons because they believed that [[LamarckWasRight women who could fight gave birth to strong babies]]. [[TruthInTelevision On the other hand, the historical Queen Gorgo actually was an adviser for her husband, as well as the ruler before him.]]
** Ironically, according to the historian Herodotus it was the Macedonians who were offended when Persian guests insisted on eating meals together with women and Alexander the Great often ran into trouble getting the Macedonians to accept the now conquered and assimilated Persians as equals.
** Subverted in ''Film/ThreeHundredRiseOfAnEmpire'', in which the Persian Empire is portrayed as egalitarian enough to have the DarkActionGirl Queen Artemisia as Emperor Xerxes's DragonInChief and leading their fleet against the Athenians.

* Even though it wasn't the main theme of the film, ''Film/CSATheConfederateStatesOfAmerica'' briefly touches on the fact that women in the Confederate States of America never got the vote and, thanks to John Ambrose Fauntroy V's "Family Values" program, are allowed to be beaten by their husbands. (Compare that to Canada, who actually got the vote sooner because Susan B. Anthony emigrated to Canada.)

* ''Film/BloodOfTheTribades'': The priests of Bathor believe in strict patriarchy, with women having a duty to provide children and not possessing any other rights. Any who defy them are exiled or killed, as they deem their sins the cause of a disease afflicting the priests.

* The trials and tribulations of the female characters in ''Literature/TheGoodEarth'' remind readers that pre-revolution China was a scary place to be female. Men had absolute authority over their wives, concubines, and children. The social acceptability of polygyny and concubinage meant that a wife's status in the home was never secure. The absence of contraception meant that women could expect to bear large numbers of children and suffer reproductive health problems as a result. Girls born to impoverished families could be killed as infants or sold into slavery, where a life of servitude, physical abuse, and sexual violence awaited them. Middle and upper class girls were subjected to foot binding and child marriage.

* ''Literature/TheStepfordWives'' has Stepford, where the men have killed their wives and replaced them with "perfect" robot women.
* ''Literature/{{Gor}}'' most certainly is: women are prized as objects of conquest, so in places where the risk of sudden seizure is great, High Caste Free Women are heavily covered to make raiders uncertain if they're worth the risk and accompanied by security level tantamount to house arrest while slave girls are left exposed as the more attractive targets. In areas where the risk is slight (such as Torvaldsland, which is too cold for the flying Tarns, too rocky for mounted raiders, and longboat raids can be detected well in advance), the Free Women wear less cover and get ultimate political clout within their household... however, they can still be enslaved by their husbands.[[note]]Well, not really. Bera, Jarl's Woman of Svein Blue Tooth, despite being a notorious shrew and a colossal PITA, couldn't be enslaved out of hand; however, when the Kurii invaded and took a large number of prisoners, they collared a number of women (mostly intending to eat them later, but still) and the Torvaldslanders decided they would have to view this as the equivalent of enslavement by men (after the Kurii had been beaten and the women regained). Elsewhere, it's worth noting that Free Women have plenty of say in both Caste matters and city politics -- except among Initiates, but the author is prone to slip in the odd TakeThat against religion -- and are generally treated as objects of deference in their own cities. The point is that Svein was able to do it, and he wasn't shown to be one of the particularly cunning characters, he simply seized an opportunity. If Tarl or Forkbeard decided they wanted to enslave their wives, they could easily engineer the situation with the means a No Woman's Land society provides them.[[/note]]
* The short story ''Taboos'' by Mary Caraker. Among other things, women are forbidden literacy.
* Subverted in ''Literature/TheBelgariad''. Garion initially reacts poorly on finding out that Nadrak society dictates that women should have male "owners"... until learning that "ownership" works out to what is essentially a mutually beneficial business relationship instead of slavery. Most Nadrak women carry several knives to "chastise" a man who gets carried away, an act that is regarded approvingly by other Nadraks. The Murgos may be a somewhat more accurate example, as their views on maintaining pure bloodlines require their womenfolk to be sequestered and locked up most of the time. However, we only see three Murgo women with any character depth in the whole series, and none are very accurate examples of the culture. This all turns out to be [[DeliberateValuesDissonance very deliberate]], since The Belgariad itself firmly established the heroes' racism, and the Mallorean showed them that the rest of the world was never as cut-and-dried as they always believe.
* In Creator/LSpragueDeCamp's novel ''[[Literature/TheReluctantKing The Honorable Barbarian]]'', Princess Nogiri of Salimor comments that Kerin of Novaria, with whom she has just entered into a CitizenshipMarriage, is an incredible man and husband and wonders why all Salimorese women don't go to Novaria to find such wonderful men. The primary reason she says this is that Kerin doesn't beat her when she argues with him.
* Creator/ThomasHardy's Wessex, his stand-in for rural England, portrays 19th Century England as a place where men can sell their wives (''Literature/TheMayorOfCasterbridge''), where women have little to no access to education or proper jobs (''Literature/JudeTheObscure'', ''Literature/TheReturnOfTheNative''), and where sexual assault goes unpunished and [[UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming blame is placed on the victim]] (''Literature/TessOfTheDUrbervilles''), and in the instances where women do find true love and get to the man they liked, the marriage will fail, the spouses will disappoint each other and start cheating on one another.
* Margret Atwood's ''Literature/TheHandmaidsTale'' gives us the future {{Dystopia}} of Gilead, where women are second and-third-class citizens whose status is determined by their fertility. Taking it a step further, lesbians, rebellious women, and women with compromised fertility (which is the majority of them due to contamination and disease) are forced into prostitution if they're lucky or sent to work as slaves in toxic environments until they die horribly if they're not. This is made more disturbing by the fact that those who are charged with the task of indoctrinating women into such a life of servitude, The Aunts, [[BoomerangBigot are other women]].
* In ''Literature/SorcererToTheCrown'', only men are allowed to become sorcerers; magical talent is seen as very embarrassing in an upper class girl, and there is a school where young ladies are taught to ''not'' use magic, and even to use a spell based on an illegal, lethal spell on ''themselves'' to drain themselves of magic. (Though the protagonist, Zacharias, initially agrees that women should not be taught magic, the use of this spell horrifies him enough to reconsider his stance.)
* ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'':
** Barrayar is a unique example where the No Woman's Land is both the protagonist's home country and is neither presented as a {{utopia}} nor {{dystopia}}, and they are becoming saner by the time of the story. Barrayaran women have no citizenship rights, and in ''Literature/{{Memory}}'', when serving as the "Second" (read Best Man) at the Emperor Gregor's engagement party, Miles reads from a long list of traditional Admonitions to the bride which are clearly instructions for obedience. Pretty much every non-Barrayaran person Miles meets thinks of his country as a hellhole on this score. Then you meet Lady Alys, the Professora, etc. and learn law and practice are two different things.
** In ''Literature/EthanOfAthos'', Athos is a planet composed entirely of men, no women allowed whatsoever. It was founded by a gynophobic sect of Christianity, making it a CultColony as well. Thanks to UterineReplicator technology they can actually make it work, though a sudden shortage of viable eggs kicks off the plot of the short story "Ethan of Athos" as the aforementioned Ethan ventures into the wider galaxy in search of replacements. [[FishOutOfWater It's a bit of a learning experience for him.]]
* Grayson and Masada in the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' stories are both introduced as gender-imbalanced worlds with obligate polygamy where women have no rights or access to education. The situation of women on Grayson and especially their [[ExoticExtendedMarriage marital arrangements]] are later portrayed in an idealized way, while Masada continues to be a [[RapeAsDrama rape-happy]] {{dystopia}}, though Grayson is more chivalrous than Masada, and that their other [[PlanetOfHats hat]] is adaptability. Thus after exposure to foreign powers and particularly seeing Honor in action, they begin reforms. Still, their world suffers from a high mortality rate among male infants, so plural marriages remain a fact of life.
%%* Creator/SheriSTepper plays this trope for all it's worth. As her novels are primarily sci-fi/fantasy, example's of No Woman's Land are not so much abroad as they are off-planet. ''Raising the Stones'', ''Sideshow'', ''Shadow's End'', ''Gibbon's Decline and Fall'' offer examples of ''entire planets'' that are women-unfriendly. Subverted in ''Six Moon Dance''.

* Sweden is portrayed like this in ''Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy''. If you're a female character in this trilogy, you will be discriminated against, abused, [[RapeAsDrama raped]], and/or [[DisposableWoman killed]]. [[AuthorTract There are no exceptions]]. A healthy bit of FridgeHorror as well, since the author was Swedish and supposedly based on the book on real observations. If Sweden, vaunted for its gender equality, is such a [[CrapsackWorld Crapsack Country]], what about the rest of the world?
* Surprisingly enough, the Nome Kingdom in ''Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz'', making this OlderThanTheyThink. The Nomes are the sworn enemies of Oz (which is a matriarchy), and the Nomes make sure that ''anything'' feminine is verboten.
* The past is treated this way in ''Literature/TimeScout''. {{Qurac}} is explicitly called as much. The downtimer Muslim cult is presented as rabidly misogynistic, especially hating the revived worship of Artemis because it has a female deity.
* ''Ape and Essence'' by Aldous Huxley has a post-apocalyptic dystopian society whose ReligionOfEvil labels women as vessels of the Unholy Spirit and breeders of filth. If they give birth to deformed babies (which they usually do), they are brutally whipped and their babies are ritually sacrificed to Belial.
%%* Though averted in the canon ''Literature/WarriorCats'' series, a plot in one roleplay is about a 'pseudoclan' (group of loners who are structured much like a Clan) called [=SkullClan=] which is basically this.
* In a story from the Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse anthology ''Tales of the New Republic'', Mara Jade accepts a mission to rescue a man's daughter from an extremely misogynistic and speciesist alien who ''loathes'' human women, and subjects them to extremely humiliating and abusive forced labor on his private moon. [[CurbStompBattle It's pretty clear where things go once the former Emperor's Hand infiltrates his slave pits...]]

* Although dragon society in general operates as this trope in ''Literature/ToothAndClaw,'' the capital region of Irieth is specifically implied to be especially harsh and unwelcoming to female dragons. Maiden dragons are at great risk of being made dinner for larger, more powerful males if a particularly overbearing standard of beauty and dowager value isn't met, though worse is reputed to take place. Marriage markets exist where maidens are sold off to the highest bidders, and to a more unseemly degree, there exist concubinages that also sell compromised maidens - all with the blessing of the draconic culture's Church.
* ''Literature/AlexisCarew'': New London has a habit of encouraging people with backwards ideas to go to other planets and colonize them instead of combating the ideas, which means that sexism is much more common and accepted on the Fringe, up to and including banning women from inheritance (which is unconstitutional, but enforcement is lax to nonexistent). Naturally, this means that Alexis frequently takes crap just for having two X chromosomes, though she tends to win over the common spacers with her AMotherToHerMen tendencies. {{Exaggerated}} in ''Mutineer'' when she is taken aboard by Captain Neals, who makes it his personal mission to drive her to resignation. This is not true of the other major star nations: the first recurring Hanoverese officer we're introduced to, Balestra, is a female commodore. Women are also more common in New London's ''Army'', since they have the attitude that if the Army is needed within New London's space, then they've got bigger fish to fry than worrying about pissing off some male-chauvinist fringeworld lord.
* In ''Literature/{{Caliphate}}'' portrays an [[{{Eurabia}} Western Europe taken over by an Taliban-like government]] where a woman's testimony is worth half a male's and have no say when being abused by men. Non-Muslims in general are treated like second-class citizens, but female Christians can be taken as sex slaves and concubines. Female Muslims have it ''slightly'' better than Christians, but that isn't saying much since they are forced to wear headscarves on pain of being disfigured, are forbidden from reading and expected to be only mothers and homemakers, and at least [[spoiler:one prominent Muslim divorces his wife and sends her a brothel]]. The one exception is Besma, Abdul Mohsem's daughter, who is his favorite child and said to be his heir, despite her being born from a Christian concubine and having a younger brother from a Muslim stepmother and even then, this is noted to be unusual [[spoiler:until she marries later down the line where she is subjected to an {{domestic abuse}}r]]. Their treatment of women appalls characters so much that the USA (which has turned into a fascist Christian theocratic empire) comes across as a ALighterShadeOfBlack because for all its [[TheEmpire many]], ''[[NukeEm many]]'' [[PresidentEvil faults]], they note it at least [[EqualOpportunityEvil grants greater freedom to women such as the right to join the military]].

* Celendor Empire in ''Literature/DarkShores''. Women are treated as property of their men (first fathers, then brothers/cousins or husbands), they cannot inherit and their men have absolute power over them, they can even sell them into slavery or kill them with impunity. Of course, if a woman is a daughter of an important family, her husband would be foolish to mistreat her. This is particularly true for Celendor proper and upper classes, as other provinces of the Empire have their own cultures and lower classes are more pragmatic.
* Since the world of ''Literature/TheArtsOfDarkAndLight'' for the most part sticks fairly closely to [[DeliberateValuesDissonance "realistic"]] social models for medieval societies, women generally play a rather limited role in public affairs (except in the elvish kingdoms, which have [[CrapsackOnlyByComparison more "modern"]] social norms). The one country that is absolutely horrible, however, is [[TheEmpire Savondir]], which enslaves all women with any potential for magic in their blood and uses them for breeding stock for its magical StateSec. Of course, there's [[DoubleStandard never even any question]] of them actually ''teaching'' magic to women.
* ''Literature/EarthsChildren'' has a [[PlayingWithATrope more complicated example]] when it comes to the society of the Clan (Neanderthals).
** The Clan are quite patriarchal; men are always the leaders or Mog-urs (shamans) and generally have more power and respect within the Clan. Women of the Clan have to obey men, being trained to be attentive to their needs and also being required to let any man who 'makes the signal' have sex with her. Men of the Clan are allowed to use corporal punishment against women who are disobedient, though beating them bloody is frowned upon, and women are raised to be generally meek and submissive to men. They usually have no status in their own right, instead gaining status through their mates. Daily tasks are also strictly gendered; men do hunting and make tools and weapons, whilst women gather food, cook and clean. It is considered bad luck for a woman to even touch a weapon and they can be ''executed'' (usually via the death curse) if caught using one. They must also isolate themselves when they get their periods.
** However, this isn't entirely their fault. Some of the entrenched gender roles are not so much cultural as they are ''biological''; over generations, the Clan became so used to having one sex perform particular tasks and roles, they [[GenderRestrictedAbility lost the genetic memories]] they rely on to do the opposite. In other words, most Clan women are ''incapable'' of learning how to hunt, nor would they have the desire to do so. The same applies to men and because of this, they are dependent on each other for survival. For this reason, Iza believes that despite outward appearances, deep down the Clan know that men and women are both equally important. As such, most women don't feel any lesser and most men treat them with respect and dignity - a man who fixates on tormenting and abusing a woman, such as in the case of Ayla and Broud, is seen as shameful and lacking in character. Medicine women are also very powerful; they're the only women in the Clan who have status in their own right, are deferred to by everyone in regards to medical matters, and believed to wield strong magic to heal people effectively. Clan men have been known to appreciate strength and courage in a woman; Brun, though it makes him a bit uncomfortable and he rarely openly shows it, is clearly impressed by Ayla's skill with a sling and ability to survive the death curse, and comes to respect her, whilst Guban is pleasantly surprised when Yorga begins fighting off the gang that attacked them to protect him. Clan women also [[AllWomenAreLustful feel sexual desire like Cro-Magnon women]] and can display this in their own way; they have certain postures and gestures they use to try and encourage a man to 'make the Signal' at her and do other things to get a man's attention. Of course, this is only referring to ''Clan'' women. For Cro-Magnon women living amongst the Clan, it's a ''lot'' more difficult and oppressive.
* ''Literature/ChroniclesOfAncientDarkness'': The Narwal Clan from ''Viper's Daughter'' is highly oppressive of their women. The men call women "half-men", provide them with less suitable food, clothing and shelter, believe they can't be mages or archers (they think Renn is capable of Magecraft only because she has the souls of a man), and punish them violently if they think they're acting out of line. The Narwals have to buy women from other clans that aren't nearly as chauvinistic as them.
* ''Literature/BazilBroketail'':
** Padmasa mostly has women used as {{breeding slave}}s, with the rest clearly holding inferior status to men.
** The Teetol and Ourdhi are very patriarchal, with their women sold regularly to outsiders (Padmasa is a main buyer).

%%** Played very {{anvilicious}}ly in the early episode "Emancipation" which featured Samantha Carter becoming a BlitheSpirit on a planet with this as their [[PlanetOfHats hat]].
* The BBC miniseries ''Occupation'' toyed with this -- one of the British ex-soldiers who returned to Afghanistan states that the problem with Afghan culture is that "they've got no respect for women". As he says this, he is framed by the camera sitting in his office, which has several objectifying pin-ups plastered all over the wall behind him. However, it's also played uncomfortably straight when [[spoiler:the most central female character is [[StuffedIntoTheFridge fridged]] by the boy who prompted this comment.]] [[http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-08-29/opinion/22949948_1_karzai-family-afghan-men-president-hamid-karzai Evidence would suggest that]] Afghan culture's lack of respect for women goes to a far more horrifying level than having racy posters on the walls.
* A particularly horrifying example in "The Screwfly Solution," an episode of ''Series/MastersOfHorror'' directed by Creator/JoeDante and based on a story by James Tiptree, Jr., aka Alice Sheldon. Every man on the planet becomes violently misogynistic and kills every woman they can find, ending the future of the human race. [[spoiler:This is later revealed to be an alien HatePlague plot to depopulate the Earth and take over.]]
* ''Series/{{Angel}}'': The season 1 episode "She" featured female demons, who turned out to be refugees from another dimension, where the female of the species has her personality removed when she comes of age to make them easier to control. This is done by removing part of their spine and renders the subject docile.
%%** In the season 3 episode "Billy", the touch of the episode's villain turns men (including a couple of the protagonists) into murderous misogynists. In this case, it wasn't so much horrifying as it was {{anvilicious}}.

* The ''Series/{{JAG}}'' episode "Head to Toe" centres on this. A female soldier is defending herself on not wearing an abaya, and arguments are made for abiding by the culture and appeasing terrorists (UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden is even quoted as Americans in the Middle East being cause for Jihads, meaning the abayas will protect women) and against the subjugation of women and treatment of foreigners. When Mac is subjected to this poor treatment she sides with the defendant.

-->"Outraged? I'm barely surprised. This is a country where women aren't allowed to drive a car. They're not allowed to be in the company of any man other than a close relative. They're required to adhere to a dress code that would make a Maryknoll nun look like Malibu Barbie. They beheaded 121 people last year for robbery, rape, and drug trafficking. No free press, no elected government, no political parties. And the royal family allows the religious police to travel in groups of six, carrying nightsticks, and they freely and publicly beat women. But 'Brutus is an honorable man.' Seventeen schoolgirls were forced to burn alive because they weren't wearing the proper clothing. Am I outraged? No, Steve. No, Chris. No, Mark. That is Saudi Arabia, our partners in peace..."
** ...[[http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show/the-west-wing/enemies-foreign-and-domestic/3/ However, this not Islamic. Sorkin could have made this clear and didn't.]]
* The adaptation of ''Series/TheHandmaidsTale'' has the Republic of Gilead, where woman cannot own property, work, read or write, or do anything else freely, and effectively have no rights now. Women who are seen as proper can become Wives (of the ruling elite), Econowives (married to ordinary men), Aunts (who train Handmaids), or Marthas (domestic workers) and be treated with a measure of respect. However, women who are seen as "fallen" (i.e. anyone whose life before Gilead doesn't mesh with a strict, fundamentalist Christian worldview), are forced to become Handmaids (concubines of the elite men whose bear children in place of an infertile wife) or Jezebels (prostitutes). Fallen women who refuse to become Handmaids or Jezebels are executed or become Unwomen, prisoners who are sent to the Colonies to die a slow death from radiation poisoning as they clean up toxic waste. Flashbacks show scenes of the process of women losing their rights, where Offred's [[spoiler: (then June)]] credit and debit cards stop working, and all the women are then fired from their jobs under the eyes of armed guards. Serena Joy, one of the architects of the formation of Gilead, is now [[HoistByHisOwnPetard one of its victims]], being subject to the same disciplinary actions as all women are under the authority of Gilead's male figures.

* It is rumoured that no woman was allowed to enter the Czech castle [[http://www.hrad-karlstejn.com/en/ Karlstein]], as it was supposed to be a place of relaxation and meditation. It is likely a misconception coming from a ban on sleeping with women in a room which would later be dedicated to holding a chapel.
** Nevertheless, the myth gave birth to a play A Night at Karlstein by Jaroslav Vrchlický (and later a [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070452/ musical film]]) in which Empress Elise of Pomerania (who could purportedly bend iron rods) and a girl named Alena visit their beloved -- Emperor Charles IV and a cup-bearer Pešek – while disguised as men.

* In ''TabletopGame/SpawnOfFashan'', the basic rules assume that your character is male. If you want to play a female, you have to divide your die rolls for strength by 2, and multiply your die rolls for charisma by 1.5. Since the rules are already obscure and hard-to-follow enough as it is, most players (if there were any) would choose to play a male just because it would simplify their lives. (But don't worry, the game [[BlatantLies isn't sexist]], because the authors say in the introduction that they're not sexist so it must be true.)
* ''TabletopGame/WarcraftTheRoleplayingGame'' by Creator/WhiteWolf says [[AllTrollsAreDifferent female trolls]] are just breeding stock and property used to make more trolls. ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' heavily disagrees however, as there are many female troll leaders like Arlokk, Mar'li, Lor'khan, Jeklik, and Primal Torntusk in various troll tribes, various troll males [[http://www.wowhead.com/quest=3822 treating]] [[http://www.wowhead.com/quest=7842 their mates]] [[http://www.wowhead.com/npc=28902#comments with respect]], and troll mooks coming in both genders. It also states this about [[PigMan quilboars]], who are practically matriarchal in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''. But then, the tabletop RPG came out several years before the MMORPG did, and two entirely separate teams of people worked on both versions, so it's not so surprising the lore went in different directions.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}}'', the UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} equivalents known as Aperusa are like this. Men get all the glory and are unequivocally in charge, whilst women do all of the actual work of keeping their ships and families running. There are also separate rules for men and women -- for example, widowers are encouraged to remarry, but widows are expected to take lifelong vows of chastity. It's also noted that Aperusa men love to seduce gullible, ignorant women who fall for the "romanticism" of the Aperusa lifestyle, only to find out after the wedding that they've condemned themselves to a life of backbreaking labor looking after a vain, lecherous, quasi-space-gypsy.
* In ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' and ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'', this is what happens in any area where the highly misogynistic Demon Lord Kostchtchie is worshipped. Women are second-class, fit only for breeding strong sons and waiting on their menfolk.
* ''TabletopGame/RenegadeLegion'': Under the Terran Overlord Government, women are property of their fathers or husbands. They are allowed to join the military, but are limited in rank to Centurion Maximus. Many women defected to the Renegade Legions after the law was enacted.

* Intentionally exaggerated by Amita in ''VideoGame/FarCry4'': Yes, Kyrat was a horribly misogynistic country where girls were expected to be engaged at the age of ''six'', but the religion that enforces this worships a goddess as their CrystalDragonJesus, and the effective pope of the land was always a woman by tradition. In recent years, the reign of tyrant leader Pagan Min has pushed LaResistance to enlist female soldiers with Pagan himself is also an EqualOpportunityEvil despot who have no qualms on employing women in many important positions and roles of his regime, and the arena is run by topless ladies with assault rifles.
* The modern Island of Yamatai in ''VideoGame/TombRaider2013'' is a literal no-woman's land because the male inhabitants would promptly sacrifice any females who had the misfortune to wash ashore in an attempt to appease the Goddess Himiko.

* ''Franchise/DragonAge'' plays with this trope in a setting where generally GenderIsNoObject:
** The Tevinter Imperium which has this reputation across Thedas because unlike other countries influenced by the Chantry (which is controlled by an [[FeministFantasy always female Divine]]), Tevinter has its own Chantry where the Divine is always male. In addition, many tales are spread about how women from non-Tevinter [[IHaveYouNowMyPretty countries are kidnapped]] and forced into [[SexSlave sexual slavery]]. While this is true, they do it to everyone else regardless of gender. Also female magisters are just as common (and as wicked) as their male counterparts and with the exception of becoming Divine, no office is barred from them - just like men are barred from being Divines in Southern Thedas.
** Played with the Qunari. They have very strict gender roles that bar women from fighting (which sticks out in a WorldOfActionGirls) and they are relegated to spiritual or teacher roles. Having said that, they aren't necessarily considered ''lesser'' (nor are men considered better) but play an very integral role in their society. Even then, the Qunari find the concept of female warriors so unusual that they view them as ''male'' instead.
* The [[NoNameGiven unnamed]] Kingdom from the UsefulNotes/RPGMaker game VideoGame/{{Didnapper}} is portrayed as this due to the huge amount of girls getting kidnapped for ransom by Criminal Guilds. It's usually played for {{Fanservice}} and BlackHumor.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' episode "Joust Like a Woman", the ''entire'' Renaissance Faire was created as one by a misogynistic real estate developer who fancies himself a king. It was so bad ("...the village idiot has full dental!") that Peggy, who recently got employed there, fought for women's rights. The Faire is like a whole 'nother country, and while the real Middle Ages weren't always the friendliest era when it came to women's rights, [[{{Jerkass}} the real estate developer]] [[{{Flanderization}} goes overboard with it]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanGothamKnight'', the flashback sequences of the "Working Through Pain" vignette where Bruce Wayne goes to India for pain-control training seemed to be set in one of these. The female mentor Bruce Wayne seeks out is a pariah by her local community because she dared to undergo TrainingFromHell reserved for Men Only. This is in spite of the fact that in real life India women who make it as female warriors are highly respected and have led ''entire armies'' as far back the ''twelfth century''.

* Cromania in ''WesternAnimation/CloseEnough'' is an exaggerated example of this, having such a sexist regime that women are jailed for not laughing at their husband's jokes and have to ask permission to even ''speak''. The leader of the country thinks that Emily and Bridgettte's ironic, tongue-in-cheek song "Men Rock" is actually a song ''praising'' men for treating women like dirt and arranaged to have them sing it as propaganda for a nationally televised broadcast. When they realize this, they sing a new song encouraging the women live as they choose and stand up for themselves. This encourages the women to rise up against the regime. However, they apparently [[{{Gendercide}} went too far with it]], and Cromania is now [[LadyLand the exaxt opposite of what it once was.]]