That makes sense. For me even Whileaway was . . . hostile? Especially at the time I read it (ie when I was really not good at separating my emotional and intellectual experiences of a literary work). The feminist separatist thing always felt hostile to me because it basically always felt like it was telling me that loving my father and my grandfathers and valuing their contributions to and in my life was Bad and Wrong. A World Without Men meant a world without them and my favourite uncles and several teachers I adored, and since several of these were kind of sanity-preserving sources of Unconditional Positive Regard for teen-me, where in contrast almost all my pathological and damaging relationships of the time were with women*, the idea itself was kind of awful.


(*so were many of my wonderful and sustaining relationships! Just, you know. Women were NOT a sanctuary for me merely for being women, and men were often a sanctuary despite being men.)