I was leading a book club group, choosing Herland for the main book for discussion, but figured it wouldn't hurt to read the Herland trilogy in order to bring some more themes to the table for the discussion. I read all three in audiobook form, which can be found easily as they are all in the public domain.

This book's story starts off right at the end of Herland. In Herland, three men find a society of women and learn how their community is thriving. They marry three of the women, and one tries to commit marital rape but ultimately fails and is put on trial. He is banished from their society. With Her in Ourland starts with his exile. One of the other men misses his society and wants to leave with his wife, his wife is intrigued with life outside Herland, so she agrees to go. Much like the other books, the "story" is mostly at the beginning and end, with the middle mostly being a dialogue between the characters about Gilman's thoughts on society. In the end, the couple decide to go back to Herland.

This was written during WWI and before the 19th amendment, so as with the other books, my little disclaimer is that if you're going to read this book, then you should know there are a lot of outdated ideas. Out of the three books, I consider With Her in Ourland to be the worst because of how blatantly racist it is. It's a real shame because at first, I was getting into reading this because Gilman is so outspoken about religion at the beginning, which is just barely acceptable today in the right circles, but I can't imagine how completely extreme it would have been for her time. However, reading further, once the couple are out of Herland, they decide to travel to different places around the world before going to his previous home in America. There are some good points made, such as when they hear a girl screaming while getting her feet bound. Such a thing was terrible for the time and Gilman does note this, but she also misses some larger points overall. Most of the people they come across during their journey that aren't Anglo, were considered "savages" or were described by very damning stereotypes. When talking about how to better a society, the couple decide that it would be best to breed them with white people to not only change their physical appearance, but to change their behavior as if it's white people who are the purest of beings. Gilman was very pro-eugenics, and it even shows a bit in the first two books in this trilogy, but her thoughts in this book very much line up with white supremacy.

I just can't recommend this book over the first two. The race eugenics concepts Gilman advocates for are atrocious, even for her time. If you are to read this, read it for history's sake, but not for idealism.