[1] The novel was a best-seller in France[2] and attracted attention as a roman à clef that contained recognizable portraits of significant French intellectual figures, such as Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan, and Sollers himself.

WOMANN's secret manifesto details a plan to take over the world by strictly controlling the reproductive process through the use of abortion, sperm banks, and artificial insemination; by expurgating, banning, or "contextualizing" the products of certain male geniuses; and also by declaring war on the patriarchal tyranny of religion through a campaign of "divide and rule."

"[7] Roudiez went on to praise Women as "a personal prospect of the intellectual, literary, and political scene during the past few years as well as an account of [Sollers's] own concerns and obsessions.

"[7] Roudiez was laudatory in his assessment, calling Women "a book that should be read by all those interested in the contemporary scene as well as those who might be troubled by Bataille's notion of eroticism as the sanctioning of life unto death.

"[3] Susan Ireland, writing about Women for The Review of Contemporary Fiction, recommended the book, stating that "those willing to join Sollers in his playful romp through Parisian literary milieux may well enjoy the social satire and the effervescent virtuosity of his style.

"[9] Both Roland Champagne and Malcolm Pollard see Sollers's fascination with William de Kooning as central to the novel, and crucial to understanding novel's perspective on women.

Pollard identifies an "analogy ... between De Kooning as a painter attacked for the form and content of his art, and Will as narrator concerned with the threat posed to freedom of expression in the novel.