Reading Suzette Haden Elgin

Other stuff I wanted from the library, so I decided to see if they had any books by her. I was in luck, thew had the entire Native Tongue trilogy.

I've finished the first book, and "it gave me furiously to think".

The way women's input was ignored reminded me of this from Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy:

Thorby kept silent. It made a difference which side of the Plaza you saw a thing from . . . and if you didn’t have status, you weren’t listened to. That was a universal rule.

(Chapter 18)


Several of the Laadan words in the appendixes struck home as well. For example:
rashida
(n) [ra- (non-) + shida (game)] non-game: a cruel "playing" that is a game only for the dominant "player" with the power to force others to participate

This *so* describes a lot of bullying. Starting with "games" such as "keep away" (or dodgeball in PE)

Also the frequent comments about women having no sense of humor (and men thinking making humiliating remarks about women were funny) echoes treatment of other undreclasses with which I'm all too familiar.

ps. I wanted strangle almost all the men in the book. (I say "almost all" because I may have forgotten a few not-horrible ones)