(CW: sexual assault)

I'm only just now understanding the parallel of why women in Flatland have to constantly wail to announce their presence.

I know I'm late to the party on this one, shut up.

It's the equivalent of the mandating of gender norms that started getting extra-mandated under Feudalism.

As described in 'Caliban and the Witch', women in medieval France started wearing pants, especially in the cities, to draw less attention to themselves and to make it harder to get raped. So swarms of men complained to the King about how hard it was to rape women now, so the King outlawed women wearing pants or "impersonating a man" for explicitly that reason - because it was unfair to rapists.

Women were forced by law to constantly signal to everyone that they were a woman, specifically to make them less dangerous to abuse, less capable of fighting back, less capable of going unnoticed.

Especially because enough organized women could topple an empire overnight, and occasionally have. Just like the women in Flatland.

But the characters in Flatland don't wear any clothes or cosmetics, they can barely see at all.

So the mandated appearance of womanhood must be audible instead of visible. 🤯

Again, I know I'm late to the party on this one, I don't wanna hear it