Week Five: Witches

        

    It bothers me that in modern connotations between people of magic in gender are so different. Wizards are associated with wisdom and knowledge. Witches, the female version, are ugly women who are evil. This comes from centuries of oppression and society, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. The novel that I looked at this week, Equal Rites, looks a bit into the differences between men and women in a quirky satire.

            Terry Pratchett’s Diskworld series thrives on using satire and a fictional world of magic to comment on issues of his day that are still relevant today. The world itself is quirky and nonsensical like the stories itself with a continent that’s a flat disk held up by four elephants riding on a giant turtle through the cosmos. The idea is just so crazy it becomes fun and inventive. It sets the mood for the story that comes.

            The story itself is about a girl who is mistakenly bequeathed the power of a wizard, which was typically reserved for men. It follows the troubles of a girl who does not understand her gifts and faces challenges in a world that does not want to accept her. This is a struggle that women have been struggling for a long time such as women in fields of sciences and math. It makes this story really relatable for me, and it is surrounded by this whimsical sense of humor that reminds the reader not to take anything too seriously.

            This book, despite being the third in the series, is an excellent read for a gender satire. It has a wonderful message of acceptance and fitting in the world. It recognizes that women and men are different from each other, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work to understand each other. It also emphasizes that having great power and not using it is sometimes more powerful than any magic. Having the power to destroy a country doesn’t mean you should, which is still incredibly relevant in today’s world.