In the field of science fiction or fantasy, morality—when it enters a book at all—is almost always either thoughtlessly liberal (you can’t judge othe… - Joanna Russ

This is the tale of the Abbess Radegunde and what happened when the Norsemen came. (first line of "Souls")

[about feminism] I'm going to propose as the primary demand of patriarchy what she chooses from Matilda Joslyn Gage (1873):n2 that women's resources be available, non-reciprocally and without pay, to men. If men have an unreasonable and unjust double amount of authority (intellectual and other), self-esteem, time, energy, leisure, cultural importance, wealth, freedom, and so on, this is precisely because they have stolen our time, our energy, our leisure, our authority, our labor and the wealth it produces, our self-esteem, our claims to knowledge and achievement, and our possibilities for autonomy and freedom. We are not merely excluded from male activities and institutions; our resources have been appropriated by men as their own in a massive theft lasting for centuries.

Alyx, the gray-eyed, the silent woman. Wit, arm, kill-quick for hire, she watched the strange man thread his way through the tables and the smoke toward her. This was in Ourdh, where all things are possible. He stopped at the table where she sat alone and with a certain indefinable gallantry, not pleasant but perhaps its exact opposite, he said:
"A woman-here?"
"You're looking at one," said Alyx dryly, for she did not like his tone...