The fact that everyone between seventeen and thirty-five or so is liable to be {as Nim put it} "tied down to childbearing," implies that no one is quite so thoroughly "tied down" here as women, elsewhere are likely to be--psychologically or physically. Burden and privilege are shared out pretty equally; everybody has the same risk to run or choice to make. Therefore nobody here is quite so free as a free male anywhere else.
( Ursula K. Le Guin )
[ The Left Hand of Darkness ]
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