Equal Rites

I still can't get over the fact that Pratchett had written himself a way for there to be female wizards in the third damn book and then NEVER WROTE THEM AGAIN. WHY.

I feel like Equal Rites exemplifies the problems I have always had with Discworld's Victorian-esque framing, where women are always having to “go against cultural norms” to get anything done (unless they're a witch, but even the witches are constrained by the narrative into very particular maiden/mother/crone roles.) Pratchett confronted that framing head-on here, but still couldn't let Esk solve her situations without a boy helping, and we never ever see her actually taking part and learning AS a wizard. And the intramural wizard/witch classes are never brought up again. So the egalitarian concepts he introduces are dropped for the rest of the series in a way that bugs me.

I'm trying to remind myself that this was the third book, and it shows (his plot isn't as tight, there's significantly less world building than I'm used to), but since this general sexism is an issue I've noticed in reading the rest of the series, this early piece really helped clarify the things that I've been bugged by in the rest of the Discworld framing.