Language is another weapon Brantenberg has utilized to great

advantage in her campaign for sexual equality. In her next

book, Egalia's Daughters (1977), she set out to create a fictional

society in which sex roles are completely reversed, but she soon

understood that the patriarchal language of contemporary

Western society is itself a subtle form of oppression and as such

could not be used in the matriarchal land of Egalia. So she in-

vented a new language for her new social order where the

"wim" have all the power and the "menwim" stay at home

minding the children and making pretty "pehoes" (penis hold-

ers) for their sons to wear to the "Maidmen's ball." This novel,

which was to become a major international success, is alluded