Flatland/YMMV

• Values Dissonance
  • A 3-D sphere tells the hero, a 2-D square, that in his world, men and women are equals. The square finds this unbelievable. The author might have been hinting that in a more advanced world, the sexes would in fact be more equal than in his time.
  • The epilogue in later editions of the book would seem to indicate that people found it sexist at the time.
  • As well, later editions rewrote it so that the square admits how bad women have it, noting that the only "consolation" is that they can't remember all the injustices they suffer.
  • We might be dealing with an Unreliable Narrator as to how poor women's memories are. The square's wife comes across as sort of, well, ditzy, but she seems to remember things longer than he claims women do. (He does say she's smarter than most, but if women generally were as dumb as he claimed, they'd never remember where they lived or that they had families if they left the house. Or all the laws they have to follow.)