I'm trying to help a coworker remember the name of a book she read in the 1970s. Here is what she remembers about it:

1. It was a society where the women were in charge, and men were regularly punished for their infractions.

2. There is a particular scene where a man's tongue is cut out for his "crime."

She can't remember the title, author, or characters. She says the book scared her to death, though!!

Any help would be greatly appreciated. When I Google these terms, you can imagine the results I get!! 

I'm not sure what to look for, but I tried feminist sci-fi to try and clean up the hits. I found a site which has a promising list,

http://www.feministsf.org/bibs/

Heather did you ever find the book you were looking for?  You've got me curious.

Mary's link is great!! My coworker and I are scanning it for the title. There is a lot of information there, so it may take a while. But I will definitely post again once we find it!!

It wasn't

The Gate to Women's Country ?

I read this a long time ago and I believe it was very similar to what you were describing.

I thought of that one, too. My coworker swears the book was written in the 70s, (Gate to Women's Country was in the mid-80s I think) but she's getting a copy of it to find out for sure. I'm getting so intrigued with this, I've made it my mission to discover this book!  :)

I read the book in the early 90's but I remember it was republished. I swear that the plot was almost identical to what you are describing. I know it was an outstanding book but very distrubing at the same time.

OK, my coworker and I have found it! The book is called "Harvest Home" by Thomas Tryon, published in 1973. It's out of print, though, and it's not available here on PBS. I am going to visit some used bookstores to see if I can find it. Thanks for everyone's help on this!

half.com has a copy for 6.95!

I read "Harvest Home"  about 30 years ago - I loved it at the time, don't know how it has held up , though. 

I never read this book, but remember a made for TV movie of it, or maybe a mini series - I think it was titled "The Dark Secret of Harvest Home".  I definitely remember the part about the tongue getting cut out - it made quite an impression on me as a kid.

If you go to ABEBooks.com and to their "advanced search" area and plug in the author and title, you will come up with a list of books available.  I did this and it looks like you can get a copy of this book for $1-2 with shipping/handling of $3-4 or so.  There are a large number of them listed.  This site has MANY booksellers listed, even international ones.  You will have to go down the list to find the best price and condition because they aren't graduated by price etc.  I don't know how to put this on as a link---I'm too much of an "old fogey" to do fancy computer manipulations.  PBS is about the limit of my expertise. Good luck!    Winston

Thank you all so much!! I will definitely get a copy from one of these Web sites. I want to read it and my coworker wants to read it a 2nd time. :)

Also a good site is http://www.thriftbooks.com/SearchResult.aspx?searchText=Harvest+Home&searchBy=title

They're set up now for free shipping, but all books are about $3 and up. Still a great research site!