The Word for World is Forest (Hainish Cycle, #5)

by Ursula K. Le Guin

I wish he was a woman and would talk sense. . . .”

word got around fast among the islands, though not so fast as to constitute a ‘mysterious power of telepathy’ as the loggers liked

But old women are different from everybody else, they say what they think.

It was unthinkable. But by God sometimes you have to be able to think about the unthinkable.