How does the author address gender roles in the novel, White Jenna?

In White Jenna, Yolen addresses post 1960s questions of shifts in gender roles through a fantasy world she developed in an earlier novel, Sister Light, Sister Dark (1988). Central to the novel is the quest of the character Jenna, a highly gifted teenager living in a patriarchal Garunian age and presumed to be a prophesied goddess-savior. During attacks by men against women called the Gender Wars, Jenna must try to preserve the lives of clans of women called Altites. These women, who raised her, worship a female deity named Great Alta and dwell in mountain enclaves called Hames. As Jenna pursues her quest, she is embroiled in situations that address such current concerns as the social value of a women's culture, women's political empowerment, and balanced gender relations.