How we cite our quotes: (Chapter, Paragraph)
Quote #4
She turns her gaze back to me, steady and clear, a small smile on her lips. She's gotta be reading my Noise again but I can't feel no prodding like I do when men try it. (14.60)
Todd meets Hildy, who doesn't have the Noise germ because she's a woman. In addition to not having Noise, then, she also probes his thoughts differently than men do.
Quote #5
Cuz maybe now we found Hildy, maybe she can take care of Viola. They're clearly peas in a pod, ain't they? Different from me, anyway. And so maybe Hidy could help her get back to wherever she's from cuz obviously I can't. Obviously I ain't got nowhere I can be except Prentisstown, do I? (14.117)
Poor Todd just got used to being around the only girl he's ever met, and now he's faced with two of them, and feels left out because they seem to be clicking. The author uses the Noise germ idea to accentuate the differences between how men and women think—and communicate. Hildy and Viola are women and communicating in a way that Todd's never even seen.
Quote #6
And all throughout are men and women.
Most are scattered working in the orchard, wearing heavy work aprons, all the men in long sleeves, the women in long skirts, cutting down pinelike fruits with machetes or carrying away baskets or working on the irrigashun pipes and so on.
Men and women, women and men. (16.123-125)
This is the only scene we see in the whole book that shows harmony between the genders. Men and women are working together in the fields, as equals, which Todd has never even imagined, so the sight is a total wonder.