It didn't really occur to me to wonder about the consistency about it, or whether it made sense for them to have the custom without us hearing about it before. But it was certainly nauseating. I don't know if I agree with you that the depiction was that sexist, though. Certainly, the "women like to keep women down" comments lacked nuance, but wasn't that simply because Erikson neglected to tackle the issue in depth? It's always risky to touch on topics like that without dealing with them properly, but then the books do that with plenty of topics, if perhaps not as controversial ones. I don't really think it was sexist per se - after all, the Malazan series is about as far from sexist as you can get, on the whole.

As for whether it made sense considering the other aspects of the Barghast culture... interesting topic. It is possible that we were a bit misled in Memories of Ice by the fact that we mostly see the Barghast through Hetan and Cafal. Considering Hetan, we then assumed they had to be nearly as liberal about gender issues as the Malazans. But it does make sense that Hetan was not that representative, and that not all Barghast women were like her. Still, one does get the impression Erikson really wasn't thinking of hobbling when he wrote the Barghast then, and that he invented it now for plot reasons more than anything else, in order to break Tool and get Hetan's children away. The seemingly pointless and random slaughter of the Barghast that John mentions fits in that as well.