Misandrists in the setting?


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion

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You know, a lot of people like to bring up the fact that Asmodeus is apparently a misogynist (yet its never really elaborated upon). Are there any villains/evil deities who are explicitly labeled as being misandrist? I could see the Drow not quite being misandrist, as they could probably see the use of men as breeding stock and soldiers, but what about some kind of demon lord or something that wants to wipe out all men or a class of demons specifically made to kill men? Is there anything like that?

Silver Crusade

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Ardad Lili, one of the Erinyes Queens, is a misandrist (though I believe they all are).

There's also Gyronna.

Scarab Sages

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Lamashtu can probably come across that way too, but is treating "male" monsters like purely genetic donors the same as feminine superiority?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Mestama is the one that immediately comes to mind for me.

Liberty's Edge

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In terms of non-deities, there are always the Drow, as you mention. As well as most Gnolls (who are maybe a bit more overt).

Both are matriarchal and unpleasant cultures.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Deadmanwalking wrote:

In terms of non-deities, there are always the Drow, as you mention. As well as most Gnolls (who are maybe a bit more overt).

Both are matriarchal and unpleasant cultures.

Matriarchal does not mean misandrist.

Liberty's Edge

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James Jacobs wrote:
Matriarchal does not mean misandrist.

Well, obviously. I mean, there's a reason I didn't bring up Holmog or, indeed, anything but Evil cultures.

But I must admit I tend to assume some serious sexism in matriarchal Evil cultures, just like I do patriarchal Evil cultures.


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Rysky wrote:
Ardad Lili, one of the Erinyes Queens, is a misandrist (though I believe they all are).

Mahathallah's write up in Hell's Rebels says she has mostly female followers, but doesn't really care about it personally. I'll bet you're right about the rest, though.

Silver Crusade Contributor

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I don't know that Doloras would have all that much misandry, either... she seems a little too alien for that.

Ardad Lili and Eiseth, though? Definitely. ^_^

(I'm disappointed they aren't PFS-legal options... I'd love to make a changeling mesmerist of Ardad Lili.)


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James Jacobs wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:

In terms of non-deities, there are always the Drow, as you mention. As well as most Gnolls (who are maybe a bit more overt).

Both are matriarchal and unpleasant cultures.

Matriarchal does not mean misandrist.

That's true. Drow hate everyone, and other drow are generally on top of the enemy list. So not specifically misandrist.

Grand Lodge

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Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:

In terms of non-deities, there are always the Drow, as you mention. As well as most Gnolls (who are maybe a bit more overt).

Both are matriarchal and unpleasant cultures.

Matriarchal does not mean misandrist.
That's true. Drow hate everyone, and other drow are generally on top of the enemy list. So not specifically misandrist.

I would argue that the Drow are about as misandristic as we were misogynistic several hundred years ago. Treating said gender as second class citizens with very few rights.

Grand Lodge

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Also if Gnolls are like hyena in which the females abuse the males, then they would be a misandristic society too.


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Therrux wrote:
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:

In terms of non-deities, there are always the Drow, as you mention. As well as most Gnolls (who are maybe a bit more overt).

Both are matriarchal and unpleasant cultures.

Matriarchal does not mean misandrist.
That's true. Drow hate everyone, and other drow are generally on top of the enemy list. So not specifically misandrist.
I would argue that the Drow are about as misandristic as we were misogynistic several hundred years ago. Treating said gender as second class citizens with very few rights.

Drow treat everyone as either a superior who must be obeyed until the right moment comes to stab them in the back, or an inferior to step on while watching to see if they're about to be stabbed in the back. While males are second-class citizens, there's hardly a thing that they'd do to a male, that they also wouldn't do to a fellow female if their whims and opportunity coincided. And for that matter, drow males aren't neccessarily that fond of females either. Misogyny and misandry become almost meaningless terms in a society that is so evil and twisted through and through.

At our chauvnistic and bigoted worse, we're still a far cry from the drow at their best.

Grand Lodge

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Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
Therrux wrote:
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:

In terms of non-deities, there are always the Drow, as you mention. As well as most Gnolls (who are maybe a bit more overt).

Both are matriarchal and unpleasant cultures.

Matriarchal does not mean misandrist.
That's true. Drow hate everyone, and other drow are generally on top of the enemy list. So not specifically misandrist.
I would argue that the Drow are about as misandristic as we were misogynistic several hundred years ago. Treating said gender as second class citizens with very few rights.

Drow treat everyone as either a superior who must be obeyed until the right moment comes to stab them in the back, or an inferior to step on while watching to see if they're about to be stabbed in the back. While males are second-class citizens, there's hardly a thing that they'd do to a male, that they also wouldn't do to a fellow female if their whims and opportunity coincided. And for that matter, drow males aren't neccessarily that fond of females either. Misogyny and misandry become almost meaningless terms in a society that is so evil and twisted through and through.

At our chauvnistic and bigoted worse, we're still a far cry from the drow at their best.

I may have embellished a little bit and I apologize for that, but treating men as second class citizens is a textbook example of misandry. Sure a man in their society would do to women what the women do to the men in terms of murder and abuse, but a man can't get away with it like the women can.

Just because the Drow are murders, slavers and bunch of other horrible things doesn't mean they can't be misandrists as well. It means that they are murders, slavers a bunch of other horrible things and misandrists. Misandry is just another ingredient in the cultural stew of the Drow.


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I haven't read a lot on Golarion Drow, but I do know the Faerun Drow are decidedly misandristic. Like many things (and even more than most due to a certain Ranger), Faerun lore about Drow tends to leak over.

There are multiple instances in the official fiction of Drow females siding with some of their worst female enemies (usually their own sister) to put down an uppity male.

That culture has a very simple, and absolute, hierarchy.

  1. Drow Females
  2. Drow Males
  3. Lesser creatures, i.e. humans, cattle, dwarves, svirfneblin, beetles,...
  4. Surface elves


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James Jacobs wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:

In terms of non-deities, there are always the Drow, as you mention. As well as most Gnolls (who are maybe a bit more overt).

Both are matriarchal and unpleasant cultures.

Matriarchal does not mean misandrist.

I'm not sure this is true. This would also imply patriarchy isn't inherently misogynist, wouldn't it? And yet, I'd argue that rule by either gender (which is what the terms mean) inherently implies one gender is fit to govern the other, which logically means one gender is superior to the other.

Matriarchy ultimately means systematic misandry, even if it is benevolent misandry.


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Derek Vande Brake wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:

In terms of non-deities, there are always the Drow, as you mention. As well as most Gnolls (who are maybe a bit more overt).

Both are matriarchal and unpleasant cultures.

Matriarchal does not mean misandrist.

I'm not sure this is true. This would also imply patriarchy isn't inherently misogynist, wouldn't it? And yet, I'd argue that rule by either gender (which is what the terms mean) inherently implies one gender is fit to govern the other, which logically means one gender is superior to the other.

Matriarchy ultimately means systematic misandry, even if it is benevolent misandry.

Misandry/Misogyny is the hatred of the other gender.

Patriarchy/Matriarchy doesn't automatically include the hatred of the 'weaker' gender in the eye of said society.


About this, how would the Genies fit? I remember that, in Legacy of Fire, their society is described as one in which women have certain privileges in virtue of their rarity. While this doesn't mean decidedly matriarchal, since there are no structures which would keep men from power, I can certainly see an Evil subset like the Efreet developing some unpleasant ideas...

Then again, last time I saw, the Sultan of the Efreet was male, so... I dunno.

Project Manager

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Lostcause78 wrote:
Derek Vande Brake wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:

In terms of non-deities, there are always the Drow, as you mention. As well as most Gnolls (who are maybe a bit more overt).

Both are matriarchal and unpleasant cultures.

Matriarchal does not mean misandrist.

I'm not sure this is true. This would also imply patriarchy isn't inherently misogynist, wouldn't it? And yet, I'd argue that rule by either gender (which is what the terms mean) inherently implies one gender is fit to govern the other, which logically means one gender is superior to the other.

Matriarchy ultimately means systematic misandry, even if it is benevolent misandry.

Misandry/Misogyny is the hatred of the other gender.

Patriarchy/Matriarchy doesn't automatically include the hatred of the 'weaker' gender in the eye of said society.

It's a fine line and sexism and misogyny usually aren't easily separable in the real world, but yes, there's a difference between sexism and misogyny/misandry. They usually go hand in hand, but you could theoretically have a patriarchal society that's sexist, but not misogynist, and a matriarchal one that's sexist, but not misandrist. Sexism can be an unintentional effect without any hatred/disdain behind it.

Given the human tendency to assume that things are the way they are because that's natural or the way they're supposed to be, however, I think any time you have a society that bars one gender from leadership, it's going to develop a certain negativity toward that gender.

The drow are a perfect example: you have a decision that was made early in their history, that was a combination of an individual family squabble and an exhausted, desperate leader trying to be pragmatic. The leader of the group of elves that fled underground during Earthfall watches her sons make a series of decisions that put the survival of her people in question, and says, fine, you can't be trusted, I'm putting my other kids--my daughters--in charge. And then she takes it a step further and says, okay, the survival of the elves on Golarion depends on our ability to reproduce, obviously, and the people with the most skin in that game are women, because they're the ones that have to survive long enough to carry the next generation to term. Ergo, they're the ones who should be making the decisions, because they're more likely to think about things from that perspective.

Maybe she's right, maybe she's wrong--as a temporary setup until they find a safe place to settle. But even if she's right and this is the best way to keep the elves alive until they find their safe haven, that doesn't mean it's right outside of these very specific and unusual circumstances.

And sure, there's demon influence and the Darklands are corrupting and all that, but I'm not sure you need any supernatural explanation for what happens next, human[oid]s being what they are. Just as often happens with real history, we don't know for sure whether she meant it to be temporary, how serious she was about it, etc. But you have a declaration made by someone who's grieving, angry, and desperate, who's also the leader. People go with it. Time passes, and they get used to it.

Fast-forward millennia, and you have a culture that firmly believes that women are in charge because that's what's natural, because men are inherently inferior, because that's what's natural and the way it's supposed to be.

If you look at a culture like Holomog, in some ways, there's even more danger than there is with the drow, because they're benevolent, because they have the backing of celestials. You have a divinely-ordained process that selects leaders, and it doesn't work on men. Who knows why? Maybe it's due to something about the way men and women think. Maybe the guy who tried was individually not suited to it, rather than his entire gender not being suited to it. Maybe it's something that on average, women are more suited to, but there are plenty of men who could do it too.

But when you know you're good people, and the thing that has chosen women for leadership time and time again is put in place by actual celestials, it's pretty natural to start thinking that maybe women are in charge here, maybe men can't complete the process, because there's something inherently lacking in men. And you probably don't see it as disdain or anything negative like that--it's just the way it is. It's fine, there are other things they can do, that they're good at, leadership is only one role in society.

Now, there's a major difference in that you have celestials riding herd on Holomog, whereas you had demon lords manipulating the evolution of the drow. Presumably Holomog's celestial patrons aren't going to let Holomog turn into a society in which men are abused and treated with open contempt.

But a sexist/patriarchal/matriarchal society without misogyny/misandry is in an inherently unstable state. To keep people following rules and accepting the status quo of how the society's set up, the rules (whether they're officially imposed, or simply something that's practiced by the majority of the members) require some sort of legitimizing justification, an understanding things are the way they are because it's how they're supposed to be. That is, the people in power are in power because they are somehow inherently better, and the people not in power are not in power because they're somehow inherently not suited to it.

So while you can theoretically construct a society that's matriarchal or patriarchal without misandry or misogyny, such a construction is artificial and unlikely to last unless you have some sort of benign, probably magical influence that's propping up the society and scouring out negative attitudes to the gender not in charge.

Silver Crusade

James Jacobs wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:

In terms of non-deities, there are always the Drow, as you mention. As well as most Gnolls (who are maybe a bit more overt).

Both are matriarchal and unpleasant cultures.

Matriarchal does not mean misandrist.

Yes it does. Just as only allowing men to lead is misogynist, only allowing women to lead is misandrist.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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ThePuppyTurtle wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:

In terms of non-deities, there are always the Drow, as you mention. As well as most Gnolls (who are maybe a bit more overt).

Both are matriarchal and unpleasant cultures.

Matriarchal does not mean misandrist.
Yes it does. Just as only allowing men to lead is misogynist, only allowing women to lead is misandrist.

See Jessica's post immediately above yours for a MUCH more well-written and informative version of my post.


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Human nature being what it is and what I have seen personally, I am of the thought that gender is irrelevant. Whichever gender is in charge they would make the same mistakes and commit the same sins as the other.

Liberty's Edge

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For the record, just because my post is getting quoted a lot there, I don't think matriarchal means misandrist inherently.

I think matriarchal + Evil generally does, though.


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Jessica Price wrote:
But a sexist/patriarchal/matriarchal society without misogyny/misandry is in an inherently unstable state. To keep people following rules and accepting the status quo of how the society's set up, the rules (whether they're officially imposed, or simply something that's practiced by the majority of the members) require some sort of legitimizing justification, an understanding things are the way they are because it's how they're supposed to be. That is, the people in power are in power because they are somehow inherently better, and the people not in power are not in power because they're somehow inherently not suited to it.

I don't think that there any states which are inherently stable. A democracy in the right circumstances, (such as one that's engaged in a war that will never end) can easily vote itself into a dictatorship, and a dictatorship can topple as soon as their is a weakness found in the strong leader, or when the strong leader dies without a planned method of sucession.

States are only maintained because some agency actively works to do so. Whether that agency is an informed electorate, or a controlling ogliarchy, or junta, will vary by circumstance.

The Exchange

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I just wanted to quote the entirety of Jessica's post but the forums software makes that really difficult, but damn, that was a good post.

Liberty's Edge

I mostly agree with Jessica's excellent post, but for the very last part.

Because there is not necessarily a single type of power in a society. And there are RL societies that are sexist, as in this gender has this role and that gender has that one, where both roles do have undisputed power in their domain, which of course do not overlapse. In such a case, no gender is considered always superior or deferent to the other.

But in western countries, we tend to focus on power in public leadership and belittle power in the household, which leads us to believe that there is only one meaning for power and thus that sexism implies inevitably one gender being considered definitely superior to the other.

What leads me to this conclusion is RL Japan where women always defer to men in public situations, yet hold the absolute power in matters of the household, including how the money their husband earns will be spent

Project Manager

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The Raven Black wrote:
What leads me to this conclusion is RL Japan where women always defer to men in public situations, yet hold the absolute power in matters of the household, including how the money their husband earns will be spent

Power over the private sphere is not equal to power over the public sphere, despite men's attempts to claim that their "separate but equal" setups give women equal, but different, power. Women who must defer in public, who must wait 6 months to remarry if divorced to prove that any children they have don't belong to their ex-husbands, who must by law take their husbands' surnames when they marry, who are largely powerless outside the sphere of home, are still almost completely dependent on their husbands.

If you take marriage out of the equation, it looks very different, e.g. saying your housekeeper gets to control the household budget doesn't make her your equal.

Liberty's Edge

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Jessica Price wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
What leads me to this conclusion is RL Japan where women always defer to men in public situations, yet hold the absolute power in matters of the household, including how the money their husband earns will be spent

Power over the private sphere is not equal to power over the public sphere, despite men's attempts to claim that their "separate but equal" setups give women equal, but different, power. Women who must defer in public, who must wait 6 months to remarry if divorced to prove that any children they have don't belong to their ex-husbands, who must by law take their husbands' surnames when they marry, who are largely powerless outside the sphere of home, are still almost completely dependent on their husbands.

If you take marriage out of the equation, it looks very different, e.g. saying your housekeeper gets to control the household budget doesn't make her your equal.

Agreed entirely.

That said, it does seem like you could create a society where men and women have very different spheres of public authority and have them be considerably more equal.

A society where men are in charge of the military and women entirely in charge of the civil side of things (or vice versa) is considerably closer to gender equality than one where a particular gender is in charge of everything. Even if the civil leadership have theoretical authority over the military leadership outside of actual strategic and tactical decisions.

There have been several societies that had different leaders in war-time and peace-time after all, and breaking those down along gender lines is an interesting thought experiment. Or break things down along other lines, like governmental power (with a sharply restraining constitution) going to one gender while economic power goes entirely and legally to the other.

We don't have any actual societies like this in the real world, but it's an interesting idea for a society to insert into a game. It still has rather large problems as compared to a society with less strictly defined gender roles for a host of reasons, but it might be more stable in terms of maintaining roughly equal treatment.

It'd be equally bad treatment in many cases, simply because people don't fit into neat little boxes and many will endure hardships and suffering being forced into them (or having it attempted), but it'll be more equal...


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Deadmanwalking wrote:

That said, it does seem like you could create a society where men and women have very different spheres of public authority and have them be considerably more equal.

A society where men are in charge of the military and women entirely in charge of the civil side of things (or vice versa) is considerably closer to gender equality than one where a particular gender is in charge of everything. Even if the civil leadership have theoretical authority over the military leadership outside of actual strategic and tactical decisions.

One of the alien races in the old GDW Traveller game had that setup. The Aslan, who were extremely loosely based on Larry Niven's Kzin, were kind of lion-like. It was a typically polygamous society, where the males were concerned with warfare and owning land, and the females were concerned with ... well, anything else. This almost certainly was much worse when the Kzin were a low-tech medieval society and the "women" ran everything household related (rather like Japan, another source of inspiration).

But as the society advanced, the females assumed not only all the financial responsibilities, but also all the technical ones. So in the sci-fi setting, you'll typically see male battle commanders, but female executive officers who actually run the ship, and the males are technically incompetent to the point of literal innnumeracy. The ship's purser, pilot, navigator, engineer, and medic are always female; the captain, gunners, and marines are males. (There's a semi-rare skill that male Kzin can take that is required in order to understand the concept of "money" and "paying for things.")

Shadow Lodge

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Deadmanwalking wrote:
That said, it does seem like you could create a society where men and women have very different spheres of public authority and have them be considerably more equal.

I'm working on a culture like this. It's a seaside region in which the men spend a lot of time on the water sailing - fishing and trading with other settlements along the coast - and therefore have control over foreign policy. Women stay home and farm, giving them control over domestic policy. Men own ships, women own land.


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Deadmanwalking wrote:

That said, it does seem like you could create a society where men and women have very different spheres of public authority and have them be considerably more equal.

A society where men are in charge of the military and women entirely in charge of the civil side of things (or vice versa) is considerably closer to gender equality than one where a particular gender is in charge of everything. Even if the civil leadership have theoretical authority over the military leadership outside of actual strategic and tactical decisions.

Orfamay Quest wrote:
One of the alien races in the old GDW Traveller game had that setup. The Aslan, who were extremely loosely based on Larry Niven's Kzin, were kind of lion-like.

And also, presumably, an extreeeeeeemely loose reference to Lewis' works, given the nomenclature and form.

Orfamay Quest wrote:

One of the alien races in the old GDW Traveller game had that setup. The Aslan, who were extremely loosely based on Larry Niven's Kzin, were kind of lion-like. It was a typically polygamous society, where the males were concerned with warfare and owning land, and the females were concerned with ... well, anything else. This almost certainly was much worse when the Kzin were a low-tech medieval society and the "women" ran everything household related (rather like Japan, another source of inspiration).

But as the society advanced, the females assumed not only all the financial responsibilities, but also all the technical ones. So in the sci-fi setting, you'll typically see male battle commanders, but female executive officers who actually run the ship, and the males are technically incompetent to the point of literal innnumeracy. The ship's purser, pilot, navigator, engineer, and medic are always female; the captain, gunners, and marines are males. (There's a semi-rare skill that male Kzin can take that is required in order to understand the concept of "money" and "paying for things.")

A Needlessly Long Aside About a Home Brew of Mine:
This is interesting, as I've never read about the Aslan, prior, and I've rather forgotten about the Kzin, if I knew them at all.

However, the sharply divided roles of males and females does harken back to my current (non-d20) campaign - a drow campaign (not based on or in any publish Campaign world; it's a home brew world) - in which the males are mentally equally, physically superior, and socially bestial (based on the three ability scores in the game system).

The females are mentally equal and socially superior, though physically weaker - but they are fundamentally in charge of society because the natural-born males are akin to animalistic savants that actually need taming in order to prevent them from just being selfish amoral creatures who act "normally" for those who can't perceive others than themselves as being "people" (this is a stereotype and doesn't apply to all, but applies often enough that, as a society, they are safer treating it like a truism, until proven false). These creatures (called Muls) are rough, hyper-macho, and solitary by nature, until they feel the need to get something from someone and (unless properly tamed) just take it. These are unpopular for a reason... and they're also slowly vanishing.

Then there are the other males - those chosen to be male by process: the jyfanii males. A drow who waits until she is pregnant, then consumes a substance called jyfanii will give birth to a male that is very like a female, but lesser and, generally, willfully subservient. They have a tendency towards health problems, learning difficulties, and comparative cognitive and social impairment (though they are far and away superior to Muls in social regards), but they are soft, gentle, meek, and generally empathetic. To help with their difficulties, jyfanii are generally raised in monasteries that train them how to best fit into society (if they so choose), and how to take care of themselves (tending to their own needs, physically and mentally), as well as granting both a general education (to be more pleasant for conversation with each other and the females, in addition to their own betterment) and a focused one (one that is best suited to their talents and interests, that a given monastery hosts training for). These are much more readily accepted for their pleasantness to be around, over-all, and because, with proper training, they aren't really high-maintenance... and have many fewer issues that come from them compared to their "natural" counterparts. Also, you can always get one, if you want, as-needed.

There have been no other methods discovered in-world that successfully create drow males. Jyfanii can also be used to alter a gender after a creature is born, in either direction, but it's a complex ritual that requires the focus and efforts of the person changing. Beyond that jyfanii can cause unusual side effects, and isn't 100% effective in all cases, for unknown reasons, but it's close enough to be considered "really weird" when it fails. Also, female drow have proven to be able to mate with just about anything bipedal, and the child is drow... but the grandchild is "fiendblooded" with their own strengths and weaknesses, and unusual appearances that may or may not correspond to the grandparent; the "effects" generally linger for 1-4 generations before fading. There is no particular prejudice against such, and certain areas find them sacred/important enough in local relgious spheres to call them "virtueblooded" and I'm totally rambling.

All of this was created in-world by me, due to what Mrs. Price was saying - either there needs to be a reason (real or imaginary) - or else a system of that kind is inherently unstable.

Deadmanwalking wrote:
That said, it does seem like you could create a society where men and women have very different spheres of public authority and have them be considerably more equal.
Weirdo wrote:
I'm working on a culture like this. It's a seaside region in which the men spend a lot of time on the water sailing - fishing and trading with other settlements along the coast - and therefore have control over foreign policy. Women stay home and farm, giving them control over domestic policy. Men own ships, women own land.

If you've ever heard of Blue Rose (a fantastic setting/d20 system variant, over-all, I recommend it; it's a Green Ronin precursor to the True20 system, if you've heard of that), there was a culture mentioned in one of the books called the Trebutane, in which women were in charge of the households... but also the economics (property, finances, etc.) and tend toward similar educations/stations (engineers/adepts/bankers/artisans/etc)... while men were in charge of religious and scholarly stuff, and warriors.

In a game of ours, we had a large group of Trebutane having fled several generations prior (before that peoples' mass exodus from Kern, their home country), and that group merged with a... different group, called the Jarzoni (highly conservative, patriarchal fire/light god worshipers).

The resulting Trevians (made by me) were an interesting group, as a result, with religious rites and adept-elements all switched toward the males (from the Jarzoni influence) while all finances, all non-religious political power (i.e. all of it) and most non-religious scholarship ended up in the hands of the females (via Trebutane); this coincided with a loss of a warrior gender (due to the influence of the land of Aldea, where they'd both settled) and an interesting mix of religious concepts (blending the Trebutane male earth god/female justice god/female civilization god; with male light god and female fire god) leading to an interesting (and not relevant here) cultural divide and unity through it.

Anyway, I've always found societies built around alternate social customs and concepts fascinating, so it's curious to see how others build such things as well, especially when gender role-reversal, equality, and so on are involved. Cool stuff.


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Tacticslion wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
One of the alien races in the old GDW Traveller game had that setup. The Aslan, who were extremely loosely based on Larry Niven's Kzin, were kind of lion-like.
And also, presumably, an extreeeeeeemely loose reference to Lewis' works, given the nomenclature and form.

Not clear; the word "aslan" is simply Turkish for 'lion,' so GDW could have borrowed the word directly instead of second-hand. And, culturally, the Aslan alien race has almost nothing in common with the Christ-figure from Narnia.

Of course, all this is really a digression; I merely bring this up to point out that separate is not necessarily unequal, but, as has been indicated, one needs something pretty contrived and "alien" to make it plausible.


Off topic with Orfamay:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Tacticslion wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
One of the alien races in the old GDW Traveller game had that setup. The Aslan, who were extremely loosely based on Larry Niven's Kzin, were kind of lion-like.
And also, presumably, an extreeeeeeemely loose reference to Lewis' works, given the nomenclature and form.

Not clear; the word "aslan" is simply Turkish for 'lion,' so GDW could have borrowed the word directly instead of second-hand. And, culturally, the Aslan alien race has almost nothing in common with the Christ-figure from Narnia.

Of course, all this is really a digression; I merely bring this up to point out that separate is not necessarily unequal, but, as has been indicated, one needs something pretty contrived and "alien" to make it plausible.

Sure. I was mostly speaking in mild jest - hence the OOC, but I suppose that wasn't clear. Sorry.

Though, interestingly, it appears that Nobanion, of FR-fame, is an Aslan/Lewis/Narnia reference. Weird, that.

Liberty's Edge

Jessica Price wrote:
If you take marriage out of the equation, it looks very different, e.g. saying your housekeeper gets to control the household budget doesn't make her your equal.

When your housekeeper gets to control all your money and how your children will be educated, I personally see this as a huge power.

Hope I do not sound too antagonistic here as I really like your post a lot


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I'd also point at C.J. Cherryh's Hani, from the Chanur books, which I like to do whenever catfolk come , cause they're my favorite.

Based loosely on lion pride structures, the males "rule" over a harem of females and young. But, the males are very aggressive and have a great deal of trouble not fighting for dominance and giving in to anger whenever they meet. That's how they gain territory and control of a pride after all. Much like a lion pride, the males laze around waiting for the next challenger while the females do all the work of running the family.
So the females not only do the grunt work, but the science and the diplomacy and the trading and everything else. The series is science fiction and in the setting only females are allowed off-world, males being too uncontrolled to risk a diplomatic incident with another species.
The series actually involves the crew of a trading ship who have taken the deposed husband of the captain aboard to save him from the fate of most deposed males and his struggles to contain his temper - making some interesting commentary on how much of their behavior is innate and how much is learned cultural.
Of course, that's a fairly minor subplot to the larger desperate political maneuverings and space opera stuff.

It does touch on one difference between gender roles in fantasy/science fiction and the real world: In f/sf different races can actually have much larger biological differences between genders than we see in humans - to the point where it really makes no sense at all for them to play the same roles.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

In races like the Lashunta, this seems to be the case as well.
Men seem to be the warriors, while the females the scientists and such.
I don't remember if they are matriarchal or not, but they don't seem to be misandrists.


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Kryzbyn wrote:

In races like the Lashunta, this seems to be the case as well.

Men seem to be the warriors, while the females the scientists and such.
I don't remember if they are matriarchal or not, but they don't seem to be misandrists.

If I remember correctly, the lashunta are the only PC race that has really serious sexual dimorphism. (I mean, yes, human males are a few inches taller than human females, but -- unlike the real world -- there's no difference in strength, endurance, sensory acuity, and so forth.)

I'd be very surprised if there weren't strong sex-linked cultural roles in a hypothetical race of intelligent elephant seals.


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Kryzbyn wrote:

In races like the Lashunta, this seems to be the case as well.

Men seem to be the warriors, while the females the scientists and such.
I don't remember if they are matriarchal or not, but they don't seem to be misandrists.
Orfamay Quest wrote:

If I remember correctly, the lashunta are the only PC race that has really serious sexual dimorphism. (I mean, yes, human males are a few inches taller than human females, but -- unlike the real world -- there's no difference in strength, endurance, sensory acuity, and so forth.)

I'd be very surprised if there weren't strong sex-linked cultural roles in a hypothetical race of intelligent elephant seals.

To some extent I did, in fact, base the drow of my game off of the concepts of the lashunta.

That all points back to the concept Jessica mentioned, though: there needs to be a reason, real or imagined.

With my drow, the lashunta, and similar, there is a sexual dimorphism - not just obvious outer physical features (although there is that), but also a divergence in real internal head-systems and processing. The main problem, however, is when recognizing divergence (which is valid) becomes enforcing divergence.

The problem is that, sometimes, this is the only way to keep a society running without devolving into chaos, which undermines infrastructure, which undermines a host of positive benefits. Education, understanding, and processes - scientific learning, understanding, identification, and clarification - can help mitigate these issues, but it's difficult to get to that point in the first place. We, here, in real life, are still dealing with the difficulty in understanding our own species, and clarifying the difficulty with understanding and integrating differences due to over-reliance upon obvious physical features with a difficulty recognizing and identifying non-obvious features.

Starting at this point, it makes sense that people in fantasy environments - even with alien systems of thought - would locally identify obvious physical traits with "invisible" but definitive mental, social, or moral ones. This leads to many issues and moral quandaries and questions that make for fascinating exploration in fantasy worlds, and hopefully leads to enlightenment in this one.

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Tacticslion wrote:
due to what Mrs. Price was saying

It's Jessica, or Ms. Price if you want to be formal, not Miss or Mrs. Price. My marital status isn't relevant to my professional life, and isn't the business of strangers.

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The Raven Black wrote:
Jessica Price wrote:
If you take marriage out of the equation, it looks very different, e.g. saying your housekeeper gets to control the household budget doesn't make her your equal.

When your housekeeper gets to control all your money and how your children will be educated, I personally see this as a huge power.

Hope I do not sound too antagonistic here as I really like your post a lot

It's fine.

And the housekeeper may have power, but it's not equal to yours, because it's completely derived from yours, and is only hers if you choose to grant it to her. Your power is yours, independent of her. The converse is not true.


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Jessica Price wrote:
Tacticslion wrote:
due to what Mrs. Price was saying
It's Jessica, or Ms. Price if you want to be formal, not Miss or Mrs. Price. My marital status isn't relevant to my professional life, and isn't the business of strangers.

seems he really mispriced you

but if we get a happy ending where he can just start calling you jessica, that'd be priceless


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Jessica Price wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
Jessica Price wrote:
If you take marriage out of the equation, it looks very different, e.g. saying your housekeeper gets to control the household budget doesn't make her your equal.

When your housekeeper gets to control all your money and how your children will be educated, I personally see this as a huge power.

Hope I do not sound too antagonistic here as I really like your post a lot

It's fine.

And the housekeeper may have power, but it's not equal to yours, because it's completely derived from yours, and is only hers if you choose to grant it to her. Your power is yours, independent of her. The converse is not true.

That depends. Sure, if you're actually granting it to her and can revoke it, that's one thing. If the culture actually enforces it, that's a different story.

In the real world, I suspect it's been more often the first, even in those cases where that much power was allocated to women at all. I'm not sure enough of the situation in Japan (which was the original example) to say if that's how it actually worked or not.


Tacticslion wrote:
due to what Mrs. Price was saying
Jessica Price wrote:
It's Jessica, or Ms. Price if you want to be formal, not Miss or Mrs. Price. My marital status isn't relevant to my professional life, and isn't the business of strangers.

I apologize for any unwanted implication - as you noted, I simply typed with formal language, but with what I was most used to thinking; I wasn't attempting to assign anything to you by it, though you are absolutely correct at the implications thereof. I'll work at following your preferences in the future.

sans the skeleton wrote:

seems he really mispriced you

but if we get a happy ending where he can just start calling you jessica, that'd be priceless

... well played, sir. Well played...

I suppose you could say I "got dunked on"? ;)

EDIT 1&2: Crying toddler distracted me from putting in links I'd originally intended. ;P


I now wish Ms. Price was in my Philosophy and Ethics 315 class all those years ago in college, someone skilled to debate with would have been nice :)

Don't suppose you have happened to read Michel Foucault's Power/Knowledge?

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GM_Beernorg wrote:

I now wish Ms. Price was in my Philosophy and Ethics 315 class all those years ago in college, someone skilled to debate with would have been nice :)

Don't suppose you have happened to read Michel Foucault's Power/Knowledge?

Yes. I did about 12 credits' worth of post-structuralists. And given that I narrowly escaped becoming a lawyer, I did plenty of formal debate training.

But I am not interested in devil's advocate "debate" about issues that affect my real life. I'm only interested in discussion with people who understand what the stakes are well enough to take them seriously.


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Deadmanwalking wrote:

For the record, just because my post is getting quoted a lot there, I don't think matriarchal means misandrist inherently.

I think matriarchal + Evil generally does, though.

#notallevilcreatures

We kobolds don't have these silly gender divides. We support male kobolds' rights to be spiritual leaders and hatchling watchers should they so choose, as well as female kobolds' rights to be chieftains, warriors, and trapbuilders. Kobolds who don't identify as either gender are free to choose whichever duties they are best-suited for (kobolds don't have gendered pronouns—we pretty much just call everyone "Hey, you"). Perfect equality has been achieved by the glorious kobold culture for all good kobolds within it.

They all die at roughly the same rate.

Some die at more same rates than others.


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Jessica Price wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
What leads me to this conclusion is RL Japan where women always defer to men in public situations, yet hold the absolute power in matters of the household, including how the money their husband earns will be spent

Power over the private sphere is not equal to power over the public sphere, despite men's attempts to claim that their "separate but equal" setups give women equal, but different, power. Women who must defer in public, who must wait 6 months to remarry if divorced to prove that any children they have don't belong to their ex-husbands, who must by law take their husbands' surnames when they marry, who are largely powerless outside the sphere of home, are still almost completely dependent on their husbands.

If you take marriage out of the equation, it looks very different, e.g. saying your housekeeper gets to control the household budget doesn't make her your equal.

I have heard about how the "separate-but-equal" system really started to fall apart when an economy started to form—suddenly, the one making the money (the one doing the outside jobs) got all the power, and the one doing the laundry and stuff was just sort of expected to keep doing it "for because". But there was definitely already a divide. It was just harder to spot.

Liberty's Edge

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Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:

For the record, just because my post is getting quoted a lot there, I don't think matriarchal means misandrist inherently.

I think matriarchal + Evil generally does, though.

#notallevilcreatures

We kobolds don't have these silly gender divides. We support male kobolds' rights to be spiritual leaders and hatchling watchers should they so choose, as well as female kobolds' rights to be chieftains, warriors, and trapbuilders. Kobolds who don't identify as either gender are free to choose whichever duties they are best-suited for (kobolds don't have gendered pronouns—we pretty much just call everyone "Hey, you"). Perfect equality has been achieved by the glorious kobold culture for all good kobolds within it.

They all die at roughly the same rate.

Some die at more same rates than others.

Well, sure, but I wouldn't characterize kobolds as matriarchal.

Jessica Price wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
Jessica Price wrote:
If you take marriage out of the equation, it looks very different, e.g. saying your housekeeper gets to control the household budget doesn't make her your equal.

When your housekeeper gets to control all your money and how your children will be educated, I personally see this as a huge power.

Hope I do not sound too antagonistic here as I really like your post a lot

It's fine.

And the housekeeper may have power, but it's not equal to yours, because it's completely derived from yours, and is only hers if you choose to grant it to her. Your power is yours, independent of her. The converse is not true.

Yeah. This. Power given to you entirely by someone else, who can take it back whenever they like is not in any way equivalent to power you hold in your own right.

Even if society would penalize them for taking it back, suffering society's censure almost never removes all their authority...which means you lose more authority than they do, and the balance of power still very much favors them.


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That seems totally fair to me..

In no way meant to imply we should drag a real issue into "philosophical concept land", pardon if it sounded like that.


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Orfamay Quest wrote:

It was a typically polygamous society, where the males were concerned with warfare and owning land, and the females were concerned with ... well, anything else. This almost certainly was much worse when the Kzin were a low-tech medieval society and the "women" ran everything household related (rather like Japan, another source of inspiration).

Then again there were the modern, starfaring Kzin, whose females due to being deprived of even basic education and regard had been reduced to little more than feral beasts. Enough so that the idea of holding a conversation with a female was still a novel idea to one of the more cosmpolitan careers. Than again in a society whose word for "Ambassador" translates to "Speaker to Animals"......

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