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A World without the Patriarchy

Solusandra

Troubadour
A pet peeve of mine is the permanence of the patriarchy and sexism in fantasy worlds. You're telling me you can imagine a world with dragons and magic and weird little gnome people, but you can't imagine a world where all genders are viewed as equal? BS. So I'm creating that in the story I'm writing now, and let me tell you, it's telling. Every time there is a character who is either in leadership or is an aggressor, it's automatically a straight male in my mind, and I have to consciously walk that back. And then this little voice in my head is like "don't you think there are too many female characters?" and "you already have one non-binary character, why do you need another?" Talk about internalized misogyny. Anyway, I would love to hear more about others process in leveling the gender-based playing field.
I think you're projecting here. DND is full of female rulers, heroines and matriarchies. As are many fantasy series. If you're thinking this, that's on you; not the genre.
 

Solusandra

Troubadour
It isn't a mystery that the hunters were mostly male (I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule). It is not a mystery that females gathered, as they were tending to their children and had limited mobility.

By extension, hunters evolved to warriors. Warriors led by the main male hunter. When tribes fought, the leader coordinated the attack/defense. Remember, this structure has been in place for millennium. Hundreds of thousands of years, ingrained in our genes, has left a memory beyond our conscious. These structures evolved to organized governments. Warriors were the source of might, of a tribe's viability.

All that is to say, if I were to write an entire world without patriarchy, I'd be compelled to establish how such a world evolved without the foundation that I outlined above.

I'd want to know if your world didn't have a hunter-gatherer phase. I'd want to know how your world skipped this expansive age. Or, how the world evolved out of such generational memory.

I'd also want to know how, should violence stir, the defending party can withstand the aggressor. Does everyone have the same access to power? If not, what prevents the weaker party from domination?
That's not it. There are a lot of species where the female does the hunting, or is the alpha version of the species. Even in monkeys who are massively similar to us genetically and socially.

The reason for Patriarchy is breeding.

Sorry, but it's true. The ability for your civilization to survive harsh conditions is dependent on your ability to maintain a population. 95% of your males die every generation due to resource wars, diseases and predators? Doesn't matter. You can 100% recover or even grow your current population if the women were protected and had babies. You send your women out to fight, hunt, do body breaking labor or spend endless hours leading a band of morons, the harsh conditions of preindustrial society means your population is going to crash, and your civilization fade from existence.

So, men are expended. Spent as coin to maintain civilization and protect it's center-point. But that means any man who survives that meat grinder is not only the best of his generation, but also a rare commodity. Everyone wants these survivors, and that means they get to demand things in return.

And what do men want? Fidelity. The assurance that their kids; THEIRS, benefit from the sacrifices they have made for the community.

This set of conditions sets up pretty much everything about the structure of patriarchy.

Industrialization, the ability to mass produce steel and power labor with oil rather than sweat, massively changed that calculation. A society with civilian proliferation of magic, or in the case of gnomes, mechanical genius would do much the same. Similar with species where 1 woman could have hundreds+ kids, or gender is fundamentally different in some way; like actual transitions or any of a variety of non-dimorphic species.
 

Queshire

Auror
Industrialization, the ability to mass produce steel and power labor with oil rather than sweat, massively changed that calculation. A society with civilian proliferation of magic, or in the case of gnomes, mechanical genius would do much the same. Similar with species where 1 woman could have hundreds+ kids, or gender is fundamentally different in some way; like actual transitions or any of a variety of non-dimorphic species.

Well then, the question becomes why we should be content with the same old pseudo-medieval societies you so often get in fiction when there's a wide array of biological differences between fantasy races, different means via magic or other powers and often gods having a directlt effect on the world either directly or by empowering their clerics?
 

Solusandra

Troubadour
Has telling someone that they're projecting ever actually been productive? =/
Sometimes. If they're not an ideologue.
Well then, the question becomes why we should be content with the same old pseudo-medieval societies you so often get in fiction when there's a wide array of biological differences between fantasy races, different means via magic or other powers and often gods having a directlt effect on the world either directly or by empowering their clerics?
You don't have to be... that was half the point of my post. The other half was what you need to understand and consider when writing something different; as not doing so would just make your attempt janky and stilted.
 

Miles Lacey

Archmage
In a warrior culture the warriors only fought short, brutal conflicts that only lasted a few hours at most. Because the conflicts were so short the territories of most tribal societies remained relatively static and losses of life from conflicts were relatively low. For much of the year the warriors did pretty much what the women did.

When weapons like muskets were introduced it allowed the wholesale slaughter of rival groups, especially if the rivals had no muskets. Eventually, the various tribes all ended up with muskets which restored the balance.

The shortcomings of a warrior culture were exposed when they came face to face with professional full time soldiers. Most warrior cultures didn't have specialist classes or clearly defined roles for genders. Almost everyone were deployed to do whatever tasks were necessary at the time. During the harvest warriors would be out in the fields with everyone else. As a result when they encountered professional full time soldiers they were usually defeated because the soldiers were able to wear the warriors down and - more importantly - prevent them from returning to their villages to help with planting or harvesting crops. Starvation, disease and exhaustion rather than bullets did more to destroy warrior cultures.

If one is going to justify a patriarchal society on the basis of how a real world warrior culture operated it would help to actually study a few of them.

What I described about warrior cultures wasn't plucked out of thin air. It's what happened with the New Zealand Maori, from whom I'm partly descended.
 

Aldarion

Archmage
In a warrior culture the warriors only fought short, brutal conflicts that only lasted a few hours at most. Because the conflicts were so short the territories of most tribal societies remained relatively static and losses of life from conflicts were relatively low. For much of the year the warriors did pretty much what the women did.

When weapons like muskets were introduced it allowed the wholesale slaughter of rival groups, especially if the rivals had no muskets. Eventually, the various tribes all ended up with muskets which restored the balance.

The shortcomings of a warrior culture were exposed when they came face to face with professional full time soldiers. Most warrior cultures didn't have specialist classes or clearly defined roles for genders. Almost everyone were deployed to do whatever tasks were necessary at the time. During the harvest warriors would be out in the fields with everyone else. As a result when they encountered professional full time soldiers they were usually defeated because the soldiers were able to wear the warriors down and - more importantly - prevent them from returning to their villages to help with planting or harvesting crops. Starvation, disease and exhaustion rather than bullets did more to destroy warrior cultures.

If one is going to justify a patriarchal society on the basis of how a real world warrior culture operated it would help to actually study a few of them.

What I described about warrior cultures wasn't plucked out of thin air. It's what happened with the New Zealand Maori, from whom I'm partly descended.
That "professional full time soldiers" thing actually happened several thousand years before muskets. Sumerians were among the first, but possibly not even the first, to field such an army.
 

Nighty_Knight

Troubadour
That "professional full time soldiers" thing actually happened several thousand years before muskets. Sumerians were among the first, but possibly not even the first, to field such an army.
It was also a major factor in the change in combat in Europe in the turn of the 16th century with mercenaries and the start of standing armies. The Swiss and ole Emperor Maximilian I seeing how effective they were and starting the Black Guard. Then other versions starting up in other places.

Romans as well, conscripting Legions where they had to serve for years as full time soldiers.

Even Spartans to an extent. They functioned essentially as full time soldiers due to slaves doing all the farm work duties.
 

Aldarion

Archmage
It was also a major factor in the change in combat in Europe in the turn of the 16th century with mercenaries and the start of standing armies. The Swiss and ole Emperor Maximilian I seeing how effective they were and starting the Black Guard. Then other versions starting up in other places.

Romans as well, conscripting Legions where they had to serve for years as full time soldiers.

Even Spartans to an extent. They functioned essentially as full time soldiers due to slaves doing all the farm work duties.
First standing armies in Medieval Europe were French compagnie d'ordonnance in 1439., followed by the Black Army of Matthias Corvinus in 1458. But yes, such formations only became widespread in 16th century.
 

Solusandra

Troubadour
In a warrior culture the warriors only fought short, brutal conflicts that only lasted a few hours at most. Because the conflicts were so short the territories of most tribal societies remained relatively static and losses of life from conflicts were relatively low. For much of the year the warriors did pretty much what the women did.

When weapons like muskets were introduced it allowed the wholesale slaughter of rival groups, especially if the rivals had no muskets. Eventually, the various tribes all ended up with muskets which restored the balance.

The shortcomings of a warrior culture were exposed when they came face to face with professional full time soldiers. Most warrior cultures didn't have specialist classes or clearly defined roles for genders. Almost everyone were deployed to do whatever tasks were necessary at the time. During the harvest warriors would be out in the fields with everyone else. As a result when they encountered professional full time soldiers they were usually defeated because the soldiers were able to wear the warriors down and - more importantly - prevent them from returning to their villages to help with planting or harvesting crops. Starvation, disease and exhaustion rather than bullets did more to destroy warrior cultures.

If one is going to justify a patriarchal society on the basis of how a real world warrior culture operated it would help to actually study a few of them.

What I described about warrior cultures wasn't plucked out of thin air. It's what happened with the New Zealand Maori, from whom I'm partly descended.
This... is wrong on just about every last point. Maybe it's what happened with the Maori, but that's a pretty big exception globally.

Professional soldiers existed for almost 5000 years before muskets came out. Another poster said Sumeria, but I'd have said Egypt.

Wars that took years, even decades, and completely fucked up the planting season have been around for almost as long. It also wasn't a shortcoming, often enough, as many warrior cultures, where most of the men were warriors raided entire countrysides in place of farming.

Men and women had majorly different roles since the stone age. Men did the intense labor and life threatening jobs, physical or mental; women did the less intense but tedious jobs. Even when men and women worked the same business in the same house. Even NOW...

What destroyed warrior cultures wasn't starvation, disease or battle exhaustion, but the introduction of ways to farm their area, that were easier than the wars. and war is a really easy answer. In either case though, the transfer from warriors to crafters&farmers did nothing to lessen patriarchy.
 

Mad Swede

Auror
OMG. Where should I begin. Writing this as a (now retired) professional soldier. Miles Lacey is quite correct, warrior cultures do have very limited abilities to sustain conflicts for more than a few hours. And that was true not only of the Maori, but also of all those Bronze and Iron Age societies seen in Europe. This is because those sorts of societies don't have the organisation and political structures required to maintain the standing army needed to support a longer campaign.

It also that lack of organisation which makes warrior cultures so very vulnerable to attack from states with standing armies, as shown by the growth of the Roman Empire. Warrior societies can inflict defeats on professional armies like the Roman legions, but usually only through weight of numbers. And as Miles wrote, having more advanced weapons like muskets or cavalry (or even organised tactics) does remove the advantage that numbers can give.

It takes an organised state like Sumer or Rome to support a professional army, because it is the ability to raise taxes which makes it possible to pay soldiers and the suppliers of food, weapons and transport. That same state can also change the roles of men and women in society, simply because an organised state is better at meeting the lowest levels in what is sometimes called Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. That state can provide security, food, shelter etc, and so free people to do other things, like develop new technology and new ideas. Only when statecraft developed in the Renaissance and Early Modern Europe could those states start to maintain standing military forces, and only then did modern European philosophies and ideas start to develop. And it's those developments in society and ideas which lead on to things like Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
I believe you all are spinning your wheels because of Miles Lacey's post above is written in a way that makes it 'seem' he is saying it was not until muskets came along that wars could be something other than short brutal contests, which is clearly not true. The Romans and the Sumerians and the Egyptians were very capable of that long before muskets. I would just call that an unclear post, cause I am sure Mr. Lacy is aware of that as well. It does not really matter. None of those cultures routinely filled their ranks with women, and every culture has some form of gender roles.
 

Solusandra

Troubadour
OMG. Where should I begin. Writing this as a (now retired) professional soldier. Miles Lacey is quite correct, warrior cultures do have very limited abilities to sustain conflicts for more than a few hours. And that was true not only of the Maori, but also of all those Bronze and Iron Age societies seen in Europe. This is because those sorts of societies don't have the organisation and political structures required to maintain the standing army needed to support a longer campaign.

It also that lack of organisation which makes warrior cultures so very vulnerable to attack from states with standing armies, as shown by the growth of the Roman Empire. Warrior societies can inflict defeats on professional armies like the Roman legions, but usually only through weight of numbers. And as Miles wrote, having more advanced weapons like muskets or cavalry (or even organised tactics) does remove the advantage that numbers can give.

It takes an organised state like Sumer or Rome to support a professional army, because it is the ability to raise taxes which makes it possible to pay soldiers and the suppliers of food, weapons and transport. That same state can also change the roles of men and women in society, simply because an organised state is better at meeting the lowest levels in what is sometimes called Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. That state can provide security, food, shelter etc, and so free people to do other things, like develop new technology and new ideas. Only when statecraft developed in the Renaissance and Early Modern Europe could those states start to maintain standing military forces, and only then did modern European philosophies and ideas start to develop. And it's those developments in society and ideas which lead on to things like Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
And I'm former Navy; what does that matter? Are you a history major with a specialization in any of theses ancient cultures? Because that would be a relevant credential for your appeal to authority.

As far as engagements longer than a few hours, dude, several native american cultures, the norse and the mongols before Ghengis have recorded battles that lasted for weeks and the Khan's Horde proved the ability for a million soldiers to pull off pillage logistics in a campaign lasting decades.

Regardless, none of this has any relevance on how to construct the OP's fantasy world where patriarch was never needed for civilization to develop.
 
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It feels like the disagreement comes more from a matter of definition than anything else. Some people seem to take "warrior culture" as meaning small (hunter-gatherer) tribes, with no or very small settlements. While others are simply using it as "an aggressive and war-like group of people". They're very different things, which lead to very different conclusions.

I can imagine that for a small tribe, sustaining anything longer than a few days of conflict is hard, simply because you're lacking the food-reserves. On the other hand, Alexander the Great conquered anything he could find with a standing, professional army, without the benefit of a professional tax system in 300-ish BC. They're two different things, and one group seems to be arguing about the first, while the other about the second.
 

Aldarion

Archmage
It feels like the disagreement comes more from a matter of definition than anything else. Some people seem to take "warrior culture" as meaning small (hunter-gatherer) tribes, with no or very small settlements. While others are simply using it as "an aggressive and war-like group of people". They're very different things, which lead to very different conclusions.

I can imagine that for a small tribe, sustaining anything longer than a few days of conflict is hard, simply because you're lacking the food-reserves. On the other hand, Alexander the Great conquered anything he could find with a standing, professional army, without the benefit of a professional tax system in 300-ish BC. They're two different things, and one group seems to be arguing about the first, while the other about the second.
Personally, I differentiate between warrior culture and soldier culture in that latter is formed around the concept of state. Thus, in a warrior culture, goal of war is personal honor and/or profit; in a soldier culture, goal of war is to achieve strategic objectives (that is, communal profit).

There is some overlap, though: personally I'd say that Sparta is both a warrior culture and a soldier culture at the same time. Romans were a soldier culture, as were Sumerians - thus it is no surprise they both eventually developed professional, standing armies. Feudal Europe was warrior culture as far as meme feudalism is concerned - nobility definitely were warriors, not soldiers - but you also had professional armies, and even nobles who developed something of soldier culture in their campaigns (e.g. John Hunyadi of Hungary).
 

Mad Swede

Auror
And I'm former Navy; what does that matter? Are you a history major with a specialization in any of theses ancient cultures? Because that would be a relevant credential for your appeal to authority.

As far as engagements longer than a few hours, dude, several native american cultures, the norse and the mongols before Ghengis have recorded battles that lasted for weeks and the Khan's Horde proved the ability for a million soldiers to pull off pillage logistics in a campaign lasting decades.

Regardless, none of this has any relevance on how to construct the OP's fantasy world where patriarch was never needed for civilization to develop.
As a Swedish officer I, like all my colleagues, study military history - and also history and politics, and their impact on strategy and military power.

And this part of the discussion is really about strategy. Most non-military people tend to think of strategy as something which only deals with a series of big battles, but the truth is that strategy is really about resources: people, food, weapons, money - and the means by which you ensure you have enough support elsewhere to be able to get these things, ie diplomacy and politics. Because without those resources you can't run a long term military campaign, and it is those resources which limit what you can do with your military power. Working out the strategy and then implementing it requires an organised state.

The Mongols relied on mobility for their success, but they also had an organised state as well as a number of individual commanders with an understanding of intelligence gathering, strategy and a willingness to adopt the tactics and weapons of their enemies. It helped that initially (both in the East and in Europe) they were faced by weak or divided nations - Hungary and Poland are both examples. However, once the European powers got themselves organised they defeated the Mongols. Ultimately the Mongol empire had weak political structures and this was a problem when their empire got as big as it did - messages could take months to reach subordinates, which made it difficult to respond quickly to large scale defeats.

As for the supposed norse battles lasting weeks. There are no known confirmed sources for such claims. Conflicts between rulers like Styrbjörn Starke and Erik Segersäll could lead to a series of battles spread over a period of time, but these battles didn't last much more than a day and between battles there would periods of relative peace. The various combatants lacked the ability to command forces over greater areas than they could see, and also tended not to fight at night, so battles were limited in size and duration. This in many ways is the difference between the Vikings and the Mongols - both relied on mobility, but the Mongols had a more centralised state (despite it's structural weaknesses) which gave them the ability to plan and coordinate their actions at a higher level.

As for the OP:s question on patriarchy, yes this is relevant. Only in a state which provides shelter, food and security for it's citizens do those citizens have the time for philosophy and discussions about things like the patriarchy. So when we create our settings we need to think a bit about how our states are organised (and why) and how our characters are kept safe and fed. There's no particular reason why a fantasy state can't be a matriarchy or a truly equal state. There's also no reason why a fantasy state can't go from one to another. But the in-settings reasons for these things do need to be plausible for the readers, at least if we're going to explain them. Sure, we can hand wave these things - but as an author I prefer a more robust explanation.
 

Queshire

Auror
Ok, but we're writers. The setting is under our complete control. We can start with the end result we want and work backwards.
 

Solusandra

Troubadour
As a Swedish officer I, like all my colleagues, study military history - and also history and politics, and their impact on strategy and military power.
So did we in the Navy. But I'll wave this with the dream that your military school isn't as shit in sweden as it is here.
As for the OP:s question on patriarchy, yes this is relevant. Only in a state which provides shelter, food and security for it's citizens do those citizens have the time for philosophy and discussions about things like the patriarchy. So when we create our settings we need to think a bit about how our states are organised (and why) and how our characters are kept safe and fed. There's no particular reason why a fantasy state can't be a matriarchy or a truly equal state. There's also no reason why a fantasy state can't go from one to another. But the in-settings reasons for these things do need to be plausible for the readers, at least if we're going to explain them. Sure, we can hand wave these things - but as an author I prefer a more robust explanation.
This I agree with though. After expanding the explanation.
Ok, but we're writers. The setting is under our complete control. We can start with the end result we want and work backwards.
sure; but there's a quote I always like to come back to that floats around writers conventions and publishing houses.

The difference between fantasy and reality, is that Fantasy needs to be credible.

Readers are willing to forgive a lot, but if you want to not get lots or refund requests and maintain your audience book to book, you've got to have your plot and background details solid enough the reader can't drive trucks through them.
 

Aldarion

Archmage
Ok, but we're writers. The setting is under our complete control. We can start with the end result we want and work backwards.
Yes, but that requires understanding why things happened the way they happened and developed in history. Otherwise you end up with something completely incoherent.
 

Queshire

Auror
Sure. Why patriarchal societies come about hasn't really been in question here in this thread (though I would keep an eye on evolutionary psychology. It has been connected to eugenics at time.) We understand why things happemed as they did. The question is why, as writers, we should be content with leaving things at that.
 
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