More than just a mirror
Sep. 16th, 2010 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gryphonseggInspired by multiple internet conversations, some of them older than others:
What could or should go into the worldbuilding of a plausible matriarchal human or humanoid society? I've read some stories set in societies that other people have labeled matriarchal, but most of them haven't worked for me, either because I find the worldbuilding itself weak or because the society turns out upon closer inspection not to be truly matriarchal. Here are my thoughts, in no particular order, about what doesn't work and what might work in building a world where it might plausibly be necessary to smash the matriarchy instead of the patriarchy.
Matrilineal =/= Matriarchal One of the biggest fictional disappointments of my life was a story that was introduced as being about a girl living in a post-apocalyptic matriarchy. It was about a girl, and it was set after an apocalyptic event, but the society depicted was anything but matriarchal. Inheritance of land was passed through women, but the land, like everything else in the society, was controlled by groups of related men. The women in the fictional society were completely oppressed and had almost no rights or freedom at all and were traded like property in land deals. In real life, there have been many cultures that were matrilineal without necessarily being matriarchal, with property and position passing from maternal uncle to nephew rather than from father to son. Just because the inheritance line passes through someone with a uterus, that doesn't mean she'll be allowed to grab anything as it passes.
You can't just assume that every gender stereotype of your own culture will be flipped to its opposite: Parts 1&2 There are two reasons why one-to-one stereotype flips often don't work. For one, some RL stereotypes and gender roles result from codifying and exaggerating differences based in human reproductive biology and secondary sex characteristics. A particular man might be better with babies than a particular woman is, but it's not likely that an entire society with an evolutionary history of mammalian nursing would develop "mother returns to work full-time days after giving birth while father becomes primary care-giver for the baby" as an ideal for those who have or aspire to wealth. (I'll come back to this later to discuss plausible alternatives.) A particular woman might have greater physical strength than a particular man, but it's unlikely that humans without magic or genetic tinkering would develop a society-wide expectation of men being weaker than women in every way. (I'll come back to this later too.)
For another, stereotypes and gender roles that aren't directly based on sex characteristics have flip-flopped throughout history. The infuriating thing about patriarchy isn't one consistent stereotype or cluster of stereotypes; it's that the rules change but women still can't win. In ancient Greece, women were perceived as the more lustful, erratic, and chaotic gender, so they had to be tightly controlled by men to keep them from causing the collapse of civilization. In Victorian England, women were perceived as more naturally chaste, pure-minded, and peaceful than men, so they had to be tightly controlled by men to keep other men from hurting them, and any woman who stepped out of bounds was ruined forever. It used to be expected that boys would do better in school than girls because boys were believed to be more intelligent. That's changed over the years, with girls' academic performance coming to equal or surpass that of boys. At the same time, many people have decided that this must be happening because the educational system unfairly favors girls; all those tests must not really measure intelligence, or the kind of intelligence they measure must not be the best and most important kind, or maybe intelligence is much less important than other qualities that boys are now believed to have more of than girls. In our hypothetical matriarchy, it doesn't matter so much whether women dress more plainly than men because a woman is judged by her skills whereas a man must be ornamental or women dress more elaborately than men because women are important enough to cultivate highly individual signature styles and to adorn themselves with symbols of rank and achievement and tokens of their political and familial relationships with other women whereas men are just laborers and sperm donors and they'd best not make distractions of themselves. What matters is the framing.
Women are the default, men are the class that's always being judged In a culture that is as matriarchal as ours is patriarchal, women would be normal human (or humanoid) beings. Let's revisit the examples from the "don't just flip" topic. It's likely that mothers would still be expected to do more infant care than fathers, and it's possible that the socially preferred assistants to a new mother would be female friends and relatives rather than the father of the baby. So what happens when a certain woman is bad at taking care of her kids? Well, that largely depends on how good she is at other stuff. She'd be frowned upon the way bad fathers are frowned upon in our world. Unless she was extraordinarily abusive, she wouldn't be the demonized Bad Mother of our world's narratives. If she was a great writer or musician or negotiator, she might even be pitied rather than censured. After all, she's done great things. Don't all of us, even the greatest among us, have to make sacrifices in some parts of our lives to give our full attention to others? Men surely have a great deal of upper body strength, but making them the majority of the military would be a mistake. They have no stamina, after all, and no dexterity and no ability to soldier on under harsh conditions and no capacity for teamwork since they're always competing one-on-one, every man for himself, because the testosterone makes them do it. Use them for quick strikes and for loading supplies, sure, but you'll never make snipers or martial artists or cohesive fighting units out of them. Don't even think of making them officers! If men dress more elaborately than women in your matriarchy of choice, that means they're shallow, vain peacocks but any man who doesn't accessorize properly is sloppy and takes no pride in himself. If men dress less elaborately than women, it's because good men modestly avoid drawing attention to themselves and any man who gets too gaudy is getting above himself and putting on airs, as women and even other men will tell him-- but even those who rightly shun the excesses of those tacky, trashy fellows are expected to look neat and well-groomed, walking a fine line between "too much" and "not enough." If a woman does something bad(ly), she's one woman who did something bad(ly). If a man does the exact same thing, he's a typical male messing things up or, to those who are slightly less sexist, one of Those Men, you know, it's not all of them, just the bad ones, the faithless ones, the conniving ones, the stupid ones, the pigs, the dogs, the boyish-boys. You're not like that, honey, you're one of the good ones. You're one of the girls.
What could or should go into the worldbuilding of a plausible matriarchal human or humanoid society? I've read some stories set in societies that other people have labeled matriarchal, but most of them haven't worked for me, either because I find the worldbuilding itself weak or because the society turns out upon closer inspection not to be truly matriarchal. Here are my thoughts, in no particular order, about what doesn't work and what might work in building a world where it might plausibly be necessary to smash the matriarchy instead of the patriarchy.
Matrilineal =/= Matriarchal One of the biggest fictional disappointments of my life was a story that was introduced as being about a girl living in a post-apocalyptic matriarchy. It was about a girl, and it was set after an apocalyptic event, but the society depicted was anything but matriarchal. Inheritance of land was passed through women, but the land, like everything else in the society, was controlled by groups of related men. The women in the fictional society were completely oppressed and had almost no rights or freedom at all and were traded like property in land deals. In real life, there have been many cultures that were matrilineal without necessarily being matriarchal, with property and position passing from maternal uncle to nephew rather than from father to son. Just because the inheritance line passes through someone with a uterus, that doesn't mean she'll be allowed to grab anything as it passes.
You can't just assume that every gender stereotype of your own culture will be flipped to its opposite: Parts 1&2 There are two reasons why one-to-one stereotype flips often don't work. For one, some RL stereotypes and gender roles result from codifying and exaggerating differences based in human reproductive biology and secondary sex characteristics. A particular man might be better with babies than a particular woman is, but it's not likely that an entire society with an evolutionary history of mammalian nursing would develop "mother returns to work full-time days after giving birth while father becomes primary care-giver for the baby" as an ideal for those who have or aspire to wealth. (I'll come back to this later to discuss plausible alternatives.) A particular woman might have greater physical strength than a particular man, but it's unlikely that humans without magic or genetic tinkering would develop a society-wide expectation of men being weaker than women in every way. (I'll come back to this later too.)
For another, stereotypes and gender roles that aren't directly based on sex characteristics have flip-flopped throughout history. The infuriating thing about patriarchy isn't one consistent stereotype or cluster of stereotypes; it's that the rules change but women still can't win. In ancient Greece, women were perceived as the more lustful, erratic, and chaotic gender, so they had to be tightly controlled by men to keep them from causing the collapse of civilization. In Victorian England, women were perceived as more naturally chaste, pure-minded, and peaceful than men, so they had to be tightly controlled by men to keep other men from hurting them, and any woman who stepped out of bounds was ruined forever. It used to be expected that boys would do better in school than girls because boys were believed to be more intelligent. That's changed over the years, with girls' academic performance coming to equal or surpass that of boys. At the same time, many people have decided that this must be happening because the educational system unfairly favors girls; all those tests must not really measure intelligence, or the kind of intelligence they measure must not be the best and most important kind, or maybe intelligence is much less important than other qualities that boys are now believed to have more of than girls. In our hypothetical matriarchy, it doesn't matter so much whether women dress more plainly than men because a woman is judged by her skills whereas a man must be ornamental or women dress more elaborately than men because women are important enough to cultivate highly individual signature styles and to adorn themselves with symbols of rank and achievement and tokens of their political and familial relationships with other women whereas men are just laborers and sperm donors and they'd best not make distractions of themselves. What matters is the framing.
Women are the default, men are the class that's always being judged In a culture that is as matriarchal as ours is patriarchal, women would be normal human (or humanoid) beings. Let's revisit the examples from the "don't just flip" topic. It's likely that mothers would still be expected to do more infant care than fathers, and it's possible that the socially preferred assistants to a new mother would be female friends and relatives rather than the father of the baby. So what happens when a certain woman is bad at taking care of her kids? Well, that largely depends on how good she is at other stuff. She'd be frowned upon the way bad fathers are frowned upon in our world. Unless she was extraordinarily abusive, she wouldn't be the demonized Bad Mother of our world's narratives. If she was a great writer or musician or negotiator, she might even be pitied rather than censured. After all, she's done great things. Don't all of us, even the greatest among us, have to make sacrifices in some parts of our lives to give our full attention to others? Men surely have a great deal of upper body strength, but making them the majority of the military would be a mistake. They have no stamina, after all, and no dexterity and no ability to soldier on under harsh conditions and no capacity for teamwork since they're always competing one-on-one, every man for himself, because the testosterone makes them do it. Use them for quick strikes and for loading supplies, sure, but you'll never make snipers or martial artists or cohesive fighting units out of them. Don't even think of making them officers! If men dress more elaborately than women in your matriarchy of choice, that means they're shallow, vain peacocks but any man who doesn't accessorize properly is sloppy and takes no pride in himself. If men dress less elaborately than women, it's because good men modestly avoid drawing attention to themselves and any man who gets too gaudy is getting above himself and putting on airs, as women and even other men will tell him-- but even those who rightly shun the excesses of those tacky, trashy fellows are expected to look neat and well-groomed, walking a fine line between "too much" and "not enough." If a woman does something bad(ly), she's one woman who did something bad(ly). If a man does the exact same thing, he's a typical male messing things up or, to those who are slightly less sexist, one of Those Men, you know, it's not all of them, just the bad ones, the faithless ones, the conniving ones, the stupid ones, the pigs, the dogs, the boyish-boys. You're not like that, honey, you're one of the good ones. You're one of the girls.
