Medieval fantasy institutional gender role reversal

[MatthewVilter]

I'm doing a rough sketch of a setting for my next (GURPS) game and working out the institutional structure of the empire where it will mostly take place. Normally I just handwave in gender equality to whatever setting I run but I wanted to do something more nuanced this time.

The idea was that there is a balance of power between the feudal governments of the realm and the religious institution. The heads of state would be patriarchs (kings, dukes, etc) and the temples would be run by priestesses and worship a pantheon of goddesses. This would leave peasants and freefolk ambivalent about the importance of gender for people not employed in matters of governance or worship. I thought this was pretty cleaver...

Then I took a step back and thought "Kings and priestesses? Really? Not so original after all."

Okay so here is the question: Would it be interasting/good/cool for me to reverse the whole thing? Queendoms and a fraternal religious order?

I'm not really sure what to make of this. It sounds cool to me but is it too gimmicky? Will it even matter? Am I weird to have thought of this? Or sexist to think it is important? What would the implications be for an otherwise mostly cookie cutter low fantasy setting be?

Thoughts?

Thank you in advance!

- Matthew Vilter

[Flyndaran]

Sadly, with most setting concepts, the issue is "how do you think your players would react?".
I can see many ignoring all gender/sex social issues, while others whine and scream about realism for human societies of any kind not overtly patriarchal.


Semi-OT: What if those castes really are gender rather than sex based? The ruler is always feminine even if anatomically male. Kind of like how likenesses of Pharaohs had to have beards even if female.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by MatthewVilter

This would leave peasants and freefolk ambivalent about the importance of gender for people not employed in matters of governance or worship.

In other words, themselves. The European medieval "three estates" were clergy, nobility, and peasantry. Do you mean that the peasantry practices gender equality, either deliberately or because they're confused about the choice? Or perhaps they're more bitterly divided over the need to choose one of the other, like the other two estates.

Feel free to reverse the pattern if you like. The biggest risk is simply that this point will be different. Because it's different, it will attract attention -- and therefore, it will seem to be an important point of the campaign. If gender equality weren't a theme, if it doesn't really matter to this game, then you might not want to call attention to it. If it is a theme, well, good luck and try to keep that nuance. That sort of thing can easily become anvilicious, so it's probably hard to keep it nuanced.

[MatthewVilter]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Sadly, with most setting concepts, the issue is "how do you think your players would react?".
I can see many ignoring all gender/sex social issues, while others whine and scream about realism for human societies of any kind not overtly patriarchal.

I guess I am worried because I am not sure how they will react. :/ I am probably overthinking this.

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Semi-OT: What if those castes really are gender rather than sex based? The ruler is always feminine even if anatomically male. Kind of like how likenesses of Pharaohs had to have beards even if female.

Interesting... I think I will file that one away under "culture-as-adventure" Star Trek style.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

In other words, themselves. The European medieval "three estates" were clergy, nobility, and peasantry.

Right, or well, I am including merchants, crafters, sellswords, entertainers, etc but yeah.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Do you mean that the peasantry practices gender equality, either deliberately or because they're confused about the choice? Or perhaps they're more bitterly divided over the need to choose one of the other, like the other two estates.

More just that with both men and women already in positions of authority and trust over them they end up more just going with the flow in terms of, say, picking the head of the family or dividing types of labor or picking apprentices instead of sticking to set gender roles.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Feel free to reverse the pattern if you like. The biggest risk is simply that this point will be different. Because it's different, it will attract attention -- and therefore, it will seem to be an important point of the campaign.

Yeah. I guess that is why I normally just hand wave this stuff.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

If gender equality weren't a theme, if it doesn't really matter to this game, then you might not want to call attention to it. If it is a theme, well, good luck and try to keep that nuance. That sort of thing can easily become anvilicious, so it's probably hard to keep it nuanced.

I was thinking of having the Mongol style invasion that forms the backdrop for the campaign be being made by a much less gender equal society. But more just as a token way to make them seem unpleasant then as some kind of broad theme. That definitely could get anvilicious quite fast...

:/

[David Johnston2]

The question I'd ask is, "Why queens?" Historically the trend has been toward "kings" because men have the military power that is used to carve out kingdoms. What gives the women of this line enough power to buck that trend? In either case what nobility and priests do has little impact on the mores of commoners.

[Anthony]

It's usually easiest to just handwave gender equality, since it's somewhat hard to make sense of at low tech. The most obvious reasons for inequality are the superior physical strength of men, and the degree to which pregnancy can be debilitating, incapacitating, or even on occasion fatal. Higher tech reduces the importance of strength and makes pregnancy less dangerous, more controllable, and generally less common, all of which naturally cuts down on gender inequality. High magic can do the same, depending on how much magic you want in your setting.

[Flyndaran]

It's not like swords require burly men to make them deadly.
Whatever reasons make patriarchy the near universal human governmental style, I seriously doubt it's our somewhat greater average strength.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

It's not like swords require burly men to make them deadly.

When dealing with equally burly targets who are likely to have armor, yes, swords really do require burly men to make them deadly.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Anthony

When dealing with equally burly targets who are likely to have armor, yes, swords really do require burly men to make them deadly.

Accuracy was far more important than Victorian believed unskilled sword/armor slugfests.
Strength is nice, but the bigger guy does not always win.

[MatthewVilter]

Mmmm...yeah, I think the pregnancy thing is a better angle if you are trying to explain/justify (or however you want to put that) patriarchy but it is not really an issue of realism for me.* People -in real life, now, here- have to deal with sexism so I see good reason to keep it out of our escapism. Not that I always do or think that it always should be, but yeah...

On the other hand there is a _lot_ of mileage to had telling stories that involve man and woman as distant categories with associated symbolism and all that jazz. That is what I was going for with the church/state spilt there in the first place.

Am I a sellout if I just stick to kings and priestesses?


*I want characters to act realistically _for the setting_ of course but before I boot up any NPCs I want to pull the fuse on "-ism"...so to speak.