Oh, Those Erebusian Women

[Broken Hawk]

Rod's scenario #3 is how I role-play the Bannor. They are so good, they become evil? Dark fantasy at it's best.

@Monkeyfinger, It depends on how long you consider a turn. Kael stated the reason that the date was removed from the upper right corner was because it didn't make sense to have a 250 year old Rantine. I hope I quoted him correctly.

 

[Darksaber1]

@ It-Ogo: The Svartalfar would probably take a female battle-leader more readilie then the Doviello, sense the Svartalfar are all about assassins and betrayel which, (don't beat me as a sexist or whatever) are used more (and more rationaly) by females than males, and when doing assassination, you don't want the slightes compasion.

 

[loocas]

@ It-Ogo: The Svartalfar would probably take a female battle-leader more readilie then the Doviello, sense the Svartalfar are all about assassins and betrayel which, (don't beat me as a sexist or whatever) are used more (and more rationaly) by females than males, and when doing assassination, you don't want the slightes compasion.

The Svartalfar would take a female leader because they are matriarchal.

Does that mean they would question a female warrior or a female leader in the same way as a male one? Those are very questionable positions.

Suffragist Doviello. Hm... In the case of savage anarchy you can speak about "equal possibilities" from psychological point of view. Those who behave in certain way can become a leader no matter of sex. OK. But what does mean "to behave in certain way" in this case? It means regular fighting for the leadership. And in most cases fighting should not spend best fighters in the pack because if there are always someone is killed or maimed then pack is lost soon. So to be effective leader you should know and feel when to start fighting and when to stop and allow the beaten opponent to keep some respect. Male human instincts provide the feeling of this process. Female human instincts are different: usually female try to avoid fighting whenever possible and when she is forced to fight, she fights to death. That is completely inacceptable for fighting leader. (I don't know about Svartalfar, Drow, Dunmer etc. but Doviello are stated to be humans. No?) So to become a leader of such pack human female should not only be very strong but also go against her instincts. And that would make Doviello female fighting leader extremely rare fenomenon.

Moreover if men concider women as potential fighting leaders they wiil beat women regularly to verify their relative social positions. Nothing personal, just regular hierarchial rotation contest. For the most women (which are occasionally not superior fighters) it means very poor social position and very incomfortable existance. That is why savage anarchy is the worst society for most women. Patriarchal traditions are not only prevent woman to be a leader but also protect her from the violence. A simple thing which if often forgotten.

So one Mahala precedent can be a real disaster for many-many Doviello women.

IMO the very idea of male-female equality (and, accordingly, misogyny as social fenomenon) is a product of the contemporary informational society where men and women are functionally the same. While in more "savage" societies with severe life they are functionally different no matter if it is matriarchy or patriarchy or anarchy. And the function is determined by the biology rather then by the law, tradition and religion.

I buy your point about a savage-anarchy having no societal constructions of gender, but I don't think a female leader's instincts would go against the grain so much. The society as a whole would reflect hers. In the society Kael's described, the men wouldn't view the women as competition, or as inferior. I think one of the assumptions we're making here is that leadership is a male role, and thus a woman must deny her instincts or upbringing in order to fulfill that role. If "function" is determined by biology, but the Doviello have no societal constructions because they are savage-anarchist, then female leadership would have no conflicts with female instincts.

 

[Darksaber1]

The Svartalfar would take a female leader because they are matriarchal.

Oh, ya, umm...Well anyway, if they weren't then I think that my reson would have its validity(Inventing Excuses for slip of attention)

 

[loocas]

Oh, ya, umm...Well anyway, if they weren't then I think that my reson would have its validity(Inventing Excuses for slip of attention)

Yeah, I wasn't trying to invalidate you, there was just a more prominent reason for that. In fact, that offers an explanation to why the Svartalfar are matriarchal, but the more prominent reason may be that all the elves are matriarchal.

It makes me wonder if there's something in the elves' history that makes them matriarchal, or is it just in their nature (puns always intended). Is Arendel the only queen we know of? Why is she Good? I almost get the feeling that for the summer elves, their government is secondary to their religion. Are the religious leaders also women?

 

[Darksaber1]

Ya, now that I go back over it, even the Ljosalfar are matriarcal, which I never noticed. My real point was that women tend to think more rationaly( see Thessa's entry), but when provoced can be much more viscious than men, and that style better suits the Svartalfar then the Doviello. Of course, women also tend to hold grudges more(after all, read Arendel Phaedra's entry then Faeryl Viconia's entry), and this more leans toward genocide in an evil(or fanatical) leader, and the Doviello probable arn't so interestd in genocide, since, if you kill everyone, then they can't repoduce, gain more goods then be raided again.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I would imagine the dwarven society to be very discriminating of females. They aren't even mentioned in any FFH2 lore, and that's a sign of low status. The xenophobia certainly "helps" locking them up.

 

[Tyrs]

With dwarves it isn't so much as females are discriminated against, it's just that it's very hard to tell them apart from the males... The first step in courting is politely finding out your partners gender

 

[Morni]

They aren't even mentioned in any FFH2 lore, and that's a sign of low status.

That's just because they look the same, so nobody can tell them apart from each other.

 

[it-ogo]

I think one of the assumptions we're making here is that leadership is a male role, and thus a woman must deny her instincts or upbringing in order to fulfill that role. If "function" is determined by biology, but the Doviello have no societal constructions because they are savage-anarchist, then female leadership would have no conflicts with female instincts.

There are different kinds of leadership. Sometimes (enough often) woman can be a leader even in a very patriarchal society. Remember e.g. British and Russian empires with their great queens-empresses. They were very natural. Even islamic Pakistan few years ago had female head of the government (prime minister?).

I used the term "fighting leader" i.e. combnation of leader and warrior. Alpha-person in hierarchy based on strength. That is what against female instincts and biology IMO. And that is natural for Doviello as I understand. No?

There are some male-specific ways of leadersip and female-specific ones. And if someone follows the way of opposite specificity (s)he would hardly succeed.

 

[Blackmantle]

@ It-ogo: Hardly. Their society emulates wolf-packs (read chardarons entry for hints of why).
And wolf-packs have split hirarchies for male and female with both gender-alphas about equal in power (might have got that one wrong though.) or even with a slight edge for the female alpha. But clearly both genders go on hunt (Or into battle in case of doviello society) together. Hence the term pack hunt not male-pack-hunt. (They do it because its the most efficient and offers most sucess in hunting. Which is even more necessary in a very harsh world like erebus is.)

Natural Order isn't all that simple and in tenacity / long-term survivability vs. raw and short-term bursts of strength females have the clear edge. (With us males "just" an invention for genetic diversity according to the concensus as it stands now [which for sure might be just wrong in one way or another though ]. Early life pre sex was "female" only more or less. As far as you can call that gender whatsoever.)
Can also be seen on average lifespan males vs. females (for humans. I doubt other species have been evaluated on that point far enough to give any verdict.). Women live longer on average.

And instincts i belive are hardly understood fully enough to give basis such far reaching assumptions (might have completely different sources than gender-hormones).
Maybe that was concensus 50 or a hundred years ago. But that has changed. To project human society (which is by raw design still largely patriarchal in most countries (if to a rather small degree in countries that promote gender equality) / societies unlike it is said to have been at the early ages of men (which might be wrong just like all the other aforementioned assumptions).) on animal / non-human behavior might be quite some feat of walking on very thin ice.

So your assumptions may stem from a not so valid base.
More accurate might be: science is not far enough to give a clear verdict on "what is male nature / behavior" and "what is female nature / behavior" on a global all encompassing level.
That might be largely biased (anyone is after all, we just now can't take a non-human perspective. What a surprise ) and coincidential.

 

[it-ogo]

@ It-ogo: Hardly. Their society emulates wolf-packs

Emulates eh? You know, biological difference between human and wolf is bigger then between man and woman. So wolfs are bad analogy if we are speaking about differences between human sexes.

I did already remark that all I say appliable only to human society. I am not an ethologist of wolf packs still I have a feeling that:
1. Wolfs (pure predators) have much stronger instinctive feelings of strength-based hierarchy than primates humans.
2. She-wolfs are much more protected from he-wolfs by instincts than she-humans from he-humans.

And then there are some anatomical differences. You know, human anatomy is much not so perfect than wolf one. Human big brain provides an enormous number of problems to our specie. (Sic!) Here I mean anatomy of cause. As a result to produce one child for a woman is more difficult and dangerous task than for she-wolf to produce a dozen of pups. Then human baby without contemporary medicine has less chances to be born healthy and survive than pup. Much less. And needs much more care along the childhood. So reproduction of specie is much, much bigger problem for homo than for lupus.

Not to say that it is just or politically correct but it is a fact. To our regret. Thats what we are. And therefore wolf recipes are not so good for humans.

(With us males "just" an invention for genetic diversity according to the concensus as it stands now [which for sure might be just wrong in one way or another though ].

Some info. Males genetically are much more variative then females. Natural selection (i mean darvinism) works mainly through males while females provide genetical stability. It means that males are naturally programmed for dangerous tasks rather then females. BTW also it means that extraordinary person (e.g. best or worst fighter, genius or idiot) will more likely be male. Again politically incorrect? Sorry.

Early life pre sex was "female" only more or less.

You mean unicellulars? It depends on formulation. If females are those who produce babies then early life was male only because they have no babies at all.

As far as you can call that gender whatsoever.)

Gender is a social concept.

Can also be seen on average lifespan males vs. females (for humans. I doubt other species have been evaluated on that point far enough to give any verdict.). Women live longer on average.

Oh! Human lifespan is a separate big topic. Very few animals live long after their reproductive period is over. Human is different... Well, no matter.

science is not far enough to give a clear verdict on "what is male nature / behavior" and "what is female nature / behavior" on a global all encompassing level.

Don't generalize so much. Such questions "on a global all encompassing level" is a subject of religion rather then natural science. Still correctness of a given social models can be a subject of our amateur science.

The starting point was that I feel Doviello pastorale suffragist concept is wrong and tried to reason my feeling according to my knowledge and ideas.

 

[Mewtarthio]

Some info. Males genetically are much more variative then females. Natural selection (i mean darvinism) works mainly through males while females provide genetical stability. It means that males are naturally programmed for dangerous tasks rather then females. BTW also it means that extraordinary person (e.g. best or worst fighter, genius or idiot) will more likely be male. Again politically incorrect? Sorry.

You know, I'm not a biologist. None of my knowledge of genetics goes beyond high school (and entry-level college courses that deal with it in passing). Yet as far as I know, all the differences between males and females lie in a single chromosome. I've never heard anything about males being more genetically diverse than females, and it quite frankly makes no intuitive sense. Do you have a link to back that up?

You mean unicellulars? It depends on formulation. If females are those who produce babies then early life was male only because they have no babies at all.

I recall hearing somewhere that asexual organisms are all considered female, since every member of the species is capable of giving birth.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The only genetic difference between males and females is that males have a Y chromosome instead of a second X chromosome. The Y chromosome is much smaller, and contains far fewer genes. I'm not really sure if it actually has genes on it that aren't also on the X. Sometimes an individual actually has one X and no Y or 2 X and 1 Y chromosomes. XXY have hermaphroditic qualities, and X are somewhat less females that don't really develop at puberty (or even go through it)(this is relatively common among professional gymnasts)


That XY system is true for most mammals, including humans. Birds, some fish, and some insects (moths, butterflies) reverse this mammalian pattern; male birds are ZZ while females are ZW. The W chromosome is larger than the Z, but neither one corresponds to an X or Y chromosome, suggesting the similar system arose independently. Apparently, a Platypus's chromosomes are all sex chromosomes, including a pair that correspond to XY and another pair that correspond to ZW. Some insects have haplods males and diploid females, and others have males who differ only by having but 1 X chromosome. Some reptiles have their sex determined b the temperature at which their eggs were incubated. Some arthropods only become male if infected by a certain bacteria. Some animals change gender as they mature, or under certain social conditions. Socially dominant clownfish males turn females, and socially dominate seahorse females turn male.



They say that until a certain point in our development that a a fetus is always female. Of course, female organs aren't exactly formed by then (although nipples have), so it might be better to say we are asexual until then. At a certain point, the Y chromosome causes the fetus's developing gonads to create more testosterone, which changes the way the body develops after that. I believe that there have been experiments that managed to use hormones to causes genetically a genetically female fetus develop physically as a male, and vice versa.

 

[it-ogo]

You know, I'm not a biologist. None of my knowledge of genetics goes beyond high school (and entry-level college courses that deal with it in passing). Yet as far as I know, all the differences between males and females lie in a single chromosome. I've never heard anything about males being more genetically diverse than females, and it quite frankly makes no intuitive sense. Do you have a link to back that up?

Not in English. I am not biologist too (well I am here to have a rest not to prolong my job ) but AFAIK the point is that a system of two X chromosomes is more stable then a system of unique one. First it has some additional data recovery mechanism (as i remember). Second the duplicated system can collect mutations keeping them inactive (without expressing them in outward). For example there are a number of genetical diseases (like haemophilia) which are passed by women but affect men only.

I recall hearing somewhere that asexual organisms are all considered female, since every member of the species is capable of giving birth.

Yeah, that is terminology. Convention.

They say that until a certain point in our development that a a fetus is always female. Of course, female organs aren't exactly formed by then (although nipples have), so it might be better to say we are asexual until then.

"We are asexual"? My god! Your respect to ancestors results in self-identification with animalculars? A plague on darvinism!

 

[Blackmantle]

There was "child reproduction" without sex. coincides with natures invention of clear "death by age" if i recollect rightly. No splitting (sorry if i missed that one, im not english native-speaker hope you get the meaning. ). of monocellular life.
Some simple multicellular organisms are belived to have had that first (belive that was some form of simple algae or something like that forming their offspring inside their own husk and releasing them on death / dying on birth).

Anatomical differences between species is no parallel to gender preference in power (there might! be implications but i doubt that anything is clear enough to give a verdict standing up to scientific evaluation). Otherwise all human societies whould have been patriarchal (since humans have genetically / anatomically not changed dramatically since the dawn of mankind).
Which they aint (most very early societies are belived to be a bit matriarchal on base of newer probes.).
Society seems to have the larger impact here.
But not even in roughly comparable social circumstances the rulership by male gender seems to be set into stone and surely not equal (even in very comparable developed and culturally close societies (like some contries in middle, northern, and western Europe) the levels of "patriarchy" differ greathly (to the point of being near nonexist in some northern european countries. But that is secondhand knowledge on my part. Not firsthand experience. So could be much wrong.).).


And those things are not so much about beeing politically correct or incorrect. You seem to miss my point. Its about that those things are simply not known enough to give any clear basis for calling things "right" or "wrong".
Your assumptions seem at least in part to stem from derived "knowledge" by observation (which can be wrong, "like earth being flat" and "earth beeing middle of universe" have been. The assumption that males are destined to lead and male qualities qualify for leadership by nature seems to fit into that lot. Might be wrong. Might be right. That said not all derived "knowledge" has proven wrong though.)
as well as outdated sientific opinion ("We know how and why power is distributed between genders the way it is" ).
Only valid statement on current scientific basis whould be: We don't know. Everything else seems much like pretending to know something which we simply don't.
(and thats for human society only. I doubt in respect to most animals, especially nonmamals there is even extensive observation to derive concensus from. Heck, most species on our planet are belived to be unknown. So there it is: We haven't even seen / researched. So we can't know.)
Science has developed a bit last years to not anymore pretending at every possibility to be knowing things instead of guessing and derivating observations to "knowledge on base of concensus".

And thats not enough to give base for such statements.
You might feel that what is depicted here doesn't fit but that doesn't make it valid.
For calling something just misrepresented or wrong you need to know what is right. Which is not known (i doubt even remotely). Full stop.



Besides: Keal has created Erebus. What he states about Erebus is right and he can change reality there in a whim if he choses so (as seen by summoners spontaneously ceasing to exist coinciding with mages spontaneuously beeing able to summon things for example. ).
And since Kael has explicitly spoken here (saying doviello genders are more or less equal in power in their society and Doviello women found on the battlefield alongside men) theres not much point in arguing with him. Is there?
Don't mess with powers more powerful than "The One" himself.
So in that case of in-game logic your statement seems very wrong by all accounts.

 

[Darksaber1]

Ya know, I haven't seen anyone adress a basic observation that I have noticed. In birds and several types of fish, reptiale and mammals(not wolves, thought) the female is much more bland then the males in color. This is to help them(and their offspring) remain concialed. The males, however, are much more vibrant in color, so that they attract mates, but, also put themselves in much more damger(they are mare easily spotted). Also, in most types of deer, only the males have antlers, so that they can fight to protect their females from both predators and other stags. Thats not to say the females can't fight, just to say that they're less well suited for it, but still fight to protect their offspring. Of course, humans don't nessicarely fite the same catagory as birds, but are much like deer. Males are heavyer and stroger(usually, but not always) then females, so that they could protect their mates. Of course is isn't so valiade in western sociay anymore, but in Erebus, sure.
Edit: of course, Kael already said Doviello are abour equal in strength and power, but the social effects could still be there.

 

[Darksaber1]

I'm sorry, did my overly simple non-genetics answer put everyone out.

 

[it-ogo]

...

All of these sounds like very-very general phylosophy appliable at any point in any discussion. Yeah, absolute knowledge is approachless. And anybody at any point can be wrong... from some point of view. And sensoric experience is different than "ding an sich". And everything is in the mind of Buddha. So what? If you had some particular point on my topic i missed it. Poor English of both of us.

And why do you mention science? No science provide any salvation from phylosophy.

And yeah, Kael have made the game. So why can't we discuss it or even something else starting from it? Kael used word "humans" not something like "erebusean sims" so I started from that.

P.S. Any social consensus on any idea is always a profanation. If the idea is particularly interesting for you, you should build your own opinion, not to use received one. And the more efforts you put for it the farther will be your ideas from the consensus. Not necessarily opposite but different: deeper.

 

[Blackmantle]

@ Darksaber1: I guess you got that one wrong. Kael explicitly said that in Doviello society both Genders carry an about equal ammount of social! power (as in gender equality not customs and habits). Not strength of body.
And whom protects whom doesn't say anything about social power per se. (Men could be socially inferior and still protecting their mates. Does that really sound that arkward or unthinkable?)

Here a little requoute to back it up:

That is a nice story. But Doviello society is one of the least misoginistic on Erebus. They wouldn't question a female warrior or a female leader. Its all about practical concerns and there is little, if any, propriety or cultural values driving their actions.

The female recon units for the doviello was meant to represent this fact (that you will meet their women as well as their men on the battlefield) in a way that made that line visually recognizable.

The most likely civs to have female equality (in order by the most equal) are:

Svartalfar (female dominated society)
Doviello
Calabim (where the repression of their society is class based, not gender)
Sidar
Bannor
Sheaim
Hippus
Amurites (in the mage line which is their primary focus)
Luchurip (where no one wants to fight directly anyway)
Ljosalfar (in the archer line, which is their focus)

Most of the "enlightened" societies have some sort of misogany and a belief that women should be protected rather than do the protecting. That removes women from war which degrades their role in a society that lives under the threat of battle. So in a society lead by military concerns (as many are in erebus) they dont achieve the same level of respect since they aren't sharing their blood on the battlefield.

The Illians are also fairly misoginistic, but it has less to do with propiety and more to do with the threat of extinction and trying to keep the "breeders" alive.

@ It-ogo: Your last sentence sounds very fine with me. But leeds to the point of discussion about the whole thing beeing rater pointless since then since its not anymore a discussion of arguments to find concensus but a statement of opinion and own world-view (and an exchange of those).
Thats very fine with me.
Then i have to say that on that level i see the whole thing rather differently.
But i won't press that point since its my opinion only and woeing opinions is a very tendious task without much fun involved for my part (and as you allready stated we are not here to earn our living but to spend our free time as we chose), if you want to go down that route better don't demand validity for your opinion then or try to "prove" your opinion on biased and outdated science since there is no point / need in proving it at all. Your opinion is your opinion. Mine is mine.

Different experience and social context yields different opinion, which by no means needs to be right and is by definition the most biased piece of information you can find.

Also you have the "problem" that social concensus (which by no means needs to be equal to scientific concensus) is indeed shaping society (imo to a much larger extent than the "laws of nature" which are rather interpreted the way it fits said society instead of the other way around. From a society point of view: Who cares what the real "laws of nature" are as long as what we say about it fits our world-view / agenda and societies opinion / habits / customs?
As seen in earth beeing seen as flat and earth beeing said to be center of the universe for many centuries) and by no means right, unbiased or without at times rather severe implications.

But taking an individual "deeper" stance of opinion and only stating that opinion doesn't bring one forward in a discussion that has social or scientific concensus as a base. (Imo it is very improtant nontheless and the implications usually are rather much less severe than anything societies concensus yields.) You also just have to use given opinion (that doesn't mean you have to belive it) at times to be understood at all in a discussion. (try speaking chinese with a group of people who don't understand that language. Then you'll get what i mean. )
On an individual level its very much useful.

There you have to decide wether you want to indulge in discussion about what is known and agreed from a science / society point of view (and accept things which have been agreed on to be false or just biased derivated knowledge as well as what is simply not known and cannot be known on base of current knowledge) or if you want to just state your opinion.

Im not argueing what is social concensus since this is an international forum and we don't have one global society really (yet perhaps. Who knows what is to come in the next decades? ) and social concensus varies wildly from country to county or even from region to region (I for one am not a strong beliver in social superiority so won't strongly advocate one scociety over another per se to the point of exusing bad / any action. Not said that i don't prefer some things over others and do have ideas in what kind of society i rather want to live in naturally.)

And i take science as a base since unlike society its a point of discussion where agreement is in any meaningful way (as of now) possible since the base is roughly agreed on no matter where you come from. That doesn't mean it dosn't fail or can't fail. Its just a good base (read here: tool) to discuss things (independently of the outcome). At least as long as concensus or compromise is aimed for.



On Kael and his game: Why argue with someone who in the games context is right because what he states is reality?
You cant win that argument really. No matter how hard you try.
You say humans are / should rather be behaving .... .
He says doviello humans / scociety are ...
What will determine how erebus is like? Your opinion or what Kael said?
In Erebus Kael really is right without a measure of failure involved (until he changes his opinion. ). Full Stop.
That whould boil down to: If you don't like it modmod it to give the doviello the entry you like and share it if you think it helps others. (Independently of the rest of the discussion naturally where no one knows for sure.)

Sure you can discuss it (here you seem to put to much into what i said.), its just not very useful to lecture Kael on Erebus where he has stated clearly what is. But by all means if you can draw something from it feel free to . Im not here to tell you what to do. Thats if anything is what the board admins are for.


PS: I belive my english isn't all that poor, its just that don't know the correct english term for "monocellular splitting for reprodution".
So i wanted to make clear that it might mean something different should it make no sense to the reader (which i don't know) and since the base of our discussion was sciencentific concensus (from my point of view at least) i didn't want to transfer false terms.