![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A few years ago, I got tired of fantasy books about girls who fight against the patriarchy. There’s something very tiresome about watching girl after girl insist that she’s “just as good as the boys”; it’s such a predictable story, and so unnecessary in a fantasy book, where there’s no reason that society has to be patriarchal.
Thus, I decided to build a fantasy setting with matriarchal society. The ground rules:
1. The society must be matriarchal from conception, not formed because women overthrew the men.
2. Men are not trying to overthrow their overladies, because that’s just tiresome. However, there may be men who are trying to carve out roles for themselves that are not traditionally masculine.
3. The story, although it is set in the matriarchy, is not about the matriarchy, anymore than Lord of the Rings is about the patriarchy. The matriarchy is background detail.
4. This is a traditional society, which means it’s conservative. Its values probably are not what we would consider “conservative values,” but whatever they are, the society will hold to them tenaciously, and to the detriment of whoever breaks them.
( Part the first: attitudes toward sex, family structure, child rearing. )
Thoughts?
Thus, I decided to build a fantasy setting with matriarchal society. The ground rules:
1. The society must be matriarchal from conception, not formed because women overthrew the men.
2. Men are not trying to overthrow their overladies, because that’s just tiresome. However, there may be men who are trying to carve out roles for themselves that are not traditionally masculine.
3. The story, although it is set in the matriarchy, is not about the matriarchy, anymore than Lord of the Rings is about the patriarchy. The matriarchy is background detail.
4. This is a traditional society, which means it’s conservative. Its values probably are not what we would consider “conservative values,” but whatever they are, the society will hold to them tenaciously, and to the detriment of whoever breaks them.
( Part the first: attitudes toward sex, family structure, child rearing. )
Thoughts?
