Restricting Gender Roles

[writelhd]

With that in mind, what is wrong with gender roles? People specialize in every other aspect of their lives, why not play to your strengths biologically? I'm not saying anyone should be denied the opportunity to break gender roles if they really want to...it's just that the desire to do so seems strange to me. If you're the world's best swimmer, why would you compete in tennis if you're terrible at it. Just because you can?

 

What's wrong with gender roles, you ask?  Well, some probably are benign, but it is important to recognize and challenge the ones that are not, because when gender roles are too limiting, they hurt everyone.  Western society alone used to disallow women, but not men, from, at various points in our history:  reading and writing, teaching, nursing, later doing any jobs BUT teaching or nursing, voting, holding public office, being scientists or engineers, not to mention having control over their own destinies via owning property, getting married or not to a person of their own choosing or not, getting divorced.  Those restrictions were wrong and damaging to everyone because it turns out that women reading, writing, teaching, nursing, being scientists, being engineers, voting and holding office have contributed a large workforce of people who are skilled at those things, improving all of society in the process, while a society of people who are largely in control of their own destiny is free to be more innovative and creative.  Yet most of those gender roles, in their time, were thought to be for good reason.   

 

There are real-world gender role restrictions that are just as whacked out, today.  In Saudi Arabia women are not allowed to drive, though many women in Saudi Arabia still work, and this restriction requires the hiring of a large workforce of out-of-country drivers and puts an unnecessary economic burden on two-income families.  In Pakistan a teenage girl was shot in the face after speaking up on behalf of education for girls--and that, unfortunately, is only one such story out of many similar to become internationally famous.

 

So there is a lot that can be wrong with gender roles.  At their most benign, they still serve to offer feelings of shame and humiliation to those men and women who happen to find that aspects of their own biology, personality, or temperament fall outside of them.  But what if I'm a good swimmer AND good at tennis?  Or what if, not being naturally good at tennis, I find that, just like everyone, I can get better with practice, and by gosh I'm tired of swimming and want to give tennis a try?  What if I discover that it's really just everyone's belief that I can't be good at tennis that put fears into my own head that I'll probably be terrible at tennis that kept me from ever trying tennis in the first place?

 

Ok, turning the Humorless Feminist Surge off now.  I fear I may have been the one who steered this topic in this somewhat more controversial direction with my assertion that many real-world gender roles are ridiculous.  I hope that derail hasn't caused too much ire and strife!

 

I do greatly appreciate when fantasy experiments with or challenges gender roles.  I wouldn't/don't read fantasy if it depicts restrictive medieval gender roles only, because I am a woman, I like to read about other women doing things and being heroes, at least some of the time.  Vorin gender roles are quite interesting, and for that reason, I can totally go along with the story and how they affect it.  Kudos for interesting and different and mostly believable.

[Guest Alaxel]

@Writelhd

I agree with pretty much everything you say. I encourage everyone to create their own destinies. My only point of contention comes from creating legislation to remove...you know, I hate to even call them gender roles. But I disapprove of things like lowering physical fitness standards in order to allow more women to pass. That's a counterproductive way to address the issue - especially because, in that particular instance, it isn't a gender issue at all. It's a physical fitness issue. There are plenty of women who pass the exam and plenty of men who fail it. Gender doesn't enter into it. But somewhere along the way, someone looked at fire departments and thought, 'there are far more men on the force than women' and came to the conclusion that it was a gender issue and that the physical standards were unfair.

I guess my overarching position is that I think everyone, regardless of gender, should be allowed to do whatever they want with their lives - but standards of excellence should not be lowered to enable them to do it.

EDIT: Unless we develop our own Shardplate.

EDIT 2: It wouldn't hurt my feelings to adopt Rosharan gender cuisine. I get to eat spicy steaks with a dagger? Sign me up!

Edited January 24, 2014 by Alaxel

[Moogle]

writelhd, at the risk of further derailing the topic, I don't believe Alaxel was making the point that women shouldn't be allowed to drive, vote, or be scientists, since women are basically equally skilled at those tasks. In fact, I think he would support women being in those jobs because it increases the effectiveness of everyone. His point was more in regards to women being in the army or being firefighters, where physical strength is required as part of the job, that expecting women to make up 50% of the people in those jobs is potentially harmful and will lower the average effectiveness of people in those jobs.

 

Women are on average weaker physically (unfortunately, nature doesn't like playing fair), and his concerns stem from the fact that the army is trying to have 50% women in it. It turns out that they couldn't get that many women because most were incapable of passing the physical requirements to be in the army. Because of this, the army lowered the physical requirements for women to get into the army. Alaxel is concerned that this is going to reduce the effectiveness of the army as a whole, which is a concern that merits investigation, I think.

 

If you're shot and have to get to a medic, you want the people around you to be capable of dragging you or carrying you to safety, and lowering the physical requirements for women could put this in jeopardy. Similar arguments can be made for firefighters or cops. If women can pass the physical requirements in place, then that's fine, but there are different standards for women which seems like it could be problematic. This matters less on Roshar, where Shardplate can make anyone strong.

 

It's possible that the requirements put in place for men are unreasonably high and you don't need to be as strong as they make them, but I don't know the specifics, nor do I feel the urge to debate them. Physical strength matters less when guns are involved, too, but I think soldiering still requires a good amount of physical strength for many tasks, though I admit to not knowing specifics since never in my life do I plan on coming close to being in the army.

 

I am not attempting to take a side in this debate, but I do think you're responding to a position Alaxel doesn't hold. I myself disagree heavily with quite a few of Alaxel's beliefs (including some of his views on the difficulties of integrating genders), but it is difficult to argue with biological facts.

 

edit: And of course Alaxel responded far too quickly while I was writing this up. Oh well. I think it brings up a valid point so I'm keeping it.

Edited January 24, 2014 by Moogle

[writelhd]

Moogle, Alaxel,

I'm not at all supposing that anyone here is advocating for any of the examples I gave. I used them to refute statements that there is "always a good reason for gender roles" and to respond the asked question "why defy gender roles?" with some reasons why one might. I should acknowledge though that just because "good reasons" that we now don't really think are all that good have been used the past to justify restrictive gender roles we don't now approve of, doesn't mean there aren't actually good reasons this time for the specific example you all were giving of women in infantry. I do maintain that it is important to closely scrutinize thinking in absolutes about gender, because of the very real context of history.

We may be talking past each other (or, well, honestly, maybe I just talked past you) simply because we define "gender roles" differently. Alaxel, I reacted to the strong absolutes you used, but I wasn't trying to derail your general point, I'm sorry. I agree that lowering physical standards for professions that call for them is not necessarily wise, and I see that whole question as something a little different than a gender role. Physical standards that are not explicitly restrictive of one gender, but that end up having that effect in practice...those are things look at with care, but yeah, ultimately they aren't assigning people into roles arbitrarily. (Which is really what you just said, huh.) I see gender roles as cultural norms that are enforced or purveyed for no other reason that a person's gender. Like the safehand...everybody's got two hands, girls hand-parts don't look different from guys hand-parts and for that matter from their still-visible right hands. And why shouldn't men read script and be non-ardent scholars if they want to?

Edit, in response to edit above: you can totally eat a spicy steak with a dagger right here on Earth, too.

Edited January 25, 2014 by writelhd

[Guest Alaxel]

@Moogle

Thanks for the support even though you disagree with some of my positions. It smacks of intellectual integrity that, fortunately, is in great abundance among the members of this forum. I've never seen a debate degrade into anything negative in the way that you commonly see throughout the rest of the internet. It reminds me of a post you made a while back where you where advocating what Tavagarian (I likely spelled that wrong) was doing because it was for the greater good. Personally, I put more value in the rule of law than the greater good - then I remembered that Tavagarian is the King and I don't know if his kingdom has a Constitutional Monarchy or if he's the sole shot caller. I spent so long trying to decide how I felt about it that I never got around to responding. I still haven't come to a firm conclusion but I do agree witb you, as a warrior, a Marine, and a combat veteran - there is no such thing as a justified war.

@writelhd

I think we're making a lot of the same points and this time the problem is my lack of communication. In trying to make the point that gender roles didn't start out for arbitrary reasons, I took it for granted that you would understand that I agree that 95% of those reasons are out of date and we've evolved past them.

@Moogle, writelhd

We all deserve a pat on the back for being able to discuss such a sensitive topic with each other and staying respectful.

[Awesomeness Summoned]

Thanks for the support even though you disagree with some of my positions. It smacks of intellectual integrity that, fortunately, is in great abundance among the members of this forum. I've never seen a debate degrade into anything negative in the way that you commonly see throughout the rest of the internet. 

I agree 100%. I've been thoroughly impressed with the fact that there are two threads right now with "gender roles" and "genocide" in the titles and they have remained extraordinarily civil. Tip of the hat to the 17th shard for a positive environment in which to exchange ideas.

[FeatherWriter]

A warning to this topic: Many of the things that have been discussed here are not okay and I am going to politely ask them to stop. Discussions of politics, including stances on issues such as affirmative action and women in the military are not appropriate in this setting. Jokes about rape, especially prison rape, are even less so. I had hoped that these things would be obvious to everyone, but it seems they are not, so I am stepping in.

 

Now, to steer this topic back onto a more appropriate and on-topic heading, Roshar's gender roles really are interesting. They're fantastic. Brandon has done such a great job showing Vorin gender roles, which are so restrictive, in a way that is refreshingly unsexist. The Vorins say that "women are meant for these things and men are meant for these," yet... we have characters on both sides who don't fit their bill. I really think Brandon's showing that everyone's got different strengths and weakness that may or may not fall along this kind of strict binary. It's an absolutely wonderful way of treating gender roles and is one of my favorite aspects of this book!

 

In fact, one of the things I love most about them is the potential for subversion. While the Vorins obviously believe that women are suited to some tasks and men to others, the narrative already seems to be showing that this is untrue. We have a female shardbearer in Shallan. We have a female surgebinder who uses her abilities aggressively in a combat situation in Jasnah. We have a male character in a position of power who finds himself unable to participate in most of the masculine arts... and drawn towards the feminine arts of engineering and scholarship in Renarin.

 

I'm hoping more than anything that breaking apart these Vorin gender roles is going to be a main focus of the series, and from what I'm seeing of the character's thus far, I think there's a good chance of that coming to be!

[Swimmingly]

Awesome! I wonder why their food is flavored differently? Brute force to men and delicacy to women makes sense to me...but why is their food different?? I admit, it boggles me.

<snark>It's probably a result of their biological makeup and psychological capacity.</snark>

I think it boils down to "This is a neat idea for a severely sex-dichotomized culture!"

[Guest Alaxel]

A warning to this topic: Many of the things that have been discussed here are not okay and I am going to politely ask them to stop. Discussions of politics, including stances on issues such as affirmative action and women in the military are not appropriate in this setting. Jokes about rape, especially prison rape, are even less so. I had hoped that these things would be obvious to everyone, but it seems they are not, so I am stepping in.

Any mention of politics thus far has been an observation of what we have on Earth in order to compare it to what we've seen on Roshar in an attempt to make predictions about how gender roles on Roshar were initially formed and how they may evolve in the future. I don't see how that is inappropriate because it is directly relevant to the topic.

I also haven't seen a single joke about rape made by anyone. Maybe they've edited it out of their posts after your response, but as of the writing of this post I don't see any so I'm a little confused.

This is only a polite request for clarification, not a challenge to your decision - which I will respect and abide by.

(As an aside. If politics, no matter how relevant they may be, are off limits, then I expect whoever down voted my posts to have the integrity to down vote every other post about politics as well. An opinion about politics and how they relate to Roshar that is the opposite of mine is just as equally off topic and therefore just as worthy of down voting. I hope whoever is responsible has the integrity to reverse their hypocrisy. Thank you.)

[Morsk]

The food thing is so weird. Maybe it's just different flavorings, like sweet vs. spicy, and only the super rich are extravagant enough to prepare entirely separate meals? There's no way darkeyes have the resources for that.

Modern people can be silly about food too though. At least in America, yogurt is not marketed to men. I haven't noticed if any food is never marketed to women, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few.

[Swimmingly]

The food thing is so weird. Maybe it's just different flavorings, like sweet vs. spicy, and only the super rich are extravagant enough to prepare entirely separate meals? There's no way darkeyes have the resources for that.

Modern people can be silly about food too though. At least in America, yogurt is not marketed to men. I haven't noticed if any food is never marketed to women, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few.

Beef jerky, protein powder, hard liquor, beer

[Rubix]

 I just imagined an Alethi prison where the dominate man makes his cellmate cover his safehand hahaha

 

If you honestly believe that there haven't been any rape jokes in this thread, Alaxel, perhaps you should clarify EXACTLY what you meant by this.

[Guest Alaxel]

If you honestly believe that there haven't been any rape jokes in this thread, Alaxel, perhaps you should clarify EXACTLY what you meant by this.

Sure thing. In pretty much every area of society there is a hierarchy. It doesn't matter if you're climbing the corporate ladder, in the military, joining a college fraternity or sorority, or in prison, people have an unconscious need to know where they stand in relation to each other socially. I guess it's just hardwired into human behavior. That's all that joke was meant to mean. In fact, I took it for granted that there was no way it could be interpreted as a rape joke because, honestly, who in the world would think that that would be funny, okay, or tolerated?

Perhaps I should have put it into the context of a hypothetical Rosharan college fraternity hazing ritual.

Anyway, I apologize if that was misinterpreted - it sincerely wasn't my intention - and I'll be more careful in the future. Most communication is derived from things like body language and tone of voice and all of that is missing in a medium like a forum post. Maybe it's a bad excuse, but I took it for granted that my meaning would be understood.

[Guest Alaxel]

The food thing is so weird. Maybe it's just different flavorings, like sweet vs. spicy, and only the super rich are extravagant enough to prepare entirely separate meals? There's no way darkeyes have the resources for that.Modern people can be silly about food too though. At least in America, yogurt is not marketed to men. I haven't noticed if any food is never marketed to women, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few.

That's actually a really interesting/amusing idea.

Men: Beer, sports cars, tools, weapons, etc. I even once heard an attorney who specializes in divorce advertise themselves as being particularly effective in enforcing prenuptuials and their slogan was, "[so-and-So Law Firm], a parner a man can trust!"

Women: jewelry, wedding venues, shampoo, household appliances particularly kitchen stuff, beauty products such as face washes or tooth paste, etc.

I tried to include mostly things that both sexes use pretty equally but have a big disparity in the demographics they're marketed to.

[Rubix]

Sure thing. In pretty much every area of society there is a hierarchy. It doesn't matter if you're climbing the corporate ladder, in the military, joining a college fraternity or sorority, or in prison, people have an unconscious need to know where they stand in relation to each other socially. I guess it's just hardwired into human behavior. That's all that joke was meant to mean. In fact, I took it for granted that there was no way it could be interpreted as a rape joke because, honestly, who in the world would think that that would be funny, okay, or tolerated?

 

Social hierarchy is fine. Putting two hypothetical Rosharan men into a prison cell and one of them automatically becoming feminine? Definitively NOT OKAY, and anyone with two brain cells to rub together should be able to discern that. As for anyone thinking that it's funny, okay, or tolerated, you're absolutely right. And our tolerance of any of this crap stops NOW.

[Shivertongue]

That's odd. I am most definitely male, with in mind and born gender, and yet I dislike beer, have no interest in sports or cars, let along sports cars, and have little interest in most weapons. 

 

On the other hand, I love shampoo and conditioner. My golden mane of long flowing hair MUST be luxurious at all times.

[RadiantNights]

Wow this thread has really gotten off topic. Let me bump it in the right direction.

Has anyone wondered why the ardents are the only ones who ignore these separations in the genders? As the priests of this religion you would expect that they would be like way more OCD about the rituals than anyone in Roshar. It seems odd that the ones teaching the faith are the only ones not following it

[Guest Alaxel]

That's odd. I am most definitely male, with in mind and born gender, and yet I dislike beer, have no interest in sports or cars, let along sports cars, and have little interest in most weapons.

On the other hand, I love shampoo and conditioner. My golden mane of long flowing hair MUST be luxurious at all times.

Do you happen to have facial hair? The feeling of conditioner in your beard is almost decadent.

[Swimmingly]

Wow this thread has really gotten off topic. Let me bump it in the right direction.

Has anyone wondered why the ardents are the only ones who ignore these separations in the genders? As the priests of this religion you would expect that they would be like way more OCD about the rituals than anyone in Roshar. It seems odd that the ones teaching the faith are the only ones not following it

Ardents seem to a highly respected slave caste, to my eyes; they transcend issues of the body, the mind, and the soul by losing their possessions, freedom, and position in society.

[+eveorjoy]

Ardents seem to a highly respected slave caste, to my eyes; they transcend issues of the body, the mind, and the soul by losing their possessions, freedom, and position in society.

 

Yes and no. They must give up all worldly possessions and live in the home of another, but they are free to leave the ardentia if they choose. They are closer to monks and nuns who often make similar vows, giving all their wealth to the church. The only difference is their church is independent, where as in Vorinism the church is subject to the state. Also I doubt the Brightlords who "own" ardents beat them if they are displeased with them.