Swapped Gender-Roles Worldbuilding

[Cognisant]

Imagine a renaissance fantasy setting where only the women have magic, this magic can be used innately to enhance strength, speed, stamina, durability and agility (within the limited available mana) consequently men are considered too delicate for manual labor and warfare. So it follows that the gender roles are reversed, the men are the cooks carers and home keepers while the women are the providers/protectors and are all a bit chauvinistic to some degree, granted they are literally magical.

I'm world building a fictional setting but I also want to discuss why I'm doing this and why I think its interesting. Of late there's been a number of attempts to portray women in fiction that aren't "empowering" but rather power fantasies and I'm not saying this shouldn't be happening, clearly there's a demand for it but I think the attempts thus far have either missed the mark or been completely disastrous (Mulan, Captain Marvel, Rey & Admiral Gender Studies). So I want to create the ideal female power fantasy, indeed it doesn't need to be exclusively enjoyable for women (which is where I think many of the prior attempts have gone wrong) I think men are every bit as capable of enjoying a Wonder Woman movie as much as women are capable of enjoying a Superman movie.

I think good satire doesn't give you an answer, it poses a question, it takes something you're already familiar with and shows it to you from a different perspective and in doing so gives you an opportunity to learn something about yourself.

Suppose we have a scene where a woman is going off to war and her husband who loves her wants to go too (he's not got magic or training but he can use a crossbow) and her commanding officer (also female, obviously) steps in to explain that him being there will put her at risk because she'll be distracted, better that he stays home so that she knows he's safe and can focus on the fighting.

What do you think about this scene, does it interest you?
I find it compelling, it's not a power fantasy for me but rather a romance/drama fantasy, I wonder if I was in that situation what would I feel and how would I react?

Or is this just pro-gender-roles propaganda?

 

[Cognisant]

With training magic can be used to impart forces/energies on things, for example there's no spell for locking a door but heating the metal to its welding point will permanently seize the lock. Doing this while almost touching the metal is a lot easier than doing it from across the room and trying to do this to someone's metal ring while their hand is moving is going to be very difficult. If magic is used to levitate something concentration must be maintained or the effect will cease, likewise a heated object will cool at a natural rate once the heating effect ceases.

Possible effects include:
Telekinesis or simply force imparted in a particular direction.
Vibration, can be used to make audible illusions and shatter glass.
Heat/Chill, self explanatory.

So for example creating a shard of ice and hurling it is possible but it's more of a party trick than an actually useful combat technique. The strength of an individual's magic depends upon their age, experience and health, generally experience lends itself more to the skillful use of magic whereas youthful vitality increases the rate at which mana is regenerated. Someone who is highly trained and in their prime of life could hurl spears of ice effectively in combat, but it would be less effort and more effective to simply use their innate magic to beat their opponents in melee combat.

Ranged attacks are more of a man's thing, a crutch for those who lack magic, a crossbow bolt can be deadly if it catches someone unaware or off-guard. Flash powder exists and there's little interest in using it to develop firearms, the potential of such weapons isn't yet understood and is at best considered equivalent to a loud and overly complicated crossbow.

 

[BurnedOut]

It is mostly impossible biologically and psychologically therefore, this imagination seems poppycock despite its virtue of being fantastical. This is because pregnancy forces women into submission to a great extent because of immobility and temporary prolonged physical disability. If their magic transferred their uterus to men then it may be really funny but in reality it would probably look daft again if men don't get the boobs and even if they do, then the women are men and the men are women again. Therefore, it looks like gender role reversal is just as identical to the thing it seeks to change which is a shame because cissexual men and women are a biological entity than a psychological one.

 

[scorpiomover]

Imagine a renaissance fantasy setting where only the women have magic, this magic can be used innately to enhance strength, speed, stamina, durability and agility (within the limited available mana)

I've watched several shows like this recently.

consequently men are considered too delicate for manual labor and warfare. So it follows that the gender roles are reversed, the men are the cooks carers and home keepers while the women are the providers/protectors and are all a bit chauvinistic to some degree, granted they are literally magical.

The women in these SF&F shows who are fighters, warriors and leaders, are usually written to still end up falling for men who are warriors.

The men who are not warriors, are usually considered only "friends" by the powerful women, and usually are written to become involved with soft women, who happen to have the same interests as them.

Bodybuilders aren't known for watching SF&F. So I'd guess that it's weak guys. Obviously, their equivalents in the film/TV series aren't getting the hot girl. So it's not appealing to them to show the hot girl get a warrior for a boyfriend. It's appealing to women. So I suspect women like it when the powerful warrior guys fall in love with her.

So I'm not entirely sure your show would have much appeal with women. Sounds more like the fantasies of young teenage men, that guys like them would get to date hot girls who can kick a**.

I'm world building a fictional setting but I also want to discuss why I'm doing this and why I think its interesting. Of late there's been a number of attempts to portray women in fiction that aren't "empowering" but rather power fantasies and I'm not saying this shouldn't be happening, clearly there's a demand for it but I think the attempts thus far have either missed the mark or been completely disastrous (Mulan, Captain Marvel, Rey & Admiral Gender Studies).

It's inner strength that shows power.

Luke becomes empowered only when he chooses that he'd rather die than give up his friends.

Han Solo becomes a good guy when he should clear off and enjoy his credits, but instead stays to help Luke destroy the Death Star anyway.

Finn is empowered, because he's a stormtrooper who just wants to run away, and stays to fight anyway.

Kylo Ren becomes empowered, when he chooses to give up the Dark Side, even when it would him his life.

Poe Dameron is empowering, because no matter how much pain and suffering he has, no matter how many times his life is at risk, he still does what is needed anyway. He seemed to do so many things that were certain death, that for a few years, I was expecting that Poe Dameron would turn out to be a clone.

What conflict has Rey struggled with? When did she feel like killing lots of Jedis because her family were murdered, but stopped herself, no matter how much it hurt?

The hero is not the guy with muscles. The hero/heroine, is the one whose arm is trapped by the bad guy, and so will rip their own arm off, and then use it to batter the bad guy to death.

So I want to create the ideal female power fantasy,

A woman told me that it was 10 men, all tied up, bound, gagged and blindfolded, where she could do anything she wanted to them.

I think men are every bit as capable of enjoying a Wonder Woman movie as much as women are capable of enjoying a Superman movie.

Men have been enjoying watching female superheroes on TV and in films for a long time, at least 40 years.

Back in 2000, Famke Janssen, who played Jean Grey in the X-men movies, was interviewed saying that "men wanted to do her and women wanted to be her."

Before that, there was Diana Prince, played by Lynda Carter, in the original 1980s TV series of Wonder Woman.

Suppose we have a scene where a woman is going off to war and her husband who loves her wants to go too (he's not got magic or training but he can use a crossbow) and her commanding officer (also female, obviously) steps in to explain that him being there will put her at risk because she'll be distracted, better that he stays home so that she knows he's safe and can focus on the fighting.

I think the kiddies would say "mummy, don't go. What will we do when you're gone? Let daddy fight the war instead."

What do you think about this scene, does it interest you?

I think it would be more likely if men were the ones to bear children, and women were the ones who had pen*ses. But then that would be the same as if you just switched the words "men" with "women" and changed nothing else.

I find it compelling, it's not a power fantasy for me but rather a romance/drama fantasy, I wonder if I was in that situation what would I feel and how would I react?

How would you feel right now, if you kept being told you should stay away from STEM and anything important, and should stick to cooking, cleaning and raising children?

 

[ThousandTeethOfSun]

Men are the biologically disposable gender. You can repopulate within a generation to previous population within a generation assuming no women die.
Men have bigger amplitudes of characteristics xy, they not only get to be mostly disposable, but also be an experimental version for genetics.

If you make it a horrible place to live it sounds posible to write a good one it will be challenging.
Send the poor schmucks to clean stuff, no reason to risk women getting an infection and risk harming fertility.

Let the females buff men and send them to fight. While they rain hell on enemies.

Let women have defensive wards that are hard to learn to protect them from rape. And maybe let one of them be poisioned with a date rape drug or poition.

Make a man slit a womans throat in her sleep because of abuse or poison her.

Advocate for mens rights.

Being a man already seems like a sucky deal in our world. Nature isn't kind to men.

 

[Cognisant]

Okay so do you know the animated series She-Ra? (the recent one)

I haven't see all that much of it but from what I have seen I'm going to assume there's almost no males in the entire show and few that are in it are either flamboyant gays, effeminate metrosexuals, just plain useless, bad guys, or some combination of all of the above, right?

In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king, or in this case in the land of the useless wimps Adora and Catra are powerhouses, the creators of the show had to completely alienate the straight male demographic lest they include an effectual male character who puts a spotlight on the fact that She-Ra is just a butched up Adora.
It's not really a power fantasy, it's just kind of pathetic.

I want something darker, I want the women in this setting to be effectual characters not because the world has been brought down to their level but rather because they've been raised above it, I want them to be scary.

Making women bigger and stronger than men is one way of doing it, not a very good way, men don't get much bigger than they already are because there's diminishing returns (combat isn't just about strength). Magic could offset this somewhat but if you're going to use magic why not just go with magic?

Let the females buff men and send them to fight.

Doesn't work that way and if it did then what's the point of this setting?
I want to do something new.

Make a man slit a womans throat in her sleep because of abuse or poison her.

See now that's interesting, imagine how terrifying it must be for an abused wife irl to kill her abuser knowing that if she wakes him up he could easily overpower her. I find this interesting because although I've been a victim of physical abuse and I know what it's like to live in fear of someone I was never afraid for my life. Likewise as an adult I can walk around the city in the middle of the night and although there are times I've been concerned about getting mugged, again I've never really been afraid for my life or thought someone might try to rape me.

How would you feel right now, if you kept being told you should stay away from STEM and anything important, and should stick to cooking, cleaning and raising children?

I'd be furious and that's what makes it such rich fodder for storytelling.

Men are the biologically disposable gender. You can repopulate within a generation to previous population within a generation assuming no women die.

This is before modern medicine and only girls have magic protecting them, fewer boys are going to survive to adulthood, this should skew the gender ratio enough that women may be reluctant to treat them as disposable. Which again is interesting, what does society look like when men aren't the disposable gender?

 

[ThousandTeethOfSun]

This is before modern medicine and only girls have magic protecting them, fewer boys are going to survive to adulthood, this should skew the gender ratio enough that women may be reluctant to treat them as disposable. Which again is interesting, what does society look like when men aren't the disposable gender?

People are more durable than you would think. Most of the supper low life expectancy was due to infant and child mortality. Early 40s isn't that short.

Maybe magical illneses killing off boys.

Women need to be impregnated for the next generation to exist. It wasn't a big deal that a lot of men didn't procreate because, women only have so much children they can have on the way. I would expect that the flipped ratio would wreck havoc. Duels to earn the lads favor and all?
Impregnation contracts instead of bethoral contracts? Or maybe both.

Testerone has a positive effect on spatial reasoning parts of the brain.
It also blunts emotion, lowers neuroticism and ups extroversion with sub aspects assertiveness and warmth affected the most. Also ups competitiveness and physicality.

Also men can get ragey if their testerone gets low. It usually happens if they supplement testerone irregularly.
One of the ways that can happen if they sleep in the same room as an infant. I have heard enough women complaining that men get moody after a child is born. So if you are going dark then you could go down that road.

Also maybe women going to war after they have their last child.

 

[scorpiomover]

Maybe magical illneses killing off boys.

Bible had that one without magic.

An alternative would be a virus that is harmless to most people, but have a very high rate of death for certain demographics, in this case, those with a Y chromosome.

Wait. There's a virus called COVID-19, that kills twice as many men as women.

Might be a bit close to home.

 

[scorpiomover]

Okay so do you know the animated series She-Ra? (the recent one)

No. But I used to watch Sheena. IIRC, the old shows with girls as the main characters, had to have real bad-ass heroines, because even the old men and the pets were already portrayed as very tough, and so the women had to be even tougher to out-do the men.

I want something darker, I want the women in this setting to be effectual characters not because the world has been brought down to their level but rather because they've been raised above it, I want them to be scary.

It's easy to make women scary. You just make them do scary things, like capturing a group of teenage African men, and then the heroine slits their throats while grinning, and then drinks beer out of their skulls.

I want to do something new.

I suggest you look into "The Outpost", "Vagrant Queen", and "Killjoys". That's just 3 that I've seen in the last year or so. Plenty more, like "The 100".

How would you feel right now, if you kept being told you should stay away from STEM and anything important, and should stick to cooking, cleaning and raising children?

I'd be furious and that's what makes it such rich fodder for storytelling.

Yes. It would also make people want the story to end like the Divergent series, and the Matrix series, where people are freed from the oppression, to do what they want. But that would be a story where men are freed from feminine oppression.

Would not go down well with feminists. In the current atmosphere, they'd probably sh*t-can the story on social media.

Which again is interesting, what does society look like when men aren't the disposable gender?

After World War 1, in many towns, so many of the young men went off to fight and never returned, that it was estimated that there were about 10 single young men to every single young woman.

What do you think happened?

 

[BurnedOut]

Nonsexual good female action. Looking at you WW 1984.

 

[BurnedOut]

Actually I take my words back. Boobs and good action seems to have a causational relationship. There are a few rare occasions when this isn't the case such as Mad Max Fury Road. This particular anime series is quite unique but the boobs n' action causality still holds.

 

[Hadoblado]

I don't really see the internal logic.

Wizards are notorious for needing a frontline. In the script you're reversing, the same is true for women due to physical limitations and being baby factories. By combining the roles, you don't elevate women to being the frontline, you make it more important that disposable men are between them and anything remotely dangerous. Maybe men step up into housewifing more, so there would be some shift in societal roles, but I don't see it making sense to keep men at home to protect them unless the nature of the magic is designed to keep the individual alive.

I do respect the exercise though. If I'm honest I expect what you produce to be cursed, but I think it's valuable to play with the ideas and see where they take you.

 

[Cognisant]

Imagine a renaissance fantasy setting where only the women have magic, this magic can be used innately to enhance strength, speed, stamina, durability and agility (within the limited available mana) consequently men are considered too delicate for manual labor and warfare.

Hado you seem to have taken the word "magic" and ignored everything else because superhuman strength, speed, stamina, durability and agility, that doesn't sound like a wizard to me.

This thread is a failure, I was hoping to get people speculating about what a society with reversed gender roles would look like but nobody seems to be able to grasp the concept and I'm no longer interested in trying to explain it.

If I'm honest I expect what you produce to be cursed

Why because you think I'll write some misogynistic garbage?
First fuck you, second I well understand the difference between having a theme and having an agenda, there's a lot of untouched meat on counter-misandry bone but a story that was just about that would be terrible.

Good social commentary in fiction doesn't give the reader an answer it asks them a question, a great example of this is the movie Starship Troopers which both advocates and satirizes fascism, the movie doesn't have a point to make it's just food for thought.

I think overall a society with reversed gender roles would in some ways be better, in some ways be worse and in many ways simply be different and I think there's a wealth of fascinating implications to explore. Such implications could be explored from the perspective of a brother and sister in alternating chapters, each undergoing their own hero's journey.

 

[Hadoblado]

Yeah that's a reading comprehension fail on my part, sorry. Read on phone while in transit then responded hours later on computer. I was doing exactly what you said I was.

Re: Cursed
Nothing personal, and no I wasn't calling you misogynistic. I basically agree with you regarding agendas and themes, but I disagree that it's a simple distinction that someone can easily navigate without having deep personal insight. Also, power fantasies are almost entirely cringe, especially when mixed with social commentary (which usually feels tacked on to me). Superman is really hard to do well (most writers fail at this imo), and superwoman is even harder to make engaging.

 

[scorpiomover]

This thread is a failure, I was hoping to get people speculating about what a society with reversed gender roles would look like but nobody seems to be able to grasp the concept and I'm no longer interested in trying to explain it.

Perhaps you should have asked the question, then.

I grew up with reversed gender roles. My mum worked full-time as an accountant. My dad worked part-time, organising the local Synagogue's prayer services.

My mum LOVED to drive. She would check the water, and the oil, every morning before she'd start work. My mum is TOUGH. She's scared off muggers just by shouting at them.

My dad used to cook for us. He would tell us stories. People would stay to talk with him, because they liked to hear him talk.

You get punishments and discipline from your mother. If you want hugs and love, you find daddy. If daddy is busy, you go find a stranger to hug, or make up invisible friends.

You find women who are aggressive and very opinionated, easy to understand. You struggle to understand women who are shy and softly-spoken.

You tend to expect that if a woman wants you, she'll tell you, and if she doesn't want you, she'll tell you, because that's what you are used to from women.

So when you are young, you tend to not ask out women a lot, because you assume that if they want you, they'll tell you, and if they're not ordering you to f**k them, it probably means they don't want to.

Good social commentary in fiction doesn't give the reader an answer it asks them a question, a great example of this is the movie Starship Troopers which both advocates and satirizes fascism, the movie doesn't have a point to make it's just food for thought.

I think overall a society with reversed gender roles would in some ways be better, in some ways be worse and in many ways simply be different and I think there's a wealth of fascinating implications to explore.

You can test our your own theory.

Just find a woman who is very aggressive, ambitious, etc, and not big on feelings and lovey-dovey stuff, and orders you about a lot and criticises you when you are wrong. Then behave with her like a girly-girl. If it fails to work, try it with a few women. Experience that type of relationship, and see the pros and cons for yourself.

Such implications could be explored from the perspective of a brother and sister in alternating chapters, each undergoing their own hero's journey.

Sure. Just look at Rik and Morty. Beth and Jessica are strong, emotionally-controlled women who take care of things. Jerry and Morty are weak men who try to be supportive and are very emotional.

So you could easily write a series like that, if you write Morty and Jessica as adults who get trapped on a planet of Amazons where women rule and men are subservient.

Actually, I think there was an episode like that, called "Raising Gazorpazorp". You should watch it. It's very funny.

 

[BurnedOut]

How is your thread a failure exactly? You seem to be treating genders at par with sexes. Like I had mentioned before, "Gender is culture". You reverse it and the labels change but that won't lead to anything significant due to a lifetime of continuous association of genders with their sexes' dominant function throughout history.

What will possibly having a bunch of powers do to women? The story is laid out quite well - they fight themselves or something bigger than them, that is as far as they go or they turn the world into minecraft. I don't think women possessing magic does anything significant to how they are perceived. If suppose their magic can feed the babies, then they won't have any genetic reasons to have mammary glands. If men turn into housework and taking care of the baby, their hip girdle will become bigger. If house can be taken care on its own then both men and women will be monomorphic. After a certain point, their bodies will lose the ability to bear children.

So your world will be erroneously considered as the one in Final Fantasy at the most which is, obviously, misogynic and a realistic tale would portray men and women and other genders as being largely similar because the moorings of their culture disappear.

I say all this because I have a feeling that you are trying to make a point regarding gender stuff and not referring to a game of any kind.

 

[∴∴∴]

Why not write a power fantasy where the power is the power to create a functional, healthy society. Suggest that the women emerging from societies where they had to band together to survive are on average better at language, better at diplomacy, better at a achieving a truly synthesized reason-and-empathy, better at long term planning, better at forbearance and being willing to live within means, not swan around ego puffing, and not be selfish. So we manage, despite being very much equally human and prone to selfishness, narcissism, violent impulses, and the like, to on a cultural level rise above all that and lead the human race into a sustainable, peaceful, intellectually and creatively fulfilling future.

Have the protagonist be a local wise woman helping her embattled community survive a series of devastating natural disasters, both with her creative problem solving and ability with conflict resolution.

On a larger scale, there could be an emerging class of people, male and female but majority female, who can heal trauma on a global scale, innovate, and facilitate just about everyone to want to work together willingly and productively.

No need to inherit power, or demand it at the point of a weapon, or use magic, sex, or wealth to get it. All these powerful women would need is an incredibly intelligent, persuasive grasp of rhetoric, history, philosophy, society, psychology, biology/ecology, and engineering. And the will to use that knowledge, and the backbone to not let herself get pushed around.

Of course some men would fulfill this role too, and some women would be unsuited to it. It is merely the product of being 1) more likely to have struggled (see how female is the sex of the average impoverished person, etc) though this is just a pattern and not universally true, 2) more likely to have been socially required to be caring, 3) more likely to have been put in childcare roles where you bond with children, and 4) more likely to live to a very old age ... that would make women emerging from a society much like our own able to take on these roles at critical moments.

I'm not entirely certain this is an outcome we should expect is true, per se. It sure would be nice. I'd love for something positive to come out of the multi-millennia of women's subjugation and torture and treatment as chattel goods over our reproductive "value" and relative, on average physical weakness, here, in the few years that could otherwise be humanity's last.

It would also make a nice, heroic tale of an attitude and culture forged in fire rising and having the power over life and death for the species. This would parallel the power of choosing to give birth or not in a literal sense. The natural feature of being a woman who is also fertile, which was identified and became the motive to justify our capture and social transformation into commodity and those "probably cursed by god(s)". So it adds a certain cyclical nature to the tale.

At first you have an unconscious proto-humanity, who then spark into conscious experience and begin ours love affair with symbol and abstraction. This goes somewhat poorly, as we all didn't handle being aware of death that well and made up a bunch of bullshit and became obsessed with making ourselves "symbolically permanent" in any way we could - lineage, giant statue, worshipped whatever.

Then at the opening of this story, it is all collapsing right back down into a juncture in history much more bloody, and earthy, and perhaps it seems as though we just are doomed to repeat the past. Then it was 'birth', this time, it's a near-death, and its character is same-yet-different. New symbols, new abstractions, new society are rapidly formed to last, whereas last time took so long we managed to forget it ever happened most days. Why? How? Are they any different? What would cause that to happen?

I might even throw in a moment, or series of moments, where our elderly protagonist (who has seen a thing or two, and is somewhat weary of the world and its shit) wonders if this is all worth it. Why not just let it all go to hell? Is there not peace in extinction? In death? Or - alternate motive - has the world been fair to people like her? Does she and all those before her not deserve revenge? Why should she help people who, perhaps, at this point in the story, are fucking up, being corrupt, petty, and violent, or else cowering uselessly get over themselves and get through this? And then she decides otherwise (or not! it's your story from here).

Sadly "nice" and "a powerful story" isn't what determines what happens in the world. Luckily, this would be fiction.

The hypothetical trigger for the swap in roles would be the planet deteriorating rapidly, extant social structures breaking down, and everyone, desperate, turning to anyone, anyone who can provide enclaves run justly and effectively.