Writing inverse stereotypes of men and women

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nyalathotep

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I want to create a setting that is similiar to our world, but with different notions of "masculine" and "feminine" traits. I've read works of fiction that involve matriarchies, in which all women are very aggressive and go to war, while men become passive and stay at home to care for children. This seems unrealistic, as it seems to simply change gender roles and turn women into men, and vice versa. I want to create something that feels more authentic.*

What I want to do is changing what society values instead of simply change gender roles. Society would place more worth on feminine rather than masculine stereotypes, and view what it means to be men and women differently. For instance: traditional western notions of masculinity revolves around strength, aggression, boldness, etc. In this world, this would be interpreted as arrogance, impatience, and emotional. They are very loyal to their friends, and quick to form attachments. However, they are hot headed and rash. Quick to anger, quick to laugh is the best way to describe it: scrapping with each other over some imagined slight to their honor to laughing at the incident over a few beers. This argument leads many to believe that males should not lead a country.

In contrast, femininity is associated with being more passive, emotionally complicated, mothering, etc. In this world, women would be characterized as more rational and wise in their decision making. They form bonds less quickly, and are more clinical in their decision making, taking the long view of things, and ultimately knows what is best. They are slow to anger, but when roused, can be vicious and cruel. Women can hold grudges for long periods of time, and it is difficult to forget past slights.

These are just stereotypes and ideals that society supports and want the sees to live up to, but I don't want everyone to just go along with them. People will react to the culture in different ways. I am not aiming for a utopia where everything is perfect because women rule the world, or a dystopia. I would like it to be a world with its highs and lows. Is this a believable inverse of masculine and feminine traits?
 

lizmonster

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Is this a believable inverse of masculine and feminine traits?

As is often said around here, it's all in the execution.

I will say that the understood meanings of terms like "masculine" and "feminine" are highly culturally dependent, and even within a culture (like the US) can vary widely depending on geography. And because the terms tend to be malleable over time, you're also going to run the risk of your work being dated.

Is it possible? Sure. All things are possible. But IME subtlety on this front works a lot better than broad strokes.
 

WeaselFire

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Is this a believable inverse of masculine and feminine traits?

Yes ma'am.

It really does depend on how you write it. Keep in mind that some audiences may not accept this as easily as others, in a sci-fi or fantasy setting it may work well while a romance set in Elizabethan England it's a no-go.

Jeff
 

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Yes, if you do it well. I know what you mean about reversing who fills what role. That's probably the main thing which annoyed me about books like The Power (which was so lacking in subtlety you could anchor a ship with it), or Kameron Hurley's "bugs, blood, and brutal women" series. So yes, I'd be interested to see what you did with it.
 

jjdebenedictis

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I want to create a setting that is similiar to our world, but with different notions of "masculine" and "feminine" traits. I've read works of fiction that involve matriarchies, in which all women are very aggressive and go to war, while men become passive and stay at home to care for children. This seems unrealistic, as it seems to simply change gender roles and turn women into men, and vice versa. I want to create something that feels more authentic.*

Speaking of Kameron Hurley (whose books I really like), her Mirror Empire series has one culture that inverts male and female roles pretty much how you describe. The women are powerful, often-brutish warriors and the men are decorative, often-terrorized property. At one point, the story focuses on a couple consisting of a young man who is believable as a fragile person in a bad situation (a lonely teenager who has begun cutting himself) and an older warrior who enjoys dominating him even as she genuinely cares for him. It choked me up, the way the husband nearly had a break-down when his wife broached the topic of her possibly being infertile, because raising children was literally the only thing he had to look forward to as an escape from the shut in, waiting-for-my-wife-to-return life he was facing.

So I'd recommend that series to you just as a way to give yourself some ideas on how inverting roles can be handled. Hurley's story features many different cultures, with wildly different norms, and so it could give you a few different potential avenues to explore.
 

Kjbartolotta

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Mark Rosenfelder, he of conlanging and extensive worldbuilding fame, invented a society (Belesao) who have inverted gender norms in an early modern society with rather plausible reason why that would happen. Worth taking a look at. A funny takeaway is that he describes the stereotypical male in this society as being rather close to the guy characters in a Judd Apatow movie.
 

eqb

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Kate Elliott did this back in 2002 with her Jaran series. (Though I wouldn't say she simply flipped stereotypes--it's much more nuanced than that.) I highly recommend reading the first one to see her take on it.

ETA: Oh, and how could I forget Martha Wells's Raksura series? Queens are larger and stronger then everyone else, consorts are pampered and love to take care of the offspring, but it's not simply gender flipped. Warriors are both male and female, as are teachers and hunters.
 
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abrowne

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Yep, seen it done like that (one of the short stories in the Anatomy of Curiosity collection does exactly that) and it worked fine. It's logical--calmness and stability being valued over rashness and hotheadedness. I think a lot of people would love it and find it a freeing and exciting concept.

Personally, it makes me want to throw something against the wall. I think women are calm and rational and good at self-control because we have to be; all marginalized groups get really good at staying calm and smiling under circumstances that would make anyone else blow up like a volcano in fast-forward. Women aren't inherently gentler, more passive, or more rational. I do krav maga and the women are generally more aggressive and intense than the men. Research on intimate-partner violence suggests women are as likely or perhaps more likely to engage in nonphysical forms of sexual violence and control. But children are gendered from an incredibly young age in how to speak/move/stand/be.

Which is to say, I think what you have is absolutely fine, and should be a lot of fun. But if you really want to play with gender roles, I think you could go much deeper.
 

Chasing the Horizon

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This sounds like a fine cultural starting point to me. My own main matriarchal society even has some similar beliefs, at least about men being much more emotional and irrational than women and thus unfit for combat or leadership roles. But I'm also very much with abrowne that you need to go deeper. I started out with a total reversal of the traditional patriarchal roles for men and women when I first created my matriarchy, but over time have ended up with many aspects of their society being simply different, neither like a patriarchy nor a pure reversal of one. The stories also often show that their beliefs aren't necessarily true. The characters may keep believing that women are naturally more level-headed, but their actions show that the social conditioning has led to some of their women being just as overly-aggressive and irrational as men from patriarchal cultures can be.
 

Layla Nahar

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I remember a college class, the teacher told us about - um, I think it was the Pueblo Indians - the people who build those houses are the women. The carry heavy stones up and down ladders to do it. When the anthropologists asked why do the women do this work and not the men, the men said 'the women are better at it'. FWIW.
 
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