What are the biases and expectations of men vs. women in your world?
A quick one before I go to bed.
Among the city-dwelling people, or Skefé, gender roles are fairly male-dominated, with traditional roles for women but never the same authority. The tribal peoples, always looking to set themselves apart from the weak and degenerate Skefé, are far more egalitarian. Like men, women are taught archery and horse-riding from a young age, and many become warriors among the fierce tribal aristocracy. Women serve in combat with equal distinction to men, but are trained in different roles. Men are regarded as being more useful as infantry and in hand-to-hand combat, whereas women are more valued as archers and outriders, as well as light cavalry. All-female lodges and warbands exist, and a culture of female warriors is celebrated among all the three tribes. There is a saying among the three tribes that a female warrior is 'old-fashioned', or 'of the old ways'. This can have a number of different meanings, but primarily alludes to the old-fashioned ideal of the warrior women; strong and stoic, both aggressive and a skilled tactician. But to say it is to also assert a right that women hold to be warriors, which is such a hidebound tradition as to be considered inalienable.
Outside of combat, gender roles are a little more patriarchal, but still fairly even. Women are expected to be mothers, and pregnancy marks the obvious end to a woman's fighting days. Natural forms of birth control exist (like the sheepskin condom, but also natural herbs or whatever), but babies happen still. Wives and mothers are held back by certain expected roles within the family, like caretaker of the children and horses, but also amass a great deal of authority not necessarily beholden to the husband (like ownership of said horses, which for all intensive purposes can be considered the tribal currency).
This is by no means a feminist utopia, there's the shared belief that life is hard on everybody and, in the end, people bear it unevenly. But most people from the three tribes find the idea of gender inequality a weird and bad concept, and take pride in the fact that this equality is what makes them freer and superior to the rest of the world.
Actually gender roles break down somewhat by tribe. The Xuhazno, who have by and large converted to the Calm and have taken to urban living, have the strictest system towards women, if still far looser than among the Skefé. The Ubixi, considered the wildest and most barbaric of the tribes, also have a system that favors men, insomuch as they have a system at all, but women are a common sight among their warriors, shamans, and chieftains. Finally the Nau, who are as free as the Ubixi and sophisticated as the Xuhazno (as any Nau will tell you), also have a system that favors men, but more than the other tribes they try to live up to this idea of gender equality that is part of their tribal ethos.
See, I said it'd be quick.
Describe a major fortress in your setting.
