I have been listening with interest to the views floated about Gloranthan
Matriarchies and Feminisim, and I find them all fascinating as I happen to
be taking a course right now in Feminist Philosophy at the University of
Houston. I should point out that this does *not* make me an expert by any
stretch of the imagination. I am not claiming superiority in knowledge or
morality, but some of the insights I have gained while attending the class
might be valuble in the current discussion.
- Feminism is not Matriarchy
Feminism advocates the deconstruction (or destruction, depending on who you
read) of gender roles. Matriarchy, as the opposite of patriarchy, implies
the inversion of the standard gender roles. AFAIK Esrolia is never described
as Feminist. In fact only the Lunar Empire is specifically noted as
Feminist. I assume this is a large part of the reason Dara Happa rebelled
against the LE. Dara Happa culture depends on, among other constructs, very
rigidly defined sex roles. In fact Orlanthi culture might be more Feminist
than Esrolian culture, as Stafford continually stresses that gender roles
may be switched with little or no disapproval on the part of the culture.
This means to me that we can describe Esrolia in terms that would make
Martin very happy, as Esrolia *might* be a place out of the worst nightmares
of an anti-feminist. (I should note that this is *not* my opinion of Esrolia.)
- Whose Goddesses are these anyway?
I should also note that many of the Female centered Gloranthan Goddess cults
seem very much born out of masculine fears and fantasies. Barbeester Gor
seems little more than the sum of male fears about women (they will take
away our virility, they will eat our penuses with their toothed vaginas).
Nonetheless, some will no doubt be driven to such extremes in hopes of
defying the current regime. What I mean by that is there are always those
who will become the Other in a binary in hopes of destroying the original.
This is discussed at some length in Fortunate Succession. The cult write up
for Barbeester Gor implies that when times are bad, membership grows. Uleria
seem to be on the other end of this spectrum, where prositution takes on a
sacred role. I would not be surprised to learn that the modern form of the
Uleria cult was created (through HeroQuesting) by a man.
Mark sez:
>My own thought would be to start with some of Marija Gimbutas' speculations
>on the supposed matriarchies of Old Europe, the culture of the "Great
>Goddess", which seems more focused on a potential reordering of values,
>rather than simply switching men for women.
There seems to be little or no evidence for a large scale pre-historical
Matriarchial society. Most feminist theorists seem to acknowledge this
nowadays as well as warn against the possible dangers that might arise out
of such nostalgia. In Glorantha, such nostalgia inevitably leads to
HeroQuesting, which might be able to create a pre-historical matriarchy,
whether there was one or not. Thr re-ordering of values you bring up seems
fairly sophisticated to me (more sophisticated then inversion) and so I
would assume that less developed forms would arise first (ie Inversion
Matriarchy).
Most Gloranthan cultures are based on Greg's exploration of a real world
culture, right? A really interesting idea would be to base Esrolia's
political and philosophical history on the women's movement in America. Thus
the first part of Esrolia's history would be correspond with the First Wave
of Feminism, the suffragette movement. Another period would correspond to
Second Wave Feminism a la Betty Freidan. Third Wave feminism, greatly
influenced by the French Feminists might become the Red Earth movement,
which is influenced by those nasty Lunar ideas, etc.
3: Tolat
Though it may seem off center to the discussion, I have oftened wondered
whether Tolat is really the one who sleeps with all the women of Trowjang. A
more interesting explanation seem to me that Tolat may be a spirit that
allows two women to have a child together...
Doyle