Looks like we need to split yet more hairs! Goody! (LM the Pedantic hat on!)
The examples Sergio gave (prof. chefs are male, frex), seem to me to depend not only on the idea that women and men have different roles, but also on the common RW idea that men are always better than womne at everything, and that women need to be protected from the nasty harsh world outside the home. (These ideas are now vanishing rapidly, but that's the basis)
So, professional chefs are male, because professionals of all types are male. Partly because they are assumed to do the job better, partly because a woman would be assumed not to want to take part in such harsh competitive activity away from the children.
Now, in non-Solar Glorantha such daft ideas never appeared in the first place as far as I know. So while I agree that the professional/domestic divide is still there, I think it would work differently.
Cedric the Orlanthi farmer comes home from the fields, and he's hungry. So he makes a meal, and eats it, and when his wife gets back she'll have some as well. But Cedric is unlikely to boast about how good his cooking is, and if they're entertaining friends then Rowena will be the one in the kitchen all day.
Similarly if broo attack the stead, Rowena will pick up a spear and do her best to drive them off. But she's unlikely to boast about it, or to go cattle-raiding.
Does that make sense? Gloranthans are in a primitive universe: in everyday life they can't afford to specialise the way we do. If you want a meal, you cook it, male or female, you don't phone for a pizza. But in the one skill where each person chooses to excel, they will tend to pick gender-norms.
Of course, this would make role-swapping easier than it is for us. The stereo-typical western male who can't cook, won't cook, andbuys a burger if a meal isn't provided would starve in Glorantha. So if a man wants to be a professional cake-maker, a Gloranthan male is more likely to have the basic skills than, for instance, my father's generation did.
Jane Williams jane_at_williams.nildram.co.uk http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~janewill/gloranth/
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #215
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