What's an aspect and what's not is largely a matter of semantics and of viewpoint, though. I think it's really stretching things to suppose you can infer anything about their admission policies on such a basis... Nandan is an especially odd example, since I'm quite certain that if you're an initiate of Nandan, you can _then_ participate in any aspect of Ernalda you like, up to and including the Ernalda the Mother mysteries. (Though you could counter-quibble this isn't an example of a 'man joining a cult of of Ernalda' in the strong sense...)
> I think the crux of this really is what you mean by "worship."
> Undoubtedly magical-specialist (indeed, magical-generalist) herders
> worship Barntar.
Really? If nothing else, he much have significantly different 'sub-aspects' for ploughmen and for 'pure(r)' pastoralists.
> But this is not the same as being an initiate or
> devotee of Barntar.
Sure, but if it's entire niche in life is a particular economic and magical domain, and you can 'only' be a Worshipper, rather than an Initiate of a particular divinity, you may not be entirely hosed, but you're a long way from being hose-free.
> > This whole gender (a)symmetry thing in Orlanthi culture is a bit
> > of a open-ended source of confusion, IMO. Greg has compared
> > both Vinga and Barntar, and Vinga and Nandan, as being 'equivalents',
> > as suits his rhetorical purpose that day of the week:
>
> Vinga and Nandan are equivalents in that both let people experience
> aspects of the other gender.
True, but not comparable aspects, which is my point. It may be that gender-prescriptiveness isn't actually at all symmetrical after all, and that there are many (sub)cults that proscribe men, but few that proscribe women. Or one might think more likely, this is just an apparent 'translation error' in existing sources/ impressions... (The fannish or wider sociological dynamic for this one hesitates to theorise about, at least in polite company.)
But IMG, absolute gender-exclusion is rare among the Orlanthi. To a first approximation, one might say a la Greg that there that the gender 'presumption' in a given 'cult' or form of worship might be 50% (Issaries has no real strong gender association, for example), 85% (normally one or the other, but with 'usual exceptions'), and 100% (need not apply), but that would itself be a great oversimplification. Rather, thing of there being a range (or at least, a lumpy assortment) of strength of cultural gender 'preconceptions', which it is more or less unusual or difficult (socially or magically) to overcome.
On that sort of basis, I'd put Vinga ("women don't fight") at the very low end of the spectrum, and Nandan ("men don't give birth") at the highest end. Another old Digest football, women with storm/ thunder/rain powers would kick someplace around the middle, as would male 'Uraldans', for me. YGMV, and come to that, GGMV and indeed EEGMV, but thar ya go.
Cheers,
Alex.
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