Traditional gender roles in the realm.

[Elfive]

If you're basing there being a lack of dimorphism on the character sheets, that's the wrong way to go about it. The difference is simply too small to show up at the resolution of a five point scale.

For it to become apparent you would need to stat basically everyone on creation, at which point you might find that there are slightly more men than women with strength 3-5, and slightly more women than men with strength 1. But the average for both would still be 2 and on an individual basis the general trends are meaningless.

[The Wizard of Oz]

Yeah, I'm stronger than, say, my sister, but there's no way I'd rate Strength 3. And she's not so feeble as to rate Strength 1.

[Ghosthead]

Note, following post by me doesn't really help at all at asking OP's question (refrained from going there as felt it was a bit tangential, but as we're going there):

A few possible stereotypes arising just from the fact that men are married out

I wouldn't see those directly as falling out of matrilocal traditions, as we know these don't happen in real life matrilocal marriage traditions (matrilocal meaning husband moves to bride's family). Possibly because in those, the most senior male relative in the bride's family (usually wife's brothers) quite literally invariably ends up having the dominant role in the family structure. But perhaps falling out of matrilocality with some reinforcing factor of ideology...

One interesting difference I think from anything in our world, beyond just "stereotypes are opposite in some ways and the same in others" is that the Realm is more gender-neutral than any IRL agriculturally-based state society but is just as stratified as them on other lines. A consequence is that you can say that the Realm is maybe as sexist or is even a little bit less so than the world we're used to

It's seems really difficult to compare to IRL, in the sense of "sexism" as I'd understand it, which is an ideologically rooted differing pattern of treatment (and I've not thought too much in depth about that definition, so it's probably arguable itself).

To explain more, pre-modern states, and even pre-state tribal groupings, tended to be war-making and defensive states and nightwatchman states concerned with maintaining justice, law and order (yes, this can be argued to be a simplification). Even those that had what we would think of as relatively advanced bureaucratic structure (post-Warring States China, the Byzantine Empire). There's not much more they can do with the resources they have.

So then you end with the baseline of how much you are thinking of socialization and ideology as contributing to higher male tendencies to be involved in what pre-modern states did, warfare and policing, or just see it as falling out of evolved personality sex differences and physical differences combined with the circumstances they faced (e.g. high child mortality, inevitable more female involvement in nurture, etc.). Which is a free for all discussion. (I tend to come down against socialization as being that important, probably already obviously).

You can only judge them on how ideologically sexist they were against the baseline of what would've actually worked for them. A state could be more actually gender egalitarian in praxis and more ideologically sexist in dox at the same time, depending on our baseline assumptions and its circumstances.

Yeah, I'm stronger than, say, my sister, but there's no way I'd rate Strength 3. And she's not so feeble as to rate Strength 1.

The 5 dot system is kind of hard to map to reality in general. If you were mapping, though, rather than put both at 2, if you seriously wanted to try and get as close to reality as poss. you'd probably say something like "90% of men are strength 2, 90% of women are strength 1, women go from 0-4, men from 0-5", just off the top of my head (there are probably better ways, but you get the idea). (Harder to say how Dex and Constitution come out as they represent robusticity towards disease, reflexes, flexibility, etc. rather than simply being resistant to injury or able to move quickly, which is what happens when males have more muscle mass).

[The Wizard of Oz]

Honestly, I've never seen a game that's mechanically represented gender in a way that's not actually incredibly over the top. Once I had a DM who gave men +2 Strength and Constitution and -2 Wisdom and Charisma, and women the opposite. It was ridiculous (and very annoying when my female rogue, disguised as a man to avoid her evil father, was given a cursed belt of gender change by a "helpful" Wizard and lost 4 points of Charisma for now being a man).

Best avoided.

I think that, if people think that a male character will have some higher and some lower stats, they can just reflect that in the placement of their dots. I'd much rather have that than the game telling me to give genders certain stat bonuses and penalties that may not work for certain characters.

[Elfive]

Yeah, I'd never represent it through modifiers. If we were to expand the system to a ten point scale (which I don't recommend because you'd need to adjust difficulties, charms, weapons and just about everything else) you might say that men are strength 4 on average while women are strength 3, but that would have no bearing on actual character generation. It would just be a footnote.

So anyway, with dragon blooded you also have to consider how the gender stereotypes interact with aspect stereotypes. A fire-aspected man would be seen as particularly prone to intemperance, whereas an earth aspect may be more likely to be considered reliable, with their aspect tempering the excesses their sex was prone to. And you may see the reverse with women.

Like, fire aspect woman or earth aspect man, who's the more even-tempered?

[Beans]

I feel like even intemperance could be filtered differently through Aspect proclivities/stereotypes. Perhaps the idea of the intemperate Earth man is the one who is too quick to dig in his heels and become obstinate, for example. Meanwhile, the idea of Earthen temperance could be one that balances that righteous pillar of will with the wisdom to give other views fair consideration and entertain the idea of compromise for the greater good.

[Elfive]

Yeah, that works too. Hell, lets take a cue from real life and say both stereotypes exist at the same time.

[Lundgren]

If a more gender equal version of the Real is wanted, I would suggest looking at the previous versions. For example, in first edition a married Dynast couple decides themselves which of the two Great House they are to live with, if they are from two different.

[Isator Levi]

in first edition a married Dynast couple decides themselves which of the two Great House they are to live with, if they are from two different.

No they didn't.

[The Wizard of Oz]

I don't have the 1st ed DB book, but I vaguely remember that they generally lived with the woman's family. Or by themselves.

[Lundgren]

No they didn't.

For example: First edition, Exalted the Dragon-blooded, page 114. Sidebar. "When two Dragon-Blooded marry, both keep the name of the house they were born into. Any children they have take the name of their mother's house and are considered upon their coming of age to be members of that house. The couple may make their home with a household of either house, keep homes with both houses that they occupy at different times (or separately) or may start its own household. When two unExalted Dynasts marry, the situations is similar."

Please give me the page where it says what you claim.

[Matthias]

Somehow, your stereotypes seem to kind of skew against women, despite the matriarchal power structure...

Maybe I'm being too rigid; I'm not sure how far comparable negative stereotypes of men throughout the last couple of centuries go, so maybe there's a foundation for women carrying such an image despite being in power.

But even then, if it's a case of just about the same stereotypes being reversed, that's kind of simplistic. And some of the terminology employed, such as the phrase "simple minded", feels uncomfortably evocative of real life rhetoric to degrade women.

I think the concept has legs, but warrants a bit of examination.

This doesn't entirely reflect what I was thinking, but it's a useful critique of what I ended up writing anyway, so thanks! I wasn't trying to lean one way rather than another, but to lean a bunch of ways at once, but I didn't really read over to get a sense of what the balance was.

I should say that (1) negative stereotypes against the dominant group (coexisting with other stereotypes in other directions) are pretty common even prior to e.g. conscious feminist ideology - these just aren't seen as incompatible with their remaining dominant and (2) as Elfive observes contradictory stereotypes are pretty common. So it's both a stereotype in our society that women are simple and that men are simple. Nobody attempts to square these circles because they're

I wouldn't see those directly as falling out of matrilocal traditions, as we know these don't happen in real life matrilocal marriage traditions (matrilocal meaning husband moves to bride's family). Possibly because in those, the most senior male relative in the bride's family (usually wife's brothers) quite literally invariably ends up having the dominant role in the family structure. But perhaps falling out of matrilocality with some reinforcing factor of ideology...

This is right, of course - I probably should have said matriolocality with stored wealth and without patriarchy! Which is a combination that hasn't really exist in our world, but I was taking the second two terms for granted.

To explain more, pre-modern states, and even pre-state tribal groupings, tended to be war-making and defensive states and nightwatchman states concerned with maintaining justice, law and order (yes, this can be argued to be a simplification). Even those that had what we would think of as relatively advanced bureaucratic structure (post-Warring States China, the Byzantine Empire). There's not much more they can do with the resources they have.

Yeah, this is mostly correct, although redistributive and public-goods functions were something that somebody had to do, and so usually it was tribal or kinship or (at least in medieval Europe) religious networks and sometimes it was also an imperial state operating a palace economy. (Although actually since a "night watchman" state is one that interferes with lower-level instiuttions performing these kinds of redistributive functions, the term might actually exagerrate how much they did!)

A state could be more actually gender egalitarian in praxis and more ideologically sexist in dox at the same time, depending on our baseline assumptions and its circumstances.

Yeah, steering away from the precise definition of sexism, the levels of gender equality in prax and ideological sexism in dox is what seems especially interesting to me. Although maybe what I should say is that I'd expect there to be less diversity in dox: because while the Realm might be world that's roughly or a little less biased towards women than ours is towards men, it's also one where (almost) no one is drawing on (1) older ideological sources that prescribe almost total domination by women or (2) ideological sources that regard arbitrary power as intrinsically a problem. Which isn't to say that people don't mind being dominated, or do anything about it, just that you didn't have socialism or liberalism or democracy winning the moral assent of large fractions of the literate population, as in our world.

(Of course I just realized I'm making two assumptions about the setting that might be unjustified - it might be much less static than I'm presuming.)

[Lundgren]

When it comes to second edition, I can't remember ever finding them bringing that point up.

On the other hand, when looking at text of the houses, for example in MoEP: Dragon-Blooded at page 41, Peleps Kaizoku (referred to as 'him') has a household that is part of the House Peleps, and is married to Mnemon Kuvon. According to the name giving standard, any child of them would be named Peleps Kaizoku *given name*, and not after the mother.

My take on second edition is that who is married into which household is dependent on the negotiations between the families, and not up to the couple. However, I can't say I can remember any text supporting it, so it might just be my impression.

[Úlfhéðnar]

What are you basing that on?

Well you see, Creation as presented in the books is quite clearly a world lacking alot of these traits compared to reality. For instance, Creation is a setting in which if 10 professional athletes enter a wrestling tournament or a foot race, and they are divided equally on gender lines, there is nothing to say who might win. Whereas in reality, if such a thing occurred you would be almost insane to actually expect anything but a heavily lopsided result along gender lines.

Hence why we separate women and men in MMA and the 100 yard dash. By contrast, Creation as presented does not appear (to be in any case) to be a setting in which men routinely outperform their female counterpoints at all levels of competition, or vice versa.

That's not what Chekhov's gun means.

Oh it most certainly is, You'll note that i introduced the idea of Sexual Dimorphism not being present in my opening paragraph and it only became important to understanding the structure of creations societies at the very end. Granted, I wrote that fairly late at night and reading it the next day, i can see why you were a little confused as to what i meant.

I would suggest they're only strikingly sexist because the dynamic is jarring to what we're used to.

No thats not what i was going for. I mean that most alot of sexism in our world stems from performative differences between men and women. So for instance, it might be sexist to assume that all the lumberjacks in some village are going to be men, but it also makes logical sense due to the nature of the job requiring alot of upper body strength and stamina. In creation these attributes do not appear to be developed along gender lines (IE: Women are not stronger than men and vice versa) and so this eliminates the performative angle from any sort of social assumption or tradition, leaving purely a matter of gender bias.

[Elfive]

That's purely a pc thing though. Outside the mechanics of character sheets Creation works just like earth does.