#like they’re not just reinventing the wheel of victorian Separate Spheres

[j-esbian]

(one of) the most frustrating parts about the portrayal of drow society is that it wants to create Reverse Sexism without uncoupling itself from some. pretty foundational patriarchal ideas. it ascribes to the (tired, essentialist) notion that men are inherently good at certain things, and women are inherently suited for different things

but rather than the basic subversion of “women are warriors and men are the homemakers” or even early feminist thought experiments like “traditionally ‘women’s priorities’ are given importance over ‘men’s’ (ie things are governed by council, importance is placed on childrearing, etc)”, menzoberranzan is “this society still holds to patriarchal values and women are not as good at these things which is why it’s demonstrably worse”.

the biggest tell is that they have to control the male population to maintain female dominance, the implication being that in a fair fight, men would easily overpower them. it assumes the misogynist ideas as fact that “women are inherently weaker” and also “women are duplicitous” so the drow fighting style is based on stealth and sabotage rather than “”honorable”” face- to-face combat (letting lie also the assumption that the only avenue for ambition is through military violence, and therefore still making it so that they are reliant on men, even as disposable shock troops, for their success).

the only things that keep women in charge are by stacking the numbers on a systematic level, and through sexual domination on the individual level (because clearly the only real power a woman can have over men is her sexuality).

it is a society where “men act like men” but women don’t act like women; it is evil because an act of god created an aberration against the “natural order” of things, and there is no one to tend the hearth (because if the women won’t do it, no one will)

#there’s just. so much to unpack #call me old fashioned but i think. if you’re trying to subvert something you should first understand how it actually works #now this is also mostly based off of what i read from the first couple drizzt novels and old lore on the wiki so like #it’s possible that they’ve tried to do a spit-polish retcon in 5e #but every time they’ve tried to do that with other things i feel like they also misunderstood the real issue so #either way i don’t have a lot of faith that this would have fundamentally changed #it’s probably just something like ‘yep we acknowledge it’s problematic but that’s bc lolth is eeeeevil so it’s supposed to be bad’ #like i’m gonna be honest. i roll my eyes whenever Any fantasy society spends time codifying gender roles in this kind of way #there’s plenty of other races that are like ‘men are warriors and women are homemakers but both are equally important so it’s not sexist!!! #like they’re not just reinventing the wheel of victorian Separate Spheres #but what gets me about this one is how clear it feels that no one thought deeply about it #‘a matriarchy is when women act like men’ #i have no source for this but it FEELS like it originated as a reactionary response to second wave feminism #‘women can do the same things men can do?? we should let them in positions of power?? #this is what that looks like. checkmate feminists’ #honestly i have learned a lot more about the way men think about women from fantasy bc #it rly shows their asses when you’re ostensibly removed from the world we live in #and the things they place importance on #mine #dnd