Help me flesh out this culture/society?

[Lightray]

But cultures with more of a group or extended family dynamic than "nuclear familiy" tend to be highly sex-segregated in terms of cultural roles. They specialize.

The gender neutral culture we're moving toward is an extremely modern phenomenon. It's been brought about mainly by mechanization and industrialization allowing for an evening of the playing field. And even though it's been going on for over a century, it hasn't gone very far at all.

So unless the culture nexus is designing is sufficiently advanced in technology (or magic) our own modern cultures would not be good models for it.

I don't ascribe to sociological theories that jobs are male-dominated because "men hold the power". It's more plausible that jobs are male-dominated because it's more efficient for men to do those jobs. Men make better soldiers because they're expendible to the society, whereas the women are needed to raise the children. Women make better child carers because they've got the biology for nursing children.

[OddHat]

That's an interesting thought: what if marriage as an economic and social contract is completely separate from marriage as a covenant of fidelity between lovers?

That was the standard view of marriage in many cultures, most notably classical Roman, Greek, and Japanese, depending on the period and social class in question. Love-marriages go in and out of style.

[nexus]

I tend to go with bblackmoor on this. I don't think men and women only associate because of romantic attraction, so I don't see why the sexes would be more divided than they are now.

What are the childrearing conditions? Is it still considered preferable to be raised by both mother and father? In which case you'd have mated couples emotionally bonded but with no pretense at romance. It'd be like a brother and sister raising a child.

An interesting point that was brought up on RPG.net was that the females would have to keep the children, even male children, for a little while, at least until they could be weaned. Once ranching (cows) and possibly formula were developed this trend could change but by that time it might be socially established. The female are still slightly more nessecary for successful reproduction.

And as Mcoy pointed out, you only need a few males to impregnante many females. Males could generally be seen as much more expendable.

[bblackmoor]

It's more plausible that jobs are male-dominated because it's more efficient for men to do those jobs. Men make better soldiers because they're expendible to the society, whereas the women are needed to raise the children.

That theory doesn't hold water for the vast majority of gender-segregated professions. Sailors, doctors, nurses, politicians ... it's a huge, huge list. However, there is a biological basis for men dominating a culture which is valid: until fairly recently (historically speaking), women had the nasty habit of dying during childbirth. If women in Nexus' setting tend to die young, then men will probably still tend to hold positions of temporal and spiritual power, regardless of who is shagging whom.

However, the short life expectancy of women in preindustrial societies typically gets ignored in most game settings. I was assuming that it would be ignored in Nexus' setting, as well. (I also don't recall seeing anything about the technological advancement of said society.)

[austenandrews]

I suppose in most societies women spend a great deal of time childrearing. Assuming this wouldn't change in a homosexual society, but also assuming the father retains his responsibility to the child (which also means to the mother), we're pretty much back to what we've got now. You can remove motivations for a father to retain responsibility - say, making inheritance matrilineal, so the father isn't protecting his family legacy - but you can do the same in a heterosexual society. I don't see a huge difference.

More likely the differences would manifest in other social institutions. Add a romantic element to gender-specific activities for an idea - men would lust after sports stars, women would dream of snuggling up with Nigella Lawson, etc.

[Curufea]

What about cloning?

There would be a VERY big interest in cloning technology for this society - that way same sex couples could have children. Especially if it was developed alongside artificial womb technology (Beta Colony's Uterine Replicators from the scifi series of Lois McMaster Bujold leap to mind)

[David Blue]

So although such a society probably has its own unique problems and inequities, it is possible that gender-based oppression of the kind we take for granted might not be one of them. Or, at least, that it would take a very different form, since it would not be based on the potential of sexual relations between co-workers.

If you want to build a large organisation - like an army - where people predictably won't be sexually attracted to each other, have it be single-sex, heterosexual, and with heterosexuality heavily enforced by cultural taboos and probably military laws. That works, which is why it's been seen so much in history.

It gives you a lot of advantages in controlling access to what your soldiers want, and in discipline.

Ideally, I think you want military monks, but that's not usually practical to set up.

If you want to do the same thing with homosexuals, your largest unit size is two: one homosexual male and one homosexual female, each uninclined to be attracted to the other and further separated by taboos, legal barriers and so on.

As a would-be warlord designing everything from scratch, I would go for the heterosexual army and the heterosexual culture behind it every time. It's so much easier to keep large numbers of exclusive heterosexuals sexually frustrated, with no satisfactory partners anywhere in sight. What a great advantage for heterosexuality!

Uh ... I guess.

[bblackmoor]

As a would-be warlord designing everything from scratch, I would go for the heterosexual army and the heterosexual culture behind it every time.

If I were starting from scratch, I'd have an army of zombies. They don't ask questions, they don't refuse orders, they don't eat or sleep... it solves a host of problems. But I don't think this helps Nexus with his game.

[austenandrews]

I'd have the largest army of atomic robot zombie-men in the world.

[Lightray]

However, there is a biological basis for men dominating a culture which is valid: until fairly recently (historically speaking), women had the nasty habit of dying during childbirth. If women in Nexus' setting tend to die young, then men will probably still tend to hold positions of temporal and spiritual power, regardless of who is shagging whom.

This is a good point. I was rather assuming it was a fantasy-mit-magic world, if only because that's the sort of thing I mostly see discussed on RPG.net (where nexus had floated this baloon also).

However, I think there's no need to worry about homosexuality in your military/army. That was the preferred Greek ideal (see: Sparta, Sacred Band of Thebes), and quite a bit of our military culture traces its roots to Greece, IIRC. Furthermore, the homosexual-lovers-fight-harder-for-each-other idea is a common trope in both fantasy and sci-fi literature, so it'd feel right at home in a game.

[David Blue]

Furthermore, the homosexual-lovers-fight-harder-for-each-other idea is a common trope in both fantasy and sci-fi literature, so it'd feel right at home in a game.

That's true.

I've also been assuming throughout that women are fully equal to men, including in brawn (or let's say +1 size for men, +1 constitution for women), that childbirth is no problem and so on, because that's how it works in games.

[Curufea]

Games often are more politically correct than real life

[Harakani]

Humanity is one of the few species that has sexual division of labour. There is a theory this ability increased the total utility of a family - multiple specialists generally work better than all generalists. It also is theorised to have led the way towards humanity's increasing specialisation of roles - which has a strong correlation with tribal size and thus civilisation.

Does your species have this specialisation? They're going to need a reason to be inter-dependent if this is the case. And partner coupling isn't going to be it.

Perhaps a strong "maternal" instinct in both sexes to care for the children? If breeding is cyclical and synchronized, tribes may come together during that period, concieve a large number of children, which they then raise together until puberty (which would probably be synched to the breeding cycle). The tribes then seperate, form new tribes and so one.

Or perhaps just a very strong "pack" mentality? Pack mentality can keep extended human tribes together, after all.

As regards raising the kids... Perhaps have genderless kids that develop a gender around puberty? A simple human mutation causes children to be born anatomically female, and develop into males at puberty.