4thofeleven | Don't get me started on the Drow... (Reply)

You know what I never want to see in a fantasy novel again? You know, besides chosen ones, ancient empires that have never made it out of the dark ages, and half a dozen sentient species living within walking distance of each other?

Matriarchies.

Matriarchial societies, unlike the near-infinite variety of patriarchal or egalitarian societies, come in only two distinct flavours. The first is the Peaceful Matriarchy. They probably don’t have much in the way of technology, and it’s a near certainty that if they worship anything, it will be called ‘Gaia’. Because women are, as we all know, inherently peaceful and cooperative, the peaceful matriarchy will never have armies, weapons, internal conflicts, or a desire to invade nearby lands and take their stuff – such concepts being inherently restricted to men, as Boudica or Elizabeth I demonstrate. They’re probably vegetarians too. Peaceful matriarchies are generally doomed as soon as they encounter an evil male-dominated society and their menfolk start getting ideas like “Meat is a better source of protein than vegetables” or “Being second-class citizens kinda sucks”. It’s generally kind of unclear as to what the men of a peaceful matriarchy are meant to have been doing before they inevitably try to seize power, just as its unclear which gender is being portrayed in a more patronising way in this sort of setting…

The other type of matriarchal society is the Oppressive Matriarchy. That’s the one that’s basically the same as any other fantasy society, except women are in the positions of authority and men are ruthlessly oppressed. They are, of course, pure evil. The ostensible point of the oppressive matriarchy is to make some sort of comment on gender roles, because obviously the best way to communicate the controversial message that “Gender inequalities sure do suck” is to create an entire society ruled over by sadistically evil women with a gender relations system that makes Saudi Arabia look like an egalitarian paradise! Now, the oppressive matriarchy might be thematically interesting if it was acting as the flip side of an oppressively patriarchal society – except the average fantasy society tends to be far more socially liberal than most real-world medieval societies, while the Oppressive Matriarchy tends to be far more socially conservative than any but the most extreme real world historical patriarchies.

The fundamental problem with matriarchies, though, is that they’re just plain not that interesting. Back when the ancient Greeks were writing about the Amazons, maybe the idea of a women-dominated society was an exotic enough contrast to the patriarchal culture of classical Athens to be interesting. But now we’re living in societies that at least claim gender-equality as a virtue, that have women in positions of authority, and we have seen that they don’t act any differently to men when in power… well, can we stop acting as though “Women… WITH POLITICAL POWER!!!” is an interesting enough concept to base an entire society around? As a minor bit of background flavour, sure – but making it a major focus of your story tends to only result in the same old clichés…