Challenge: A Sex-Egalitarian Society

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to create a major world power, where the dominant culture is largely egalitarian in terms of gender, perhaps to the point that men and women are socialized in the same sort of way. Of course, the latter in particular would require you to believe in the "nurture over nature" view of gender -- but, let's leave politics out of it. There is absolutely no time restriction, and it could be a culture that has ancestrally always been like that, or one that made a rapid change, like a successful "Cultural Revolution." Could even be after 1900 if you want.
 

Thande

Donor
Umm, it would be difficult...maybe a culture where for some weird genetic reason only a minority of both men and women are fertile, so the chief division is between breeders and non-breeders? After all most of the reason men and women have culturally independent roles is to do with the fact that until recently women would have spent most of the time pregnant.
 
Umm, it would be difficult...maybe a culture where for some weird genetic reason only a minority of both men and women are fertile, so the chief division is between breeders and non-breeders? After all most of the reason men and women have culturally independent roles is to do with the fact that until recently women would have spent most of the time pregnant.

Perhaps chemical poisoning, if that is the scenario you are after. Volcanic Island or simply Petrochemically bountiful soild could harbour sterilizing agents. If that was the case, Said society would probably be wipedout within a generation.

Perhaps when Austronesians colonize a Pacific Island, the founding Population has mutations that cause a higher likelihood of female children that are sterile. From there new colonizers keep up the population.
 
a more dominant celtic civilization would do. women and men were held as equals by most celtic cultures. see bouddica
 
I think, actually, that the best bet for a monogender culture would not be in a pre-industrial, tribalish society. The best thing you could get from that, would be men and women simply being regarded as equal, which is fairly easy to accomplish -- just have the Celts or the Seneca or some other group become dominant, and have them maintain their egalitarianism.

For an industrial society where men and women wind up being socialized the same, maybe some sort of extended, overseas war, where women have to work in the factories while the men fight. Like World War II, but longer -- to where perhaps you have a whole generation that is raised during the war, with their fathers overseas. The notions of femininity and patriarchy simply fade away, perhaps, and do not return when the men do.
 
I think, actually, that the best bet for a monogender culture would not be in a pre-industrial, tribalish society. The best thing you could get from that, would be men and women simply being regarded as equal, which is fairly easy to accomplish -- just have the Celts or the Seneca or some other group become dominant, and have them maintain their egalitarianism.

For an industrial society where men and women wind up being socialized the same, maybe some sort of extended, overseas war, where women have to work in the factories while the men fight. Like World War II, but longer -- to where perhaps you have a whole generation that is raised during the war, with their fathers overseas. The notions of femininity and patriarchy simply fade away, perhaps, and do not return when the men do.
Perhaps a violent World War established out of the Trent Affair? The British and Americans working like pigs in their factories to churn out War ships....

Just tossing that out there.
 
This topic comes up from time to time, and always, the answer is the same. Gender equality is just not possible in any post hunter gatherer society, at least not until after the Industrial Revolution.

Childbirth and its associated mortality risks are always going to leave women at a disadvantage socially. And, if this is problem is somehow remedied and women are treated as social equals, the result will be a mass decrease (or at least stagnation) in population, leaving the civilization in question vulnerable to attack by the nearest patriarchy. Think about it, no woman is going to continuously risk death in childbirth if she can help it.

Also, generally speaking in our species, males tend to be physically larger and stronger than females. So, as an example, if you have 50 men and 50 women competing for 10 positions as warriors, the majority, if not all, will usually be men based purely on strength and ability to defend. And, even if the society manages to get past this, say, with a strong emphasis on physical fitness for both males and females, women are still going to be incapacitated by pregnancy and childbirth, decreasing the fighting population, which will in turn leave the civilization vulnerable to outside attack, as previously mentioned.
 

Susano

Banned
Were on our way. Give us time. Of course, yeah, it kinda does require technological support, so, yes, probably not possible pre-1900.

A utopia called

<wait for it>

The Domination of Draka

Is there any point to this comment?
 

Sachyriel

Banned
A small series of deadly plagues that targets certain traits in humanity for destruction by infecting those who utilize those traits the most. Things that women do in a certain age will be targeted because women do these things for society, while men do not catch the disease as much as their female counter parts their death rate is negligible to those of the death rate of women. It maybe hard to imagine, but it's too complex for me to explain without resorting to something that no one can stop as a POD.

The more "strong men" who die and the more "weaker women" who die might tie the genders into being guided by their own diseases, particularly sexual diseases. Excuse me for saying those two genders in that order ladies, but I do believe I'm speaking to a majority male audience. So leave our imaginary superiority alone, and feel better in the fact you're not really weaker.

In order to get man and women to treat each other as equals there would need to be a direct influence on each era on the population ratio of gender as well. To be able to accurately predict the impact of society-altering infections on the traits that will or wont be passed down in each genders new generation we'd need to know the ratios of the genders in each age in order to say "this disease might influence this population to this result".

This is impossible, basically trying to know where an electron is in a cloud.

However while some extrapolation based on existing historical gender ratios and time-lines of pandemics might be possible, I an not an Anthropologically-inclined Virologist with a background in higher Mathematics and Chaos Theory. So I can't tell you the specifics about time and place and people you'd expect to be able to believe me.

I just expect you to believe me, cause what if belief was an STD? :p
 
Does it have to be a human society?:D Intelligent lizards (even Lizards:p) might achieve it.

especially those lizards that are all female and only some change gender during mating season.

there, sexually egalitarian lizards. because they're only one sex :D
 
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