Ebou Dar

I love this culture. I find it to be the most audacious, the most buxom, and where a lot of fun things happen in the series.

Ok, I just like watching Mat squirm while Tylin has her royal way with him.

Ebou Dar represents a funny addition to the cultures of Randland, if simply on the basis of the marriage knife.

When an Ebou Dari couple tie the knot, the woman is given a dagger, and, with the blessing of the state, she may use it on her husband should he ever displease her. That's bloody hilarious, especially when you get this feeling that Ebou Dari husbands find the fact funny and agitate their wives, a specific case being Setalle Anan's husband. I think for my gender analysis, this is quite a blatant violation of gender equality in the case of married couples. Albeit, I have to wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye.

BOOM, went there!

So, the one thing I remember most about Ebou Dar's fashion comes from the deep neckline and bodacious boobage going on. So, let's assume a man courts a lady for her milk mounds, and is simply desirous of her for pleasure. Not the basis of a good marriage. Considering that people keep what goes on in the bedroom to themselves, including in many cases unwanted sex, this seems like it could be a great safeguard to women seeking husbands. I'm only 3/4 of the way through Crown of Swords at this point, but I don't know if any mention comes of Ebou Dar's policies towards divorce.

The marriage knife was my main topic to write a little on, and now I want to touch a bit on the gender division as far as jobs go.

Again, with Setalle and her hubby. He goes out and catches fish for a living, she runs the inn. In fact, all the inns are run by women in Ebou Dar, while only men get to be ship captains.

Why?

Honestly, I think this may be a culture reference to the island of Siphnos.

Without going into more detail about it, there's a theory that there was a kind of matriarchy in the Mediterranean, specifically Greece. We've some mythological basis for this, but on Siphnos, the woman gets the house. Period. It's her place, she gets the lion's share of the dowry and whatnot, while the men go out and do whatever. This is actually somewhat similar to what the women of Sparta did, if only in that the Spartan ladies looked after the houses.

Considering everyone's pension for dueling and getting in fights, the marriage knife is partially indicative of the culture that produced it, as well as a signpost against men that just want a woman for her charms. I think that my assertion is here is decent without more data. Hopefully I'll have something more to write on the matter when I finish up Crown of Swords.

Til the next time!

Sexism Definition

This is rather late, but I have the bad habit of watching a lot of an anime series if it turns to be worth watching. So it goes with Highschool of the Dead. I admit it has too much fanservice, dumb camera angles, and too much jiggling, but the situation is well-developed, the voice acting is good, and it seems to keep the drama up. So, it seems worthwhile to watch.

So, what is sexism, and how is it expressed in culture?

Well, there are certain ways in which we interact that cannot be done unless we know the other's gender. Pronouns, clothing, how to address someone, all of these are in some way used as gender markers for how we interact. Frye goes on to a number of ways farther than we do gender-announcing and whatnot, but I want to focus on language.

If there's one thing I've noticed in the Wheel of Time books, it appears to be the case that the women in the series are more than willing to verbally abuse, and dress-down the men. Egwene especially does this to Rand most of the time they interact in the series. It's not the playful way Min interacts with Rand, but a very blatant way of insulting him to degrade him. Hell, the man is the Dragon Reborn, it's not like he can be brought down, or even forced to forget what he is, and what's been forced on him.

Furthermore, I really can't think of a meek woman in the series. They're all headstrong, willful, or even far dareis mai. Comparatively, it seems to be the case that the men in the series are far more meek. Take the Two Rivers men, all of whom are used to the pushy goodwives of their village, the Women's Circle, and even the Wisdom. They take it as a matter of course as the series goes on that the women they are with are more than willing to run off and put themselves in danger. All the while telling the menfolk that they aren't needed, wanted, or even that they're useful. Nynaeve is particularly a perpetrator of that.

I think from this I want to say that the gender scale is tipped in favor of women in The Wheel of Time series. Also, considering the amount of queens they meet, as well as how the White Tower is the one stable political force for the last three thousand years, women would seem to have a stronger initial status because they can't be infected with the taint on saidin.

Huh, that helped focus my thoughts more than I thought it would. Sorry for not doing the Latin of the Wheel of Time opening, got carried away in cartoons.

Saldean Marriages

Whee, finished Lord of Chaos yesterday!

:x I think it's time I finally sat down and read The Republic. That whole philosopher and classicist thing...

So, what we know of how Saldean couples interact comes from two sources primarily, the marriage of Perrin and Faile, as well as Bashere and Deira. This comes from when Perrin finally gets to Caemlyn because of the pull of Rand's stronger ta'veren thread.

So, I'm going to quickly recap the scene, then try to figure out what it means.

Once Perrin makes it fiercely clear that he will cleave through anything Bashere has to keep Faile with him, the two go to a room where Deira and Faile are discussing her running away, as well as her marriage. Once inside, Deira immediately speaks to Perrin about how Faile makes him out to be weak, indulgent, and not strong. Here comes a quote, and I'll try to interpret it:

"Weaklings never think so. A woman wants a strong man, stronger than she, here." And farther down, "If a woman is stronger than her husband, she comes to despise him. She has the choice of tyrannizing him or else making herself in order to not make him less. If a husband is strong enough, though..." She says a little more about how she can be strong as he is, but I think this will be sufficient.

First thing we know: Borderlanders are nuts, but lovable. As with what I've said of Shienar, the Borderlands require men to be constantly ready to fight off a Trolloc raid, and the practice of making men as strong as possible to deal with them takes on a different form here. Wherein Shienar chivalry defines how they will die to protect the women of the land, Saldean women seem to have decided that they need to be fierce to scare of any weak men, so only those strong enough to "tame" them will get to reproduce.

Remember, angry sex is the best sex!

Again, women do not generally fight in the Borderlands, but that does not mean they are simply subordinate to the men there. They seem to be always ready to antagonize and keep their husbands willful enough to hold the Blight back. Also, they seem to push their husbands when they think they might need it. Consider how Faile is the primary source of why the Two Rivers decides to be independent, and eventually a province subordinate to the Queen of Andor.

One thing I'm unsure of is that bit about either terrorizing him or lowering herself to make him stronger. Two possibilities arise, and I think they are both true. Either she rules him and forces him to "man-up" as it were so he does his duty, or she encourages him by making herself seem weaker than she really is.

Pretty interesting as far as relationships go. What was that quote by Robert Jordan, something about preferring to hunt leopards than rabbits, which refers to how much more satisfying it is to go after a tough woman than a meek one.

Bah, duty calls, Latin time!

Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain.

Shienar

Found in the northeast corner of Randland, Shienar is one of the four borderland states that keep the southern lands from being overrun by Trollocs, Myrddraal, and other horrors of the dark one. Forty years before Shienar was the buffer against the Blight that it is, the nation of Malkier existed to the north. However,treachery from within caused the utter destruction of Malkier and its Seven Towers, and began the lifelong struggle of Lan to dance with the Shadow in a war that cannot be won, only fought. Regardless of the buffer that used to exist in Malkier, Shienar is home to a unique culture that has generally endured for the three thousand years since the Breaking of the World.

To encapsulate the male culture of Shienar within its own words, here's the most quotable phrase in all of the Wheel of Time books:

Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain.

So yeah, keep to your duty, and do you damndest to not die. This phrase is one of the only things that keeps Rand going in the books, a talisman to remind him that he must go on for life to continue, and death waits for him at the end so he can rest.

So, Shienaran culture can mainly be described as a practicing chivalric society, especially since Shienar is famous for producing powerful heavy cavalry. Women are given immense respect, as well as their own quarters that men are not allowed in to. Necessarily, this leads to the question: "Why?"

I think a common thread in all the borderland cultures is that women decide when to hop in the sack, and when to get back out. The respect given them is due to how there is a constant need for able-bodied men to serve in the armies of the border, and because of their contribution, women are given immense privilege and power. Gotta make babies, and the women have to put up with them so the line can be held. One funny thing you learn in The Great Hunt is that the ladies of Fal Dara Keep love playing matchmaker. They think that Rand is an outland lord, and constantly drop hints that so-and-so would make a dutiful and good wife, and how his babies and sword skill would help keep the Blight back.

It is also influenced by samurai culture, primarily in how they approach honor and obligations. The men find their self-respect in how well they perform their duties as borderlander men, as well as how seriously they take their duties. Men giving themselves over to abstract concepts like this helps maintain their devotion to not only Shienar and the border, but to all the people south.

Just a quick primer, but interesting nonetheless. One last bit is to note that Aes Sedai are immensely respected there, which may be a distribution of their attitude towards women.

Opening the fan, Ishamael

What is a Gender Analysis?

So, I've run in to a bit of a conceptual conundrum. I want to do a "gender analysis" of the Wheel of Time books, but I can't say I'm sure what exactly I mean by that term in the context of the fantasy story. While analyzing the politics, both macro and micro of Randland will be a primary way I will make my observations, I think what I will need to do in order to focus my energies will be to go back to some of the readings from my Feminist Ethics and Epistemology class, which will primarily draw from Marylin Frye's concepts of feminism. What I may do for the time being, after I at least tease you all about the culture of Shienar and what the women there's status seems to reflect, is to give synopses of the essays from Marylin Frye's book The Politics of Reality: essays in feminist theory.

At least this will help my framework of what questions to ask while looking at the piece, specifically things like "what is oppression," or "conceptual harm."

Just thought I'd share that.