Braavos: More Equal then Westeros?

[Fat Trell]

"A number of times..." that's not specific enough.

I just gave you two specific examples. What do you want?

[boojam]

I just gave you two specific examples. What do you want?

I don't remember anything that specific in the books.

Sounds more like speculation , to me, than citation.

[avernite]

Maybe you can't stand it, but the whole world has a massive issue with rape culture. So what if a female can be a Triarch, or even a queen? The point is that even women with free agency are constantly overlooked, ridiculed and threatened. Just a few examples:

Cersei: Queen regent of the seven kingdoms. Her thoughts and ideas (although they're usually terrible) are constantly dismissed and undermined by the men around her in small council, especially by her own father. She gets people to do her bidding by sexually manipulating them and has nothing else to offer, even with the privilege the wealth of Casterly Rock can provide. Her brother is a dwarf and constantly ridiculed, yet has held two actual positions of note (master of coin and hand of the king) without having to sleep around to get them.

Arianna: Older than her brother Quentyn and actually ahead of him in the line of succession. Overlooked by her father, who wants her younger brother to rule Dorne and has wanted so since she was a child. Also uses her sexuality to get what she wants out of the men around her. When she is proactive and plans to take power, she is undermined by her own friends and father.

The Sand Snakes: Some of the most highly-educated and free women in the world, they are imprisoned by their uncle for wanting to avenge their father's death, including the girls who are too little to do anything to actually organise said revenge.

Brienne: As skilled with a blade as any man, is tormented by men and has had many near misses with rape. Mentions having to basically sleep with one eye open at all times because of rapists.

Dany: Actually takes cities by force the way male conquerors of the past have, but the only way she felt able to stop the killing of her people was by giving herself over in marriage. She was not loved or respected enough or powerful enough to work out a solution to the problem on her own, even though she was advised not to marry.

Women in that world are constantly thwarted, threatened, hurt and used. That's just how it is. I personally cannot take gender out of the equation when I look at the issue of equality in asoiaf. It's not the most important issue, or the biggest, but it's still very much there. As a woman, I would not want to live anywhere in that world. Those are just my feelings on the matter. Westeros isn't a society built upon rape per se (imo), but it's an EXTREMELY patriarchal society where men and women are not equal even when a woman is a ruler with power, and rape is fact of life there. All most women have to offer is their bodies, no matter how high born they are, which is always true in aggressively patriarchal societies.

Whenever women are seen as not having agency over their lives or bodies, rape abounds.

Cersei: She, it should be noted, fails miserably prior to all the problems you explain. She is seen as bad for having failed to stop Joffrey from killing Eddard - implying she could do so. As a woman. To a king. She's his mother, granted, but it clearly shows she's seen as having agency. She just fails at it, which is what all subsequent events keep showing. That, in addition, she uses sex as a weapon proves what? That she has control over her sexuality, and she can give or deny it to people and gain power that way? How is that not control?

Arianne: Well, yeah, you obviously didn't read the books all the way - she was supposed to get the higher honour than her brother. Also, same as above, she's the one using her sexuality as a control tool, and in her case it's even clear the man is the one who shouldn't be allowed to do what he does, and would be punished for it. Not her.

The Sand Snakes: these women are treated as a clear threat to the position of a man, the Prince of Dorne. Threatened by women. Bastard-born women, even. He wins the struggle, but he clearly thinks there's an actual contest if he doesn't act. How does this show them as powerless, rather than as serious players that need to be countered?

Brienne: I can't argue with that one. But then, she kills people too, not sure if that's so great.

Dany: The way Aegon the bloody conqueror took the seven kingdoms and made his peace was by not changing anything, just adding a loose layer on top of the pyramid of power. Dany does something completely different, and has to solve it completely differently. How does that prove anything?

People in this world are constantly threatened, hurt and used. As a man, I wouldn't want to live in the horrid world that is aSoIaF, either - maybe you get handed a stick and forced to fight another lord, rather than get raped. Neither seems appealing, really. Women have power, as Cersei shows, as Arianne shows, as Dany shows. They have enough control over their bodies to choose where and when to have sex - and to use it to their advantage, too. Cersei is threatened with a new forced marriage, aye, and Sansa is forced to marry outright - but Tyrion didn't have much of a choice in who HE wanted to marry, either (meaning Tysha, here).

[Fat Trell]

Its not.

Alys Karstark explains how succession works when she tells Jon about how her great uncle is atempting to usurp her claim to Karhold by marrying her off to his son.

Arianne explains how Dornish succession works when she lays out her plan to crown Myrcella to Arys.

We are told about IT succession by Martin and.through the Dunk+Egg books.

Check the wiki. Reread the passages. I promise its there.

[mormont]

[mod] Enough with the personal bickering, thanks [/mod]

[idler]

I was watching E6 (again) and it struck me that Tycho Nestoris refuses to be called Lord. As a student of history, and of the Ancient and Medieval City States, this interests me. Is this evidence that Braavos is more socially and politically equal then the Seven Kingdoms?

The books make it quite clear.

The Blind Girl: "The Foghouse was always crowded with polemen off the serpent boats, arguing about gods and courtesans and wether or not the Sealord was a fool."

Mercedene:"...Mercy preferred the scene where the fat merchant shat on the Sealords head as he passed underneath in his gold-and-purple barge. Only in Braavos could something like that happen, it was said, and only in Braavos would Sealord and sailor alike howl with laughter to see it."

From The Black Pearl to the beggar in Ragman's Harbor, Braavosi despise slavery and Valyrian dragons. A considerable part of the male population wears rapiers like "Needle" (well, not at night, not to be challenged by the bravos); even a young Cat might be armed with several knives, no questions asked

I daresay if there is any Free City, it's Braavos.