Gender relations in Westeros

[S. D]

5 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

There is a lot of sexual violence against women in the series, but we never stay inside a woman's head to find out what life is like for her afterwards.

Well there is one example. We do see inside Cersei's head, and how Robert's rape affected her. We see her enact the same sexual violence against Taena. I agree GRRM could do better in this regard though.

[rotting sea cow]

3 hours ago, S. D said:

Well there is one example. We do see inside Cersei's head, and how Robert's rape affected her. We see her enact the same sexual violence against Taena. I agree GRRM could do better in this regard though.

Well, there is also Daenerys  and Sansa.

also Brienne has suffered some abuse too.

[rotting sea cow]

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And then there are the pointless 'deaths in childbirth' for far too many crucial female characters even in FaB - which are not realistic in relation to the unrealistic low child mortality (no child of Cat's, Tywin's, Cersei's, etc. died in infancy).

aah. The whole "Dead Ladies Club" https://joannalannister.tumblr.com/post/162408885186/the-dead-ladies-club

Yes, there our beloved author sometimes got lazy or even at times misogynist in the treatment of female characters. That cannot be denied.

One however has to distinguish the narrative shortcomings in GRRM's writing from the actual world building.

Westeros is a shitty place, not only sexist and misogynist but also racist, xenophobic and classist and overall wary and react violently to anything that can challenge the life style of the aristocracy  (interestingly it is not overly homophobic). The Targaryens had always trouble with that. 

One has to distinguish that from narrative issues in the series. See above with the "death ladies club", something that cannot be explained from the world building.  See also the treatment of the Dothraki, besides Drogo none of the dothraki we meet have personalities unlike Free Folk characters who happen to be white. This is racist (which is not the same to say that GRRM is racist).

Etc.

 

 

[The Young Maester]

34 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

aah. The whole "Dead Ladies Club" https://joannalannister.tumblr.com/post/162408885186/the-dead-ladies-club

I red the article and some points did grab my attention. And I do agree with some.

But the whole “Dead ladies club” is overthinking it. Because the whole argument is that pre-series female characters aren’t given much detail, which is true. But the same goes for pre-series male characters. We know nothing of Rickard stark only that he was ambitious, and out of Aerys’s kingsguard we only know about Jamie and Selmy. All we know of them is their skill with a blade, their honour, and that oswell whent enjoyed dark humour. For both female and male characters we don’t know much about them if they are pre-series. Male characters we know of how they ruled, or their skill with a blade. Female characters we know of their beauty and charm. So it’s really the same thing only that the male ones are known for their swordsmanship whilst the female ones are known for their beauty.
Rhaegar we know quite a bit but it’s not enough to judge his motives (but than again he is a very important character to asoiaf, so a bit of backstory is needed from him)

The childbirth thing does bring a valid point. Westerosi medicine is much better than medieval medicine. However we haven’t heard of anything that can help women survive childbirth. Maternal deaths have lowered since the Middle Ages because we have hospitals, the westerosi don’t have the tools or medicine to stop maternal death. Maybe if the Citadel looks more into it they might find something, but than again they are Maesters and won’t really care.

[Lord Varys]

14 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

I really don't know enough about the middle ages. Do you really think it wasn't that bad at that time? That never even occurred to me. I feel like George did a lot of research on that subject. If that wasn't the case maybe he just thought it was (usually you also read more about the "sensational cases"), the same thing with the marriage age. We know now that very early marriages weren't even that common.

The First Night as an actual practice is historical nonsense, the treatment of bastard children, too.

Quote

But in general I think George tried very hard to not be sexist ( create complex multi-layered male and female characters, that's not so common sadly). I don't think he did that on purpose. Writing is hard and I've noticed the same trend with other writers. 

Would be cool though, if more writers would start to show violence and its consequences in a more complex and realistic way.

He does a good job with characters he puts his mind to ... but not really with the world-building and background characters. It is quite clear that he didn't even think of Ned's mother back when he wrote AGoT. After all, despite her turning out to be a Stark by birth (not by marriage when one might have imagined that her family wanted to bury her in their own castle) she literally doesn't have a grave in the crypts. We know she wouldn't have a statue, but she would have been right next to Brandon, Lya, and Rickard - yet neither Ned nor any other Stark hanging out in the crypts ever so much thinks of her. That's ridiculous if you think about it for a moment, especially in Ned's case.

And in FaB I can accept Daella's death in childbirth, and I can even accept Alyssa Velaryon's death in childbirth (although I find their particularly stores not very compelling - but they do contribute to the overall narrative to some degree) but the death of Alyssa Targaryen in childbirth as well as the deaths of Aemma Arryn and Laena Velaryon really are too much in this regard - and one can only hope that Baela and Rhaena and Daenaera do not go down the same road.

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, rotting sea cow said:

aah. The whole "Dead Ladies Club" https://joannalannister.tumblr.com/post/162408885186/the-dead-ladies-club

Yes, there our beloved author sometimes got lazy or even at times misogynist in the treatment of female characters. That cannot be denied.

One however has to distinguish the narrative shortcomings in GRRM's writing from the actual world building.

Yeah, see above my discussion of Ned's mother.

And I think I laid that out somewhere in painstaking detail that George really sucks at 'royal women dying in childbirth' in comparison to a realistic depiction of child mortality in a medieval setting. The numbers are effectively reversed. Aerys and Rhaella's troubles getting living children should have been the rule, not the exception. Of Cat's five children half or more should have died, Joanna should have had 5-6 pregnancies to get her three living children, etc.

1 hour ago, rotting sea cow said:

Westeros is a shitty place, not only sexist and misogynist but also racist, xenophobic and classist and overall wary and react violently to anything that can challenge the life style of the aristocracy  (interestingly it is not overly homophobic). The Targaryens had always trouble with that. 

There we also got things we didn't really need - like the blatant racism and xenophobia we got with the Kingslanders and especially Torrhen Manderly during the Rogare trials. That was just disgusting.

Or Yandel's racist theories about different 'human races/species' which are supposedly unable to interbreed with each other.

1 hour ago, rotting sea cow said:

One has to distinguish that from narrative issues in the series. See above with the "death ladies club", something that cannot be explained from the world building.  See also the treatment of the Dothraki, besides Drogo none of the dothraki we meet have personalities unlike Free Folk characters who happen to be white. This is racist (which is not the same to say that GRRM is racist).

Etc.

I'd agree with that to a point, although there is very little about background characters in AGoT - I mean back there Renly is basically a background character. And Dany's AGoT chapters really race through the story compared to later books - ADwD gave us many Ghiscari background characters - and I expect there to be quite a few detailed Dothraki characters in TWoW, especially involving characters we sort of already know like Jhaqo and Mago.

[Hugorfonics]

4 hours ago, The Young Maester said:

The childbirth thing does bring a valid point. Westerosi medicine is much better than medieval medicine. However we haven’t heard of anything that can help women survive childbirth. Maternal deaths have lowered since the Middle Ages because we have hospitals, the westerosi don’t have the tools or medicine to stop maternal death. Maybe if the Citadel looks more into it they might find something, but than again they are Maesters and won’t really care.

Yea, thats my line of thinking by and large. Grey Rats know what theyre doing, when a mother dies in childbirth, specifically a Targaryen, my paranoia tells me the maesters could have avoided it (perhaps by not causing the death to begin with.

In regards to the 3 motherless characters; Im not sure if Danys mom had a maester at Dragonstone, regardless the bad weather and her overwhelming grief may have been reasons for her demise. The Padme Skywalker cause of death, which happens to (probably) also be the Lyanna Stark cause of death. 

Tyrions mom most definitely did have a maester present however his large head and twisted body probably caused the complications.

Ps. Is a C-section a thing in asoiaf?

[The Grey Wolf]

@Lord Varys

Re child ratios: I'm not so sure. If you compare the Plantagenets with the Capets you notice that the latter had a bunch of queens die giving birth and way more remarriages. Same idea when you compare the Plantagenets and the Stuarts. The latter had way more child-producing problems compared to the former. Also, not every couple lost most of their kids. Henry II lost only 2 children young. Henry III lost only one. King John lost none. And so on. While Aerys and Rhaella are more symptomatic of the extreme average that doesn't necessarily mean someone like Catelyn couldn't (and didn't) exist in the RL Middle Ages. All that being said you are right that the number of couples with dead children in Westeros is nowhere near as high as it should be (and the number of women who die giving birth the reverse of that due to plot and laziness). 

[The Grey Wolf]

@Hugorfonics

The Maesters know about C-sections. One example is the birth of Jocelyn Baratheon. Another might be that of Aegon "Bloodborn" Frey. 

[Lord Varys]

36 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

@Lord Varys

Re child ratios: I'm not so sure. If you compare the Plantagenets with the Capets you notice that the latter had a bunch of queens die giving birth and way more remarriages. Same idea when you compare the Plantagenets and the Stuarts. The latter had way more child-producing problems compared to the former. Also, not every couple lost most of their kids. Henry II lost only 2 children young. Henry III lost only one. King John lost none. And so on. While Aerys and Rhaella are more symptomatic of the extreme average that doesn't necessarily mean someone like Catelyn couldn't (and didn't) exist in the RL Middle Ages. All that being said you are right that the number of couples with dead children in Westeros is nowhere near as high as it should be (and the number of women who die giving birth the reverse of that due to plot and laziness). 

We don't have very accurate information on royal children and grandchildren dying in infancy up to a certain point (for instance, there is debate about the number of the children of Henry II and Eleanor), muddling the issue to some degree. You can go farther ahead in time to royal children in early modernity (think of the children of Louis XIV) and you see how dangerous a time childhood still was in those years.

Royal women certainly did die in childbirth - but not in droves, and often when there was an actual complication to the pregnancy that also led to the death of the child - whereas George usually uses 'death in childbirth' as a standard routine to get rid of a female character he no longer needs while keeping the child (hello there, Dany, Tyrion, Jon, Aemma, Jocelyn, Gerion, etc.).

It is not that no children die in infancy in George's books - but significantly less children do than mothers die in childbirth - especially with the main characters.

[Lady Dacey]

 

20 hours ago, The Young Maester said:

No this is Planetos culture. From Westeros to Essos all women are beneath Men.

maybe not the mountain clans!

Quote

"You wound me, Chella," Tyrion said. "Here I thought we had become such friends. But as you will. You shall ride with me, and Shagga and Conn for the Stone Crows, Ulf for the Moon Brothers, and Timett son of Timett for the Burned Men." The clansmen exchanged wary looks as he named them. "The rest shall wait here until I send for you. Try not to kill and maim each other while I'm gone."

He put his heels to his horse and trotted off, giving them no choice but to follow or be left behind. Either was fine with him, so long as they did not sit down to talk for a day and a night. That was the trouble with the clans; they had an absurd notion that every man's voice should be heard in council, so they argued about everything, endlessly. Even their women were allowed to speak. Small wonder that it had been hundreds of years since they last threatened the Vale with anything beyond an occasional raid. Tyrion meant to change that.

We don’t know of their treatment as a whole, but we have indication that the women’s voice is heard in council with the same weigh as men’s. 

One could also make a case that among the Free Folk, while there seems to be a sexual division of the work force (this is a technical term in sociology I don’t know the translation to in English, so maybe it sounds funny to you?), the women are not necessarily beneath the men.

[Lady Dacey]

19 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

I love your profile picture  I think it's so funny!! Wanted to comment on it before!

Thanks! I love it too. I wish I knew who the artst is. 

[The Young Maester]

2 minutes ago, Lady Dacey said:

 

maybe not the mountain clans!

We don’t know of their treatment as a whole, but we have indication that the women’s voice is heard in council with the same weigh as men’s. 

One could also make a case that among the Free Folk, while there seems to be a sexual division of the work force (this is a technical term in sociology I don’t know the translation to in English, so maybe it sounds funny to you?), the women are not necessarily beneath the men.

Well yes you do find cultures where they sort of are equals or are almost equals but that’s about it pretty much. 
But the women participating in the clans men’s council would be the same as any regular lady like maege Mormont or barbrey dustin participating in a war council or a gathering of lords.

[Lady Dacey]

7 minutes ago, The Young Maester said:

But the women participating in the clans men’s council would be the same as any regular lady like maege Mormont or barbrey dustin participating in a war council or a gathering of lords.

By the way Tyrion points it out I tend to have a different interpretation than yours. When Tyrion says that to the clans "every man's voice should be heard in council" and calls the notion out for being absurd, I gather that among the clans decisions are taken collectively and in horizontal discussion. Leaders aren't rulers, there is no stratification between higher- and lower-raking people. There is no way to compare a woman's participation in a society like that with a woman's participation in a westerosi war council.

The mountain clans are also very different from the Free Folk north of the Wall in that respect, mind you. While they don't have obvious social startification either, most groups have commanders who are also rulers and make decision for the other in a vertical way. Of course the Free Folk are very varied, and there are several different groups living north of the Wall with their own culture and customs, some more horizontal and others more hierarchical (like the Thenns)

[The Young Maester]

6 minutes ago, Lady Dacey said:

By the way Tyrion points it out I tend to have a different interpretation than yours. When Tyrion says that to the clans "every man's voice should be heard in council" and calls the notion out for being absurd, I gather that among the clans decisions are taken collectively and in horizontal discussion. Leaders aren't rulers, there is no stratification between higher- and lower-raking people. There is no way to compare a woman's participation in a society like that with a woman's participation in a westerosi war council.

The mountain clans are also very different from the Free Folk north of the Wall in that respect, mind you. While they don't have obvious social startification either, most groups have commanders who are also rulers and make decision for the other in a vertical way. Of course the Free Folk are very varied, and there are several different groups living north of the Wall with their own culture and customs, some more horizontal and others more hierarchical (like the Thenns)

I can see now what you mean regarding the clansmen. It seems that even the regular soldier or farmer gets to have a say on matters. So I can see why the women also have a say. If that’s the case it’s like parliament where everyone has an opinion and they go on and on until everyone agrees on something. 

The free folk seem more organised than the mountain clans. Each clan has some sort of hierarchy and a chieftain. The mountain clans have some sort of savage democracy.

[Lord Varys]

20 minutes ago, Lady Dacey said:

maybe not the mountain clans!

We don’t know of their treatment as a whole, but we have indication that the women’s voice is heard in council with the same weigh as men’s. 

One could also make a case that among the Free Folk, while there seems to be a sexual division of the work force (this is a technical term in sociology I don’t know the translation to in English, so maybe it sounds funny to you?), the women are not necessarily beneath the men.

Considering the limited resources and utterly shitty lifestyle (hello there, bride-stealing!) of the various wildling tribes it is quite clear that the only female voices (and, overall, the only male voices) that are heard in those councils are those of men and women warriors, not everybody's voice - especially not those who have been stolen and raped (because then this shitty culture would have long ago voted out of existence). Chella is not exactly representative of all members of her clan - she is the leader of her clan and like Harma Dogshead she had to be tougher and crueler than the men around her to get herself to the top.

How misogynist the wildling culture is one can see in Ygritte defending bride-stealing and rape. She is about as worse as Shae complaining about Lollys suffering from her gang rape, having so effectively internalized the shitty values of her culture that she cannot see how fucked-up it is.

2 minutes ago, Lady Dacey said:

The mountain clans are also very different from the Free Folk north of the Wall in that respect, mind you. While they don't have obvious social startification either, most groups have commanders who are also rulers and make decision for the other in a vertical way. Of course the Free Folk are very varied, and there are several different groups living north of the Wall with their own culture and customs, some more horizontal and others more hierarchical (like the Thenns)

The Thenns are not really 'free folk' as such - they are a hierarchal society. And not all wildlings are free folk. The hornfoot men and the cave dwellers seem to be pretty fucked-up, too, for instance.

Considering that the wildlings are stretched out over a lot of land and have, if we take Varamyr's parents and the sizes of the abandoned villages as guidelines, communities of very few people living together. Their core value is that you can do whatever the hell you want. Which, in turn, means that councils involving representatives from various clans and tribes and villages and such would only listen to people who are deemed important. And you get important beyond the Wall by being smarter, stronger, crueler, braver, etc. than the others. People only respect you if they have reason to fear you - and only if they respect you a lot do you have a shot to become king-beyond-the-Wall.

In your own hut/house you would be your own man - and rule with the kind of power Craster has over his own (if you do choose to do that - you could also be very nice to your family, of course).

All that makes it increasingly unlikely that weak people (i.e. children, old people, sick people, cripples, timid and craven women and men, etc.) do get a voice on any council.

Ygritte makes that very clear when she essentially charges women to prevent their own rape - by using a knife against any man who might touch them. That kind of 'solution' is only for those who are strong enough - both mentally and physically - to threaten/castrate/murder a man who tries to steal them or has already stolen them.

[Lady Dacey]

I don't know if you guys are intersted in talking childbirth, but really, the notion that maester could help is ridiculous to me.

I wholeheartedly agree that killing that many woman in childbirth shows George's deep-ingrained sexism - he is male, white, over sixty and born and raised in a first world country, it's simply to be expected that sexism has shaped who he is. I agree with @Nagini's Neville that George tries and succeeds in building complex, interesting and multilayred female characters, which is an amazing achievement and a breath of fresh air from a male writer. He does have his shortcomming, the over reliance on the "death by childbirth" trope being one, and the relationship his POV female characters have (or don't have) with sex and pleasure another I find very upsetting. 

But, back to childbirth!

8 hours ago, The Young Maester said:

The childbirth thing does bring a valid point. Westerosi medicine is much better than medieval medicine. However we haven’t heard of anything that can help women survive childbirth. Maternal deaths have lowered since the Middle Ages because we have hospitals, the westerosi don’t have the tools or medicine to stop maternal death.

NOT the case! When women stopped giving birth in their homes with the help of more experienced women and started to do so in hospitals, assisted by 'physitians' the mortality rates for both mothers and neonates went up. There is a lot of scientific literature about the history of childbirth availiable, and as of the last two decades a lot of atualization going on when it comes to 'best practices' for childbirth assistance which rely on Evidence Based Medicine (EBM). But I asure you in our world the scenary became worse before it became better once 'scietifically'-trained men took the protagonism in the birthing bed. All sorts of uncessary and harmful intervations came to be, like lithotomy (the idea of giving birth laying on your back), the Kristeller maneuver, guided pushes, episiotomy and so on...

[Lord Varys]

7 minutes ago, Lady Dacey said:

NOT the case! When women stopped giving birth in their homes with the help of more experienced women and started to do so in hospitals, assisted by 'physitians' the mortality rates for both mothers and neonates went up. There is a lot of scientific literature about the history of childbirth availiable, and as of the last teo decades a lot of atualization going on when it comes to 'best practices' for childbirth assistance which rely on Evidence Based Medicine (EBM). But I asure you in our world the scenary became worse before it became better once 'scietifically'-trained men took the protagonism in the birthing bed. All sorts of uncessary and harmful intervations came to be, like the idea of giving birth laying on your back, the Kristeller manouver, guided pushes, episiotomy and so on...

Regardless of the real world issues, I think we can say that maester medicine is nowhere near modern standards, and pretty much helpless curing highly infectious and lethal diseases - meaning that child mortality should have been as high as it was in the real world in the middle ages insofar as 'childhood illnesses' and other highly infectious diseases are concerned.

While Westeros has some higher standards of hygiene than the real world middle ages (or at least had those back when Jaehaerys I gave KL water pipes and sewers and the like) they the whole childbed fever thing strongly indicates that they were not exactly capable of preventing that.

From what I know birthing in hospitals in the early days - before the establishment of proper hygiene procedures - was basically a death sentence for both mothers and children. I mean, the staff was dealing with many sick, dying people - and with corpses...

[Nagini's Neville]

11 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

(interestingly it is not overly homophobic).

Yes, actually really weird why they aren't that homophobic. I really wonder why GRRM made an exception here

[Nagini's Neville]

On 18. Oktober 2019 at 11:14 AM, S. D said:

Well there is one example. We do see inside Cersei's head, and how Robert's rape affected her. We see her enact the same sexual violence against Taena. I agree GRRM could do better in this regard though.

Oh yes, I totally forgot about that. But it's a very pathological reaction. Most ppl, who have been sexually abused do not inflict the same abuse on others. I just think, since sexual violence against women is shown so often the consequences for them should be a more frequent topic as well. Especially since how violence effects men is definitely a topic (which I love). Maybe there also should be a "broken women" speech or something