7.6 KiB
[RT][WIP][HSF] Set In Stone: Follower Chapter 24 Rational Stonepunk
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Author: u/Farmerbob1 Level 1 author*
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URL: https://setinstonestory.wordpress.com/2015/08/10/chapter-24/
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Score: 17
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Created: 2015-08-10T22:27:24
Post:
Comments:
u/Farmerbob1 [+1] Level 1 author (13 minutes later)
I would really appreciate a note here or in the comments at the blog if anyone spots any logic holes in this chapter.
Not too many chapters left now, and I think I'm through the worst of the complex interactions revolving around Albert's interaction with Allen.
u/Farmerbob1 [+1] Level 1 author (16 hours later)
I like to see where my story hits come from. I noticed a hit today from a new source.
The source was called NewsBlur. It appears to be a fairly robust RSS / Story / News tool. I have seen people here asking about such things in the past. I don't have a need for something like that at this time, so I'm not going to try it. There appears to be both a free and a paid version.
If a couple people try it and like it, others here might be interested in it.
u/None [+1] (4 hours later)
I've only read up to chapter 5 so far, but I notice that like 90% of the lines spoken are by men (okay, I exaggerate, but not by a huge amount), and the person who developed the AI is a man, the only politicians mentioned are men, the AI even takes a male name...
Is sexism an intentional aspect of the story? If so, why did you choose to include it?
u/Empiricist_or_not [+6] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (6 hours later)
It's probably a bit realistic for a modern stone age society where equality is present but more plumbing based roles are reinforced by neccesity. The female body builder later on does mitigate it some.
u/None [+0] (6 hours later)
It's probably a bit realistic for a modern stone age society
You mean, one based on modern sexism? Because the dates given in the story imply it's 2,000 years in the future, so that shouldn't apply. Our modern sexism doesn't come from an unchanging lineage of sexism stretching two thousand years in the past.
where equality is present but more plumbing based roles are reinforced by neccesity.
The first few chapters are about locusts and swine and other farming affairs. On a farm, the entire family tends to work. That means that the women in the family are cognizant of farm affairs and qualified to talk about them. Moreover, the farm is their farm, which means they have the right to make decisions about the farm. Instead, we see men doing most of the talking.
If you're saying that menfolk are needed more for farming, that implies that politicians should be women, since politics takes time away from farming, and you claim the men are more valuable for that. If men are more valuable on the farm, families should prefer to send women instead of men.
The arranged marriage talk could as easily have been through mothers and grandmothers rather than fathers and grandfathers.
Allen's grandfather built him a carriage. That's just carpentry. My mother is a hobbyist carpenter and isn't freakishly strong. Could just as easily have been his grandmother there. He coordinated with another person on the design -- a man, again. My mother's also an architect and went to school for mechanical engineering, so the ability to design such a thing is obviously not restricted to men.
u/Farmerbob1 [+3] Level 1 author (12 hours later)
I have female characters that are more than just props, but the main character is Allen. I'm not giving any spoilers here. You are correct that few of them show up early.
On a farm, there are preferred gender roles, because, in general, men have more muscle mass, with bone structures that allow more leverage. Muscle mass and leverage is important to a great many jobs on a farm. Everyone that grows up on a farm learns to do most jobs, but they gravitate towards work that they are better suited for.
Outside the farm and other heavy manual labor, not so much. Gender neutrality is a given. There are several women in positions of leadership in the militia and government, for example.
EDIT Carpentry is, indeed, one of those things that women can and do learn to do on a farm. Allen's grandfather does most of the tool-making and carpentry on the Rickson farm because he's missing a foot. On a farm, crippled individuals get first pick of jobs that they can do.
u/None [+1] (16 hours later)
Outside the farm and other heavy manual labor, not so much. Gender neutrality is a given.
Did you use a random number generator to determine people's genders for these roles? And bias it toward women because you've stipulated that a larger portion of the men are tasked with heavy manual labor?
u/Farmerbob1 [+6] Level 1 author (17 hours later)
I did not use any sort of method to choose what characters were which gender other than simply choosing. When I say gender neutrality I mean that people tend to gravitate towards jobs that they are good at, and well-suited for.
Stateman Urda, despite the title, is female. She is the highest-ranking named human in the story. The current doctor in Allen's home town is female. Lieutenant Baker and Fobi are female. Anu, one of Allen's friends in camp that gets time 'on stage' is a female bodybuilder and warehouse worker. Allen's mother is more than just a simple farm wife, and her role becomes more important later. I tried to make it very clear that Riko, one of the most intelligent people in the story, leans very heavily on his wife for support in decision-making. A lot of the militia camp's guards are female.
Women are disproportionately represented, by necessity, in jobs that require less sheer physical body strength. Women of childbearing years (who want children) also tend to gravitate away from heavy manual labor or environmentally dangerous jobs like glassworks.
That being said, in a preindustrial society, everyone is doing physical labor, with very few exceptions. Most women who stay at home in this society are going to have arm and upper body strength that modern men don't have. Simply manually washing clothes, cutting wood for the stove and/or house heating, and making staple foods like bread from scratch are not easy jobs. The simple tools that they do have are made of wood, glass, and stone.
I did not set out to explore gender roles in this book, but I did consider them. I do not write about alternate sexuality explicitly in any of my fiction because that is something I do not know, and trying to write about what one doesn't know is foolish - especially when it can be a hot-button topic for some people. That being said, there are references in the book to marriages of more than two people.
u/High_king_of_Numenor [+5] (19 hours later)
I appreciate and respect how well thought out your reasoning is.
It's nice to see someone thinking about the various implications in and of their writing.
u/None [+3] (3 days later)
It's a story from the perspective of a teenage boy. As a teenage boy, I have a lot more close male friends than female friends. Furthermore, you're cherry-picking by looking for important men, then ignoring important women.
I mean, there's probably some gender bias, but this is a society where manual labour is the norm, and only one corner of it.