Writing Matriarchy: Language
Pronouns
As previously stated, the default pronoun in a matriarchy is likely to be ‘she’. If your matriarchy is on the near end of the scale of gender equality vs inequality, then you can perhaps get away ‘they’, ‘et’, ‘ze’, ‘your own pronoun here’ or ‘he or she’. Unless you’re talking about a profession established as being reserved for men, ‘he’ is not the pronoun people are going to assume.
Nouns
Depending on whether or not your characters are technically speaking English, you might want to think about the gender of your nouns. When writing in English, there are comparatively few nouns which change genders: and even most of those having shifted or are in the process of shifting to being used only in the masculine form. ‘Aviator’ is a word you still here in a modern-day context, but ‘aviatrix’ is not. If you’re writing an alternate history, you might want to think about bringing those old feminine words back and doing away with the masculine ones.
Connotations
Let’s take two antonyms and unpack them: ‘unladylike’ and ‘emasculated’
Unladylike- This word screams ‘you have cast off your feminine (restrictions)’ at the top of its little subtextual lungs. It’s also something that can be taken as a compliment, whether the person using the word meant it to be or not, because femininity is not highly valued. There’s also the implication of choice; an unladylike woman is not pushed into her unladylike behavior, but rather has pursued it over more feminine alternatives.
Emasculated- This word screams ‘you have been stripped of your masculine (agency)’, also at the top of its subtextual lungs. There are not very many contexts this can be taken well in, as masculinity is something that is highly valued. There is also the implication of force being used; a man does not emasculate himself, but is emasculated by defeat and/or failure at the hands of someone with more masculinity than him.
In a matriarchy, where whatever view of femininity you've chosen comes with a higher value and more agency than your chosen view of masculinity, these words will read very differently.
This is very much a finer detail thing, and something that would probably take scads of research to do completely (take, for example, the word ‘hysteria’ and its history), so if you are writing about a society which likely isn’t speaking English this might not be worth the bother to have to explain the differences in connotations to your readers.
Frequency
If you’ve changed ‘mystery’ to a dominant trait, this section might not apply to you. Otherwise…
I’m going to give you ten seconds: name three phallic buildings.
:D :D :D
Great job! Now, in ten seconds: name three yonic buildings.
:/ :/ :/
As you might have guessed (or known already) ‘yonic’ is the opposite of ‘phallic’, meaning that it has to do with the vagina rather than the penis. Phallic buildings are normally towers; yonic buildings are normally arches, such as those you’d find in a bridge, and all over the Coliseum, and as in the Arc de Triomphe. As an aside, if you like psychology Freudian, there might be less towers and more arches in your matriarchy.
The point here is that there are words we avoid, and a great many of these are influenced by our gendered hierarchy. Say ‘penis’ aloud and people might give you the hairy eyeball. Say ‘vagina’ aloud and they’ll be downright scandalized. Think about what words your matriarchy would avoid using.
Rhetorical Justifications
Unless they’ve all died off, there are going to be men in your society that will want the agency and power your women have. There will be all sorts of rhetoric about why this shouldn’t happen; broadly speaking, they will fall into one of three categories:
1) If men are allowed to practice a certain profession/hobby, they ruin themselves and will ruin it (and perhaps society) forever.
2) If men are allowed to practice a certain profession/hobby, then the overall quality of said profession/hobby will decline.
3) If men are allowed to practice a certain profession/hobby, then they will hurt themselves.
4) Men are naturally happier not doing a certain profession/hobby.
These are not sentiments you’re going to encounter verbatim from your average layperson, nor are they things that are going to show themselves unprovoked. But they should be a driving force behind your society, if an unseen one. Ask yourself: what is the average, middle of the bell-curve dwelling citizen of your society likely to say when they encounter a male doctor, assuming doctoring is seen as a feminine profession:
1) BURN THE WARLOCK!
2) Are you sure you know what you’re doing?
3) Aren’t you afraid of catching some deadly disease?
4) Wouldn’t you be happier as (insert male profession here)?
Again, make sure that you are consistent and follow through. As amusing as it might be for you to write a male doctor who is constantly running to accusations of warlockcraft, you’re going to have to follow through on that threat of burning warlocks at least once in order to justify it.
Words say a lot about a society. Pay attention to the ones you chose.
Reminder Intersections Resources
As previously stated, the default pronoun in a matriarchy is likely to be ‘she’. If your matriarchy is on the near end of the scale of gender equality vs inequality, then you can perhaps get away ‘they’, ‘et’, ‘ze’, ‘your own pronoun here’ or ‘he or she’. Unless you’re talking about a profession established as being reserved for men, ‘he’ is not the pronoun people are going to assume.
Nouns
Depending on whether or not your characters are technically speaking English, you might want to think about the gender of your nouns. When writing in English, there are comparatively few nouns which change genders: and even most of those having shifted or are in the process of shifting to being used only in the masculine form. ‘Aviator’ is a word you still here in a modern-day context, but ‘aviatrix’ is not. If you’re writing an alternate history, you might want to think about bringing those old feminine words back and doing away with the masculine ones.
Connotations
Let’s take two antonyms and unpack them: ‘unladylike’ and ‘emasculated’
Unladylike- This word screams ‘you have cast off your feminine (restrictions)’ at the top of its little subtextual lungs. It’s also something that can be taken as a compliment, whether the person using the word meant it to be or not, because femininity is not highly valued. There’s also the implication of choice; an unladylike woman is not pushed into her unladylike behavior, but rather has pursued it over more feminine alternatives.
Emasculated- This word screams ‘you have been stripped of your masculine (agency)’, also at the top of its subtextual lungs. There are not very many contexts this can be taken well in, as masculinity is something that is highly valued. There is also the implication of force being used; a man does not emasculate himself, but is emasculated by defeat and/or failure at the hands of someone with more masculinity than him.
In a matriarchy, where whatever view of femininity you've chosen comes with a higher value and more agency than your chosen view of masculinity, these words will read very differently.
This is very much a finer detail thing, and something that would probably take scads of research to do completely (take, for example, the word ‘hysteria’ and its history), so if you are writing about a society which likely isn’t speaking English this might not be worth the bother to have to explain the differences in connotations to your readers.
Frequency
If you’ve changed ‘mystery’ to a dominant trait, this section might not apply to you. Otherwise…
I’m going to give you ten seconds: name three phallic buildings.
:D :D :D
Great job! Now, in ten seconds: name three yonic buildings.
:/ :/ :/
As you might have guessed (or known already) ‘yonic’ is the opposite of ‘phallic’, meaning that it has to do with the vagina rather than the penis. Phallic buildings are normally towers; yonic buildings are normally arches, such as those you’d find in a bridge, and all over the Coliseum, and as in the Arc de Triomphe. As an aside, if you like psychology Freudian, there might be less towers and more arches in your matriarchy.
The point here is that there are words we avoid, and a great many of these are influenced by our gendered hierarchy. Say ‘penis’ aloud and people might give you the hairy eyeball. Say ‘vagina’ aloud and they’ll be downright scandalized. Think about what words your matriarchy would avoid using.
Rhetorical Justifications
Unless they’ve all died off, there are going to be men in your society that will want the agency and power your women have. There will be all sorts of rhetoric about why this shouldn’t happen; broadly speaking, they will fall into one of three categories:
1) If men are allowed to practice a certain profession/hobby, they ruin themselves and will ruin it (and perhaps society) forever.
2) If men are allowed to practice a certain profession/hobby, then the overall quality of said profession/hobby will decline.
3) If men are allowed to practice a certain profession/hobby, then they will hurt themselves.
4) Men are naturally happier not doing a certain profession/hobby.
These are not sentiments you’re going to encounter verbatim from your average layperson, nor are they things that are going to show themselves unprovoked. But they should be a driving force behind your society, if an unseen one. Ask yourself: what is the average, middle of the bell-curve dwelling citizen of your society likely to say when they encounter a male doctor, assuming doctoring is seen as a feminine profession:
1) BURN THE WARLOCK!
2) Are you sure you know what you’re doing?
3) Aren’t you afraid of catching some deadly disease?
4) Wouldn’t you be happier as (insert male profession here)?
Again, make sure that you are consistent and follow through. As amusing as it might be for you to write a male doctor who is constantly running to accusations of warlockcraft, you’re going to have to follow through on that threat of burning warlocks at least once in order to justify it.
Words say a lot about a society. Pay attention to the ones you chose.
Reminder Intersections Resources