#getudo societal pressures

[aikoiya]

LoZ: Wild - An Examination of Gerudo Societal Pressures

You know what I don't understand? Why I haven't seen a lot of fans exploring the amount of societal pressure that the Gerudo Culture would absolutely visit upon its vai to find voe to settle down with.

Like, think about it. The continued existence of their race relies on as many of their vai as possible leaving town to go out & find voe to marry & have as many daughters as they can with.

Like, if as many of them as possible don't do this, their race could feasibly die out. Now, in the IRL modern era, there's a lot of focus on gender equality, 'women need to be in more positions of power,' acceptance & even celebration of others' sexualities, of child-free lifestyles, of 'transwomen & transmen are the same as women & men & if you're not attracted to them then you're a bigot,' & 'strong, independent woman don't need no man.'

But here's a race where positions of power are ALL occupied by women because their race only gets 1 man per century. And there's a very real & present consequence to this being the case.

Such as having to leave their homes & desperately search out men from other races in order to keep their people & culture alive. Also, the very obvious sexual, even misandristic, segregation present in their culture & the fact that daughters are purposefully separated from their fathers, & sometimes even mothers as showcased by Rhondson & Maddison, as early as age 5 & are not allowed to see each other until the vai are old enough to go out & find voe of their own & I just don't think that that's very healthy for them. Studies show that children who grow up without a father figure of some sort tend to have far more problems psychologically later down the line. So, unless the Gerudo's brains develop in a wholy different way to how humans do, this tradition of their's could just be creating generation after generation of possibly developmentally stunted individuals. Which shows that just because their culture is run by women rather than men, that doesn't automatically make everything rosy & perfect.

Which is actually a very realistic outlook in this situation. In this way, you could say that men are both coveted & in some ways paradoxically looked down upon in a similar way to how women used to be IRL, at least in Gerudo society. I've even seen a comment about how Gerudo are made to be so entirely divorced from men that said men are in a lot of ways viewed as an entirely different species from themselves. Which makes a certain degree of sense.

And I saw someone complain about how the Gerudo are a race of warrior women, yet they are forced to abandon their homes in order to find husbands & pop out babies & that all the Gerudo they meet outside of the desert all seem to only talk about romance & there was some obvious indications of them having a feminist perspective. Of course, they were wrong; not all of the Gerudo outside of the desert only talk about romance & finding voe, but admittedly, most of them do. Though, the thing is, this is actually extremely realistic given their biological situation.

The amount of social pressure in the Gerudo Culture, just from their biological circumstances, to be straight, leave home, find a man, get married to him, & have as many kids as possible must be absolutely insane.

Like, let's be real here. In a predicament where you either reproduce or you could be contributing to your race's extinction, you fucking reproduce! Keep in mind, the Gerudo are never really shown to be very prolific, so that might also contribute. Logically speaking, if more Gerudo had a larger number of offspring, then perhaps there wouldn't be such a subliminal need for each & every one to go out & seek men. Which alone would take some pressure off & might allow for more Gerudo to feel free to pursue other interests.

I mean, you really only see a handful of young vai in town & only really Maddison outside of it. Which, for me, would raise some alarms. Like, this is such a huge cultural thing, yet you only see 1 family with a Gerudo daughter outside of town?? Why aren't there more?? Like, not all of them need to have side quests! Just have a couple random Gerudo women living in Hyrule with a husband, a few with young daughters & even some with baby vai in bassinets! Maybe have a couple Gerudo obviously pregnant.

Which, BTW! There are no pregnant women in BotW or TotK! And that is extremely alarming!

Like, as modern women, we can say that we're independent & don't need men & we don't need children because our population is very high right now. Therefore it isn't as outrageously important for us to pop out kids. The Gerudo, however, don't have that option.

All things considered, there really aren't that many of them as they almost exclusively live in the Gerudo Desert unless they're out around Hyrule looking for men or married to one & living there, at least as far as we know & that really isn't a very large place compared to the rest of Hyrule. Then again, the desert does just cut off there, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are actually more Gerudo settlements that aren't as close to Hyrule & thus aren't really considered thematically important to the plots of the games.

I admit that I do also wish that they talked more about other things, but it just shows how important this is.

Honestly, let's be real here. Gerudo Culture most likely wouldn't be very kind to homosexuals or transpeople. Even spinsters are likely looked down upon as failures to a degree. I'm just being realistic here.

If a Gerudo were to discover she was gay, I guarantee that it'd be a death sentence if anyone found out.

And transman foreigners that try to talk up Gerudo? Probably considered deceivers & wicked liars. Especially if the Gerudo had to find this out on their own rather than being told. Like, not only is something like that horribly manipulative IRL, for a Gerudo who thought she'd found her true love who she could live happily ever after with & have daughters with to make her ancestors proud. This would be like a slap in the face.

Like, obviously most of these people would likely just be trying to live their lives as who they believe themselves to be or something, but from the perspective of a Gerudo, it would feel very targeted. It would just make sense that the Gerudo's culture would subconsciously teach them to react in such a way.

Like, keep in mind the cultures that the Gerudo are based off of: Egypt/Middle Eastern cultures. Such cultures are mostly Muslim in religion & they generally don't treat homosexuality very well either. In fact, if 2 men have sex, it is very possible for them to be sentenced to death. Even in situations where a man is raped by another man, the victim is still liable to be executed unless he lies & says he's trans.

But even that is simply from a religious perspective. The Gerudo are forced to look at it through a "my entire race is relying on me to have babies or we could go extinct" perspective. Which should arguably make them even more biased against such things.

Keep in mind that Nintendo doesn't seem to be afraid of making the Gerudo go extinct as exactly this seemed to take place in Wind Waker.

Which, BTW, I'm still trying to nail down how the Gerudo came back from if the Wild Series really is a convergence of all 3 timelines. I mean, I always suspected that Telma was at least part Gerudo, but who knows, maybe I was right?? Perhaps the ancestors of the Gerudo returned to the desert for whatever reason & something about that caused something to happen?? I dunno... I do theorize that the whole only women thing might've been a result of some sort of curse, so maybe another aspect of that is that returning to the Gerudo Region allows their Gerudo blood to resurface??

Though... now that I think about it. Maybe they wouldn't be so outright opposed to Vai being genderfluid. They'd likely see it as strange & childish, but ultimately harmless.

Voe, though? No.

This isn't meant to be hateful, just a realistic look at the Gerudo culture based on logic & evidence. An examination of how a society like this would actually work given their situation.

LoZ Cultural Masterlist

[aikoiya]

LoZ: TotK - Gerudo Misrepresentaion

I saw art of a TransLink in Gerudo Town just being fawned over by Gerudo & I just...

Wouldn't a transman literally be considered the single most undesirable sort of man to a Gerudo just based on the sheer amount of societal pressure that would be on them to find a man who could actually give them children?

I'm not saying this hatefully, just in a logical & logistical sense.

Like, wouldn't the very knowledge of him being trans just instantly put him in the friend zone for life at the very best? And, considering their need to have daughters, wouldn't it be possible that they'd be considered wicked liars who try to lead the Gerudo astray & possibly subject to fierce descrimination & even torture & murder at worst?

Similarly, how the hell could a Gerudo be kicked out of town for being trans?? Men weren't ALLOWED in Gerudo Town AT ALL until TotK & that was just 1 little twunk of a guy! There is NO WAY that any Gerudo who hasn't already started their journey to find a voe could know enough about actual men to be able to make that sort of decision for themselves! Sure, they might have fanciful ideas about what they think being a voe is like, but the thing is, all they'd know about men would largely be secondhand knowledge, stereotypes perpetuated by vai, & their own vague memories of their fathers if they even had one in their lives back then. To a young Gerudo, voe must sound like some sort of exotic species of animal from some far-flug continent on the other side of the planet!

Like, sure, I bet trans Gerudo do exist, but they'd likely only discover a legitimate desire to become a man after leaving Gerudo Town & interacting with men for themselves.

Otherwise, a Gerudo vai wanting to be a voe would amount to a kid wanting to be a unicorn or dinosaur. Just playing pretend.

Not only that, but due to their society's situation & the existence of the Centennial Kings, it's more likely that the Gerudo would suspect such an individual of trying to overthrow the Chief by trying to claim voehood. Of course, that doesn't actually mean that they would be trying to do this, but it's definitely something that could be misconstrued from the situation.

Just, as a concept, this doesn't make sense.

Don't get me wrong, draw whatever you want. I'm really just complaining, honestly.

Edit: And another thing! I also heard a perspective that grosses me out.

Like, remember how Urbosa said that there hasn't been a male leader of the Gerudo in such & such time?

Well someone took that to mean that there hadn't been any male Gerudo born in that time at all. They then brought up the idea that all the Centennial Kings after that had all been raised as vai &... that grosses me out.

Like, it's one thing if a guy grows up & decides for himself that he's more comfortable as a woman. It's another thing entirely to raise someone as the opposite sex because they cannot give their consent!

Like, what if the kid identifies with his biological sex?? Wouldn't that be every bit as traumatizing as a transperson being raised as their biological sex supposedly is?? And don't anyone ever say that this hasn't ever happened before because it has & it's well-documented. Just look up John Money & David Reimer! That poor kid! Money argued that gender didn't matter & that a male could be perfectly happy & well-adjusted being raised as a female.

What isn't often acknowledged is that his experiment utterly failed. David Reimer, born male, had an experimental sex reassignment after a botched circumcision as a baby & Money convinced his parents to not only go through with it, but to also raise him as a girl. The poor kid was utterly convinced of his own masculinity by age 11 & had transitioned back to being a male by 15. Yet, despite this, due to the many surgeries, he went through periods of depression & ended up killing himself at age 38.

And if the rate of trans to bio-identifying is the same as IRL, then most of these voe would've lived utterly miserable lives!

Like, dude. There's an easier & much less traumatizing way to keep your son safe, ya'll. It's called leaving Gerudo Town... That's it! Just leave! Your home is not worth your child's sanity! Just pack up & go! Or if you're not in Gerudo Town, just never go back! Hell! Tell them all you miscarried! Or, if you absolutely must go back, then leave the kid with his dad or grandpa if they're good people! At least the boy will have a male role model!

I also heard someone else suggest that all the Centennial Kings are just trans & that is just... No.

The idea that you would make someone your literal king just for being trans is utter effing insanity &, honestly, is just toxic.

LoZ Cultural Masterlist