#ps pardon any typos it's been a long day

[jeanjauthor]

Hello I came from the ask on waoiaf. I’m a different anon but I thought your answer was pretty cool. Hope you do not mind me asking but I am in a similar boat with merging two cultures. I am making a female prevelant book with five female POV’s and most are in the merchant world which I took inspired from the late mediveal- Renaissance Italian era, I have two that are in the nobility which takes more after 16th century France and partakes in Salic law. Do you have any worldbuilding fem tips?

I don’t mind being asked, no worries!  My thoughts & ideas might work, or might not, but then that’s true for any answer I’d give, lol.  It all depends on the situation.

Okay...so if I understand correctly, it’s not real-world history, but you’ve got a created world culture with some late medieval Italian renaissance flair and some age of exploration French aristocracy with Salic law issues.  Had to look up Salic law, lol (for those curious, the wiki article is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_law ), but yeah...basically criminal laws that evolved to include inheritance laws & patriarchal/misogyny based issues as well, predominantly the “women cannot inherit titles /powers /duties /property” bs for royalty & nobility...

Mkay, first question, and this is a genuine one:  Is it necessary to have misogyny imposed by law for inheritances?  If so, is it part of the story, driving either the plot or the character’s struggles and growth?  If so for either of those, remembering that you’re writing for a modern audience (and that readers’ tastes have shifted quite a bit in the last 10 years alone!), are these issues going to be addressed in the story and overcome in a meaningful way?

These questions are predicated on the basis that you’re not writing real-world history, but rather a created world based upon, but not dependent on, these incorporated influences.

One of the reasons why patriarchy & misogyny are so heavily incorporated into European history is because of the patriarchal & misogynistic influences of the Christian Church after around 300 CE, iirc; my memory of the exact dates is fuzzy, but that’s about when it gets going--prior to this point, the Christian Church was a lot more egalitarian.  So egalitarian, in fact, that many major early Church leaders were women, to the point that it actually started to overshadow the standards of Roman custom, culture, & law of the day--Roman women could own property and run businesses, even if they couldn’t vote...but the Christians! *le gasp!* They were letting women vote on how their cultural government should be run??

Yeah, it wasn’t quite that dramatic, not in a widespread way...but at some point, male leaders in positions of power (secular and/or religious) decided to NOPE women out of positions of power, to make them second class citizens, and even nope them all the way down into being barefoot preggers in the kitchen, etc, chattel.  They used the Christian religion as their vehicle to gain power, influence, and dominance over society, warping the original Christian culture and its values away from egalitarianism.

But that is the real world.  So does your created world have that kind of religious /historical /cultural influence?  This is important because we know that in our world’s history, Salic law remained pretty firmly in place for well over a thousand years...and we’re still fighting to change it for the better today.  Your world is different.

If the inherent misogyny, etc, in a Salic law system is going to be an issue for your characters, can they overcome it in meaningful ways?  Are there going to be changes to the customs, whether local or regional?  Are there going to be changes to the laws, whether local, regional, or national?--This particular plot setup & payoff would be absolutely lovely to see in a fantasy / historical-esque world setting, to see actual changes happening, and not merely token-esque changes or an “exception made for this one (1) character.”  A meaningful change is one that affects not just the main characters, but secondary and tertiary characters’ lives as well.

You may have to bring some A-Game arguments into the story for these females arguing for their rights to inherit land, property, businesses, to run said businesses, to not have to be married or under the domination of their fathers, husbands, brothers, etc.  And it would be great if some of the males in these ladies’ lives showed some open support for them...and absolutely smashing for males in positions of power & authority who can change the laws to do so in a publicly acknowledging way. 

Literally, if the ladies campaign for the right to own property and run businesses and be inheritors for their fathers & mothers, then have the King or whoever show it by publicly decreeing or announcing,  “We have labored for far too long under the assumptions of misogyny, and have been held back by the weight of these pointless chains, which shall now be removed...”

or “I was wrong to assume that Lady Allania could only have brought her family’s merchant business to absolute ruin.  Instead, she has created alliances with former enemies and prospered our kingdom...and I must admit that she is not the only woman so gifted and capable.  When any female is given the same respect, training, education, and opportunity as a male, they, too, can do just as many wonderful things, and it is time this kingdom’s laws reflected this great, untapped potential, thus I am revoking or altering the following laws (blah blah blah)...”  or at least something along those lines.

It’d be some hard work, but if you go this route, a lot of readers will love your story all the more for it, since it genuinely will be something different.  If you don’t...a lot of readers will do the *eyeroll* thing and go “ho hum, another standard ‘fantasy world based on Europe’ and all its historical problems... Next?”  Not all by any means, but it is something to consider.

...Now with all that said, the next question is, which part of Italy in the Renaissance is being copied?  Because if it’s Venetian, you’ve got the Doge Era for hundreds of years, which was pretty much a mix of royalty, arosticracy, republic, and democracy ruling the city, all of which helped to spread the strength and wealth of the merchant class.  But if it’s based on Milan, that was a centralized monarchy.  And Rome, of course, was ruled by the papacy, which, hoo boy, was misogynistic AF as well as hypocritical in how it sent out a LOT of mixed messages, lots of bribery and usury, plenty of power-grabbing maneuverings, plus most high-ranking members kept mistresses, etc, while decrying sex out of marriage, blah blah blah...

From the way you mention merchant classes, I’m presuming it’s much more of a Venetian (or possibly Genoese) influence.  Running with that idea as the main cultural influence...how deeply involved are women in the merchanting and crafting businesses?  The fact that these women are engaged in business means that they could theoretically be interacting not only with men, but with a lot of women--the workers of these industries, even if the vast majority of them are not allowed to be owners or decision-makers.

Skipping up to England, in London in Tudor times, there was a whole guild of women who specifically made thread-of-gold for export.  They were pretty much the only ones doing this (because it’s expensive to make, for the first part), and doing it of such fine quality that they could command hefty prices for their skills.  They had influence on the textiles industry, demanding the best materials for thread, and influence on the goldsmithing industry, in their demands for the perfect type of gold foil, just the right thickness and plibility for wrapping around threads. 

It was a small corner of the textiles industry in England, but it was a commodity highly valued by nobles & royals across the length and breadth of Europe, including all the way down to Venice & beyond...because Venetian merchants would trade in this thread-of-gold and cloth-of-gold that these English women were making.

You can see the power and influence that the crafting trades and merchant classes could have.  One of the strengths of females throughout history has been our ability to bring together communities to work for the betterment of that community.  Are these women leading or otherwise involved in a revolution (peaceful or otherwise) that will pressure changes to these Salic style laws?  Who are they working with? And are they working with the noble-born women you mentioned to try to leverage the powers-that-be into granting women their rights in areas of inheritance, property, and commerce?

This will depend upon the overall plot, of course, but if you want to have a strong female presence in your story, then consider how daily life runs for females, how constrictive the culture and its laws are, how much these women can and will push at those constrictive boundaries (because we all do that; it’s just a fact of humanity), and how both the other females and the males around them will react.

Being only scandalized /outraged /reactionary to such things is definitely an overdone reaction, but you can get rid of that tired trope by having those who are scandalized or reactionary eventually getting over it, coming to accept it, or even be enthused by it.  Also, there will always a number of people who will be intrigued and even excited by these proposed or attempted changes.  You can build some of these struggles into a popular movement--and you don’t even have to show all of it “on screen” as it were. 

Maybe your characters in their struggle to maintain control over the family pottery business talked with other female potters about their problems, their demands, and asked for solidarity in the face of misogyny.  Maybe these others carried the news to other towns, and suddenly Altraltia, a city a few days’ travel away, center of the finest porcelains being produced in the known land, is experiencing a high revolution by the women who do most of the actual work with the ceramics, demanding that they be given rights and powers equal with the men, or they will not make any more porcelain.

Since the men of Altraltia were depending on their women to do all the fancy stuff (women tending to have modestly better fine motor skills), now that the women are on strike, these men can’t fulfill all these orders that the nobles have commissioned.  The city is in chaos, word has come back to your main characters that the strikers are demanding that the king change the laws--and maybe the next thing you know, women in other fields, basketmaking, weaving, etc, are also demanding the right to have their jobs and skills and capacities for running businesses and receiving inheritances respected... All while your main characters are shocked, and maybe even doing their equivalent of the Steve Urkel thing of *blinkblink* Did I do thaaaaat?  (And then celebrating, of course, when the king does change the laws for the better.)

Sweeping social movements and cultural changes don’t have to happen just during the era of social media.  People will travel, people will talk, people will write letters or communicate in various ways.  And those who know how to bring communities together, to instill senses of injustice, demands for change, expressions of how to change for the better...these communities united in these ways will cause those changes.

And because it’s not based on Earth’s history...you can get these types of Salic laws changed, presenting a pro-fem story in your own created world.

...Again, it’ll depend upon your plot, but for sure, women will lean in toward other women for advice, for help, for change.  Throw in some men who genuinely want to support these changes that will better their lives and their world, and you’ll have a powerful story that can inspire readers in this world to lean in, work together, and change our world for the better, too.

Hope at least some of that gives you some ideas!

(*The trope of women fighting each other, ruining each other’s chances of advancement, is also another tired old trope that can be flipped or tossed aside. Watch Legally Blonde to witness how the main female rival reacts to the main character, toward the end, to see how this is done believably.)