People that get invested in fiction and examine fictional lore need to learn how to tell the difference between which lore is actually important to the series and which lore is an excuse for something.
If Dwarven women are capable of growing beards, but have cultural reasons not to, that is an excuse that they made not to give them beards.
If a female character can only wear skimpy clothing for some given reason, that is an excuse to sexualize her.
If an organization can only be populated men, that is often an excuse to not have to create female characters.
Its all made up. It isn’t a foundation of the universe that they can’t control. They wrote it to be like that.
Can you imagine how fucking wild ladies must have gone for the rejection in pride and prejudice right after it was first published. This guy’s making ten thousand a year and her family is expecting her to find accommodation for herself sooner rather than later and STILL Lizzie is like “no. No. True love only. And also while I’ve got you here please accept my invitation to fuck off.” I would’ve lost my damn gourd, I would’ve gone bonkers. And group chats didn’t exist so you’d just have to hope your friends were as far into the book as you so you could meet at the village green to throw a fucking riot
I’d write my friends an urgent communique as soon as I’d finished the Collins proposal scene too like “My dearest Anne, you simply won’t BELIEVE the developments of this chapter. Read urgently and respond post fucking haste!!” And seal it with a wax stamp and shit.
Fun Fact: This actually happened, leading to a concern that novels (a relatively new form) were Dangerous and would cause The Women to have Hysteria. Doctors did studies to try to find out what was up with these women who’d read these books and why they were so crazy. Newspaper editors wrote articles about the dangers of novel-reading. Old men grumped about it in much the way old men grump now about cell phones. Tea houses found that you could triple a day’s take by hosting readings (the Victorian/Edwardian version of podfic) of the latest sensation novel. I’ve heard of (but not seen proof, take with grains of salt) men writing letters to other men about how courtship went easier if you’d read enough of Austin’s work to converse about it, but if you didn’t want to, don’t ever consider a fan of the book. Shit was wild.
Women did indeed go bonkers in yonkers for Pride and Prejudice, and the rest of the world reacted as if they’d gone streaking in honor of Dionysus as the new Maenads.
Gay people from 1950-2010: we are human just like you, we’re not another species or a subculture, the only difference is that we are attracted to the same gender.
Gay people in 2018: straight people are stinky, WIG!
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