Developing Gender Roles for Fictional Cultures

Last month, it was brought to my attention that I didn’t yet have any articles on developing gender roles in fictional cultures, which led to the topic floating around in my brain until a post outline formed (likely helped along by the fact that I do have a section on gender roles in Building a World with a View, so this is a topic I’ve written about before even if it wasn’t in an available format until now). While some folks prefer to avoid gender roles as a fraught topic, knowing how your culture views the responsibilities and roles of men and women makes a huge difference in how they frame society as a whole; broader societal structure has its foundation in the structure of gender roles and family units, whether we like that reality or not, so gender roles are an important topic to consider when fleshing out a fictional culture!

Consider Natural Strengths & Weaknesses

Men and women have different natural strengths and weaknesses–biological and otherwise. The same is probably true even if you’re working with a fictional race rather than solely human characters; unless you’re building a fictional race specifically to explore the question of what a culture would look like in which men and women are identical, any species is going to have natural distinctions between men and women in some area or another. Knowing what these distinctions are gives you the foundational facts that your culture will have to account for (or ignore) as they work out their conception of gender roles.

Human men, for example, are physically stronger than women. Women are naturally more physically weak (even physically strong women are still at a biological disadvantage against men when it comes to physical strength), but they also have biological abilities that men don’t–like carrying and growing babies from conception to term (and then delivering those babies).

While these fundamental differences are unchanging (though people may believe otherwise), how a culture views these differences and values or devalues the distinct strengths of either gender can differ drastically and create drastically different gender roles from culture to culture.

The Purpose & Origin of Gender Roles

What your culture sees as the purpose and origin of gender roles will affect how it shapes those gender roles. A culture whose purpose for gender roles is to optimize the societal impact and personal well-being of its citizens will have very different-looking gender roles from a culture which views these roles as a way to control the way people engage in society–or to keep whichever gender they prioritize more highly in power over the other.

Likewise, a culture that sees gender roles as a human construct will have a different attitude toward them–and different resulting guidelines–than a culture which sees gender roles as having been instituted by their deity.

Your culture’s purpose for gender roles and their perception of the origin of gender roles will also impact what areas of life these roles have an impact on. Some cultures may only expect gender roles to be observed when it comes to what work one does; some may have gender roles that dictate where a person should predominantly spend his or her time in a physical sense; some gender roles may impact one’s interaction with society through dress, etiquette, etc.; some gender roles may influence some combination of these areas.

Cultural Prioritization of Gender

Once you’ve established the natural strengths and weaknesses of men and women in whatever race you’re working with, there are two questions of cultural priorities that will form the backbone of cultural gender roles; prioritization of gender, and prioritization of tasks.

Some cultures are biased toward either men or women, some view the two as equal and equivalent (more on that later), and some view the two as equal but different. Which category your culture falls into will affect its overall idea of gender roles. If neither gender is prioritized over the other, then gender roles may be more nuanced–or, on the other hand, practically non-existent. If, however, the culture prioritizes women, for example, gender roles may be more strict in favor of women and their natural strengths, and the roles and work of men may be looked down upon.

It should be noted that prioritization of gender and prioritization of tasks don’t always coincide. Say you have a society in which men are acknowledged to have greater physical strength so they’re assigned physical labor, but the culture prioritizes women, who are acknowledged to be physically more fragile and given the work of artistry, motherhood, etc. There are two ways this prioritization of women might play out. On the one hand, you might have a culture that sees physical labor as a “necessary evil,” looks down upon men and their physical work, etc. On the other hand, you might have a culture that acknowledges the necessity of physical labor in a more positive way, appreciates men for sparing women that physical work, and sees men less favorably than women but still acknowledges their purpose and value within society as a whole.

If a particular gender is prioritized over the other–in either direction–keep in mind that this will have a negative effect on those who are of the lesser-valued sex. This may lead to a culture in which the devalued gender neglects their natural strengths and leaves gaps in society as a result, or in which the devalued gender tends to abuse their natural strengths because they feel those strengths are repressed but they don’t know how to use them properly because they were never encouraged to do so. Or, of course, you might end up with a combination of the two.

Imbalanced prioritization can also have a negative effect on the more highly-valued sex, as they may have fewer boundaries around their strengths and thus abuse those strengths–or use them to abuse the opposite sex–and may be blind to their natural weaknesses.

Cultures with a more balanced view of the value of men and women may have the same weaknesses if they treat men and women as having entirely equivalent roles; while cultures that have a balanced view of both the value and the respective roles of men and women may better equip their people to know their strengths and their weaknesses and to use their strengths in tandem vs. in competition. (More on that shortly.)

Cultural Prioritization of Tasks

Sometimes, as we’ve just discussed, cultures have an underlying gender bias. Sometimes, however, a culture values or devalues certain tasks which are best fulfilled by either men or women, and gender bias may arise out of that bias toward or against particular tasks.

For example, let’s say you have a culture that doesn’t believe in harming living things unless it’s absolutely necessary–and still sees causing harm as distasteful even when it is necessary. Men might be most naturally suited to things like hunting, defending against invaders, etc., but all of these tasks would be seen as undesirable by the culture at large. Then, even if your culture doesn’t have anything against men for their own sake, they may look down on men for being the ones to do the distasteful act of causing necessary harm.

This can also work in reverse. If you have a culture which highly values children and family, you might end up with a culture that places somewhat disproportionate value on women because they’re the ones who most nurture their children–even if that culture also acknowledges the value of men in training, disciplining, protecting, and providing for their children.

Knowing what tasks your culture does or doesn’t value–which will be greatly rooted in their core cultural values–and tying that into the strengths and weaknesses of either gender can go a long way toward developing your culture’s gender roles.

Collaboration, Competition, or Conflation in Gender Roles

I’ve already alluded to this a great deal, but it’s critical to know how your culture views the relationship between the roles of men and the roles of women, and there are three basic options for this: gender roles may be collaborative, competitive, or conflated with one another.

Cultures that acknowledge the distinctions between men and women but value both equally are most likely to have collaborative gender roles–roles that complement one another, so that men and women work together in their respective roles for the betterment of society. Though, it could also be interesting to explore a culture in which men and women are viewed as equal-but-different, yet their roles are set in competition against one another somehow; while a more unlikely dynamic, it would be an interesting combination to work through for a culture.

Cultures that acknowledge the distinctions between men and women but value one more highly than the other, or that value both equally but don’t appreciate the distinctions between the sexes, are most likely to end up with gender roles that are competitive–gender roles that set men and women at odds with each other, either causing one group to look down on the other or pushing men and women to vie for the same roles within society. In either case, this is likely to lead to conflict and resentment between men and women.

Lastly, cultures that value men and women equally but try to erase the distinctions between them may conflate gender roles, so that they appear non-existent. This can lead to the same conflict of men and women trying to fill the same positions and getting in each other’s way, and it can also lead to certain roles going unfilled–or underfilled–as no one of either gender is prepared or encouraged to fill any specific role.

Flexibility of Gender Roles

Not only is it helpful to know what your culture expects of men and women within its society, but it’s also important to know how stringent its gender roles are. Overly strict gender roles can generate disproportionate dissatisfaction among those who feel like they don’t naturally fit the mold expected of them, while gender roles that are too loose can easily leave people feeling unsure of where they belong and lacking guidance to figure it out. The dynamics available, of course, are many and varied, as they will depend not only on where your culture falls along the spectrum of strict vs. loose but also how that interacts with their unique expectations and prioritization for gender roles.

There are two big things to understand when deciding the flexibility of gender roles in this culture. One significant factor is the culture’s underlying values. For example, order-focused cultures may be naturally strict on most things, gender roles included, while a culture that values nature might instead have gender roles patterned after the most common strengths and weaknesses of men and women but leave more room for exceptions when they naturally arise.

The second biggest thing to understand is that the strictness of gender roles is a spectrum. Some cultures might be incredibly strict, encapsulating everything from work to clothing to way of speaking to etiquette under the umbrella of “gender roles” and leaving no room for deviation; some cultures might have very clear guidelines around what types of work each gender is meant for, but allow for greater flexibility in how they fulfill that work and/or in how they engage with society beyond that work (in dress, etiquette, etc.); some may have no guidelines at all, as previously mentioned, leaving men and women to work and interact with society in whatever ways they please without regard for sex.

This will, of course, be highly influenced also by your culture’s purpose for gender roles and where they believe  these roles came from, as discussed earlier. There may be less room for flexibility in gender roles that are perceived to have been instituted by a deity–but even so, how broad these guidelines are may only extend to those areas on which that deity has spoken; perhaps the deity has given clear guidelines on how each gender should dress, but not on how they must work, for example. Of course, there is always the possibility that your culture may take this beyond the direct instructions of their deity to create stricter guidelines than they were given, as well.

There are a few core things to think about when developing your culture’s idea of gender roles. Is this a topic you’ve explored in your worldbuilding before? Which point stood out to you most? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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