The relationship between Men and Women in the WoT

[OzzieAlThor]

Where is it stated that they belive there was a cap for either men or women?

 

"The World of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time" doesn't state anything like that.

 

Just wondering where I can find that info. Thanks.

[Luckers]

Cyndane thiks to herself when she sees Alivia that she is stronger then she herself was before her time with the Finns, and that that is impossible, therefore she must have an angreal. There are a couple of other references to it, and at one stage an Aes Sedai thinks that Sharina may be the strongest a woman can be--and given the recent burst of increasingly strong women, that thought makes no sense unless there is documentation of a cut-off strength.

 

LTT and Ishamael, it has also been said, were the strongest men in the Age of Legends, indicating a similar cut off strength.

[liatildina]

Okay but what if Rands kids just happen to be a click stronger than dad. We don't know everything that happend in the Age of legends. Maybe the breaking of the world makes all before a mute point and we are in new territory now. The Wheel turns and there is no beginning right, but hey it's a beginning so can't it be just a tad different?

[Luckers]

If anything it seems the ability has been waning since the Breaking. No, i simply don't see it happening.

[Guest cwestervelt]

Luckers: Cyndane thiks to herself when she sees Alivia that she is stronger then she herself was before her time with the Finns, and that that is impossible, therefore she must have an angreal. There are a couple of other references to it, and at one stage an Aes Sedai thinks that Sharina may be the strongest a woman can be--and given the recent burst of increasingly strong women, that thought makes no sense unless there is documentation of a cut-off strength.

 

LTT and Ishamael, it has also been said, were the strongest men in the Age of Legends, indicating a similar cut off strength.

 

Cyndane's oppinion really doesn't carry that much wait with me. Lanfear she had a serious superiority complex. You'd think dying would be a bit of a reality check, but it hasn't really helped that any.

 

That said, I do recall the Aes Sedai speculating about a maximum possible strength anyone could reach. I just can't remember the who and when that commented on it. Not that it is necessarily true, just that the Aes Sedai believe there is one.

[OzzieAlThor]

Where is it stated that they belive there was a cap for either men or women?

 

"The World of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time" doesn't state anything like that.

 

Just wondering where I can find that info. Thanks.

 

Great question Ozzie! Maybe someone will answer it! 8)

[Luckers]

Luckers: Cyndane thiks to herself when she sees Alivia that she is stronger then she herself was before her time with the Finns' date=' and that that is impossible, therefore she must have an angreal. There are a couple of other references to it, and at one stage an Aes Sedai thinks that Sharina may be the strongest a woman can be--and given the recent burst of increasingly strong women, that thought makes no sense unless there is documentation of a cut-off strength.

 

LTT and Ishamael, it has also been said, were the strongest men in the Age of Legends, indicating a similar cut off strength.[/quote']

 

Cyndane's oppinion really doesn't carry that much wait with me. Lanfear she had a serious superiority complex. You'd think dying would be a bit of a reality check, but it hasn't really helped that any.

 

That said, I do recall the Aes Sedai speculating about a maximum possible strength anyone could reach. I just can't remember the who and when that commented on it. Not that it is necessarily true, just that the Aes Sedai believe there is one.

 

There is conciderable evidence supporting Lanfear in comparative analysis of strengths that we have witnessed and comments made by others. Additionally whilst i agree completely about Lanfears nature, that particular thought didn't strike me as a lie or delusion. She is genuinely surprised to find someone stronger then she herself used to be--and she is honest with herself about her current lower standing.

 

It was about Sharina that the Aes Sedai concidered that.

 

Ozzie, try reading the posts. Your 'great' question was addressed. Just because something is not addressed in the Guide does not make it inadmissable. The guide is a great source, but when push comes to shove it was written by another person.

[Guardsman Bass]

Women in virtually all traditional agricultural societies were relegated to "second class citizen" status was because of two reasons:

 

1. High rate of childbirth. This was necessitated by the fact that agriculture was dependent on the strong backs and arms of as many sons as possible, and because so many children died young, frequently before the age of five. This means that women were having children that were, on average, spaced apart about two years average, and were frequently incapacitated by pregnancy. This includes noble women.

 

2. Women, are on average, significantly weaker than men in terms of explosive upper body strength. This meant, combined with the above, that they generally were greatly disadvantaged in cultivating all of the major crops grown in most of the major civilizations barring rice.

 

However, WoT features a large number of women who have been major power brokers and back room manipulators for essentially as long as the current Age can remember. This, at the very least, would probably tend to eliminate stereotypes, so that while the average woman should still be stuck dying giving birth to her third child, a woman who isn't should not necessarily be damaged by stereotypes as they would be in our history.

[ArieBombarie]

btw this brings me to the question

 

why do woman always seem to get spanked or serious humiliated mainly by eachother?

 

Does anybody have a normal discussion and come to a decision without one always being the dominant one and scare/force the others? The only who seem to have some form of normal discussion seem man, woman seem mainly in a power strugle.

[Zardi]

Do you mean in WoT, or in the real world? If you mean the latter, do us all a favor and try not to stereotype.

[ArieBombarie]

Do you mean in WoT' date=' or in the real world? If you mean the latter, do us all a favor and try not to stereotype.[/quote']

 

:shock:

 

In WoT of course

[Zardi]

Lol. Ok then ;) Well...anyone playing Daes Dae'mar is in the middle of a power struggle, regardless of gender. And since Aes Sedai are said to have invented the Game of Houses, it would naturally seem that women take part in that sort of thing more often than men do. Women who are good friends (like Elayne and Aviendha) aren't really in a power struggle that I see. Nynaeve and Egwene went through a power struggle in...TGH, was it? Or TDR?...but that had to do with Egwene trying to assert her independence from the village wisdom who had smacked her bottom more than once as a child. I saw it as more of a coming of age struggle than anything else.

[ArieBombarie]

Lol. Ok then ;) Well...anyone playing Daes Dae'mar is in the middle of a power struggle' date=' regardless of gender. And since Aes Sedai are said to have invented the Game of Houses, it would naturally seem that women take part in that sort of thing more often than men do. Women who are good friends (like Elayne and Aviendha) aren't really in a power struggle that I see. Nynaeve and Egwene went through a power struggle in...TGH, was it? Or TDR?...but that had to do with Egwene trying to assert her independence from the village wisdom who had smacked her bottom more than once as a child. I saw it as more of a coming of age struggle than anything else.[/quote']

On the other hand not many woman seem to be friends or come to decisions/actions in mutual agreement. Most female characters seem to be manipulating and pretty bitchy (excuse my language. There always seems to be a need to be top dog. Is there any easy going/layed back female character in the books?

And why are the female characters so often intimidating others? I like that the female characters are put down as pretty strong and not the regular 'needs resque and makes a mess in a crisis' type, but are they they characters females can identify with (considering the amount of female readers here I take they do but for some reason they do not really seem put down well).

And why does every female character eventualy run into a spanking of some kind?

[Gentled Ben]

You have a point, I think. Perhaps the best answer is that it's a fantasy story, and in the author's mind, ALL of the women behave that way, to some degree or another, and yes, there seems to be an excessive amount of corporal punishment, especially for adults! Light, how many grown women get hit on a regular basis in these novels, even if it's just a swat with a wooden spoon from a busy cook?

 

Now, that being said, I think that Bela is pretty laid back, and as far as spankings go, Lanfear never got one, and she was very, very bad. :twisted:

[ArieBombarie]

who was Bela?

 

Min is pretty laid back, but even she is all the time thinking or threating to box Rands ears.

[Gentled Ben]

:lol: That stupid, mild-mannered horse that Rand loaned to Egwene when they left Emond's Field and who's STILL hanging around because RJ won't kill anyone except Asmodean. I think she's Siuan's pony now, or something. By that point in my post, I was just joking, both about Bela and Lanfear. Well, not Lanfear so much...she SO needed a spanking.

 

*limbers up his spankin' hand*

[ArieBombarie]

:lol:

 

maybe the attention for the horses makes for the many female readers (just joking).

 

but I would still want to know how much the female readers can identify with the female characters (doing some writing myself and a good female character is hard to do, maybe make a new thread?)

 

For some reason Rand is only running into the bitchy side of females, except when he sleeps with them but even than they want to put him in his place.

[Gentled Ben]

Yeah, that might make a good thread for the general discussion forum or the writer's forum. We should probably let this one go back to topic. Umm, blah blah men are viewed as woolheads by the women in Randland. There.

[Luckers]

Women in virtually all traditional agricultural societies were relegated to "second class citizen" status was because of two reasons:

 

1. High rate of childbirth. This was necessitated by the fact that agriculture was dependent on the strong backs and arms of as many sons as possible, and because so many children died young, frequently before the age of five. This means that women were having children that were, on average, spaced apart about two years average, and were frequently incapacitated by pregnancy. This includes noble women.

 

2. Women, are on average, significantly weaker than men in terms of explosive upper body strength. This meant, combined with the above, that they generally were greatly disadvantaged in cultivating all of the major crops grown in most of the major civilizations barring rice.

 

However, WoT features a large number of women who have been major power brokers and back room manipulators for essentially as long as the current Age can remember. This, at the very least, would probably tend to eliminate stereotypes, so that while the average woman should still be stuck dying giving birth to her third child, a woman who isn't should not necessarily be damaged by stereotypes as they would be in our history.

 

Sorry, but thats not actually true. Woman gathered on average 80% to 90% of foodstores in hunter-gatherer societies (higher in non indo-european societies, like Aboriginal or Moari). In more agriculturalized societies women worked alongside the men in the fields usually up to, and until the point they they gave birth--in china this state still is the case. The high death-rate of women is irreguardless to their continued work. If they didn't die, they were expected to be out in the fields again within three days.

 

Additionally in non-christian societies women usually held more positions of power then men--herbwomen, priestesses, witches, crones. That is to say, you would quite often get a single man at the top, but lower then that the majority of other positions of power were held by women. Also Urbanisation has always been the result of heightened feminine power---take for instance the cult of Cybelle to the Frates Arales in Rome, or the entire notion and nature of Catal Hajuk--a city on the proporitions of Romen built 3000 years before it.

 

Its easy to assume christian sociological states to be THE state, but it simply isn't. It usually wasn't the case in christian societies either, but the christians were the masters of the double-standard... just look at the victorian era.

 

Also, don't misread me and assume i am saying women were in control... patriarchies in the ancient world are far more common then matriarchies--with a few notable exceptions--but women held significant positions of power AND honour--both because of their religious connection to creation and goddess worship, but also because of the nessisty of the role they played. Looking at the past in terms of black and white is simply impossible.

[Zardi]

but I would still want to know how much the female readers can identify with the female characters

I can't speak for all females, but I do find it hard to identify with most of the female characters. Min is the easiest for me, I think, because though she frequently calls Rand a woolhead, she's usually joking, or she does so because he's about to do something foolish and dangerous. I'll make jokes about men when I'm around female friends, but they are just jokes. I try to view people as individuals rather than as genders, but I admit it's hard to do given society's view that men and women are practically different species.

 

It's realistic for WoT, I think, for women to view men as they do, and to be as manipulative as they are, given the influence that the all-female White Tower has had on the world for 3000 years. However, I wonder sometimes if RJ did that consciously, or if he really thinks all women are manipulative bitches who think men are idiots. While I have met a few women who are manipulative and constantly bitchy, I have met a few men who are like that, too. We're all different. *shrug*

[yolindamo]

As a manipulative, bitchy woman I take issue with this being presented as a bad thing. :lol:

 

Anyway, characters in books are often magnified forms of reality. That is what makes them characters. In some ways I identify with many of the women in the books, but no one completely. I am not a character, I am a real person.

 

That being said, I guess I am the most like Egwene with touches of Elayne and Min.

 

And, I have never been through a day when I didnt feel I deserved a good spanking.

[liatildina]

In regards to spanking in the series I believe there is a correlation to the lack of entertainment, no t.v, not many books, gleemen are hard to find in places, sheep are boring and there is also just personal perference of course.

 

Why do all of us crazy women enjoy wheel, hmm... probably for the same reasons you crazy men do - it's a great story. The female characters are strong but I never thought to question that, most of the women I know are strong, we are just probably hiding it to well from you all. We can't make it to obvious that we run the universe, it would frighten the menfolk, lead to more spanking.

[OzzieAlThor]

It's because both men and women enjoy seeing someone put in there place when need be. Or at least seeing characters stick up for themselves or get into "We're not gonna take this crap anymore" mode.

 

Women can slap men if they need it. Men can't slap women if they do. Break out the paddle, Perrin is ticked!

 

I have never seen a spanking in the series that wasn't needed. Hell, even the Aiel chicks with Faile respected Perrin more after he gave Faile whatfor. They thought it was funny! I like Aiel women! :lol:

[RobertAlexWillis]

Faile would probably like it if Perrin DID break out the paddle.

[OzzieAlThor]

Faile would probably like it if Perrin DID break out the paddle.

 

Hell' date=' she'll be insulted if he DOESN't bring them out eventually.

 

[i']"How can he think I am to weak to have a sore ass?!"[/i]

 

She's kind of stupid. In a bad way.