so as previously stated, misogyny is not a widespread thing in sornieth. but individual families/monarchies/clans/etc may hold their own gender biases. this is comparatively rare and usually found among fairly isolated populations.
the winterborn trading company is huge. like it’s just massive. it has branches and holds all over sornieth and a rich history of buying off monarchs and making bank off both sides of wartime conflict (winterborn traders follow rezann’s army around like vultures, ready to capitalise off the victims of the army as well as the soldiers themselves)
there are several side-families in the company, most of which aren’t actually related by blood. but they are fairly close. and there’s a central family, which owns the giant hold in the southern icefields and controls most of the company’s wealth.
to ensure that the side-families continue to have a say in the company, a system was set in place a couple hundred years ago: every so often, a side family will offer up a boy to the main family. the boy then goes to live in the icefields hold and becomes one of zaer’s adopted sons. these boys get granted the privileges of the main family, and although they will never be able to be a true heir to the company boss, they still get a really nice, cushy position. they are treated just as well as zaer’s actual heir and given the utmost respect.
the main family is deeply misogynist. that’s just how it’s been for a long, long time. so only boys (i say boys but really they are young adults by the time they get adopted off) are brought into the main family, and only men can negotiate trade deals above a certain value (women get to take care of the day-to-day minutiae, which is arguably more complicated)
also. all the adopted boys have names starting with A
