#dwarf gender

[arofili]

@tolkienofcolourweek day seven | gender | gender among the sun-dwarves and their southern kin

All seven clans of the dwarves have distinct ideas of gender, some overlapping with their sister-clans and others with concepts unique to themselves. For dwarves, gender is a sacred personal identity, never assumed or assigned at birth, and rarely explained to non-dwarf outsiders. As a dwarf comes of age, they are expected to declare a gender, usually signified through some exterior symbol (such as a style of braiding or beading, dyed hair, or jewelry, depending on their clan’s customs). Sex is viewed as an entirely separate concept completely divorced from gender; as all dwarves are bearded and most very stout, the traits mortal men use to distinguish sex do not apply. Gender is indicated to others through dress and symbolism, but sex is a private matter between one’s self and one’s procreative partner, should the circumstance arise, and rarely of concern otherwise. The Longbeards and the Blue-dwarves of the West are the most inclined to interact with other species, and have borrowed some of their gender concepts from those other kindreds; the Stiffbeards of the North are deeply isolated and secretive with their ideas of gender; but the Sun-dwarves of the East and the Ironfists of the South share certain similarities in understanding, and are most inclined to trade with one another, leading to a shared kinship between the three, for the Ironfists have long been sundered from their sister-clan of the Stiffbeards. Among the Sun-dwarves of the East, there are three primary gender categories: khulz (male), zain (female), and zatakhuzdûn (self-made; often abbreviated as zatak). Roughly two-fifths of the population identify as khulz, another two-fifths as zain, and the final one-fifth as zatak. In the Blacklock clan, these genders are largely personal identities with little bearing on social status or ability, treated more as a culmination of spiritual exploration than as a marker of one’s place in Blacklock culture. The Stonefoot clan shares these genders, but has in addition seven secondary genders, deeply connected to a dwarf’s chosen craft. These are zaraz (wood), aban (stone), zirin (iron), kheled (glass), ubraz (gold), kibil (silver), and urus (fire). Each secondary gender fulfills a specific role in Stonefoot society, and these genders may change over time if a dwarf moves from one craft to another. Indeed, the ubraz gender is inherently a gender one must achieve through time and experience in a leadership role. A Stonefoot dwarf may also have multiple secondary genders, should they be accomplished in more than one craft, though this is rare. The Ironfist dwarves, once close to their sister-clan the Stiffbeards, but sundered from them for many generations due to the collapse of their home-range the Mountains of the Wind, lost much of their culture and lore in the disaster that forced them southward to the Yellow Mountains. This included many of the gender concepts now fiercely guarded by the Stiffbeards, even from them, and amid their struggles the Ironfists developed a system of a singular gender: khazad, simply meaning “dwarf.” They view all dwarves to be unified in gender under Mahal their maker, with divisions into various identities as a frivolity reserved for other cultures. Yet as they reconnected with other dwarvish kindreds, this construct of uniform gender relaxed somewhat, with many younger Ironfists adopting the many genders of the Stonefoots and Blacklocks. Still, the khazad gender remains significant and nearly universal among the Ironfist clan, with other gender identifiers accepted as additions to the base identity of khazad.

[transcript of image text below the cut]

A full image description is available in alt text. Below is a transcript of the text in each image.

Gender among the Blacklock Dwarves khulz || male zain || female zatakhuzdûn || embodiment of oneself; abbrev. zatak

Gender among the Stonefoot Dwarves.

zaraz || wood Among the Stonefoot Dwarves, there are three primary genders and seven secondary genders. The primary genders are shared with their sister clan, the Blacklocks: khulz (male), zain (female), and zatakhuzdûn (self-made). A Stonefoot Dwarf's secondary gender is related to their chosen craft. Zaraz, wood, is the gender of foresters, hunters, travelers, carpenters, and others who interact primarily with the natural world.

zirin || iron Zirin, iron, is the gender of smiths. If one works in a forge, one is most likely zirin, regardless of whether one is a blacksmith, whitesmith, silversmith, jewelsmith, etc. Zirin is the most common gender among the Stonefoot Dwarves.

kheled || glass Kheled, glass, is the gender of glassblowers, dyers, weavers, sculptors, painters, and others who work with ceramics or fibers. Anything to do with sand, clay, or thread is associated with kheled dwarves, who tend to prefer vibrant colors and colorful homes.

aban || stone Aban, stone, is the gender of stonecutters, jewelers, builders, masons, and others who work primarily in stone or with the mountains themselves. Most aban dwarves are also khulz. Of all Stonefoot genders, aban dwarves are the most physically fit, and the most likely to bear multiple children.

ubraz || gold Ubraz, gold, is the gender of guides and leaders. This gender must be earned and is generally reserved for elders within the Stonefoot clan. A dwarf may be ubraz and another secondary gender if they are a leader in their field. All dwarf-kings are ubraz, but other lesser lords do not necessarily qualify to claim this gender.

kibil || silver Kibil, silver, is the gender of those who dedicate themselves to serving others, whether in a position of civil service, as a footman or maid, a bodyguard, or in special circumstances, a parent or caretaker. This is a highly esteemed gender, and is made up primarily of zain dwarves.

urus || fire Urus, fire, is the gender of writers, actors, philosophers, musicians, and others whose craft is primarily of the spirit or soul. While most Stonefoot dwarves are passably good at one or more of these crafts, the true masters and devotees of spiritual creation are those who claim the gender urus. This gender is made up primarily of zatak dwarves, who necessarily have a deep connection to their self-made primary gender.

Gender among the Ironfist Dwarves. khazad || dwarf among the Ironfist dwarves, gender is mostly uniform and universal

[tense-gemstone]

Now, afore’s you kids go off into the world, there’s a certain thing ye gotta know about the Other Folk. Ye might see all sorts when you leave the homeland, and they’s all got their own funny ideas bout this thing they like to call “gender.” Now that word comes from the humans, but they’re not the only ones who use it. In fact, this is where us folks are the odd ones out! But let’s start with humans.

Humans have two main genders, called Men and Women. There’s plenty of other ones, but ain’t none of them can agree on what they are so you’ll just have to be sure to ask ‘em. They’ll tend to assume all of us are Menfolk, since that’s the more public gender. Don’t bother correctin’ em, I’ve found; you’ll just confuse everybody involved. Mens are generally tasked with politics, as well as huntin’ and the bulk of the farmin’. The other one, Women, generally stay indoors and take care of the household, plus shoppin’ and visitin’ family friends. I know it’s weird and arbitrary, but they do have different clothes and hairstyles that you’ll get to know if you spend any length of time in human areas. Until you do, try not to guess too much. They get offended if you get it wrong - especially if you call a Men a Women. Y’see, humans in particular tend to think of Men as the better gender - stronger, smarter, and just all round more fit t’be in charge of things. Men-parents and Men-spouses are in charge of their families. Family names come from Men. And they don’t tend to listen to Women, even when the Women are bein’ perfectly reasonable. They’ll tell you they’re just different roles and not a judgement on anybody, but they’re lyin’. Ain’t none of us ever figured out if it’s just us or they selves they’re lyin’ to.

On the other side of the savannah, do y’all remember which Other Folk live there? That’s right, the elves. I don’t speak their language and couldn’t pronounce their genders if I tried, but if you wanna go that far east you can spend a year or three in the falls-city and learn enough to get by. Elves have got four important genders - I know it’s a lot but it’s simpler’n it seems. They’ve got one gender for the first fifty years a their life, then when they come of age they pick out an adult one. One gender is specifically for their sages, dedicatin’ their lives the the tree gods or whoever. And the other two are pretty similar to Men and Women. Men-elves do sharp-dangerous work an’ Women-elves do social-intellectual work. But elves consider the social-intellectual work to be more important, and so they reckon their families as comin’ from Women-parents and Women-spouses. The way my teacher explained it to me was that Men-elves are s’posed to be tools and weapons in the hands of their Women-spouses, not wielders in ‘emselves. We think that’s one a the reasons human-elf diplomacy is so deeply fucked. The Men-humans don’t think Women-elves are worth listening to, and the Women-elves don’t think Men-humans are worth listening to. And ain’t neither of ‘em are gonna debase themselves sendin’ the “wrong” gender to do their negotiatin’. So y’see that’s why we don’t really have a direct tradin’ route through the human-controlled grassland to get to elvish woods, and silk only comes in up the river Jynna, even though it’s a couple hunnert more miles’n it would be in a straight line.

Speakin’ of the Jynna - ye’ll recall it’s the border ‘twixt the humans and the orcs. Most any orc’ll tell ye there’s exactly two genders, and insist that that applies to everyone includin’ us. Here’s the weird thing, though. Orcs value the sharp-dangerous work more than the social-intellectual work. Their warriors are the family leaders and the diplomats. But they’ll insist on translatin’ their warrior-gender as Women-orcs, and their private-gender as Men-orcs. A human could probably explain it best, actually, since they’ve got the most interest in categorizin’ and linguistics and such. And it wouldn’t matter, really, except that it explains why orcs and elves get along so well while the humans aren’t liked by either. They consider their warrior-gender and the elves’ elegant-gender to be the same gender, despite doin’ entirely different things. So they understand each other, and send the right gender to interact with each other, and are a bit confused but not nearly as angry as when either of ‘em interacts with humans. Now orcs are a raidin’ culture, and the Jynna is often contested territory. They like as to go plunder up and down the river, and by sea to our western neighbors. They don’t have the technology to get into our mountains by force, and it’s right easier to go steal from our tradin’ partners than to steal from us directly, but there’s a reason the elves are the ones with all the merchant-boats and not us. They fly elvish flags and they have treaties worked out with the orc-leaders and they don’t get set on fire.

The Holbytla live to our west, protected on all sides by the sea and our mountains. They've got seventeen genders and all of ‘em want their verbs conjugated differently. Plenty of our merchants and such don’t even bother to learn ‘em, cause it’s so hard to tell the difference, but if any of y’all have your hearts set on bein’ politicians ye’ll have to eventually. I’ve got some cousins and in-laws that actually live down in halfling-country, so’s I can speak well enough to get by, but whenever I go down to visit I just use the infinitives instead of botherin’ to conjugate anything. It’ll get ye mocked, but it won’t get ye stabbed, which is the important thing. No I will not be tellin’ that story, we’ve run over time for today already! Go home, ridiculous children! And there will be a quiz on this tomorrow!

[mothsandfoxes]

I need the devs of deep rock galactic to understand that I want to be able to change my dwarf's gender and have that affect exactly nothing about their appearance. just gimme a toggle with a few options.

[msmeiriona]

Feet Of Clay is so interesting to me  because it introduces the Dwarf Gender issue. And it also shows that while Carrot isn't sexist, he is genderist, because Carrot is a dwarf and traditional dwarf society has two biological sexes they will grudgingly admit to, but socially have one gender, that is, dwarf, and one set of pronouns (he,him,his) and one presentation which is largely masculine as humans interpret such things. (They understand humans have two social genders, but that is humans, and dwarfs are dwarfs.)

It's part of how he parallels Vimes, who isn't exactly speciest, in that he really does think humans and dwarfs and trolls are all equally devious bastards who can't be trusted as far as he can throw them, but the UNDEAD are worse because they aren't even alive, so he is vitalist.

Both get better with their bigotry as the books go on, even through the one book itself there are major changes, Carrot being comfortable enough use feminine pronouns towards a dwarf and Vimes being willing to have zombies in the Watch (but not vampires. no bloody vampires).

But. Damn. The Dwarf Gender Issue is one that I really love. Because no matter what you have under the beards and leather and chainmail, you have to act male if you want to be seen as a proper dwarf. If you don't, you're letting the species down. If you want to wear skirts and makeup and earrings and not belch and quaff, you are seen as "Not A Real Dwarf" and not worth being part of the community, not really worth seeing. Not worth speaking to by the really Deep Downers.

And that's a big deal to me because I've seen that attitude applied a lot in the real world, or in terms of analysing fiction, where the idea is you can be whatever sex you want as long as you act masculine enough. But any femininity must be accounted for with excuses, justifications, something to balance it out. You have to have a surplus of 'masculine points' to balance out your 'feminine demerits' or else you won't be worthy of being in society. If a character shows too many feminine moments without countering with aggressive masculinity, they are hit with a slew of criticisms of being weak, poorly written, and of course, unfeminist. 

The dwarfen gender unary is so odd. The female dwarfs, those who wish to present as female, they have to fight everything that defines dwarf society and say "We are still dwarfs." They are lucky in that the biological sex is not apparent for dwarfs, and so gender presentation is likely much easier to be entirely independent of biological sex. But they are adapting a social role that comes from another species, and that's something that's going to be very difficult for anyone to do. To change society at the root by absorbing a part of another culture to make up for a fundamental lack? Admitting the the "Others" had something that you didn't that you should have had? Doesn't that mean admitting the "Others" are better than you? Are you wanting to stop being one of "Us" and instead be one of "Them"?

I don't know. I just. I love the whole thing.

[dragonmuse]

the last gender bend

everbright-mourning asked for all the dwarfs which folds in a few other waiting ones. So killing them in one shot.

They carry their sex beneath layers of armor and cloth. It's their business, their way. It makes no matter to the stone practicality, that stubborn darkness, where they come from. They are born in darkness and like stalactites grow in steady drips until they hard through and through.

Thorin never counts as the party assembles, doesn't turn away a good steady axe or a willing heart. Gandalf might suspect, but says not a word because what does a wizard care about such things? Bilbo is too ignorant to ask. The elves wouldn't, couldn't understand. Their own willow language and gangling limbs were a confusion onto themselves and the dwarfs leave theirs alone as long as they are left to themselves.

It will never be recounted in a storybook because those are written by Men and Men drop two letters even from their own people's name. The womb is cast aside as only a place to begin and barely worth the scant notation of 'maternal' line if anything.

So it happens that the party has its share of women. They don't speak of it even to each other. There is no point. No one will be creating life on this venture, there is no time. Practicality may have them sharing bedding, but no one quests a hand across the straw or grass. 

They will be remembered as warriors and that's what they care about. They were brave in the end and strong. When the party disbands and the blood of their friends seeps into the earth, the remaining will retreat and take their secrets with them.