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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Darkness" data-source="post: 1917548" data-attributes="member: 13">[sblock]  Yeah, I can't recall any other matriarchies offhand either. Heh. Now, I still say that one example proves nothing. But let's assume it did. So what does our example really say? The drow are fallen elves, corrupted by a demoness, whom they worship.Even without adding further details, we can already see that they are evil; the causal relationshop is clear.Obviously, matriarchy is not the cause of their evil. Thus, the drow are not an example of a society based on the evils of matriarchy - rather, they are an example of an evil society that just happens to be ruled by women. Now, why are they ruled by women? Yep, because Lolth told them so. And because she's their goddess, they obeyed. Lolth, meanwhile, doesn't represent the evils of matriarchy - she represents (among other evils) the evils of sexism. Of course, evil deities can be sexist - orc women don't get much power either. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />For one reason or another, we consider male-dominated societies the norm in D&D (or a norm among a few; humans, halflings, gnomes and elves, among others, often practice sexual equality). Maybe it's because many leaders are warriors and many warriors are male, or because we view fantasy warrior societies through a medieval lens (even though we let the humans generally have equality). So Lolth naturally draws attention - she's exceptional (though not unique, except maybe in influence). If the drow were ruled by a macho guy god, we probably wouldn't even think much about it.Now... What if Lolth and the drow were Neutral or Good? Would they still revere women? I'd say it's not too unlikely - cultures who are predominantly worshipping one 'father deity' or 'mother deity' tend to have a lot of respect for the gender in question.[/sblock]</blockquote>

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