Are there any historical examples of changing the status of women from this period?

[Pyoro]

Once the historical argument has been discarded, because frankly, CK2 stops being historical the moment time starts ticking, the question that really remains is, why does the inclusion of this voluntary feature rankle people so very much?

I think the answer to that question probably says a lot about the person.

Hum. No, imo it makes sense to question these "alternative history" additions. It's important for the atmosphere of the game, and if it'd be utterly arbitrary in what's possible and whatnot, it wouldn't be CK anymore - just some sort of fantasy-sandbox simulator.

Problem is that this one is one of the currently heated topics, for some reasons, and therefor reasonable debate difficult.
Plus, the way CK2 works, we don't actually SEE what's going on. It's just a click in the menu, and the player has decide whether that click was historically plausible or not. IRL, who knows, there might've been years of debate before it, deals being made, perhaps the Catholic Church for some reason decided on a "look at us being different from Muslims, join our Crusades, think of Maria" policy, perhaps there's some local legend building going on with a huge prestige female ruler, perhaps the last wars killed so many young noble men they just about have no other option than empowering females and prefer that over "foreign" male rulers ... we really can't know. We can only debate about the decisions being allowed or not, but we can't really know about the reasons behind it.

As for myself, I can imagine it happen. I can't imagine the Aztec invasion happen, so I don't like that one. But for example if there'd be a small "randomized invasions from the East" DLC, where instead of the Mongols with a really small chance Chinese or Tibetan or whatever forces appear, well, what do I know what craziness happens outside the visible borders, why not? Might be fun on occasion.

That, and I like playing the obscure guys with weird rules and non-mainstream culture and religion. That'd obviously be true for some sort of gender-equal succession law, so it appeals to my gameplay sense, in the same way Zoroastrians and OPMs and heresies and such do.

 

[Afinati]

1. As I've said in a previous, now closed thread, the notion that wide-spread feminism is possible in a Medieval feudal realm is historically implausible (impossible) compared to various ahistorical (unlikely but plausible) scenarios that this game offers. How would any female ruler force feminism on her realm if almost every single men of the period, including whole standing armies and peasants, would be against it. The only argument people find for this is that somehow a line of successful genius empresses would sway public opinion in female favour. This is wrong because such a line of rulers would make that line of rulers seem good and would not correspond in any way with public opinion of female gender in general. Matilda was cool? Well, in public opinion that means that Matilda is cool, not anything else.

Nobody is going to have an unending line of female rulers until the very end of the Status of Women reforms ... and that's going to either be by choice (elective) or by chance. And, by that time, history has diverged. A radical, super popular ruler convinced her or his council to pass a minor reform that lets women have a single job ... and that trend grows over the centuries. Some nobles still care, but any society can radically reform itself over generations. I'd imagine it backfires often and maybe future rulers reign it back a notch to increase stability sometimes. In any case, you're effectively digging yourself a hole in this thread with the anti-feminist comments previously made. I suggest you stop.

 

[King Dave]

Will the ai use this law or will it leave it on traditional?

 

[Monphat]

Nobody is going to have an unending line of female rulers until the very end of the Status of Women reforms ... and that's going to either be by choice (elective) or by chance. And, by that time, history has diverged. A radical, super popular ruler convinced her or his council to pass a minor reform that lets women have a single job ... and that trend grows over the centuries. Some nobles still care, but any society can radically reform itself over generations.

Again, that's not how Medieval world worked.

In any case, you're effectively digging yourself a hole in this thread with the anti-feminist comments. I suggest you stop.

Wow, that's one of the most spectacular responses I got on these forums. Are you implying that I should care about public opinion about myself on Paradox forums? lol

 

[Thure]

Will the ai use this law or will it leave it on traditional?

Here:

The Status of Women law is mostly there to allow player to customize their realms more. The AI won't really change it and councilors are mostly against the law (even women councilors might object).
Each step enables more council positions to be held by women and the higher ones enable some succession laws that might be banned by culture/religion.

 

[Closet Skeleton]

There haven't been any instances of aliens invading from space but I don't see you calling for that to be included.

It has to be possible, and in a time period when the people holding the reigns of power (men) didn't even think about womens rights, it seems totaly inconcievable that it would have been on anyone's agenda.

Nobody thought about Women's Rights as a topic in the modern definition. Didn't stop gender being important.

In western Europe, women's rights were generally better in the middle ages than in the Renaissance.

Anglo-saxon England had women mayors and business owners. That slowly decreased. The powerful Anglo-saxon Abbesses are also in this period, so the only reason female catholic priests shouldn't be allowed is if we pretend none of the bishoprics are monestaries (many of the ones in game have the name of real world monestaries, not bishoprics).

This 'everyone starts out worse but the player can change things' isn't historical. It should be 'some states start out in the middle, some more restrictive' and the AI will try to make things worse.

And I don't want to discuss again with some people who claim every source which disagree with them is feminist...

Most historians who write about women's rights in historical times are feminists. What's supposed to be wrong about that?

Every historian has an agenda. Having a focus and a thesis isn't the same thing as making stuff up. Even the most inaccurate feminist texts are still better than most pre-1900 history books (and while there's a lot of terrible history in feminist texts its mostly in ones written by writers who aren't specialist historians, which is hardly unique to any ideology).

How would any female ruler force feminism on her realm if almost every single men of the period, including whole standing armies and peasants, would be against it.

That's why usually women lost rights in this period. Which is a justification for having gender laws.

Problem is that this one is one of the currently heated topics, for some reasons, and therefor reasonable debate difficult.

Funny, to me it seems like everyone in favour of gender laws being changeable is debating reasonably and everyone opposed to it is just screaming "I'm allowed to remain ignorant because you have an agenda" but that's just this thread. Maybe previous ones have been worse.

 

[Afinati]

.
The fact that republics and muslim realms are so rigid in this regard is why I only keep the former only to make me money(because I quit any republic game due to being locked into agnatic within the first generation no matter what I do despite enjoying the gameplay) and don't even touch the latter, sticking to norse, christians and zoroastrians instead.

My friend doesn't play Muslims or Republics either for that reason ... a preference that makes total sense, even though I've wanted us to play in Persia or Mesopotamia for a while. She also mines the Historical, Playable Females thread for campaign starts.

 

[King Dave]

Birken wrote "The AI won't really change it and councilors are mostly against the law"

I don't much like the inclusion of the words really and mostly in that statement. It seems to suggest that the ai will on occasion seek to change it, and given the ai's record on making decisions I would suggest that it's a recipe for ahistorical nonsense to run amok.
And when you find yourself fighting a plethora of female uber generals late game, there will be no let up, because if they don't kill you they will seduce you and then kill you or maybe even kill you then seduce you.

 

[aleph nought]

No I wouldn't say the latter. It was more worse than today... But I don't know much cases were the status of women gor worse in this period of Europe than before. Actually the status of women did improve in some places. Like the cities in Germany.

From what I recall of what I have learned, academic writing from western european catholic clerics seems to have become slowly more hostile to women in positions of authority, even informal authority, over the course of the 12th century. This probably had some effects, given they could often exercise positions of influence and their writing must have been reflecting a cultural trend. It may also have been that they were reacting to the growing prominent role of women in Catharism compared to Catholicism and the highlight put on the somewhat more equal rights for women enjoyed in the catalan and occitanian regions. (I am told the inheritance rights of women and their participation in religious life steadily declined in those regions after the mid-13th century, which is often a good proxy for the rights of women).

So certainly, the status of women slider has some historical justification- more than some other royal laws. I can think of several realms in which it slid downwards due to growing cultural hostility, and you state there are places it went up. As inheritance is a major area in which changes occured (they always occur when the status of women changes), certainly laws modifying inheritance and ability to participate in public lfie are appropriate (several 14th century catalan poets argue women are worthy of being listened to by men and mediating between disputes between men, which if taken to a gameplay level could mean something like "adivisng men informally on a not quite historical royal council").

As for 'female marshals', a few women did lead troops (albeit not from the front, to my knowledge) even in western europe's rather low "status of women" in the period. Several wives of crusaders, notably. Since this was rather rare (to my knowledge) for it to be a regular thing it would be reasonable to keep it at the more remote and unlikely upper levels- exactly where it seems to already be.

If equal inheritance or female marshals worries one, merely making it as rare as the organised church of tengriism or the reformed norse faith or other such ahistorical options seems quite reasonable. Given they rate it 'as hard as becoming a byzantine style monarchy from a feudalistic one', it sounds about that hard. I doubt the rather empty-headed AI could ever muddle its way through to equal inheritance, especially as it will not possess a long-term objective to do so unlike a player could. Especially if the default action for ambivalent rulers is to not ignore it but rather to decrease the level to please vassals, or gets rewards like a lump sum of piety (as is done in the status of women mod this may be inspired by).

My apologies if the English in this message is distorted.

 

[Carmilla]

My friend doesn't play Muslims or Republics either for that reason ... a preference that makes total sense, even though I've wanted us to play in Persia or Mesopotamia for a while. She also mines the Historical, Playable Females thread for campaign starts.

I'm not surprised. I generally avoid those regions as well unless I get an idea for a scenario, but those always require the ruler creator(which I use most of the time anyway).

 

[Pyoro]

I don't much like the inclusion of the words really and mostly in that statement. It seems to suggest that the ai will on occasion seek to change it, and given the ai's record on making decisions I would suggest that it's a recipe for ahistorical nonsense to run amok.

That AI usually goes for chaos, but it usually doesn't go for the more exotic decisions, in my experience. They might suicidally declare war on the HRE but I've never seen the AI reform the pagan faith without heavy player interference. Heck, it usually doesn't change it's succession laws even now, even when it could go for elective or whatever. imo it's unlikely this will be different.

But if NOT adding a "AI = no" or making it more difficult by adding higher prestige requirements or something is a really small thing. Honestly, I'm not worried.

 

[Zoob]

We do and its quite nice to have the option. Even better to have an option to lead history down a different path altogether as the last thing I want to do when playing CK2, is be in the same position in the 1400s as it was historically regardless of the startdate I've started on. That sort of railroading can be exceptionally annoying.

The fact that republics and muslim realms are so rigid in this regard is why I only keep the former only to make me money(because I quit any republic game due to being locked into agnatic within the first generation no matter what I do despite enjoying the gameplay) and don't even touch the latter, sticking to norse, christians and zoroastrians instead.

Also don't get me wrong, while the whole Women play CK2 and it would be nice to see them represented in game followed on from each other, I don't see them connected to the point where I feel the game should be "tailored" to "suit" women, as if 50% of the worlds population is definable any more than the other 50% is. I just think it's positive overall for the player to have more options and opportunities for their games. Women being more playable and having more choices in game is good for all players.

My wife has played loads of CK2 and never voiced a problem with women not really being playable long term up to now, but I just think it's great to include more option for the player. And with 50% of the in game characters being women, it's great to open them up to the player in a more meaningful way if the player so chooses.

 

[Keizer Harm]

Birken wrote "The AI won't really change it and councilors are mostly against the law"

I don't much like the inclusion of the words really and mostly in that statement. It seems to suggest that the ai will on occasion seek to change it, and given the ai's record on making decisions I would suggest that it's a recipe for ahistorical nonsense to run amok.
And when you find yourself fighting a plethora of female uber generals late game, there will be no let up, because if they don't kill you they will seduce you and then kill you or maybe even kill you then seduce you.

That's Murphy's law. Some pretty unlikely things did in fact happen; who are we to consider certain things less likely to happen then others, simply because they did not happen historically? An orphan in Mongolia managed to unite the clans and conquer most of Asia in a single lifetime; how likely was that to happen?

 

[Afinati]

Wow, that's one of the most spectacular responses I got on these forums. Are you implying that I should care about public opinion about myself on Paradox forums? lol

I apologize for the miscommunication; I was using colloquial shorthand to attempt to convince you that your side commentary is self-destructive ... or at the very least not being well-received.

I think a better way of addressing your commentary would have been simply to point out that the subject of modern feminism is barely context-adjacent to the core discussion at hand as well as the purview of this forum and that you should instead stay on topic, without making incendiary, derisive comments about feminist writing and general accusations of historians' professionalism in the future.

I think, since I'm now digging myself into the hole of side debate and anger rousing commentary, that the best way to respond to your commentary would have been to not provide my own in this thread but to instead have PM'd you about the whole issue. But here we are.

 

[King Dave]

Here:

That's Murphy's law. Some pretty unlikely things did in fact happen; who are we to consider certain things less likely to happen then others, simply because they did not happen historically? An orphan in Mongolia managed to unite the clans and conquer most of Asia in a single lifetime; how likely was that to happen?

Yeah, but that orphan was a guy.

If the ai gets it's hands on this and we end up with Amazons invading then the historical fan base is going to be very unhappy.

 

[Carmilla]

Also don't get me wrong, while the whole Women play CK2 and it would be nice to see them represented in game followed on from each other, I don't see them connected to the point where I feel the game should be "tailored" to "suit" women, as if 50% of the worlds population is definable any more than the other 50% is. I just think it's positive overall for the player to have more options and opportunities for their games. Women being more playable and having more choices in game is good for all players.

My wife has played loads of CK2 and never voiced a problem with women not really being playable long term up to now, but I just think it's great to include more option for the player. And with 50% of the in game characters being women, it's great to open them up to the player in a more meaningful way if the player so chooses.

More options in a game like CK2 is always nice. At the end of the day thats all I've ever asked for.

 

[Tufto]

Apart from a few rare exceptions the medieval world was a man's world. When women were allowed to rule by men (because without the backing of men it wasn't going to happen) it was because there wasn't a man who could command the support of the other men or because a group of men found a convenient women with a tenuous claim to a title.
The inclusion of status of women in the game is completly out of context. In the medieval world, the status of women was only a concern when it impacted the status of men. Women councillors? No way. The only way a female ruler would get her voice heard was by the representations of a man. It was seen as unatural, against gods will even.
The ahistorical status of women should be something for modders to do or possibly it's own DLC (Not that there would be enough takers to make this viable.) It should not be imposed on what is mainly a mans world.

Sorry ladies but I just can't bare history being bastardised.

Read a book about noblewomen in the middle ages. There were women who did rule without a man. And don't claim that the middle ages were the same at all times (700-1500 are 800 years! A lot can happen in this years) and all places (India was different than Arabia which was different from the Tuareg which is different from Navarra).

No thanks, those books are all written by people with a femenist agenda. Women may have ruled without a man (ie a king to their queen) but they didn't rule without the consent of men.

As to "a lot can happen in 800 years" Are you trying to tell me that there was a period of feminist enlightenment that somehow faded from history. I don't think so, not when much of the present world practises little to no rights for women. Want to know what the rights of women were like in medieval times? Look at the developing world now.

Aaaaaaand here we go again. This already got a thread closed once, let's not repeat this here.

 

[Afinati]

Birken wrote "The AI won't really change it and councilors are mostly against the law"

I don't much like the inclusion of the words really and mostly in that statement. It seems to suggest that the ai will on occasion seek to change it, and given the ai's record on making decisions I would suggest that it's a recipe for ahistorical nonsense to run amok.
And when you find yourself fighting a plethora of female uber generals late game, there will be no let up, because if they don't kill you they will seduce you and then kill you or maybe even kill you then seduce you.

I could imagine a scenario where loads of rulers get that law passed, their realms implode, and less powerful rulers revert that law. I'm not sure it's a solution to your concern, as your concern is spread, but at least it might not be a stable spread ... as more powerful rulers who don't make the unpopular reforms just conquer the ones who did. And if there's greater religious maluses or even religious head interference, I think that could dissuade the AI from making that choice.

I don't know a lot of what I'm talking about here, but doesn't the AI usually concern itself with short term trends? It's gonna see Status of Women as unpopular and it's only gonna pass it if it's got a great female courtier or family member it wants in that position, the ruler is super popular, and the realm is stable (because I think the AI takes realm stability into account now). Even then, I feel like Paradox knows this could happen occasionally and will put some modifiers to thin the occurrences a bit.

... But then again, I've been playing their games for like 9 or 10 years now? Probably female popes in every game by 30 years time.

 

[Groogy]

My point is - status of women slowly changed in India every century, so there is at least one instance in the game where it happens. And it happens in a kind of weird reversal - Indian women in 769 have a lot of freedom compared to rest of the world. Then the laws slowly start switching backwards until by 1453 Indian women have as few rights as anywhere else in the world except in certain rare cases.

It's not that weird or a reversal, Europe went through a similar thing where it was "bad" went to "better than bad" and then back to "worse". During the Age of Enlightenment a lot of rhetoric was borrowed from the Classical Greeks to justify their subduing of the fairer sex. If you compare what we know from history between the Classical era and the Medieval it was objectively better for women and empowerment of them were not that big of a deal. When we then reach the 17-18th century we start seeing a lot more revival of the "good old days".

Honestly people on the Internet care more about females being independent rulers than they did during the medieval ages.

Edit: The view of how medieval society worked that the people who are against this feature try to promote is a popular view which was born in the 18th century and forward. It is a historically biased concept of western medieval society and Herodotus, the Father of Lies, would have been proud of its makers.

 

[King Dave]

Anyway, it's in there now so there's little point debating it further, we'll just have to suck it and see.