What are gender roles like in your world? How do they compare to real life?

It depends on where you live. Both in terms of country and region, and even wealth class.

For example:

In Country A, women have about as many rights as women did in Ancient Greece or the Georgian era of Great Britain. In some ways, a bit worse. They're expected to reign exclusively within the domestic sphere, but don't even have much authority over their husband's finances (in some real-life cultures, men earn the money and women manage it-- not so here.) They cannot inherit property, and any property they own automatically belongs to their husband once married. Many consider it improper for an unmarried woman to be out and about without a chaperone (though the chaperone's gender does not matter-- just their relation to the women, i.e, a brother or an aunt.)

But how far this goes changes from class to class, and even family to family. In some classes or families, women are expected to eat only after their husbands have eaten-- it's seen as a sign of marital piety. In other classes or families, this is seen as entirely unnecessary, especially families which can afford maids or servants to wait on the family hand and foot. Understandably, wealthier women tend to have more freedom and ways to hop through legal or societal loopholes.

In Country B, women have pretty much the same rights as men. With the exception that women are not conscripted for war-- but that doesn't preclude them from volunteering, particularly if they have magic and are beyond childbearing years. This is more about being pragmatic: a severe reduction in the female population of a country will stunt replacement population growth much more than a reduction in the male population. Women often have equal roles in all levels of societies, from being cutthroats and thugs to respected members of the Royal Diet.

It's not a social justice matter to them or anything-- they just don't see why someone who's capable should be obstructed by a little thing like gender. It may also help to understand that concepts like marriage and female purity are rather rare in this society. In fact, people only get married if they have a great deal of property worth legally ensuring and protecting for children to inherit. So only the nobility have any notion of these concepts. In short, marriage is not a part of the commoner's lifescript.

Attitudes may vary a bit across the country. In the countryside, people may divide work more clearly along traditional real-life gender roles, as opposed to city-dwellers. Individuals may have more misogynist or misandrist views than the average. But as a general rule, this country divides itself more clearly along racial (they are very racist) and wealth lines than gender. In particular, they are racist against people who don't look like them, rather than on a regional or dialectic basis.

/r/worldbuilding Thread