Feminist theorists: Comment on my setting?

[JusticeZero]

I keep wanting to get an honest examination about a specific thing in the campaign setting I run, but everyplace I put it the discussion is derailed by a lot of other things.

Please do not debate sexism in real life here. Please do not debate sexism in the media as a whole here. Please do not debate sexism in specific abstract edge cases here. I really just want to know about this one specific case that I can never seem to get any input from the women who know about this on, given that every time they open their mouths, they get distracted by a huge debate about real life/the media as a whole/freakish edge cases/whatever.

I deal with a lot of social science. I like the idea of an egalitarian society. Unfortunately, I know about a lot of things that tend to derail that in various ways. I do not know what form a culture would take that would achieve egalitarianism. Ergo, I chose to use a model which, while not egalitarian, is still very positive toward women.

Specifically, I cited a historical "men go out and pillage" as an ancient historical fact in the campaign setting, then seperated the roles of "pillaging" offense from "police/siege defense", and gendered the latter as a stereotypically female, "pink-armor" role.

I then asserted that because police and counter-siege would have various moments of glory, that these routes were common routes by which women could gain glory which could then be leveraged into political power, resulting in a number of female headed government leaders in a culture which retained a military path to power.

I do not know what the various people who generally are much more up to date on feminist theory and the like have to comment on regarding this specific case, or whether they have other suggestions, inputs, or glitches that I may have missed. As noted, I did not simply apply egalitarianism for the simple reason that I do not know how to actually arrive at a truly egalitarian culture - there are a lot of root things that indirectly result in at least some inequality that I simply do not know how to fix, as much as I would like to.

[Leliel]

From what little I know, there's still going to be gender roles in your society, and both men and women unhappy with them. A woman is going to be viewed as a defensive combatant during a fight, and a man an offensive one, and there's going to be a few stereotypes about the "wanderlust of men" and such, because that's how people are. It's (demi)human nature to divide people into neat categories ("Oh, you're a woman? You must be a city guard!", is probably a line of logic people from that culture follow if they see a lady in armor).

I do like that you're aware of how difficult equality is to achieve, however. A lot of people can be massively insensitive if they assume all problems can be solved easily with one action. Keep it up.

[AgentofHellfire]

From what little I know, there's still going to be gender roles in your society, and both men and women unhappy with them. A woman is going to be viewed as a defensive combatant during a fight, and a man an offensive one, and there's going to be a few stereotypes about the "wanderlust of men" and such, because that's how people are. It's (demi)human nature to divide people into neat categories ("Oh, you're a woman? You must be a city guard!", is probably a line of logic people from that culture follow if they see a lady in armor).

...I actually think that whatever gender roles exist here would favor women to some degree--since women are the ones who can actually stay in one place (and thus run businesses, craft things collect taxes, etc.) they have a greater opportunity to be the ones in charge of the actual social structure.

EDIT: Although now that I'm thinking about it they'd probably make most of their money off of tributes/plunder rather than taxes. But still, the women would've been the ones enforcing laws in the homeland, so...

*Disclaimer: I'm not a "feminist theorist", really, just an amateur.

[JusticeZero]

All of that is kind've the point - I don't know how to eradicate the differences, but i'd sure as heck rather have a bias that puts a somewhat even spread in power and makes "highly capable female fighter" into a culturally normal role without swinging it into the dysfunctionally opposite extreme.

[Blackjackg]

To a pretty significant extent, this overlaps with one of the harmful gender roles that exist in our society-- women are in charge of the home, men are in charge of anything else. The fact that the "home" in this case is the whole city ameliorates it to some extent, but it's still pretty remniscent.

On a much more symbolic level, the idea of women's role as defensive and men's role as offensive is a big part of what's called r*pe culture. Men besiege and women resist, until they can resist no more. It's an ugly metaphor, supported in a lot of ways by our media. I'm not trying to diverge from your setting here: the dominant metaphors inherent in a fictional setting are important to consider in a feminist critique.

I guess my main question is: Why not have men AND women serving in each military arm? That avoids the issue of individuals being shoehorned into roles they don't want and is really the shortest route to an egalitarian fictional society.

[Daer]

not feminist but..

Why not simply assign people based on their ability scores.. strong people are melee forces, agile ones scouts and archers, someone wise and intelligent would be trained to be strategist and charismatic ones to be teamleaders and diplomats?
I mean, try find each one where they would be most useful. That woudl seem fairest to me.

[JusticeZero]

I guess my main question is: Why not have men AND women serving in each military arm? That avoids the issue of individuals being shoehorned into roles they don't want and is really the shortest route to an egalitarian fictional society.

The reason is mostly that I have not found any way to have that type of egalitarianism with a nuclear family that is not also associated with a population freefall in a setting that is dependent on a growing population.

The issue basically is the same as every physicist I have seen run a sci-fi game has - there's only so much handwaving of nonsensium that they can do before it really starts getting on their nerves, and in my case, dictating an egalitarian culture when I do not have any idea how it could construct itself is nonsensium. I don't want a sexist culture, but nobody knows how to make a non-sexist culture with a population above replacement, and I don't want a culture that is dominated by one side or the other.

Fairly distributing roles works great if everyone is an immortal adult who respawns somewhere after they are killed. Once you start having to deal with families, economics, and things like that, the ability to get from A to B breaks down.

[AgentofHellfire]

To a pretty significant extent, this overlaps with one of the harmful gender roles that exist in our society-- women are in charge of the home, men are in charge of anything else. The fact that the "home" in this case is the whole city ameliorates it to some extent, but it's still pretty remniscent.

That's really only true on a broad and symbolic level, though--the women stay "at home", certainly, but the nature of their jobs there isn't that of a home-maker. A soldier involved in defense isn't going to be expected to be submissive and weak.

On a much more symbolic level, the idea of women's role as defensive and men's role as offensive is a big part of what's called r*pe culture. Men besiege and women resist, until they can resist no more. It's an ugly metaphor, supported in a lot of ways by our media. I'm not trying to diverge from your setting here: the dominant metaphors inherent in a fictional setting are important to consider in a feminist critique.

Given that the people the men are besieging aren't the women, I don't think that applies...

[Libertad]

@OP: You might also receive better help by asking around outside this board, too.

I can recommend you Intangibility.org

Most of the posters there are both table-top gamers and feminists.

RPG.net is also a good choice, as a lot of the posters there are very liberal and progressive in regards to gender issues.


As for my thoughts, I really don't know enough about the wider setting than what you provided. Is this "siege mentality" thing setting-wide, or just located in a few warring nations?

Additionally, what circumstances led to men and women being separated so specifically in military roles?

[Blackjackg]

The reason is mostly that I have not found any way to have that type of egalitarianism with a nuclear family that is not also associated with a population freefall in a setting that is dependent on a growing population.

The issue basically is the same as every physicist I have seen run a sci-fi game has - there's only so much handwaving of nonsensium that they can do before it really starts getting on their nerves, and in my case, dictating an egalitarian culture when I do not have any idea how it could construct itself is nonsensium. I don't want a sexist culture, but nobody knows how to make a non-sexist culture with a population above replacement, and I don't want a culture that is dominated by one side or the other.

Fairly distributing roles works great if everyone is an immortal adult who respawns somewhere after they are killed. Once you start having to deal with families, economics, and things like that, the ability to get from A to B breaks down.

I'm no cultural anthropologist, but this is perplexing to me. I can only assume that the argument against gender equality in a nuclear family-centered growing population is that it requires each couple to surrender one parent to the task of child-rearing ten or twelve years until their 2.1 children are of age to begin an apprenticeship. But what prevents that choice from being made an egalitarian way? Is there some fundamental truth of human nature that says that only one gender can be responsible for child-rearing in a given society?

(With the exception of that last question, which was basically rhetorical since I know there isn't any such truth, these are sincere inquiries-- I have no idea why this idea seems so obviously far-fetched.)

Aside from that confusing syllogism, does the society need to have nuclear families? Historically in our own world, nuclear families have been the exception rather than the rule, and there are those that say the only reason they're so prevalent now is through the intervention of the Catholic church. Many more societies have taken a whole-village approach to family and childcare, and it continues to work well to this day around the world.

[Anxe]

The Romans did something similar with their armies. Every legion had a base camp. There were essentially two populations in the base camp, the field army and the base army. The field army would go away on campaigns while the base army stayed and defended the base from barbarian incursions. The field army was made up of all the good able-bodied recruits, while the base army was made up of the old, sick, rookies, and married soldiers (they didn't want to leave their families).

So in a historical parallel you've set up the women to be old, sick, bad at fighting, or part of a family. You've added a little more power to women, but it still seems like the men get the lion's share. The men won't always be on campaign and when they get home, why aren't they asserting their power over the women? They'd be better fighters from their campaign experience. This is assuming a violent confrontation, but ultimately one would've happened at some point in your campaign's history to change the status quo.

Perhaps making women in charge of magic would work better? That's fundamentally different than anything we know now so you could set your own rules.

I also like the women as police thing, but I feel what I pointed out earlier means it wouldn't work. When the male soldiers come home they likely would not respect the authority of the female guards.

Sorry if this sounds disjointed. I'd be happy to clarify anything if I can.

[JusticeZero]

You can do things somewhat equitably, but it's that "somewhat" that binds things up.

And again, it's not that it is not possible to generate an egalitarian society - just that I don't know how one would work. Extended families might help, but I don't know enough about how they operate, and neither will any of my players without a solid prototype.

[Anxe]

Okay, going off what I research for my setting (mostly classical stuff, Greeks and Romans). The most egalitarian society is probably the Spartans. They raise their children in schools once they turn 6 or something. There are separate schools for men and women. Both are trained in basic exercise. The women receive domestic training once they are teenagers while the men receive military training. Remove the specialization. Each person is given the training thought best suited to their skills. There will still likely be more men getting military training due to physical differences, but that's better than nothing.

Then we have Sparta's political system. They had a ruling body of 30 men which included two kings. Then they had a larger council of some sorts. Perhaps the 30 men can still be men, while the council MUST be women.

So different spheres would be domestic and magic for mostly women and military and manufacturing for mostly men.

[JusticeZero]

As for the nuclear family, there is also the issue that one must not only surrender one parent, but that you must make the decision regarding what parent to surrender shortly after a short period during which one of the two was at least partly disabled and at a reduced capacity to work in a number of fields. Without some protective system there - which doesn't typically get prioritized highly in the neoliberal structural logics that we are most ingrained in at this time - one of the parents is at a bit of a handicap at that point, which creates a demographic shift back toward the female homemaker norm that I want to avoid.

The men won't always be on campaign and when they get home, why aren't they asserting their power over the women?

Because they come back partly depleted and return to a city of highly drilled people who are completely capable of shaming and belittling anyone who wants to stay at home if they get uppity about taking over the role that they abandoned in the first place. Yes, this is in fact a strong and rather restrictive gender role here; i'm completely aware of this fact. I simply do not see any way to avoid having to have one cut the other way here.
The magic schools are fixed in cities. They teach the troops as needed, but you have to be in town - either because it is peacetime, or because you are female and a member of the guard who stays in town anyways - to take advantage of that.

Perhaps making women in charge of magic would work better? That's fundamentally different than anything we know now so you could set your own rules.

That just reinforces a different set of stereotypes that i'm not a big fan of.

I also like the women as police thing, but I feel what I pointed out earlier means it wouldn't work. When the male soldiers come home they likely would not respect the authority of the female guards.

One does not have to respect an authority that has a monopoly on violence within a certain sphere to follow the rules.

The basic premise is that male soldiers went out on campaign, then women drilled and fortified and restricted weaponry within the city. When the men get back, they have to leave their warrior bravado at the gate and put their civilized faces on, or be marginalized. If the men are having a lot of success, the balance of power tends to swing toward the men, but if they are breaking even or at peace, there are less opportunities to demonstrate prowess available for the males. If the city has been attacked, the fact that the women have specialized training for that and control of the chain of command and tactics for defensive operations means that a list of war heroes will be dominated by womens' names. When it comes time to pick leaders, people like choosing war heroes.

[Anxe]

I just don't see that working. The people who are left behind for wars are the worst fighters. They may be drilling and training and fortifying, but if there ever actually is a gender war, the men win in this scenario. They've got experience taking down fortifications, while the women have only theories, no experience.

I can see this sort of society working for a time after the women defended an attack from outside while the men were away. They then establish that as their gender role. I don't see it working long term or more than city-wide though. Eventually one of the male generals is going to get tired of listening to the person in charge of the city and will conquer the city and destroy the old culture.

[JusticeZero]

Generals have power in the city, just as long as they don't bring their weapons and the like through the gates like an uncultured savage. And the idea of invading a city that is generally treating you well, oh and which contains your girlfriend on the city defense side, seems to be a bit hard to get general support for.

[Anxe]

It's happened multiple times though. Alcibiades, Pisistratus, a few other Greek tyrants, essentially every Roman Emperor, multiple Kings of Persia, etc. If the general loses power by going into the city without his army, he's going to bring his army in. There needs to be a better reason for the general not to enter than unexperienced soldiers stopping him. Magic seemed the clearest choice to me, but if anyone's got a better idea I'm open to it.

The semi integration I suggested somewhat solves the problem, but you seem pretty keen on this defense/offense split.

[Scow2]

You can do things somewhat equitably, but it's that "somewhat" that binds things up.

And again, it's not that it is not possible to generate an egalitarian society - just that I don't know how one would work. Extended families might help, but I don't know enough about how they operate, and neither will any of my players without a solid prototype.

If you have a body, thank your parents. If you have a brain, thank your grandparents.

Part of the reason I'd suspect the Males are on Offense and Females are on defense is because the children need to be born on the homefront, not the frontlines... which can be more than 11 months away. In order to have population growth, you need pregnancy, which only women can do (Sorry, but it's true). There isn't cost-effective birth control available in most fantasy settings, and where there are men and women together in large numbers, there will be pregnancy (Especially in war - life's short and dangerous)... and even if a woman is still a competent member of society or even military while pregnant, it's not really fair for her or the child to force them both to endure the rigors of a march, though they can still defend the homeland (And are only an hour or two at most away from children left at home)... and if you do, there's the risk of frontline births and battlefield babies. While the vast majority of women won't be pregnant most of the time, there's a not-negligible chance of any one of them ending up so.

The men end up on offense because they're the only ones available to do so, unless you segregate the military (Which you end up doing anyway, but bleh!)

As an interesting anthropological note... In neolithic and pre-neolithic human societies, women were warriors, and tasked with defending the home while the males went out to hunt or wage war.


As for the males being better at conquering the city than the females are defending it - Females are defending it as well as males tear them down, and in addition to fortifications, the female half of the city also has the same number of professional defenders as the male offense has professional soldiers, AND can conscript the noncombatant population (Male AND Female) - including retired soldiers too old to march but young enough to fight - to defend against a serious threat.

[houlio]

OP, have you ever heard of The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin? It describes a world where humanity is only a single gender (it gets weird biologically, don't worry about that so much). While I wouldn't say that you should necessarily restructure your campaign to have single sex/gender humans in it, you can take a few lessons from it. One way to approach this is to refocus and instead of having society based on a male/female dichotomy, cast it in a different gender light. Maybe only people who have done policing and raiding can be expected to know enough to a family capable of both facets of life, since both seem pretty integral to the population? Perhaps that while women who are considered to be family-capable are pregnant, the men in these relationships are put through some sort of similar experience socially/politically/economically so that it is more or less shared by both partners? Why do you need a necessarily monogamous basis for a family, maybe families are effectively state-run, or are open to larger units than a nuclear family?

Just a few questions I thought that might help you think about this differently.

[Anxe]

The Soviets had integrated units during WW2. Although there were many problems with it, I think those problems would go away if integrated units were seen as the norm. Also, if its a standing army the pregnancy issue would likely be nonexistent. Women stop getting their period if they exercise ridiculous amounts or are in stressful situations. Still, much more historical support for the men on the frontlines and women on defense.

We've still got this professional defender problem. I'm arguing that as the women don't see combat, they aren't as professional as the men. Alexander the Great conquered Persia because his men were so much more experienced in combat than the Persians'. If the women are as experienced as the men then some interesting problems come up.
1. The women have to be attacked while the men are away, but why would you send half your force away if you know an attack is coming at home?
2. If the men are at home they're getting just as much practical experience as the women.
3. If I'm planning on attacking a city, why am I leaving half my military force at home defending, when I know the enemy forces are gathered where I am right now to fight?
This leads to another problem if the women actually stay home but are trained at fighting. No one EVER takes cities. There will always be twice as many defenders and you'll lose (assuming all other things equal). Unless, you bring the women along.
I just see it going two ways. The women go along with the men on field armies or they eventually lose power when the more experienced army returns and decides it wants control.

[JusticeZero]

Why do you need a necessarily monogamous basis for a family, maybe families are effectively state-run, or are open to larger units than a nuclear family?

If you have some good prototypes for me to look at that use these sorts of models, i'm open to looking into them.

1. The women have to be attacked while the men are away, but why would you send half your force away if you know an attack is coming at home?

If nothing else, you have random monster problems and the like.

3. If I'm planning on attacking a city, why am I leaving half my military force at home defending, when I know the enemy forces are gathered where I am right now to fight?

This was actually the reason for the policy - if you take your *entire* force with you, you leave yourself open to someone else coming in the back.

This leads to another problem if the women actually stay home but are trained at fighting. No one EVER takes cities. There will always be twice as many defenders and you'll lose (assuming all other things equal). Unless, you bring the women along.

This is actually a campaign setting thing, that since this division, cities normally do not get overrun by direct attack alone. That said, a city is not a self contained unit. Cities are dependent on farms, mines, caravans, et cetera which also need defending and which are often also close to home.
They don't just need defending from marauding armies, they also need to be defended from random zombies, etc. etc. That's more commonly "mop-up", but mop-up is still experience.

[RPGuru1331]

That's what a lot of actual vikings did in the real world, so it's plausible enough (putting aside that many, many vikings were traders, not pillagers and all that)

[The Oni]

^ Regarding women on defense, the Japanese trained all young women in use of the naginata during the Edo period. The idea was that a naginata was a good weapon to be used by someone without much physical strength. Its cutting power relied less on strength (like the katana) than other weapons, and it kept enemies at a distance.

Even an ordinary housewife could do serious damage with a naginata, so, regarding women on defense, you might consider that as a base model for your weapon of choice.

[JusticeZero]

That's what a lot of actual vikings did in the real world, so it's plausible enough (putting aside that many, many vikings were traders, not pillagers and all that)

Yeah, I know. I'm TRYING to sort how to make a better setting. It's just that jumping straight to equality without figuring out how it could be supported makes it hard to track the power flows through the culture to make adventures, since the culture is a facade in that case.
There's lots of stuff on tactics that i'm cheered to see seems to fit with how I was structuring things, and also some suggestions to change the family model - which i'm happy to take a swing at as soon as I can see one of them described in detail.

[tasw]

I dont see it working as a society for long.

A big part of a soldiers training is mental. So your basically taking all your male soldiers and conditioning them to the belief that its their job and their (divine?) right to raid and pillage towns.

And then doing your absolute best to train them to be very, very good at it and sending them out to actually DO it professionally. How long do you reasonably expect those people to take orders from people who DIDNT go out and fight before they say

"screw this guys, the only difference between this and town X that we pillaged last week is that we're already inside the walls of this one."

No amount of training equals real experience in combat and even if we assumed it did in this world the psychology involved pretty much guarantees an extremely fractious culture with consistent inter-gender violence and civil distrust that would implode most societies very quickly.

[valadil]

Specifically, I cited a historical "men go out and pillage" as an ancient historical fact in the campaign setting, then seperated the roles of "pillaging" offense from "police/siege defense", and gendered the latter as a stereotypically female, "pink-armor" role.

I then asserted that because police and counter-siege would have various moments of glory, that these routes were common routes by which women could gain glory which could then be leveraged into political power, resulting in a number of female headed government leaders in a culture which retained a military path to power.

I see what you're going for, but my gut reaction says separate but equal. That didn't go over so well and I'm not sure why it would be different in your case.

Here are some things to think about. I know you said you didn't want to get into the theory, but I feel like you need to back up into that territory if you're going to have an egalitarian society evolve in your game.

Where do gender roles come from? As far as I'm aware (and my awareness is extremely limited) sexual dimorphism and pregnancy are the big causes.

Men are bigger and stronger than women. Blame the testosterone. If they're the ones out raiding and pillaging it's because size and strength make them good at raiding and pillaging.

When humans breed, men can keep doing whatever it is they do. Women can't. Trust me, my wife is pregnant with son #2 right now. Aside from gestating, she's useless. If she's out of commission for 9 months, how is she supposed to move up the ladder? Note that that's not counting breast feeding. I don't want to say that the moms care for the babies, but it's hard to argue with lactation.

Anyway, I mention these things because I think your setting needs to address them. I don't have a good answer for the pregnancy one, but here's an idea I've had for the size and strength difference.

In D&D, there's no statistical difference between sexes. If you really want to represent the strength boost men get from testosterone, just say that they get a +0.25 bonus to strength, but it rounds away to nothing. Now compare them to an entirely different species. Half orcs get a +2 bonus. Their weaker females have 8 times the bonus male humans get. And that's just looking at PHB races. If you go to war against another humanoid nation you might fight trolls, minotaurs, and giants (oh my!). In a world with radically different species vying for power over each other, I don't see how the relatively tiny gap between men and women would matter anymore.

[Xianthe]

*drags out her cultural anthropology textbook* (I've only taken intro level, so any real anthropologists please forgive any blithering idiocy.)

In a culture where the men are going to be spending extended periods of time away from home, there's a strong benefit to extended family structures as a form of support. The Western nuclear model (mom/dad + kids living away from familial support structures) is a pretty "modern" development.

There's a couple of different societal...I'll call them metrics, for lack of a better term off the top of my head. These are pretty much a generality, so feel free to liberally insert the word "usually" as needed.

First category describes where power rests. This is your "patriarchy" versus "matriarchy."

Second is how the culture traces it's lineage, or rule of descent. This is basically which side of your bloodline is considered more important. Broad options are "patrilineal" (my father, my father's father, and so on), "matrilineal" (my mother, my mother's mother, etc), "ambilineal" (within the society there is a mixture), and "bilateral" (both sides are equally important, and equally considered).

Thirdly is the pattern of residence. Options here are "patrilocal" (daughter leaves family and lives with husband with/near husband's family), "matrilocal" (son leaves family and lives with wife with/near wife's family), "bilocal" (either the son or daughter leaves, to live with/near spouses family), "avunculocal" (son and daughter both leave, to live with/near husband's maternal uncle), and "neolocal" (both leave home, live apart from both families).

While some combinations are far more common than others (patrilocality represents something like 67% of all cultures worldwide), theoretically there is no reason why any of these combinations couldn't occur.

The default assumption of "American" culture* is patriarchical, bilateral, neolocal.

But there's no reason your culture couldn't have the women staying near their families while the men go off, but still have descent traced through the father's line.

Keeping extended family close together also helps easy some of the responsibility of raising children from the mother. If you are living all by yourself with little support to take care of your children if something happens to you, it can be potentially very dangerous to have both parents involved in a risky line of work. Some cultures end up with the women beyond childbearing age doing much of the caretaking for the children. Because they are no longer investing their energy into raising their own offspring, they are capable of freeing mothers and fathers from a lot of the necessary labor involved.

I could see that being something very common in a society like the one you describe.

Somewhat tangental to this, but communal living arrangements akin to the Israeli kibbutzim might be something worth looking at to see if there's anything worth borrowing for your culture.


*Yes, I realize that with modern blending it's a bit of a grey area to define an "American culture" but stick with me. There's tons of diversity, but this seems to be the broad stroke.

[Anxe]

Okay, the women staying to defend against monsters was something I hadn't thought of. There must be a lot of monsters if truly half the fighting force needs to stay behind though. This leads to two different scenarios.

1. The men are often away pillaging other towns. They can try to take over other cities, but this is foiled if they are ever in a 1v1 conflict with other towns. Thus alliances have to pop up quickly if any progress is ever made in wars. Thus city-states would be rather rare and nation states would be heavily favored. That works.

2. The men are away fighting the monsters that always attack their city when they leave to go fight with their neighbors. They eradicate the monsters and then there's no longer a need to keep the female soldiers at home.

If 2 is possible, why aren't the men in 1 doing it? The monsters are a much more real threat to their homes and families. One reason could be that the monsters are truly too big a threat for their army to manage, but if that's the case wouldn't the men stay home to defend with the women from monster attacks?

So I still see the monsters as not sustainable IF their lairs can be found. And for most monsters capable of endangering a city this will be true. A horde of orcs should be easy enough to find. A flying dragon, not so much, but if it wants to attack the city I don't think anything can stop it except the PCs.

[Scow2]

So I still see the monsters as not sustainable IF their lairs can be found. And for most monsters capable of endangering a city this will be true. A horde of orcs should be easy enough to find. A flying dragon, not so much, but if it wants to attack the city I don't think anything can stop it except the PCs.

Except hordes of orcs aren't easy to find... Everything's fine and peaceful one moment, then BAM! Horde of Orcs on your doorstep, with no idea where they came from... and with just enough women(Which are noncombatants in Orcish Chauvenistic culture) and children to ensure that every paladin that rides against them will fall.

[AMFV]

There are few problems on a military note. Note that I am not a feminist theorist, so feel to disregard. We've already had people out that garrison forces tend to be supremely under experienced as compared to seasoned veterans. Also in medieval warfare the difference between male and female bodies becomes that much more significant, so be prepared to handwave this away, or at least be prepared to explain that it isn't that way in your society, because that is something I would ask about.

I think that you could possibly have the garrison situation improve if you had vast differences in population, or if instead of having the women's defensive role be limited to active defense of cities, you could put the women in charge of logistics, since an army marches on it's belly, this would give them essentially the ability to severely restrict if not completely prevent a coup.

You could also have disparities in experience the other way, for example if the women had more routine combat and the men rarely ravaged and pillaged you'd have the opposite effect.

Personally the population method seems the best to be, the whole thing seems like an analogy to a lion pride, which is pretty cool, so I would just alter the birth rate till your society matches whatever degree of verisimilitude you want.