The Genders of other races/species

[DAgent]

You mean, other than the extra head? (Not sure that's the best example to use.)

I'd also suggest The Left Hand of Darkness it's held up as a seminal work on this.

BTW to further illustrate PM's point, In Star Trek it apparently takes four Andorians to create offspring, but no one has ever explained how that works either. I don't see a large number of threads asking how and why here.

I'd also look to Earth species too - there are fish and trees that swap genders based upon environmental factors, and you have insects with Drones, Queens and Workers.

Given how meme mad certain facebook groups can, I'm surprised I've not seen that trait of the Andorians memed to death already.

 

[DAgent]

My tuppence/ten cents.

Tread carefully. Dealing with gender nowadays will draw comparisons to humans irrespective of how in-world your characters are.

If it’s something you’re particularly worried about, speak to non-binary, transgender or otherwise ‘othered’ genders; there’s nothing quite as privileged and offensive as CIS-gendered/heterosexual/non-othered people telling them how to feel or whether it’s offensive or not.

Having said that, I’m aware I may come across as fear-mongering which isn’t my intention: just research and be sensitive. And best of luck.

Yeah, that would be another issue to build on as well once the, for want of a better word, the basics had been sorted out determining what the traditional binary terms could be.

That said, just to clarify, it's not the usage of the terms Male, Female and Non Binary that I'm querying being used for none humans. That I can see being used whether it's Humans, Dwarves or Elves or even Orcs. But if terms like man and woman should be applied to non Human races/species.

To give an example of what I mean, in descriptive prose you might say: "A man walked in through the front door, the woman came down the flight of stairs."
And if you had Elves and Dwarves there instead it might read: "The Elf walked in through the front door, the Dwarf came down the flight of stairs," with no reference at all to gender.
But I don't think I've ever seen anyone write that: "A male walked in through the front door, the female came down the flight of stairs," outside of maybe in a characters dialogue, like Gimili making jokes about the supposed lack of Dwarf woman.

 

[DAgent]

Of course! I must have been having a turn this morning. Sorry.

This is not really relevant to the question at all, but I found out yesterday in a Christmas quiz that while a female deer can be a Doe, a Cow or a Hind, a female reindeer is only ever a Cow.

With that said, isn't there something about Reindeers losing their antlers at this time of year? Or at least, the male ones?

 

[DAgent]

I find the sentence The neanderthal man walked into the cave. to be perfectly fine, even though a neanderthal is a different species. Neanderthal is very close to human so I think in speech or exposition it works. I don't remember how this was dealt with in Clan of the Cave Beer.
Now if in LOTR Gandalf had said 'Will a man step forward,' and after Bilbo steps forward, Gandalf could say something like the 'The only man here is a Hobbit,' and I would have no problem, however, if in exposition Bilbo is refereed to as a man, I don't think that would work. A hobbit is further removed from human than a neanderthal.
A chimpanzee seems too far removed, even from a the world like that of the Planet of the Apes, so I don't think it would work in dialogue or exposition.

See, with Hobbits being related to Humans in some fashion, I would kind of expect them to be referred to as men and women, but Elves and Dwarves are very distinctly different species, hence my... apprehension on the topic.

 

[DAgent]

Why not just follow the pattern of men and women by calling them elves and telves? Elf and ailf?

Now those were terms I'm not familiar with, any idea where they originated from?

 

[DAgent]

Then there's the Ents, who apparently don't have a word for unmarried female members of their species, only Ents and Entwives...

Maybe they get Entwined from a very early age?

 

[Swank]

Now those were terms I'm not familiar with, any idea where they originated from?

The top of my head? You can come up with your own gendered modifications of 'elf' or whatever invented species you prefer.

 

[sknox]

I can see using man and woman with modifiers. For example
The man who walked through the door was an elf -or-
A man walked through the door. I judged he was an elf by his build, but I'd been wrong before. -or-
A man walked through the door. .... and we don't bother with his species unless and until it becomes relevant.

Sort of like do we say a man walked through the door or do we say a Spaniard walked through the door? The latter only if being Spanish is important to the narrative at point.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Yeah, that would be another issue to build on as well once the, for want of a better word, the basics had been sorted out determining what the traditional binary terms could be.

That said, just to clarify, it's not the usage of the terms Male, Female and Non Binary that I'm querying being used for none humans. That I can see being used whether it's Humans, Dwarves or Elves or even Orcs. But if terms like man and woman should be applied to non Human races/species.

To give an example of what I mean, in descriptive prose you might say: "A man walked in through the front door, the woman came down the flight of stairs."
And if you had Elves and Dwarves there instead it might read: "The Elf walked in through the front door, the Dwarf came down the flight of stairs," with no reference at all to gender.
But I don't think I've ever seen anyone write that: "A male walked in through the front door, the female came down the flight of stairs," outside of maybe in a characters dialogue, like Gimili making jokes about the supposed lack of Dwarf woman.

Normally there would be no need to specify that the male was a human. I guess if it was a fantasy novel and we were in (for example) the Prancing Pony, a stranger could be described as "a tall, human male", but if he were described as "a tall man" this would be sufficient.

Obviously when it comes to humans and animals, we have a host of names to describe them with which we would all be familiar. So a human male could be 'guy', 'bloke', 'fellow' etc, a horse could be 'stallion, pony, steed, mare, foal' etc. When it comes to things which aren't real, obviously there are less alternative words out there which would be as familiar, so no word with which most readers would recognise for a gender of orc, elf or dwarf.

You could just say 'a male elf' or just describe them such as 'An elf descended the stairs. As she glided across the room...' so the reader would know (if it was relevant).

 

[Swank]

I can see using man and woman with modifiers. For example
The man who walked through the door was an elf -or-
A man walked through the door. I judged he was an elf by his build, but I'd been wrong before. -or-
A man walked through the door. .... and we don't bother with his species unless and until it becomes relevant.

Sort of like do we say a man walked through the door or do we say a Spaniard walked through the door? The latter only if being Spanish is important to the narrative at point.

It depends on whether you view "elf" as a nationality, human "race" (whatever the hell that is) or species.

In some fantasy, elves are little more than nice looking humans. In others, they are noticeably different - as different as a Neanderthal and homo sapien. The words we use to describe them ought to reflect how the characters view each other.

 

[Guttersnipe]

Elfmaid and dwarfmaid or dwarrowdam are female elves and dwarfs, respectively (the lattermost term being a Tolkien creation).

 

[DAgent]

I can see using man and woman with modifiers. For example
The man who walked through the door was an elf -or-
A man walked through the door. I judged he was an elf by his build, but I'd been wrong before. -or-
A man walked through the door. .... and we don't bother with his species unless and until it becomes relevant.

Sort of like do we say a man walked through the door or do we say a Spaniard walked through the door? The latter only if being Spanish is important to the narrative at point.

Good points, I'd never even considered that it might not be relevant to mention the person was a Dwarf or Elf.

 

[sknox]

It raises an interesting question, both philosophically and in writing terms. Which is the more significant, gender or species?

Sure, it depends on context, but that's sort of a dodge. Heck, for that matter, why is it more important to say the newcomer is a dwarf than it is to say they are bald or fat or sad or ... whatever. I think it may be something of an inheritance from RPGs, where saying dwarf or elf immediately implies certain game-significant attributes.

It's just something I hadn't really thought much about.

 

[Swank]

It raises an interesting question, both philosophically and in writing terms. Which is the more significant, gender or species?

Sure, it depends on context, but that's sort of a dodge. Heck, for that matter, why is it more important to say the newcomer is a dwarf than it is to say they are bald or fat or sad or ... whatever. I think it may be something of an inheritance from RPGs, where saying dwarf or elf immediately implies certain game-significant attributes.

It's just something I hadn't really thought much about.

Significant for what? When I talk about my dog I use the pronoun he. Being a canis doesn't alter that.

Generally speaking, modern people don't use as many gendered species terms as people used to, like cock vs. hen, or actor vs. actress. But fantasy usually has a medieval feel, where they did use such words because of animal husbandry and gender roles.

 

[Guttersnipe]

On a similar note, I think "trolldam" might mean a female troll. In Robert Asprin's Myth Adventures series, which I can't help but constantly recommend, a Trollop was a female Troll in a their native dimension.

I believe there are some Old Norse words suggesting "female giant" and such.

 

[sknox]

>Significant for what?
The OP specified that the pronoun choice wasn't the issue, it was the generalized species term. Do you use man even if it's an elf, or is there an alternative (customary or invented)?

Which brought me to the tangential question, if someone (a stranger) walks into a room, is saying man the more narratively relevant term or is saying elf the more significant? I've run into this in my own writing. It's not really a solution, but getting to proper names as fast as possible does help. That way, it's Balthazar who walks in rather than needing to say man or elf. Or mage, for that matter.

 

[Swank]

>Significant for what?
The OP specified that the pronoun choice wasn't the issue, it was the generalized species term. Do you use man even if it's an elf, or is there an alternative (customary or invented)?

Which brought me to the tangential question, if someone (a stranger) walks into a room, is saying man the more narratively relevant term or is saying elf the more significant? I've run into this in my own writing. It's not really a solution, but getting to proper names as fast as possible does help. That way, it's Balthazar who walks in rather than needing to say man or elf. Or mage, for that matter.

I used a pronoun example to demonstrate that often reflecting gender is more important than species, otherwise I'd say "the dog" instead of "he".

Which brought me to the tangential question, if someone (a stranger) walks into a room, is saying man the more narratively relevant term or is saying elf the more significant? I've run into this in my own writing. It's not really a solution, but getting to proper names as fast as possible does help. That way, it's Balthazar who walks in rather than needing to say man or elf. Or mage, for that matter.

Well, I think:

Generally speaking, modern people don't use as many gendered species terms as people used to, like cock vs. hen, or actor vs. actress. But fantasy usually has a medieval feel, where they did use such words because of animal husbandry and gender roles.

It is a choice between "elf" being a matter-of-fact bit of ethnography, or part of the exotica that drives the fact that it is a fantasy story. The guy who wrote The Night Before Christmas thought it was a good detail.