Navlad Middle Class

Attitudes Towards Women
Middle class attitudes towards women. Something that needs to be figured out. Research into Ambivilent Sexism. Don’t know that that will work in all cases. The Empire is much less homogenous than it was during Jossa and Delfi’s time. The girls’ circumstances have also changed. They are no longer traveling with a group of people and they aren’t married to the man they are travelling with. I think, in the Empire as a whole, the middle classes are just trying to get by. Ajiri planets will have different ways of doing things than Kovavek. On the whole though, the lower down the income ladder, the more likely the woman will have some sort of job to help bring in income. Their role as breeders is still important, but again, as the social strata goes further down, fertility rates go up. An upper middle class woman is going to be worried about birthing a child, but not as bad as a noble woman, who knows it’s pretty much a guarantee that she’ll have to go into a clinic-temple and have a priest do an AI. An upper middle class woman, if she has a child, will probably be able to stay home and take care of it. She’d be expected to. See to the education, etc. The mid-middle classes won’t worry so much about having babies, although it’s still a risk they won’t have one. The money is also not there so they can stay home and not help with the family business. Not that they usually turn into engineers, or doctors, or the like. But they might watch a shop as their husband makes things, deals with incoming orders, or does the more hands on part of the business. They would be the ones to have kids far apart, and once the older children are old enough to watch the youngers, have them do that. Otherwise, they might be able to afford childcare, depending on the commonalities of the region. Maybe Guilds would have childcare available? To start educating the child young members. If a child doesn’t show aptitude for a particular trade young, or if a boy shows higher aptitude for something like piloting or sciences, then they would be traded off to that guild in exchange for care of a child that may not live up to the standards of the more detailed works. Most education would be basics, broad spectrum up until the kid is twelve or so. Then after that, any higher learning a woman gets will be dependent on who she might marry later (nursing for the doctor-priests, etc), or done however she can manage it at home. In this particular setting, at the station guarding the border Barb between the Empire and the Gatekeepers, things are much more pronounced. The facility is crowded, and getting worse every day. People need to prove they are not a waste of air, life support, etc. There’s also a high rate of crime, as some people try to outstay their welcome, others end up stuck on the station because they can’t pay docking fees, and others are trying to make a buck off all the people flocking to the station. This situation has been on the rise slowly for the past hundred years or so, as people flee the wartorn sectors of the Empire looking for a place to get away from the fighting. In the past year or so, since the Fleet hit the Net, anyone who has heard of this station and its twin and can get passage is headed this way, hoping to get through the gates. Back to the women. It used to be that a woman of the middle classes was safe to move around freely, buy and sell, and otherwise go about her life. She drew on her husband’s accounts for the most part, he might be able to put a cap on her spending, and marriage glyphs (or engagement) were displayed as a matter of pride and practicality. A woman could leave her father’s house if she’d been trained up to a trade or shown aptitude for something relating to a business. Prostitution is always an option and there’s a Guild for it. There’s a mixed honor in it, because the woman may be able to bear her customer a child and have it adopted into his house. This depends on the class level of the customer through. If he’s a noble or part of the middle class trying to climb to nobility, the son may be rejected if the mother has muddy bloodlines. Nehkeh, etc. Back to the present! Women are in danger on the station, because hey, a womb! They are also more likely to be kicked off sooner than a man, if one ends up on the station without a man to vouch for her. Or, you know, sold off the station. Women do less vital work in the eyes of the Empire, so they are less useful in a station trying to hold on to resources with both hands and its teeth. A shopkeeper may ask to see a woman’s mark of ownership, marriage, or filial relation and check it against the database of who is docked and who is a resident to be sure she has someone who can guard her, take responsibility if she steals something, or who will go after her if she’s taken. It started as a way of looking out for the women, at least in the minds of some. Now a woman who doesn’t have a man with her in the markets is given the sideeye, and if she can’t produce the proper glyphs (sheer backs on shirts and halter tops are a THING here)then the authorities are likely to be called. In dealing with the criminal element, more men are likely to see women as possible victims, and any woman who wanders into the back halls and hidden rooms of a station is likely to be vanished, unless she also has a man to look for her, or vouch for her, etc. In the case of a woman who comes from a more independent lifestyle, such as some of the freighters or military dependents, a man is still a good idea, because a fight six on one is a losing proposition. Especially if the crook in question shuts off the air to the room. So a woman like Shezza will probably go to any meet with her second-in-command, and Jossa needs Syrus to come with her to fence their merchandise as they try to raise cash to get through the Barbican. Some business owners won’t even want to talk to a woman about buying from her unless a man is there. What started as a way to protect has turned into a sort of gentle imprisonment. Back to kids and moms and middle classes. Lower middle class women may not have a Guilded relative, be it a husband or father. In the case of the Prostitute’s Guild, the child would, as previously be mentioned, be offered to the father to enrich his bloodline. The father may take it, on the chance that the child will also kick off natural conception down the line (one of the reasons a noble house may not mind bastards). If the woman is married, the income is very low, and she has no way to avoid helping with whatever business her husband has, she would bring the baby to work with her, possible in a carrier on her back if it’s active work. Then the oldest child would take charge of the baby when possible. If the kid is the oldest child, then it is likely they’d stay with a relative or learn what they could very early (child-sized helping). Teaching for these lowest classes may be done by a splinter of a local Guild hall if it is looking for new recruits, or done as much as possible at home, or by the Childcare Guild, which is one of the least respected Guilds, as it takes in orphans, children of unguilded parents, the occasional nehkeh, and gives them a basic education before turning them back to their parents. This costs, and many parents would rather see their kids put into a trade guild crèche if at all possible. Some show an aptitude for it, and often the CG is as much charity as anything. It draws from its own charges to fill the ranks in later years, as teachers and daycare assistants, etc.