i think it’s good to note that in fascist and communist totalitarian societies, gender roles are hyper-realised in expectations and propagandaso forcing those below you into certain roles based on gender roles also stifles their abilities and further limits them, which is why it also makes sense that a gender binary would be forced onto the alternians
exactly! this is kind of precisely what Porrim was angling at when she talked about this; at least on Beforus (but pretty clearly on Alternia too), the strongly-enforced gender binary acted to suppress and railroad the jadebloods, who are essentially the most powerful caste in physical terms.
no doubt it works in a very similar way amongst lowbloods.
#also i feel the glorification of it adds to this #as in; jadebloods should be honoured to work so closely with the mother grub #how dare they question this role ever #and how dare they not be grateful because it is such a prestigious honour that only you females are allowed to do #nobody else can do it so you have to #like that attitude contributes to the oppression
@kitschtrolls this tends to be how I see the matron role being sold to young jadebloods; not just for the obvious reasons we’re talking about now, but also because how the hell else are you going to want anybody to do that job without lying? it’s a maternity ward in a cave but it’s just one giant disgusting worm-shaped mother constantly giving birth to babies by the thousands and the babies try to eat each other and also you’re working there because the government doesn’t want you finding out you’re a plant vampire. it’s horrible.
the thing with jadebloods is that, since they’re a) rare and b) not supposed to visit the surface once they start their cavern job, you can basically straight up lie to them. you can say that their future is gonna be pearly marble hallways and a lifetime of fun platonic gal pal girl scout shenanigans in nun costumes, and if it turns out the hallways are made of dirt and the nun costume is a surgical jumpsuit, there’s not really much they can do about it! as long as they start out believing what they’re going to be doing has some divine significance, they basically enslave themselves.
though no doubt the way domestic servitude is sold to lowbloods is similar; there’s no better way to encourage people to be housewives than to make the life of the housewife out to be the end goal. you can probably imagine the sort of 60s-style domestic propoganda that’d get churned out by an empire run by alien Betty Crocker.