Feminists to a degree, because they don't have a lot of trust in men, or male dominated society. However, they don't push a feminist agenda, they simply work to ensure their survival, freedom, and prosperity in a male dominated world.
First of all, as I already stated, as for now no one want to take their lives and prosperity from them, but being power mad can change this things. But I assume that their leader have some kind of post-war syndrome.
Second, I don't see Gaia as male-dominated world. Hell, it even had woman as a Pope. Celene are the only raging sexists I see in the whole world of Gaia.
There was a female Pope, installed by a mad emperor, and it caused significant discord, even though the emperor was within his purvue to name her.
There is a female empress, but that has caused discord, as well.
Gaia is not constructed as a female hating world, but there is a definite bias toward rule by males. It doesn't match our world, which is not strange for an RPG, but it does at least partially mirror our world, and part of that mirroring is the prevalence of male control in governments. Not complete male control, but significantly higher than the level of female control.
I don't see Selene as power mad. Perhaps misguided and paranoid because of past events directly remembered by their leader, but not power mad.
They are quite content staying in the shadows, and using subterfuge and assassination to influence the world instead of direct control.
While it is stated many hate men, and others consider them second class citizens, that isn't strange for a society that raises its members in an atmosphere of prejudice.
'Many' is a very subjective term, as it can easily mean many more than usual within a population. Pulling numbers out of the air as reference, if normally three women in 100 hate men, and Selene's population raises that to six, that's doubling the normal ratio, and would qualify for the use of 'many.' Six in 100 would still not be that large a percentage, but would be many more than usual. The same can be said of the level of homosexuality within Selene's members. Obviously, if they are trained to seduce both men and women, there have to be memebers that do not find that repugnant.
The Spartans were a male dominated warrior culture, that encouraged both marriage and homosexual relations for the men. Women were second class citizens, but were still treated as full members of the society, and given honors when they were due.
Selene can keep their island monastary for the raising of their girls, and keep villages that include men on nearby islands to help support their society. Having a normal front nearby, with just the island monastary sequestered with just females, would be a far better front, and allow the training to go forward with mundane chores for survival handled by men and women who might not have attaiined the level of capability Selense seeks in its operatives.
What happens to trainees who turn out to not be beautiful, or are disfigured in training? Nothing says they are killed, so it would be logical to have them take over maintainence chores needed for Selene's society to function. Growing crops, fishing, running businesses, and everything else needed for a society to function means laborers for those tasks have to be found. Add some men to build a viable front to conceal the manstic retreat, and you have men for the trainees to practice with, and an economy that can support the order.
How deeply Selene distrusts males is open for question, as are most other concepts for their society. People can fill in those gaps in knowledge with pronouncements of how things couldn't work that way, or take the time to consider how they might with a slightly different interpretation of what little information we actually have.
I find it much more interesting to think of how alternate cultural groups can function than to try and find questionable holes showing how they couldn't. Gaia has the Selene order, and we have very little concrete information on how it functions. Thinking about ways to make it work within the narrow template we've been given won't work, because they wopuld need to be much more than what we've been told to function, as would most other organizations.
Instead of simply decreeing Selene couldn't work, think of what else it needs to make it work. There is plenty of room in Gaia for it to do so.
As a quick example, here's a basic idea I picture when I consider Selene:
I picture a monastary in a island caldera, simply because of the visuals of a monastary with a beautiful lake in front of it. Outside the caldera, there are a few villages on the island that grow crops and fish to get the food the monastary needs, while helping to conceal it from prying eyes.
Established sisters live in those villages, and have hidden tunnels to reach the monastary as needed, as well as other ways to communicate with the monastary. Those sisters include some who have retired back to the island, some resting between assignments, and some stationed as guards. Also working as guards are women who failed at some level of their training as full sisters within Selene, because Selene does not want to abandon their people as they were abandoned by circumstance ages past.
No normal people from the villages are allowed into the caldera, but they have a reasonable society on the outside edges of the island, as well as on a few other nearby islands. Woman are the major power in government, but men are treated as functional citizens with the ability to address their rulers when needed.
Men from the villages are sometimes invited to parties held at villas near the edge of the caldera to allow the training sisters a chance to learn the arts of seduction. Men and women are treated to a higher level of education than in many areas, both because it helps them support the monastary and to give the sisters greater challenges when they have to learn their arts of seduction.
Sisters are raised in an atmosphere that is prejudiced against men, but they are allowed to form their own views as they grow to the point they can interact with men. Because of the kind of work Selene does, close relationships between sisters are encouraged, because that builds a stronger bond within the organization. Homosexual relations are neither encouraged nor discouraged, but do form a natural progression in some relationships due to the intense bonding the sisters attain.
Those ideas allow a functional society living in hiding, with sisters capable of hating men, or not, but with a higher incidence due to raised prejudices. They would have men available for training in the arts of seduction, with those men quite possibly happy to help. Those men might be second class citizens, but they are also valued members of the community, and could live there happily.
People within those villages could live there without express knowledge of what is there in the caldera. Simply knowing their rulers live within a protected and restricted area would be no stranger than many other ruling classes.
I don't say my idea is what was pictured when Selene was originally envisioned, but it is certainly a workable concept that allows such an organization to thrive and flourish.
Anima - Tactics
