I have a night elf druid character that I am currently writing and RPing as, and I’m currently studying kaldorei culture to get a better look at their background and lore.
I have read that until semi-recently, that they had strict gender roles, and only allowed men to become druids and healers, and women become wardens, sentinels, and priests.
For reference, my night elf character is 200-250 years old, and she is a female druid. Would have she been around by the time those strict gender roles would be in place?
I believe the gender roles were in place up until after the battle of Mount hyjal. The night elves lost their immortality after that battle and so sometime thereafter, they started to allow both genders to branch out in more roles that they haven’t done before.
So yes if your character is that old then they would have been around to experience the strict gender roles that were in place.
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Short answer, the gender roles were never THAT strict with some modern “soft retcons”.
There is one archdruid you meet in legion, named Koda Steelclaw, she is ancient, and, well, female. We see that some gender roles are still somewhat in place, but they seem more cultural and not enforced by law. Male sentinels are still rare, I haven’t seen a single male night elf priest of the moon (there is one priest npc in Pandaria, but i’m not sure he is an Elune priest, since he is very obsessed with immortality and arcane research up until his daughter dies and he trades his life for hers). There is a cataclysm archeology find that shows the celebration of breaking of gender roles.
So yeah, your druid character being 200 or 300 years old makes sense in lore.
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The women used to be the soldiers while the men were the druids. Blizzard changed that of course.
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I would not interpret it in such strict terms, as actual cultures are rarely that black and white. Certain druidic circles were likely more open to women than others. The druids of the Antler come to mind given their Archdruid is Sylendra Gladesong, a woman.
Likewise, While the Sisterhood of Elune was (and largely remains) staunchly feminist in its traditions, I have always suspected the Druids of the Moon are the traditional route that men who felt the call to serve Elune took.
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My personal interpretation is that it was not enforced by law but was certainly cultural.
Like in real life, Engineering and IT related courses have mostly men, but education might have more women.
So you could always see exceptions to the rule, but can still say that those gender roles exist.
And probably you had a lot of people in kaldorei society in the long vigil that did not fit in either. Farmers, anglers, smiths, and just old regular civillians.
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I thought Blizzard retconned them back when they let Knaak write the War of the Ancients books.
Like all things with Blizzard, it waffles back and forth depending on who at blizzard is doing the writing or creative work.
We can say at the least clergy are overwhelmingly female, which is still reflected in Bel’ameth not having a single male clergy member. It is with druids they have far more de-segregated on a gender basis.
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It became very weakly enforced around the time of the War of the Ancient novels when we saw plenty of male fighters and the original WoW Cinematic which featured a female druid.
Originally we saw a lot of NPCs continue the original Warcraft 3 style with male druids and female sentinels, but with later packs we see a mix. It’s a shame really as the Warcraft 3 concept art, and the game itself, created an interesting matriarchal society.
Good, destroy the matriachy. Personally, I would say while exception existed it started in ernest after Warcraft 3. You cant be selective on your gender roles when you are literally facing armageddon ever year or so.
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Found the cringe statement 
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Or I dislike BOTH patriarchy/matriarchy and want every faction to have an egalitarian nation. To the point I am nothing but supportive of say Tess or Jaina taking the throne of their respective nations.
Why, do you like the matriachy?
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I just think it’s such a stupid thing to even say because it’s not like the night elven women were making rules to oppress their men. They just had roles both sexes full filled and nobody really complained as far as we know.
The roles weren’t really strictly enforced either, as we’ve seen arch druid female leaders and male priests that clearly been around for a while
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And one could say this of the humans. Where women were not allowed to be soldiers and generally did not have an complaint about it. And boom, it changed.
Again, same could be said of female mages of Dalaran, there wasn’t a rule against it, but the bias was there until Agywynn destroyed that ceiling. Regardless, the point should be no one should have hierarchies based on gender and I’m glad EVERYONE is moving away from it.
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So….got a citation of where the humans were ever a matriarchal society?
Or any proof human women were barred from certain positions of power?
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I’m not sure where you got the idea that humans were matriarchal when that entire sentence points to them being PATRIACHAL. And that thanks to all the major changes of WoW it has moves away from it.
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Lorena
Lorena faced a lot of sexism in her life, and as such tried to make herself look as male as possible: keeping her hair cut short, not shaving her legs, wearing undergarments that hid her breasts, and so on.
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Any proof that human women were barred from certain positions of power?
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I would also point out the males were bared from the main military organization of the night elves, the Sentinels. So by extension males would be bared from any military position of power.
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Still waiting on a citation about your claim of human women being barred from certain positions of power
Lore source or dev statement. It’s okay, I’ll wait
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