Bolloi Masculinity
~Seacar14
One of the big discussions in recent years has been about the concept of "Strong Female Characters" and "girlbosses." People argue about whether or not they're realistic, if they are actually empowering to female audiences, if they are are feminist, if they're pseudo-feminist pandering, if they're shallow and simply toxic masculinity with a female face, if it even matters as long as they're fun, and so on
Bollois decidedly do nothing to further that debate.
From the outset, on a purely physical level, bollois are the spawn of bioengineering, much like all Yabans, and while their roots may be in the Getabaru-Saiyans, bollois are not quite equivalent to Saiyan women since, on a pure secular level, male and female Yabans are already much denser and heavier than an equivalently sized human or Getabaru-Saiyan, on top of their very biology and psychology being engineered towards combat. An average secular bolloi— that is completely unsparked with chi— is still much stronger than the average man.
But even if you discount their pure biology and energy, bollois are still different from the "Strong Female Character™" archetype in other ways. For all the chuds and reactionaries talk about girlboss action-oriented women as being "men with boobs," when you compare them to bollois, it becomes very clearly obvious that they are still written with feminine or at least female-oriented conventions in mind. Simply being strong, or strong-willed, being "Lad-ettes" or "tomboys", does not quite bring you to the level of bollois and vroda kvltvr.
Bringing this up again:
Originally way back in 2018, I decided bollois were "hypermasculine" just because they liked fighting and proving themselves in battle, and in retrospect those early bollois were pretty much exactly like the Strong Female Character™ archetype and not the "Literally Men with Boobs" they are now. I pretty much had 100 different rules for bollois for why they Aren't Like Other Girls and are boyish and badass fighting femmes; nowadays, I just have five vague rules that work a hundred times better: "Aromantic as a rule," "No culture of vanity," "No culture of protection," "Lack feral maternalism," and "Have little intrinsic worth"
I was writing up an explanation earlier, but got distracted. However, a comment on DeviantArt got me back on track, so here we go:
Aromantic as a rule: Probably the single biggest culture shock humans have with bollois is just how little they regard romance. For us humans, this is basically a "no-no" when it comes to female characters, because we almost always view female characters and femalehood in general through the lens of romance. I mean think about it: besides the Venus symbol (♀), what symbol do we most often use in association with girls and women? The Valentine's heart.❤️ We tend to view women as sex objects. We tend to view women's issues as issues of love and relationships first and foremost. We expect girls and women to grow up idealizing marriage. When female characters are introduced into a story, the question of romance and shipping almost immediately follows. There are genuinely a lot of people who cannot dissociate "female" from "love interest." So for a female character to not be involved with anyone romantically or even have any romantic interests definitely goes against the grain.
What's especially funny about this is that Dragon Ball allegedly claims Saiyans don't care for romance, but has literally never followed through on that with the only exception being Son Goku himself. It's a pure background detail that's widely accepted, but at least after the original Bardock special (where Selypa didn't get enough screentime to be romance-baited in the first place), whenever a female Saiyan is introduced, the question of romance is immediately raised. Gine? Just so happened to be a "rare" example of a loving, romantic Saiyan. Caulifla and Kale? Almost as soon as they're introduced, the question of romance with Cabba is brought up (though admittedly shot down). Heck, most recently in the Bardock DLC of Kakarot, guess what Selypa's missions focus on? You guessed it: romance. I think Toriyama had it in his head that Saiyans don't care for romance because Goku doesn't, but he and Toei are too traditionalist in mindset to actually carry through with that in the series proper. They're actually incapable of telling stories involving female characters that don't involve romance. Except the Kaios, I think. I don't think the female kaioshins have ever been romance-baited.
[In retrospect, this was a bit asinine to describe, as we barely ever see female Saiyans at all. Honestly not too sure what exactly I was talking about here with the Saiyans besides nitpicking like a monkey]
So to that end, bollois actually not caring about romance can come off as weird and even disappointing to people. There might be a propensity to think that a female character who isn't into romance was simply hurt or is hiding her true self, or even that they just haven't found Mr. or Ms. Right just yet, so genuinely lacking any interest is definitely not common. Them being estrous certainly pushes that to its limit.
No Culture of Vanity: It may be "problematic" to say this among certain people, but there's no lie in saying that women are generally more interested in their appearance and matters of beauty. And this is culturally reinforced, we almost always tend to compliment women on their appearance and reinforce their sense of vanity as often as possible, something rarely done for men. Heck, "Beauties" is a somewhat common alternative for "women." The very names we give girls reflect "beauty" or "delicacy" or "gentleness." (If you're a girl, look up the meaning of your name; more often than not, it's a name reflecting appearance or femininity). Especially in the West and Far East, we actively expect women to wear make-up, get plastic surgery, and just generally look as cute and presentable as possible. And even if they don't do this, we still reward them with compliments.
Bollois don't have that, nor do they get that. The most a bolloi will get in terms of comments on her appearance on any random day, even surrounded by nagois, might be "You look like shit." They have zero expectation of being complimented, and very little in the way of beautification.
No culture of protection: In modern times, we like saying that women are capable and independent and strong, but let's be perfectly honest, that culture of chivalry didn't simply die out in a few decades any more than racism did. We still very widely view girls and women as vulnerable and in constant danger. There's still an overwhelming, unstated expectation that men should never hit women under any circumstance, that girls are inherently more delicate, and that women should stay out of dangerous situations. This also goes that girls are less culpable for their decisions and shouldn't face the same consequences as boys for the same offenses, which goes as far as believing that only men can be truly evil; women are only made to do evil by evil men. But it's even as simple and innocent as punishing a boy more harshly when he and a bunch of girls do something wrong.
Again, bollois don't get off that easy. In other words, there's no cultural belief that bollois need to be protected more than nagois or are less capable of handling themselves and thus should be insulated from danger, peril, and hardship. There is no belief in the idea that bollois are more delicate and fragile. And this goes the other way as well. A human girl holding her own at a challenge, getting through a tough situation, and matching or even overcoming the boys will be celebrated as an example of girl power. A bolloi displaying such competency proves nothing and earns no similar praise. At least among Yabans.
Lack feral maternalism: Among humans, we view motherhood as the highest and most powerful expression of femininity to the point many women are shamed for not getting married or bearing children, certainly far more than men are for not being fathers. In fact, we tend to view motherhood as so central to a woman's life that a lot of the more conservative and traditionalist mindsets say that a childless woman is the unhappiest woman. Also notice that a lot of the "good" strong female characters that are defended by people who otherwise chastise Strong Female Characters™ are described as being "motherly."
Bollois can certainly be mothers, but they lack a lot of the nurturing, motherly instincts we find intrinsic to mature femalehood. A bolloi is basically a mother for the first year, and then a female father for the rest of her child's life. And of course you have yenois further complicating matters, which is no better represented than with....
Have little intrinsic worth: It's a cold fact every man must face in his life: that he is an expendable human compared to a woman. This is very widely reinforced in society, no better summed up than in the saying "women and children first." This is very closely related to the "culture of protection" I mentioned above. A hundred thousand men can die and be overlooked, but the death of a single woman is a horrific tragedy worth special notice and attention. There's an old sexist saying that goes that "Women are, men must become." Which is to say that a woman can simply be pretty to win at life, but a man is worthless unless he accomplishes something.
Bollois don't really get this. Since they still have wombs, they're surely seen as being worth more than a man, but then you run into the issue of yenois, the primary "breeder" sex among Yabans, and thus the sex with the most "intrinsic" worth. Bollois are raised basically with the expectation that they're disposable extraneous grunts. A bolloi who wants to be worth anything has to actually achieve something.
So when you combine all this together, you wind up with a sex that doesn't really care for romance, cares virtually nothing for beautification, is treated harshly and without comfort in life, has little in the way of a nurturing motherly spirit, and can only be considered worth anything if they make something of themselves. This all sounds very similar to how we traditionally treat and view men in the world, so no wonder bollois go beyond simply being "Strong Female Characters™".
These are fundamental cultural expectations that you can't simply erase just by making a female character strong, aggressive, muscular, tough, headstrong, and independent. They inform just about all of our more subtle creative decisions, even our unconscious ones. In fact, this is a big reason why I went with nonhuman creatures in the first place: even if you disregard biological nature affecting behavior and psychology, it is almost completely impossible to create a female human character with the same socio-cultural traits of a bolloi (unless she's from an alien world or some bizarro alternate history). This is because there is no culture on Earth (as far as I know) that comprehensively raises women the exact same as men on such a profound and all-encompassing level that these traits will not appear. Indeed, because there is no dedicated third "dominant breeder" sex among humans, it is actually impossible on some level for Earthling women to be like bollois because we place such high value on the ability to bear children.
Simply being a tomboy or a Butch lesbian or a turbo-Ladette is not the same. This isn't about your personal decisions and lifestyle choices. It's about the entire society in which you live that molds you every second of every day of your life, whether you realize it or not.
Thus, it can be a massive culture shock for bollois to come to Earth and suddenly be treated like the girls they are. Yulaan, for example, has quite literally never been complimented on her appearance in her life. She goes to Earth-Prime, and all of a sudden, you've got all these people calling her "cute" and "sexy" and wondering if she's going to find a boyfriend (or girlfriend?) and calling her hair a "perpetual bad hair-day" and so on. You have some celebrating how much she's a badass and a strong independent girl who can handle herself, which to Yulaan seems like needless aggrandizing flattery.
It's like, imagine if some really macho gangster/mafioso, Yakuza member, whatever, imagine they go to another planet where men are treated like princesses and are widely viewed as a beautiful, elegant, and romantic sex. Probably wouldn't know how to react, would he? That's Yulaan.
And do recall the kagoras.
Planet Vegeta likely would not see anything like the vroda kagora, as the Vegetan women seem to be more in line with "strong-willed and often physically super-strong women" as opposed to bollois.
