1. Matriarchs:

https://www.gentlebarn.org/blog/2020/03/05/matriarchs/

In our world, there are some Matriarchal-based animals, like: Killer Whales, Elephants, Hyena, etc. Now, the general theme is that the herd/pod/group is lead by the oldest and most experienced female in the group. Should she die, the control goes to the oldest daughter. They will nurture the babies, discipline the teens, provide wisdom for her entire family, and make all the important decisions.

This would imply that the only use for ‘males’ is to be their power, their strength for hard jobs and their genes. To put into example Caesar’s Legion from Fallout New Vegas treats women as a breeding stock, until their bodies can’t take it anymore. They can’t hold any jobs and their only purpose is to serve the men. So, if you reverse the genders, you can see how dark it could get.

The groups are mostly compromised of the same family members and as such, males don’t really have a role there, outside of being able to breed with them, should the opportunity arise. In some Matriarchal mammals, even the weakest female is stronger than an average male. To top it off, every female is more important than any male in the group. Can you imagine Apple Bloom ordering Big Mac around? I sure as hell don’t, but that’s how it could work in a Matriarchal-based society.

Last, but not least, physical power. It’s one of the key components of RGRE. If an average female is stronger than an average stallion, she will be forced to act as a lead. Case in point, human society. We can see how men for the most part take dangerous, demanding jobs that women avoid. Like welding, plumbing, hard labor, etc. In RGRE stallions would be meek, shy and probably take jobs of: nurses, teachers, etc. Female oriented jobs, by our world’s standard.

2. How to make it work in Equestria:

Okay, so I am going to make 2 cases:

Case number 1: The stallion are meek, fragile, protected by other females, forming herds. The mares all care for one another doing all the hard labor, while stallions do the house chores. Some stories have done that, which I wrote about in my previous thread.

Case number 2: DARK. Stallions are dumb, too dumb for the most part. Their only purpose is to be basically slaves that serve their mare overlords, as they are too weak too fight back.

Case 3: Uhh... I got nothing as of right now.

3. Your opinions, ideas, thoughts. I am open to a discussion, as I am trying to figure out how would society like that work, instead of taking 50’s men and women and reversing the roles.

I am a bit tired, as of time of writing and I can’t think straight. I did some search on matriarchal animals, but I haven’t found too much of a role, so if I made any mistakes (which I probably did), I apologize. Now, I would like to hear your thoughts about it.

I've been sitting on this for a while, but this is my idea.

Body Density: Mares and Stallions having the same body mass, but Mares are more tightly packed. This means that while Stallions can do just as much as Mares, they cant take as much damage as a mare, giving the impression that Mares are Stronger.

As such, it is the Mares that do the "Men's Work", wile Stallions harvest, make homes and tend to the kids.

Haven't done a thing with it but I'd be happy to see someone take this route with it.

My interpretation is, due to magic's existence in Equestria giving ponies an advantage in general day-to-day survival, less emphasis is placed on the "practical utility" of an individual and more on the "emotional/spiritual wellbeing" of the group.
This results in a shift in what "leadership qualities" are considered to be in the first place. With aggressive/domineering masculine traits derived from testosterone being less valued than the caring/nurturing feminine traits derived from estrogen.

And while, yes, I'll admit this TECHNICALLY doesn't quite adhere to the original idea of RGRE, I believe it can be further tempered by the common "low-male-to-high-female" gender ratio imbalance trope.
By the stallions needing to keep their aggressiveness/masculinity in check as they know they are the minority thus outnumbered and/or having mares be more willing to tolerate it because they know they are the majority and they need stallions to breed but will get rough, if the stallion gets out of line, especially in herd scenarios.

Hierarchy in hyena, Caesar’s Legion etc. depends on sexual dymorphism. Hyena is matriarchal, because females are stronger. For most of human history women were controled, because they are weaker and more promiscuous.

In MLP ponies are less sexualy dymorphic than hyena. That is why most fics use screwed gender ratio. With screwed gender ratio we don't need to dumb down stalions. Stalions need to be protected, because there are to few of them. If there is not enough stalions, then we risk inbreeding. One stalion can impregnate all the mares, and then we have inbreeds.

That is why we don't really have to go dark route or stupid route. We just have to embrace natural instincts of stalions while kepping gender ratio in fawor of females.

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Fair point. As of right now, I am debating whether or not to use herds and some elements from RGRE for my own personal story.

I do not find herds believeable, especially if there are more than 3 ponies in a herd.

The general idea was to have a monogamous human come to RGRE Equestria and then form 1 maybe 2 relationships tops. While rejecting the whole herd debate. At the same time, I also considered just not using RGRE at all and just use skewed Gender Ratio, if that even. So many mares attracted to a single stallion, think like movie stars have got whole fanclubs or how Celestia and Luna probably have got those two.

At the same time, I want to avoid harems, they are not realistic and do not work IRL, even fantasy life is hard to write. Case in point, according to some of the data I have read, guys that are like 10/10, the chad meme in a nutshell do not settle down. They just sleep around with many eager women. It's similar when 10/10 models do that.

Not to mention, having a single well cared for relationship seems far more stable than a herd.

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You are absolutely correct on the whole 'harems don't function' thing. I definitely believe monogamy to be the superior lifestyle, and this is proven many times over in real life.

Still, in a magical fantasy horse land where everything is solved with friendship lessons, maybe relationships can have a bit more flexibility?

The way I rationalize herding is that ponies are simply fundamentally different than humans. While multiple romantic relationships make no sense for us--and for good reason--equine brains play by different rules entirely. Perhaps mares simply don't get jealous of their herdmates because that's just how life has always been and they can actually genuinely accept that, whereas humans require more loyalty or whatnot.

I've honestly been wanting to see healthy dynamics in this setting for a long time, and have been mildly disappointed to not as of yet encounter a story that's content to just worldbuild in that way. I suppose that's because this whole genre (if it can be called that) likely sprung up from wish fulfillment. Luckily, I plan to write it sometime soon, and the story will have an added twist on the RGRE genre that you may be interested in. Perhaps this fits your case #3?

Essentially, stallions are orders of magnitude weaker and more scarce than mares. Mares are the pinnacle of evolution, more powerful as a baseline than anything other races have to offer. Basically, a single pony mare picked off the street could utterly decimate any trained squad made up of other races, because they are naturally just that strong. However, in the same way that female ponies are on another level of power compared to other peoples, stallions are simply pathetically weak and get broken bones from being poked too hard. This, combined with a heavily skewed gender ratio, creates a society where males absolutely need to be protected or else the risk of death is immediate and very real. I find it an interesting concept, especially since the focus is less on 1950's sexism and more on trying to keep the body count as low as possible.

Perhaps an especially dark take can spring from this, too. The setting of all males being kept in specialized buildings for breeding only comes to mind, though it'd be less because they're dumb and more because they're so rare that the risk of them dying if left to society is too great. I instantly think of a story where a runaway stallion flees to some far-off village and spills his life story, though I don't know where it'd go from there.

As for how to rationalize such a ridiculous difference of power between two parts of the same species?

Eh, magic? I'm sure I'll think of something.

Regardless, I hope my rambling was at least somewhat intriguing. I found myself with a need to share this idea and this seemed like a safe enough place to do so. Good luck with writing your story!

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The way I rationalize herding is that ponies are simply fundamentally different than humans. While multiple romantic relationships make no sense for us--and for good reason--equine brains play by different rules entirely. Perhaps mares simply don't get jealous of their herdmates because that's just how life has always been and they can actually genuinely accept that, whereas humans require more loyalty or whatnot.

That's fair. Different aliens, different rules, hobbies, etc. There has to be a reason, why Stallions are not pillars of the society anymore.

Essentially, stallions are orders of magnitude weaker and more scarce than mares. Mares are the pinnacle of evolution, more powerful as a baseline than anything other races have to offer. Basically, a single pony mare picked off the street could utterly decimate any trained squad made up of other races, because they are naturally just that strong. However, in the same way that female ponies are on another level of power compared to other peoples, stallions are simply pathetically weak and get broken bones from being poked too hard. This, combined with a heavily skewed gender ratio, creates a society where males absolutely need to be protected or else the risk of death is immediate and very real. I find it an interesting concept, especially since the focus is less on 1950's sexism and more on trying to keep the body count as low as possible.

Perhaps an especially dark take can spring from this, too. The setting of all males being kept in specialized buildings for breeding only comes to mind, though it'd be less because they're dumb and more because they're so rare that the risk of them dying if left to society is too great. I instantly think of a story where a runaway stallion flees to some far-off village and spills his life story, though I don't know where it'd go from there.

As for how to rationalize such a ridiculous difference of power between two parts of the same species?

Eh, magic? I'm sure I'll think of something.

This sounds a lot like: "Anomaly in the Mare's World". Basically, the stallions are genetically weaker than mares due to a curse affecting them, which also means less of them are born. That makes every stallion precious and means mares have to step up. Heck, when an uncursed stallion appears in RGRE world, they are all enamoured by him, due to traits that they find attractive, which have been suppressed over the centuries. However, it doesn't devolve into a harem wish fulfilment and is a major source of conflict between the protagonist and the mares of RGRE world.

I would also argue, it's more like case 1 in this case.

As for the case 3:

Well, with case 1 and 2, the stallions are either weaker or dumber than mares. I imagine case 3, would be that stallions aren't inferior to mares, but they still take on the more feminine roles by our standards. Now, I can see role reversal still being a thing. There is even a manga that explores a world, where female and male genders are reversed, but not their attributes. I can't recall the name of it, as of right now. Basically female purity is worthless and men like strong, independent women.

So, my interpretation of case 3 would be something like this:
-Stallions are rare, I am talking 1-4 ratio, which means mares compete for them, as to not end up alone and form a herd.
-Herd are a norm, monogamy is not. In herds, all the mares care for one another, just like Stallion cares for them.
-House chores are done equally by everyone (shocking I know), but it comes down to Stallion to raise foals to a good standard. While mares, tend to spend more time earning money than doing house chores. So more like our modern times.
-There is an alpha mare that leads other mares, but she also takes into account what their stallion wants.
-Stallions are not physically weaker, but they are whymsical and they could do well in a sport team, but most of them do not really care about them. They prefer more feminine activities. So, like female and male athletes in our world. Men's sports are more popular, but in RGRE Equestria it would mares' sports.
-A Stallion acting like a mare, aka sports, alone, masculine by our world standards would be seen as an oddity. Akin to a tomboy or a bimbo, depending on an interpretation. Sure, some mares could be attracted, but it wouldn't end up as a harem.

And that's all I can think of. Thanks for the response.

So what people are missing is that Ponies are equines, and humans are apes. As well, there's also magic involved all over. If a Pony is starving, they can just crop grass in a way that humans can't. The basic necessities are more easily filled. So the traits that lead to humans generally having patriarchal societies, males being larger, stronger, and more likely to take risks aren't the kind of thing that could lead to dangerous but needed successes for ponies. Instead, better social abilities are the traits looked for. This might lead to a dynamic where on the frontier stallions take the lead for a time, and as it grows into a proper town mares fall into the leadership positions.

Yes a given stallion might be bigger and more goal oriented, but that doesn't matter once the area is safe enough does it? This would lead to things like pony politics making GoT look like TickTacktoe, as everyone jostles for tiny advantages.

Although tbh, you could justify the whole thing with just ponys being used to Princess Celestia ruling them since forever and her traits being seen as ideal leadership.

One more thing I wanted to add, since I actually went and read about Polygyny in animals and why monogamy tends to happen.

It all depends on the resources and the environment. Let's assume there is a species that lives in an area full of food, water, shelter, etc.

In that case, the females of their species do not need male's help to raise the offspring, as there is plenty of supplies to go around. This prompts them to look for the best of the best of their species. Why? Because, they want their offspring to be strong and just as good. They do not need other males to help them, they are self sufficient. In fact, we can see this very phenomeon happening right now with humans and single mothers, who get provided plenty of help by the goverments around the world, assuming they are in developed countries, etc.

It also leads to less genetic diversity, because one male mates with many females, while others are left behind. So, even a species that has got almost 1:1 gender ratio, only 20% or less of the males get to mate, leaving the rest to take care of themselves. The monogamy in animals tends to happen, when there is a scarity of resources and both parents need to work together, so that their offspring gets to live.

However, as evidenced by our own species, that's not exactly the case. Logic would dictate that we would have less children when resources are scarce, etc. However, the most impoverished families tend to have the most children for a multitude of reasons: High child mortality rates; Limited access to education; Early Marriage and Gender roles; Limited access to contraception, etc. The full list can be found in this article, for anyone interested: https://www.compassion.com.au/blog/why-do-the-poor-have-large-families

In contract, rich people who should have more than enough resources don't really get that many children. A billionare (in $) could easily have about 100 children, each with different woman, assuming he spends 1 000 000$ to raise them to their adulthood. That doesn't happen and our own species has seen nothing but a decline in the amount of births as the people got prosperous.

Now, ponies don't have the same level of technology and problems as we do. There are still plenty of manual jobs and limited manufacturing. Many business should be family only, like big Apple family with everyone doing their part, as it's hard labour. And paying for ten ponies to do the same job, while family tends to be a bit cheaper, seems like a logical conclusion.

So, how does it all play into RGRE?

In a war-torn Equestria I could see Stallions going to the front and dying in hundreds or thousands, while leaving behind only a handful of them, prefferably those with good genes. We can see the same mindset in human society. If there is a group of 10 (5 males, 5 females), four males can die and they still will be able to reproduce. However, a loss of single female would be far more costly. Males of human species have been considered disposable for a reason.

This could explain a skewed ratio in such chaotic times. But, the same couldn't be said about peaceful Equestria, where we first meet Twilight and her friends. I could see Equestria being Matriachal, due to the sheer influence Celestia holds over the ponies, meaning most stallions would never reach high ranks and positions, similar to how most CEOs are men (they tend to work harder and more too, but that's beside the point). So, after 1000 years of prosperity, I can see both genders being more or less even when it comes to numbers, thus making monogamy more appealling.

However, if the resources are plentiful and mares do not need stallions to raise their foals would they really practice monogamy? Or would they rather turn to polyamory? If herds are a thing, we can assume the mares could be quite promiscious. This would lead to plenty of stallions never able to get laid and have children, which would make for a very unstable society. If anything, monogamy forced by the culture, religion, etc has helped society develop, judging by the humanity itself.

Of course, I am open to a discussion, but so far I can't see how would sapient species with 1:1 ratio make polygyny work. That only reason for RGRE to work, would be if there truly were less stallions caused by: Curse, Genetics, Insert-Plot-Device-Here. Like for every 5 fillies born, there is one colt or something along those lines.