I think Bioware messed up with the Qun in Dragon age Inquisition. I think they changed the way the qun is to make qunari a more viable faction for later games, because as they were any pro qunari missions or characters would seem to espouse a society with essentially slavery and torture for mages and a rather misogynistic view towards women where they appear to have limited freedom.
I roll my eyes every time I see something like this.
The Qunari would only be misogynistic if they showed contempt for women that they don't hold for men, or gave women less freedom and opportunities than they gave men, but that's not the case. This is the Qun: EVERYONE has limited freedom. Also, it's true that they have strict gender roles, but they're equally restrictive to both men and women, and the men's roles aren't seen as superior to the women's roles.
Some party banter between Sten and Zevran points this out.
- Sten: I knew one of your countrymen once, elf.
- Zevran: Oh? Have you been to Antiva, then?
- Sten: No. Until I came to Ferelden, I had never left the islands. She came to Seheron twice a year with the traders who bought spices from the northern jungle. Only she among the traders would speak to the antaam. Questions about the rainforest, its depths, and the things to be seen there. We humored her. She was... an unfortunate soul.
- Zevran: Unfortunate in what way?
- Sten: She was a Crow, as you were. Sent to assassinate the kithshoks, leaders of the army of Seheron, for the Tevinter Imperium. We knew this, and pitied her.
- Zevran: I'm surprised you did not simply slay her.
- Sten: There was no need. Her questions were meant to show her the way through the jungle towards our fortifications. And so one day, she snuck into the jungle to find her target. We found the pieces of her body in a tree, where the spotted cats kept them for later. We had never told her that our kithshoks were the ones who negotiated all the trades at the port.
- Zevran: Then she was a fool. That's not very sympathetic, I'm afraid.
- Sten: It was her ignorance we pitied, not her mistake. She believe we hoarded things we cared for as her own people do. We were sorry for her, that she thought only some people were important.
If the Qunari was a society that believed that fighting and hard labor was superior to delegating, craftsmen, shopkeeping, educating and raising the young, assigning jobs to everyone under the Qun, (as the women do), etc. and they denied their women "better" "more freeing" jobs out of a belief in their inferiority or unworthiness, I'd call it misogynistic. But they don't think men better than women, or men's jobs better than women's jobs. The Qunari seem to believe that men are physically stronger and thus better suited to physical jobs (military, laborer, farmer, etc) while women are smarter and better suited to artistry and craftsmanship, shopkeeping and controlling their society's economics, the education of and assigning jobs to everyone in the Qun, breeding and record-keeping, etc.
In fact, according to the wiki many people who live close by to the Qunari assume they're matriarchal because Qunari women tend to have most of the de facto "leadership" positions, from shopkeepers delegating trade with outsiders, to creating and distributing goods around for their people, to the female-only parts of the priesthood who arrange family-planning, child-rearing, educating the population on the commands of the Qun (essentially thought police), assigning jobs for everyone, etc. When you think about it, most of the de facto economic and leadership power goes to women since they decide how their society is run and how they're going to distribute the means and resources to get it done, with the muscled male population (the Arishok and Antaam) goes off to do what they say.
And that brings me back to our own problems in our own society. We pay lip service to the idea that men and women are equal, but I've noticed that traditionally considered "masculine" traits and professions are seen as superior, while "feminine" traits and professions are seen as inferior. A woman who dresses like a man, fights like a man, takes the same job as a man (a knight verses a lady) is seen as empowering, while a woman who dresses like a woman and has a "womanly" job (cooking, cleaning, sewing, etc) is seen as demeaning. So a society that tells women they can't have the same job as the man MUST be telling her she's lesser than a man, right? Even if that society makes it clear they don't see men or women as better than the other, any job as more important than another, or people of one gender getting more freedoms than another.
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