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Gender on Pern
On Pern, then there is a distinct divide between what women do, and what men do. There is very much 'separate spheres' in which men and women work, with relatively little overlap. Men are shown to focus much more on the political aspects, such as running a Hold or a Craft or a Weyr, whilst women are much more home-oriented, for example, looking after the children, cooking, cleaning, etc. This appears to be especially true in the Holds, where women do appear to do all of these jobs, almost to exclusion of all men, apart from a few male drudges to do fetching and carrying. This is also true in what we see of the Crafts, especially in Dragonsinger and Dragondrums, where pretty much the only women in the Hall, bar Menolly and the paying students, we see work in the kitchen or have other 'womanly' jobs, for example Silvina as Headwoman (which is pretty much domestic management) and Dunca who looks after the girls. Even in the Weyrs this aspect continues - the Weyrwoman's job is to look after the internal management of the Weyr, such as food, general healing, cleaning etc - and making numbweed, which appears to be pretty much a female-only exercise in all places. Even Lessa focuses mainly on her 'sphere' - and gets told off for straying into F'lar's. Of course, to all of this we have exceptions - Jancis as a Smith; Nerilka taking active management responsibilities, though mainly in domestic management; Janissian as Lady Holder in her own right. But, the vast majority of women, even if free in other ways, work in the 'female sphere' exclusively. I wonder if Feminism will ever arise on Pern?! But not just women - men work almost solely in the 'masculine sphere' - that of the politician, guard, Steward, Lord… We see very few - if any - men doing work in 'female sphere,' with men doing the jobs which require 'muscle' more often than not, be it intellectual, political, or physical. If anything, it actually seems to me that whilst women are 'restricted' on Pern as to their jobs, they are generally restricted through simple biological fact, much less through social discipline, as we do get women doing 'a man's job' as it could be called, such as Jancis as a Smith, and gold riders taking part in fighting Thread. There is certainly social division along the lines of gender, but I wouldn't say that this comes about for much more reason than simple common sense and a will on the part of the individual to do what they are best suited for.
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