[Dragaera] Gender imbalance in the Jhereg [_Dzur_ Spoiler]

[Jon Lincicum]

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu>
> Negligible _Dzur_ spoiler follows.
> 
> 
> So in _Dzur_ Vlad reiterates that the Right Hand (i.e., "the Jhereg")
> is almost all male and the Left Hand is all female.  This has probably
> been discussed in depth before, but it seems like a Crack to me that
> either Vlad knows very little about 50% of the House, presumably including
> the close relatives of his close companions, or that the LH is the same
> size as the RH and that any random female Jhereg can be a working
> sorcerer.  I also wonder about the situation before the LH was founded,
> and why the current division of labor is maintained.

I always got the impression that while the Organization (right hand) is only 10% or so of all Jhereg, and predominantly male, that the Left Hand is a much more exclusive clique, maybe less than 1% of the total population of House Jhereg, and are pretty much exclusively female. 

We do see exceptions (Cawti, Norathar, Kiera) of females who are in the Right Hand--but have not yet seen any males in the Left Hand.

They are made important due to their immense power and knowledge of sorcery, which gives them influence on par with the Jhereg Council, despite their low numbers. 

This would mean that approx. 89% of the Jhereg (including most Jhereg females) are not involved in any branch of the criminal side of the House. 

This is my impression--I don't know how many pieces of textev there are that might tend to contradict this view, but I seem to recall Kiera telling Vlad that most Jhereg aren't criminals at all... 

> The only answer obvious to me would be that Vlad knows there are many
> non-Organization Jhereg but he simply fails to ever mention them (and
> their characteristic differences from RH Jhereg).  If so, that means
> that e.g. Kragar made the conscious choice to be a RH Jhereg and not
> simply a non-criminal Jhereg.  This doesn't fit my view either.

Kragar strikes me as a fellow who isn't one to let breaking some petty rule keep him from a nice healthy chunk of change. (Especially in /Dzur/, he seems quite content with the cash he's pulling in). 

I have no problem imagining that he would have voluntarily joined the criminal side of the Jhereg.

Majikjon