Gender-Restricted Ability: Difference between revisions

When you get down to it, there's not much difference between what men and women can do. Even if on average one gender or sex is more suited to the role, as long as it doesn't involve reproduction, there will be exceptions to the rule. And sometimes [[Mister Seahorse|even then]]. Even with physical appearance, if nudity isn't required, there are some people who can convincingly pass themselves off as the other gender.

 

 

This trope doesn't apply to cultural gender divides, only to times when certain magic or supernatural powers are restricted to one gender. In the case of magic, sometimes the sexes will both have access to it, but [[Functional Magic|use it in a fundamentally different way]] - in this case expect a case of [[Un-Equal Rites]] as they disagree over which system is better.

 

{{examples}}

* ''[[Mai-Otome]]''. Oh, gosh, how ridiculous the [[Techno Babble]] justification is...the only real justification is that they were based on the poorly understood HiME's from ''[[My-HiME]]'' (who had the same restriction, justified by the fact that its magic).

* In ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' only female holders of Sailor Crystals/"True Star Seeds" can be Sailor Senshi. Men born with them do get powers a la Tuxedo Mask but aren't really Sailor Senshi. Also, this is why there is no Sailor Earth as Mamoru has that Sailor Crystal. Male holders of Sailor Crystals are very rare.

* In ''[[Shikabane Hime]]'' only young women within a certain age range can be made into Shikabane Hime.

 

* In ''[[The Sandman]]'' certain forms of magic (such as walking the moon's road) are exclusive to women; even a male to female transsexual can't go.

** Somewhat justified, in most neo-pagan interpretations 'the path of the moon' is based on the connection between moon and womb, which of course she didn't possess.

* For the most part only women can wear the [[Witchblade (Comic Book)|Witchblade]], though there has been at least one male case.

 

* The time machine invented by the famous [[Masked Luchador]] hero [[El Santo]] in ''[[Santo en el Tesoro de Drácula|Santo En El Tesoro De Dracula]]'' has an unusual limitation. Santo determines that only healthy young ''women'' are strong enough to survive the trip.

 

* Jean Auel's ''[[Clan of the Cave Bear]]'' is a dual literary example. The neanderthals featured in this novel live their lives along sharply divided gender lines, and due to how their brains are structured, cannot do otherwise. It's not tradition that says male neanderthals hunt and females take care of the kids. Rather, they are literally hardwired into these roles and cannot function when taken out of them. Ayla, being a modern human, can and does, deeply disturbing them in the process. Yet, ''her'' jaw almost drops when she sees Jondalar, a man, cooking.

** Ironically in Real Life it's believed that Neanderthals had ''less'' of a gender divide than Cro Magnons.

* In ''Three Days to Never'' by [[Tim Powers]], one of the characters is a sorcerer who, it turns out, was born female and went to extreme lengths to gain access to male magic.

 

* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', Slayers are always young girls. Averted with witchcraft - though most practitioners are female, there are male users - Giles borrowed the power of an entire coven to take on Dark Willow, Angel and Xander are both shown to use spells, Oz and his bandmates accidentally summon the demon of fear, and there are a few guys in UC Sunnydale's Wicca group. On the other hand there are no real prominent good male dedicated spellcasters on the show to contrast with Willow, Tara and even Jenny Calendar.

* In ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'', while gender is apparently irrelevant for most professions, including the priesthood, oracles, who have prophetic abilities and can tell the will of the gods, have been women in every case we have seen or heard of.

* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' 2011 Christmas special, "[[Doctor Who/Recap/2011 CS the Doctor the Widow and the Wardrobe|The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe]]", {{spoiler|only women are deemed strong enough to carry the whole Forest's essence in their head}}.

 

* Amusingly averted in [[Norse Mythology]]. A majority of witches are female, but only because their magic [[Deus Sex Machina|relies on contact with another person's semen]]. Yes, that means the [[Uke]] can have magic powers too.

** It should be mentioned one of the ways for people whom today we would consider homosexual or trans-female could live openly and still be moderately tolerated in Norse society was to practice witchcraft (much like the Hijira of modern India). Of course, they were still shunned and ostracized, but people still sought their services, and not many would want to anger a witch.

* [[Unicorn]] mythology says that they [[Virgin Power|will only befriend virgin women]]. Not all modern authors keep this trait. See [[Unicorn]] and [[Virgin Power]] tropes for details.

 

* In ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'', the series of enhancements used to create a [[Space Marine]] is only usable on men.

** [[Justified Trope|Justified]], since the enhancements are based on the biology of the Primarchs, who were all men because they were cloned from the Emperor.

* In the 2E [[Ravenloft]] setting, the followers of Hala included female clerics and male wizards, ostensibly because the goddess taught that each gender was better-suited to that sort of magic. Subverted in the 3E Ravenloft products, which left its Halan prestige classes open to both sexes.

 

* In ''[[Bionicle]]'', only the female Skrall have psionic powers. However, it turns out that {{spoiler|these were given to them by an [[Eldritch Abomination]] purely for it's own amusement, and are not a natural ability at all.}}

 

* In the ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' series only Fey women can be mediums.

* The Sorceress power in ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' is only passed down through women, with each woman passing the power to someone else upon her death (it appears that it's usually the closest woman, so long as she holds the proper potential). This power is the central focus of the game, as every Sorceress is powerful enough to change the course of the world or control the fabric of reality itself. An in-universe legend posits that the Sorceress power is really the immortal spirit of a god who'd once gone to war with humanity and lost, and escaped by hiding himself in the body of something mankind instinctually wants to protect: women.

* In ''[[BioShock (series)]]'', only female children under six can be implanted with ADAM slugs. This makes them invincible and able to puke up EVE serum. they also heal instantly (this is [[Awesome but Impractical|not as good as you think]], one fell down the stairs and broke both legs, which then healed cokeyed. the doctors had to re-break her legs several times to put them right). However, one researcher discovered that if you manage to restrain them and tear out the slug, you kill them instantly and get a huge shot of ADAM. Enter papa Frankestein...

 

* ''[[The Wotch]]'': Wotches cannot be male, and cannot even be [[Gender Bender|turned male]] by magic. Although, that's not to say they can't have been male prior to their becoming the Wotch.

* In ''[[Sacred Pie]]'' the sacred objects can only be used by men, regardless of species. This is a side effect from Lucifer creating them for his own use.

* In ''[[Footloose (webcomic)|Footloose]]'', men's magic is (semi-artificially) restricted to the Fae realm, and there vastly weaker.

 

* The Trait Positives in ''[[Lonelygirl15]]'' are always female, for some unspecified genetic reason.

 

* In ''[[Trollz]]'', only the females are able to wield magic. It wasn't always the case, but the [[Big Bad]]'s attempt to take the magic for himself made it so only girls could use it. Males are left to their physical and mental skills, though older Troll males are able to use magic, still.

 

* Singing voices. While there ''is'' some overlap in the alto and tenor ranges, natural male sopranos (as opposed to castrati and singing falsetto) and female basses are extremely rare and usually due to a hormone imbalance.

** For modern-day male sopranos (also known as sopranists), you have [[wikipedia:Radu Marian|Radu Marian]] and [[wikipedia:Jorge Cano|Jorge Cano]] who are called natural castrati due to endocrinological issues, and [[wikipedia:Angelo Manzotti|Angelo Manzotti]] who taught himself a special technique with his vocal chords. [[wikipedia:Michael Maniaci|Michael Maniaci]] is the closest you'll come to a natural male soprano—his vocal chords never went through puberty, but the rest of him did.

* Giving birth.

** Though technology can get around those limitations.