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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/37655
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

In my story's world, witchcraft is a respected institution, with the most powerful practitioners being at the top echelons of society. Due to this, society traces its lineage through matrilineal lines. A witch has the power to summon a familiar by using her body as a conduit between the mortal and ethereal plane. These powerful spirits are forever linked with their master, and used in a number of ways, such as magical batteries and amplifiers, or for battle. Familiars are birthed into the world in the same way that human children are born, through a ritual ceremony, and grow in power with the user.

When creating a magic system, I was taught that there always had to be a cost, to keep the magic interesting. I am looking for a drawback to explain why every witch does not go through the process. One that I was considering was that the witch must have never given birth before the ritual, and that the process renders her infertile afterwards, ensuring that they will never have a lineage. For this reason, familiars are rare in this world.

**In that particular example** I am rethinking that scheme, because someone has told me that this concept is sexist toward women because it suggests that a female's only worth is her fertility and that having kids is the most important thing to them. I do question whether that is accurate, or if I am overthinking it.

However, that example aside, my real question is less about this specific scheme, and more general:

**Presuming an author wishes to avoid bigotry and prejudice in their writing, how can they decide if some story element of theirs is prejudiced or not?**

Are there tests to apply, or ways of analyzing their ideas to come to some objective conclusion?

Original score: 68