D&D pronouns being 50-50% male-female pronouns seems a little like pandering to me, frankly.
No, it isn't. The world's population is roughly 50-50% male-female, the fictional universe in which D&D games exist have about the same demographics, so it's perfectly representative of reality to use both pronouns.
It's simply unbelievable that most battle forces inspired by medieval combat parties would follow modern labour hiring standards.
It is when you consider that this is a fantasy world populated by orcs, ogres, and other nasties. Most (non-noble) girls probably learn to swing a club or an axe from their daddy or mommy as soon as they are able to lift one.
Also, there is no negative stigma associated with strong-buff chicks in the world(s) of D&D; there's a lot of money to be made plundering tombs and nobody's gonna bat an eye at a girl decked out in chain, carrying a big-ass axe into a dungeon or onto a battlefield.
Now D&D is not Game of Thrones, and I want as many women to enjoy this hobby as possible (or at least tolerate it), I just think they've already done quite enough since 3.0 already. It was odd at first, seeing so many "she's" and hers in front of descriptions of knights and barbarians and so on, but after you get over that, you still must admit it is a little contrived to imagine a 50-50 split in every party of male to female characters, let alone players, to warrant the IMO extreme and very obvious way the authors are trying to bring an old-boys-club into the 21st century.
Why is that contrived if it correctly represents the demographics of the fictional universe? It isn't. I've never consistently played with groups with an even 50-50 split (it happened a few times on game-days, and such), but in my close-to 20 years of gaming, I can say I played/ran maybe 2-3 games where there wasn't
at least one woman/girl at the table (exluding a player's/DM's girlfriend, even).
So yeah, if WotC wants the hobby to grow (and we all know they do), it isn't pandering to go out and make an effort to be more inclusive to female gamers and potential female gamers (it
would be pandering if they only made the effort to
seem more inclusive).
I just don't see want authors of adventures to feel the need to walk on eggshells and portray warmongering orc tribes as being PC and respecting women, for example, because it might offend someone's sensibilities.
They don't need to make an "evil" race respect women (again, a problem with alignment applied to whole cultures/race), but orcs are a problem because of their innate... rapey-ness, so I won't get too much into that subject.
Game of Thrones is terrific in this sense, and a model to follow. Women are strong and bold and fierce, sometimes, and men can be cowardly and cry and frail too, but 99.9999% of the time, knights and soldiers are men, and are the first ones to have their guts torn out on the battlefield. This is true in history as well, so it's no wonder our fiction reflects that.
Why should D&D fiction reflect something that isn't true for it. The entire universe is submerged with magic; there's a class where you spontaneously becomes a spellcaster and magic can be taught. Equality for women in the D&D universe(s) isn't just a vague hope, it's (or at the very least
should be) a long-acquiered fact. Nobody's gonna push a woman aside and tell her to go make him a sandwich when that girl can very well burn your face clean off (or break your nose with a flurry of blows, or shatter your brain with a thought, etc.). Women (or females of the appropriate humanoid species) make up 50% of the adventuring workforce, because, otherwise, the world the rules paint would make no sense.
It is what it is. Fantasy doesn't need to conform to reality, and shouldn't, but there is a certain...contrivedness about trying to PC everything. I like strong female characters, but don't want sanitized adventures or text blocks that are so redacted as to not risk offending anyone, ever, because that is an impossible task. Tons of stuff offends me, I vote with my dollars. To follow that credo, if a gender-neutral "he" offends, perhaps boycotting the 99.99999% of human literature would be a better place to start than a hobby in which the stakes are so low.
I had to literally bribe and beg my last two girlfriends to even try D&D....let's face it, this game doesn't, and probably never will have broad appeal across all demographics. Being PC is good, but being overly PC is just annoying. Somebody, somewhere, will get offended by good literature. Tons of critiques of Games of Thrones are centered around its medieval depiction of women's roles in society, failing to grasp : that's the point. It's actually far more progressive than the actual middle ages were, even all the torture and violence and small-mindedness and bigotry had nothing on the real thing. Let's all be happy that we can laugh about it now.
Nobody's gonna die over a few pronouns or hurt sensibilities.
It isn't contrived and it isn't being "PC" (that term needs to be set on fire, beaten with a shovel and buried at the bottom of the deepest freakin' ocean, especially when it is being misappropriated like that). It is just common sense and good business practice. "Sensibilities" aren't being "hurt", entire segments of the population are being kept away from a game they might enjoy because old, white men think only other old or prebuscent white men will want to buy their product. That's not the case, and this thread, and many other on other forums are a proof of that.
