Guys playing girls (chime in, ladies)

[Thotas]

I've always wanted to know how it is that people who feel weird about people playing the opposite gender never have a problem with opposite gender NPCs. I know, most NPCs are not played for sustained amounts of time, but it's pretty much the same thing. And occasionally, the NPCs are played for sustained amounts of time. What if I want a swanmay hench(wo)man while I have a male DM? If males cannot create workable female characters, what happens when some guy writes a novel and needs a female for the story?

I've played a few female PCs over the years. Not being much of an actor at all, I don't do much in the way of "female mannerisms" -- I know, to some that means I'm not a good roleplayer, since I narrate my characters actions more than I portray them. I do think it makes it easier to play the other gender, though. Big burley guys trying to actually act like a delicate femme flower (or vice versa) is often just too funny to work in face-to-face play.

As for pronoun trouble, that comes from the fact that the you now have to decide whether you're referring to the player or the character. The worst pronoun trouble I've ever seen was a male playing a male character named "Mina" ... DM constantly refered to the character as "she" and "her".

 

[Hypersmurf]

As for pronoun trouble, that comes from the fact that the you now have to decide whether you're referring to the player or the character. The worst pronoun trouble I've ever seen was a male playing a male character named "Mina" ... DM constantly refered to the character as "she" and "her".

We have a male player who plays a female character in our regular campaign.

For a recent one-shot, he put together a male character...

... named 'Amandla'.

He was immediately dubbed 'Mandy' and referred to as 'she' for the duration of the adventure.

What was he thinking?

-Hyp.

 

[vulcan_idic]

We have a male player who plays a female character in our regular campaign.

For a recent one-shot, he put together a male character...

... named 'Amandla'.

He was immediately dubbed 'Mandy' and referred to as 'she' for the duration of the adventure.

What was he thinking?

-Hyp.

Maybe he was thinking of Mandy Patinkin?

 

[mythago]

Some people on here are going to flame me for these comments, but they are based on scientific fact - period.

No, they are based on an interpretation of conflicting scientific facts in a way that you find pleasing. (Baby X studies, anyone?)

I, too, have children. And it's been very educational to see how differently my oldest daughter and my son--who were very alike in personality, energy levels, and interests at the same ages--are treated. Gender socialization starts from birth, and people are rather upset when children aren't "naturally" acting the way they are "supposed to".

People stared and glared at my daughter, a loud, outgoing girl who ran around and got grubby and loved to play with toy trucks. They cooed and smiled when her brother acted in exactly the same manner. When her little sister plays tea party, everyone thinks it adorable--right up until baby brother joins in, and then the smiles get nervous and forced.

I'd like to think that when my kids are old enough to play DnD on their own (and don't think they're not interested), they won't have to go through the same "OMG! A female gamer?!" BS that I did, but some of the responses here are making me less than hopeful.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Maybe he was thinking of Mandy Patinkin?

That's short for 'Mandel', though. Not 'Amandla'.

One's cool. The other... was a bad idea

-Hyp.

 

[Kemrain]

die-kludge,

I like you. Your argument has been refuted by a few people, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. There are notable biological, chemecal, and behavioral differences between males and females, and there are many generalisations made to this effect. I agree with you, to a degree. However, I think it is important to point out that with so many people using small children in their examples it should not be forgotten that children can, and often do, act as caracatures of the gender stereotypes we posess as adults. It is one way that they can safely experiment with forming an adult personality and create complex social bonds with others. I've made many observations, watched television programs, and even read some un-named studies, and they've all lead me to believe that it's difficult to use children to discuss adult sexual differences because a little boy seems about as different than a girl as he is different from a grown man. Given that we're playing adult characters, the differences between children aren't terribly important to the discussion of how to properly portray an adult of the opposite sex, especially since small children are still learning how to 'properly' portray a member of their own sex.

Given all that, I still stand by my statement that, though there are differences, they are small.

People stared and glared at my daughter, a loud, outgoing girl who ran around and got grubby and loved to play with toy trucks. They cooed and smiled when her brother acted in exactly the same manner. When her little sister plays tea party, everyone thinks it adorable--right up until baby brother joins in, and then the smiles get nervous and forced.

This just tickles me. I can't help but smile at that. I also can't help but smile at the fact that I've been called she and he in the same thread. Though it has gotten a little antagonistic, I think this is a very good thread, and I'm pleased that it's gone so far and has shared this much information.

- Kemrain the Ambiguous.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

There are notable biological, chemecal, and behavioral differences between males and females, and there are many generalisations made to this effect. I agree with you, to a degree.
...

Given all that, I still stand by my statement that, though there are differences, they are small.

To clarify some of what I was talking about earlier...

There are many differences. Fewer and generally smaller than the popular press would lead you to believe, of course, but that's to be expected. One of the problems, however, is that we have no idea what most of the differences mean.

Example: Studies like the Shaywitz one die-kluge's link lead to are incredibly complex. fMRI shows you (basically) what parts of the brain are active at any time. The problem is that most of the brain is active most of the time. All of pictures things look like various amoeba doing naughty things to each other, and are very complex. They have to establish baseline activation, and then subtract that from the activation during the tasks. For a given language task, certain areas of the brain will show increased activation across a significantly significant subset of the subjects. That is good evidence that the area is used for some aspect of that task. Of course, unless the task is purely mental, you also have all the areas activated by, say, reading the words, or touching the button, but which are not necessarily important to the cognitive manipulation in question, so all that has to be accounted for as well. Plus, there's the fact that every brain is slightly different. Our brains are the product of a very complicated developmental process, and are as much a function of their early activity as they are of genetics (well, personally, based on my work I would say more so, but that's hardly widely accepted yet). So the precise location of a cortical area is not perfectly the same from individual to individual.

Given all that, it's very tough to say much that is definitive with fMRI, and it requires boatloads of subjects to be credible.

As for bringing this back to gender differences, multiple studies have come to the conclusion that women's language skills are less lateralized than those of men. That is to say, while performing a language task, men tend to have a fairly discrete set of areas that activate more, mostly on one side of the brain (left). Women, on the other hand, tend to have a larger, more diffuse increase in activation on both sides of the brain.

Now, here comes the tricky part... What the heck does that mean? Seriously, I know people who have been doing this for 30 years and more, and we're still kicking it around the office, so to speak. People will blather on about "distributed processing" and women being "evolutionarily inclined to a more complicated social context" and blah, blah, blah. But ultimately, we have no way of knowing what this means for their ability to perform the task (and they're not differing on any measure of performance), or the way they think.

 

[der_kluge]

Suffice it to say, I'm not going to debate the neurobiologist on this topic. Just as, I expect, he would probably pass on a debate on how to properly form a good database query with me.

This is all "nature versus nurture", and probably should be lumped in with "religion" and "politics" in the category of things best left undisturbed on ENworld.

I think all things being equal - men and women really are the same, but things aren't equal - women have more estrogen, and men have more testosterone.

I'm reminded of a quote by a woman who was undergoing a sex-change operation, and they had given her massive doses of testosterone, and she said, "I now know what it's like to be a horny 17-year old boy now."

Our genetic and hormonal makeups *do* make us different people. How much nature plays a role and how much nurture plays a role will continue to be highly contested for years to come.


I would also add that the gender test thingy could be vastly simplified by asking more poignant questions:

1) Do you sit down or stand up to urinate?
2) If you lived in the early part of the 19th century, would you have had the right to vote?
3) Which is more important to you: having toned hips and thighs, or huge pectoral muscles?

 

[RFisher]

There have been numerous studies in recent years that show that babies will choose gender-appropriate toys when given a choice of several toys.

Accepting that for the sake of argument, that doesn't tell you why. It's amazing how perceptive children are. They're little sponges absorbing information from their environment the moment they take their first breath. You can't really learn much about nature v. nurture experimentally unless you are willing to raise some children in a completely isolated & controlled environment.

Still, while anecdotes prove nothing, they make for interesting conversation.

My daughter--the one with the girly behavior--loves toy cars. One of her brother's favorite toys is a baby doll he appropriated from his sister. Of course, my son enjoys playing with cars, & his sister enjoys playing with dolls, as well.

 

[Incenjucar]

No study on natural human behavior can be done without causing certain harm to the child. As such, studies will ALWAYS be flawed, until some psycho-but-honest dictator does it, and causes all children involved to go through life with what we'd consider social disorders.