One of the bad things about traditional sexism is that it strikes both ways; not only does it punish women for not confirming to male values; it punishes males who do not confirm to male values either, and much harsher.
I personally wouldn't say that the patriarchy (aka traditional sexism) is much harsher to males who fail to conform, because the harshness does vary drastically from case to case, but I agree totally that the patriarchy hurts men a great deal too.
If you are male, then it is not possible for you to make a valid judgement on whether or not there is or is not a problem with sexism in gaming. You cannot experience the same sort of discrimination as women, as you are not one.
While I agree with a lot of your other points, I was going to disagree with this assertion, but I see that roguerogue has already done so much more articulately than I could, and that you've modified/retracted the comment below. Drat - there goes my righteous indignation
I do also find it slightly hilarious that in a hobby which is dominated by men, has products that are nearly entirely aimed at, written by and marketed to men, finally gets around to writing a game aimed at and marketed to women, that the response isn't "Oh, about time" but "This is sexist! It excludes men! I am excluded! I feel oppressed!"
Yup. And that's a disjunction which I think a lot of people totally don't get or notice.
Baloney. As someone who's been disabled and teaches disability studies, that's baloney. You may not know exactly what it feels like to be disenfranchised in that way, but I'd certainly never state that you can't know anything about disenfranchisement, ever. It takes some education, some imagination, and some empathy, but yes, you can have a valid opinion on something that you don't have direct experience with.
Agreed on all counts. Nicely put.
If the players of a game whose fundamental point is to put yourself in someone else's shoes can't empathise with the other sex then go help us all!
I agree, but the funny thing is that whenever there's a thread about roleplaying another gender and someone makes the point you do, a number of people post that it's harder for a man to play a woman or vice versa than to play an elf or a dwarf because they're fictional. I totally don't buy that viewpoint, in part due to the sort of idea expressed by roguerogue above. And partly since I think that there's enough divergence between two men or two women that playing the other is just as complicated as playing someone of the opposite gender.
I appreciate that I cannot experience the sexism and discrimination in gaming, as a man, as a woman can. However, I can still see that there is discrimination and sexism, and in my own way I can try and work against that.
And that I'm completely on board with. Just because I'm not being discriminated against doesn't mean I shouldn't care. Nor does it mean I should use double negatives, of course
But Witch Girls is not for me. It's not aimed at me. It doesn't care about me, and rightly so. So there's no reason why I or others in my demographic should care about it.
I see your point, but would you say you never care about anything which isn't directly aimed at you? On that basis, would you argue that men should never care about sexism aimed at women?
This is a way more interesting, level-headed, and helpful thread than I imagined it would be. Kudos ENWorld!
I was hoping it would work out this way, mainly because I have a lot of confidence in most of the posters and in the moderators at ENWorld. That said, I'm quite gratified that we're still having this conversation here and in the tone in which it's being carried on.
Regarding point b, that depends on a few things. For starters, it is important to recognize that many game settings, published and homebrewed, purposefully invoke real-world myth and legend, either directly or via modern fantasy. And as it happens, myth and legend, from Homer to King Arthur to Miyamoto Musashi, is often about manly men hacking at foes and rescuing damsels.
So why rely on such a milieu, if it reinforces sexual stereotypes (both male and female)? Because they are classics, and have given enjoyment for millennia. I can understand tweaking such tropes to accommodate powerful female characters. But there comes a point where the imperative to overhaul time-tested legend because it affronts our modern sensitivities to gender inequality becomes silly.
I would disagree here, but I think that's evident already. Firstly, I don't think sexism is as necessary to most, if not all, of these real-world myths and legends as people often claim. The fact that they were sexist doesn't mean that there's any logical necessity for them to be so. When Edmund Spenser writes
The Faerie Queene, he creates the female knight Britomart and she works. And I'm pretty darn sure I can create and run a game which has all the resonance of myth and legend without it being sexist.
Secondly, and maybe this is a matter of personal taste (and I speak as someone who's been a mythologist since I started reading the kiddie version of the
Mahabharata at four), I would happily give up all use of myth and legend in my games rather than use that to justify sexism.
This doesn't abrogate the need to discuss how to make gaming more palatable to women, but I don't think what limited sexist relics still exist in D&D are insurmountable roadblocks. Most women are of sterner stuff than that.
I don't think they are insurmountable roadblocks. If they were, I wouldn't have started this conversation. But I also don't think women should have to be "of sterner stuff" to play D&D. Or anyone, for that matter.
I think an argument many would prefer to make is that participating in vicarious sexism is something that more people should be uncomfortable about roleplaying. In that sense, debating whether a given RPG is turning off female gamers is a different conversation entirely. The success or failure of sexist content to expand the hobby is in no way going to affect their satisfaction with a game that seems sexist. It's also a much more difficult argument to make, because you have to not only convince your interlocutors of the existence of sexist content, but also that they should feel bad about participating vicariously in it.
Good points, but I think to some extent we're having both of those conversations in this thread. And while that may make some of this discussion a little schizoid, I think they're related enough that we can do so.
And if you want to see institutional sexism in action.... look at American graduate school.
Speaking as someone in American graduate school, who also happens to teach undergraduates, let me just say - OMFG, yes!
A sizable and very visible minority of male gamers (and geeks of all stripes) continue to treat women as if they were some other species entirely. Women are consistently either objectified to an extreme or put on a ridiculous pedestal. I've even seen some guys do both at the same time with the same woman, which is some ju jitsu conceptualization.
Sad but true. That's one of my major issues with the sort of seeming chivalry expressed by posters like Jack7. It presents itself as positive towards women, but what it really does is treat them as if they are aliens and also as if they are dependent upon male protection. It's a really backhanded form of sexism. Not new of course, since it's been around for much of history.
I totally get that it's a mistake, especially with internet communication being unclear at the best of times, even without hot topics jangling people's nerves every which way. 
