Isn't a game about killing things, taking their stuff, and getting more powerful (better at killing things) a game that caters to male power fantasies, and thus inherently sexist? Some women enjoy those male power fantasies of killing and looting themselves, but most don't, and thus are inherently excluded.
I don't think so, but then I don't think those power fantasies are intrinsically male. I think they're just power fantasies. I also think that there's a lot more to D&D than power fantasies.
And it seems to me that 4e D&D is if anything much more narrowly focused on the kill-loot fantasy than was 2e AD&D. Thus even as the art is 'less sexist', the game itself is 'more sexist'.
Without getting into edition wars, I disagree. I think 4e D&D is no more or less focused on the kill-loot angle than any other edition.
People, especially female players & GMs, have always used D&D for different stories than the inherent power-fantasy one, but if anything that's harder now.
My reading of the rules and experience clearly differs from yours. And I seriously doubt that there's any truth to that assertion that "especially female players & GMs" have used D&D for different ends. GMs and players have and do. I don't think there's any gender component there either. I've run D&D games for men and women who were previously gamers and for those who were completely new to it and had no real interest in focusing on power-fantasies. They played it many different ways and I didn't see it map onto gender in any way.
Or is that the 'anti sexists' want girls to be like boys - they want a game that encourages female players to enjoy the same kill-loot-power fantasy that most males like, without feeling excluded by sexist art or sexist game-world cultures?
I simply don't want women (or anyone, for that matter) to be excluded from the game by sexist art, game-world cultures or players. But I certainly don't think they need to focus on the same kill-loot-power fantasy as you put it. God knows I don't a lot of the time, nor do a lot of other people.
Altought I can see the remaining subtle sexism in D&D (lets call it male-centrism) it seems to me that it is rather mild and certainly less so than many other hobbys including most of all professionnal sports and related entertainment. The new editions make it a point to promote strong female characters in all roles and class, really diminishing the feeling of exclusion.
No disagreement about it being better than it's ever been, certainly.
It seems to me that D&D is far more subtly racist now than sexist. A sample of the art rarely depicts anything other than white characters except in very traditional depiction of semi-historical culture, such as the mwangi in pathfinder or the calimshan in FR for example... altough this too is getting better lately.
True. And some of the art which depicts non-white characters tends to devolve into, for lack of a better word, orientalism too. I think Eberron has been a little better in this regard as well, since I seem to recall the pictures of people from the primary nations not being mainly or majorly white. But I could be misremembering. And yes, this too has improved.
And of course, it is 20 times more heterocentric then male centric. I am unaware of any mention or depiction of homosexuality at all in the 40 years of existence of the game, be it in art, settings, adventure etc.... (except perhaps fringe products like the book of erotic fantasy).
Definitely true. When my girlfriend and I had the conversations about D&D which sparked this thread, the issues of racism and heterocentrism in D&D were something we discussed. I just happened to focus on one of the three in this thread.
That's not true for gaming. People freely choosing to act according to their will does not subordinate anyone else. No D&D gamer's choice forces another player into a subordinate position. Put it this way: If one group chooses to call their gaming group the He-Man Woman-Haters D&D club, that doesn't subordinate women. It might be stupid, rude, irrepsonsible, and risible, but it's not subordinating anyone else. It's just their choice. People choosing what they want to do, of their own free will, doesn't force anyone else to do anything, or assume any particular position, be it subordinate, ordinate, or cardinal.
Let's just say you have a very different idea of how people's surrounding culture(s) mediate their choices than I do.
I'm reminded of Brienne in A Song of Ice and Fire, who also works pretty darn well. There's a trick to this sort of thing, however, to play it so it doesn't seem like you are creating such characters specifically to counter perceived stereotypes. Otherwise the pandering inherent becomes more sexist than if you had just left it alone.
True. A lot of it is in the presentation.
Joss Whedon, who is of course my master, nevertheless frequently skirts this line, and it is only because he is such a good writer that he usually avoids crossing it. Stuff like the Charlie's Angels remake, or Kiera Knightly's Gweneviere in that King Arthur movie, Keira Knightly's character in Pirates of the Caribbean ("Try wearing a corsette!") cross it with reckless, hilarious aplomb. My point being that if you are trying to correct for sexism, rather than create interesting characters, you frequently fall on your face.
I'll agree about the preferred aim being to create interesting characters rather than simply correct for sexism, though I'm not sure I'd buy all your examples as successful ones. Joss, I agree, is brilliant at it most of the time.
For me, however, the shining example of how to do it right is
Battlestar Galactica. Now there's a show full of interesting, multifaceted people. They are sometimes strong, sometimes not, sometimes right, sometimes wrong, and invariably always complex and compelling. And none of that maps inherently onto gender, which is why when BSG shows you a woman being rescued by a man, it's not the least bit sexist, because it's abundantly clear that she could just as well be rescued by another woman, and a man could just as well be rescued by a woman as by another man. And so on.
Also, in general, you could be forgiven for reading my OP and thinking that I thought the fantasy tropes I mentioned were in fact sexist, but I am not sure that is the case. That is, telling stories about beefy Herculeans hewing ogres and rescuing princesses is not in itself sexist. It is only in the context of a culture where those are the only stories being told, and where female passivity is the enforced cultural norm--as is the uber-action-male--are those stories problematic. But the story itself is neutral, and given that our cultural context is much different, I see nothing wrong in retelling such stories.
I agree about the story itself being neutral and the context being what makes it problematical or not. I'm guessing that I'm much more aware of or sensitive to the fact that our cultural context, even if very different, is still a very sexist and gender-skewed one, so I see those stories as potentially problematical if not used well.
I'm glad you concede that it could be a matter of personal taste, but I'll just clarify that this seems a minority position, depending on what you mean by justifying sexism. If you mean telling the sort of classic stories I outline, then that seems rather extreme. It certainly doesn't mean that anyone who tells such stories in their games is being sexist.
Yes, I get that mine might be a minority position. And no, I don't mean that telling such stories is being sexist. I've told such stories in my games, but they just didn't necessarily map onto gender the way the originals did.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
