Sexism in D&D and on ENWorld (now with SOLUTIONS!)

[tallyrand]

Just checking in to see if the Brain Trust has solved this in the first ten or so pages...









...I'll give you another ten.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For example, it doesn't hold water at all at young ages. They won't admit it, but teenage boys are massively preoccupied with their "look." The more they are, the more they refuse to admit it, even 30 years later. "I just wore whatever" is man-code for "I had a very specific and narrow set of things I felt comfortable wearing because of my weight/social group/parental rebellion issues, but they were sufficiently loose/grunge-ish/typical/etc that I could pretend I didn't care and people were kind/unobservant enough not to call me on it too often."

OTOH, if you look at serious body/image issues- bulimia, anorexia, etc.- young ladies historically predominate the number of people in treatment.

However, the more "wired" the society becomes, the more the boys start sharing those problems.

 

[Bumbles]

But, were you actually as uncaring at age 12? Past tense was relevant there

I know I was! I am also uncaring today. I do find the people who do care offensive. I don't tell *you* to get a hair cut, now do I? And don't even get me started on the folks who will do things like reach for your neck to straighten your collar. One day some old lady is going to do that and get a hip broken for their trouble.

 

[Mallus]

I have a serious problem with the sterilization of creative endeavors for the promotion of social values over the integrity of the work.

That's not something shil's advocating. He's talking about the unintentional expression of sexist attitudes.

For example, shilsen is currently running a setting I co-wrote. I can certainly speak authoritatively about the 'integrity' of that particular work. I was more than a little surprised to hear that the vast majority of interesting NPC's in the setting were men. It shouldn't surprise me, it's what my friend John and I wrote.

That's a kind of inadvertent, but very real sexism. Our unstated default assumption was that the authority figures and men of action, should be, in fact, men. It wasn't intentional. I wasn't trying for a certain level of historicity, I wasn't trying to make a point.

And I ended up making a one. One I don't particularly like.

I've written more egalitarian settings in the past. Heck, my last one, which was partly a parody of swords and sorcery conventions, complete with deliberate sexism and racism had stronger female NPC's. What gets my goat is that in the setting where I didn't think about gender roles, in automatically made the world about guys (in a manner of speaking).

It's not quite that plain... but it's plain enough to get me thinking.

 

[Spatula]

I think that's a pretty interesting generalization, too, and like most generalizations, it fails HARD in a number of places.

For example, it doesn't hold water at all at young ages. They won't admit it, but teenage boys are massively preoccupied with their "look." The more they are, the more they refuse to admit it, even 30 years later.

Of course males care how they look and are perceived by their peers. All humans do (to varying degrees, based on the individual). How many of your male cousins are anorexic? Bulimic? Perhaps, as sensitive as you find them to be, they are still generally less so than their female peers.

 

[Bumbles]

That's not something shil's advocating. He's taling about the unintentional expression of sexist attitudes.

And I believe Oni was referring to an unintentional consequence that might occur when attempting to deal with that.

At least, that's how I read it.

 

[Mallus]

And I believe Oni was referring to an unintentional consequence that might occur when attempting to deal with that.

At least, that's how I read it.

Sure. If gender issues are important to a setting, let them be important. My point was they weren't intended to be in mine.

 

[Campbell]

Of course males care how they look and are perceived by their peers. All humans do (to varying degrees, based on the individual). How many of your male cousins are anorexic? Bulimic? Perhaps, as sensitive as you find them to be, they are still generally less so than their female peers.

That's a faulty basis of comparison because males experience appearance oversensitivity in different ways than females. Dudes aren't supposed to be waifs, they're supposed to be strong and athletic so they don't stop eating - they become obsessed with working out. How many dudes have you met that spend 3-4 hrs a day working out when its not related to their jobs?

 

[Oni]

That's not something shil's advocating. He's talking about the unintentional expression of sexist attitudes.

For example, shilsen is currently running a setting I co-wrote. I can certainly speak authoritatively about the 'integrity' of that particular work. I was more than a little surprised to hear that the vast majority of interesting NPC's in the setting were men. It shouldn't surprise me, it's what my friend John and I wrote.

That's a kind of inadvertent, but very real sexism. Our unstated default assumption was that the authority figures and men of action, should be, in fact, men. It wasn't intentional. I wasn't trying for a certain level of historicity, I wasn't trying to make a point.

And I ended up making a one. One I don't particularly like.

I've written more egalitarian settings in the past. Heck, my last one, which was partly a parody of swords and sorcery conventions, complete with deliberate sexism and racism had stronger female NPC's. What gets my goat is that in the setting where I didn't think about gender roles, in automatically made the world about guys (in a manner of speaking).

It's not quite that plain... but it's plain enough to get me thinking.

The bit I quoted was the specific and only part of his post I was replying to. If you read it as I did, the implication that the creative exploration of certain topics is fit only to hidden away from the light of day, and something that shouldn't be allowed to be published as a campaign setting.

Regarding any creative work though it is the creator's responsibility to be mindful of what they are creating, to exercise control over the creative process. You can tell when thought has been put into to something rather than just doing what comes easiest and most natural, falling back into the comfort zone. I would venture a guess that the majority of the described sexism in regards to campaign settings and the gender counts has more to do with laziness and failure to leave the comfort zone than any kind of subconscious misogynistic tendencies on the parts of the writers.

 

[Proserpine]

Cool. I'm hoping that this thread at least gets people to think a little more about the subject (or subjects, since we're discussing many interrelated things here) of gender and sexism than might normally be the case. I only learned the term cisgender a few months ago myself, also from Proserpine.

You're welcome, Rgard. I'm really glad you took the time to look it up! And that you took some time to post the definition, as I should've mentioned what that meant.

In regards to shilsen, I agree with him. (Even if he's outed me as a hack and slash type of girl. ) Though a lot of people here have respectfully disagreed with shilsen's premise, they're taking some time out to think about the subject.

I have a serious problem with the sterilization of creative endeavors for the promotion of social values over the integrity of the work. If the world is egalitarian great let it be so, but if it's not don't force it to be so. Now I understand that this might be kind of an extreme stance to take with regard to campaign settings, it's a game right? But how interesting is fantasy world after fantasy world were everyone's equal and no one treats you different because of the way you look, unless of course you happen to be green. Besides where does this kind of things stop?

In a world with magic and multiple intelligent species, gender would work differently. For real. And that's something a lot of people don't seem to consider. This, more than anything, bugs me. Why would an entire world be sexist when there are multiple intelligent species and magic? That changes the dynamic a lot, and retaining sexism (especially since it's always "benign" sexism against womem) has more to do with a long tradition of sexism and exclusion in real life.

And personally, when I play a game, I don't want to deal with it. While I think I'm a special snowflake and that everyone should cater to me, I'm not so adament about inclusion because it'd benefit only me. Firstly, sexism - especially "historic"-esque, or "genre"-based sexism - is uncreative and doesn't make much sense, and secondly, getting rid of the boys' club feel is a positive step in the right direction (especially since bigotry can be explored in more palatable ways). As I mentioned earlier, bad gender representation makes material feel and seem very dated.