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

[Bumbles]

And based on how upset you're getting about it "Uncaring about my look" WAS (and possibly still is) your look and therefore part of your identity (just like helping young men clean up right is part of the identity of some old ladies).

And I'd say you're quite wrong. It's not part of my look in the sense that I conceive it as part of my image. It's who I am, because I really don't care.

I do care, however, about people forming opinions about others. That's why I find your opinion about me here to be offensive. You think you know about me when it's really only your own assumptions that are forming your opinions. I hate that in all its forms. Even when not related to myself. When somebody starts talking about what they think of somebody else...I really do find myself being offended. Especially when it's probably inaccurate or unfair.

In this case, I know it's inaccurate. I'd feel the same way if it were an opinion unrelated to appearance, like "stop playing those damn devil games!" or some such.

Believe it or not.

You have professed here that you will break an old lady's hip to avoid appearing like you care about your appearance.

Actually, no. The real reason (for me and many others) is actually related to being touched or reached for out of surprise.

Some people do have reactions like that, with various reasons. I have elbowed folks who have come up on me from behind...and more than a few times, I've surprised my cats while sleeping. I don't believe they were concerned that I was saying anything about their appearance.

 

[Ariosto]

Hussar, it's your choice to put such a value on the "RPG" term. Heck, you can insist on calling your preferred mode "wargames campaigns" (as D&D was originally billed) if you like.

However, calling people sexist because they distinguish games in which one plays the role of Oliver Twist from those in which one "plays the role" not even of Charles Dickens but instead (and in a purely functional sense) that of one of a committee of editors writing a story about Oliver Twist is ... just twisted!

It's at least as meaningful a distinction as what has arisen between RPGs and wargames, or any of myriad other taxonomies. As people recognize the emergence of a new form and begin to treat it on its own terms, they naturally tend so to refer to it! The notion that it is somewhere better to remain lost in the shadow of another school seems to me pretty rare in such cases.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I've never seen a campaign setting which is sexist and matriarchal, for example.

Any featuring drow? The most perverse and evil society Gary could imagine was one where women are in charge.

 

[Bumbles]

I've never seen a campaign setting which is sexist and matriarchal, for example.

RPGnet : The Inside Scoop on Gaming

There you go.

See my comment above about egalitarianism. A world where the sexes are treated equally can still treat characters differently based on race, species, nationality, age, whether they use magic, etc. There are a million different ways to have conflict and differentiation between individuals without having to reuse real-world sexism. And many of those would be much more creative and smarter, in my estimation, than trying to recreate (intentionally or otherwise) real-world sexism in a world which is patently not the real world.

Careful, it seems like you're saying racism and other discrimination is ok in games, but not if it's gender-based. I really hope you didn't intend to open up that particular quagmire.

Biology is drastically different than our world in a D&D world, if simply because men and women can be exactly as strong, fast, durable, intelligent, wise and charismatic as each other. The strongest PC in the world can just as easily be a man as a woman.

This is not true in 1st edition. Which also had races covered too. Would you like to go back to that model?

And then there's the existence of magic, which makes physical strength and biology much less important when it comes to influence on society. And then there's the fact that a myriad different species, with different biologies, inhabit these worlds. And yet somehow when sexism exists in these worlds, it is almost always patriarchal sexism, in the same way that it exists in much of our world. To me, that's no more logical than someone arguing that chimpanzees in a zoo should have a patriarchal society simply because the USA does.

Only if one believed that the USA created the Chimpanzees. I'm sorry, but your analogy is just so illogical you should be hit with a wet trout. Your comments would be far better without such an obviously unsupported comparison.

With D&D being in many ways the default system in gaming (and yes, there are some problems with that fact too), I think it should strive to be more welcoming to players of different genders, races, etc.

How? Leaving off that bit is kind of a problem, even if you have mentioned it before in bits of pieces, if you're going to bring up the advice again, a specific path here would improve your words considerably.

Testosterone makes you better at math and spatial ability? That's the first time I've heard that claim!

There's a bit here:

Half Sigma: Biological basis for sex differences in math ability

I'm sure there's lots of other studies you can find.

Note, I am explicitly and sincerely not interested in arguing the merits of this, I'm merely posting this to acknowledge the existence, and I do not wish to get into a discussion of the subject here. So I won't.

 

[Bumbles]

Any featuring drow? The most perverse and evil society Gary could imagine was one where women are in charge.

Really? I thought that honor would go to Tharizdun's followers.

 

[Proserpine]

You know this how?

I'm not even disagreeing with you, and I'm not trying to be pedantic. You seem more learned in feminism, both modern and historical, than I'll ever be.

But I think Oni's point could be expanded upon: a setting with inherent sexism as part of its foundation isn't necessarily a bad thing, if implemented thoughtfully. Now if that was part of the main D&D setting, which props up a large part of the industry, that's where things do get a bit nasty.

Thanks about the learned in feminism bit. My learning is unfortunately a little narrow, however, as I'm much better informed about (not mention more comfortable with) feminism's modern manifestation.

And that's true: as far as creative endeavors go, sexism isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's just that sexism seems to generally mean using sexism as we know it and applying it to fantasy settings. I wouldn't mind an intelligent application of sexism if sexism meant lawful and good matriarchies as well as patriarchies (whether among species or a particular city), as that would mean there wouldn't be a default position regarding the "norm" in the world itself. I wouldn't mind anything similarly thoughtful. The problem is, sexism isn't handled very thoughtfully that often. Here's a decent example in D&D itself: the drow. They're the only explicitly matriarchal species in the game (that I know of), and they're evil and misandrist in very obvious ways. Whether that's coincidental or not means little to me. The implication that female-against-male sexism creates evil societies (especially since there are no contrasting good matriarchal species, city, whatever) is still there.

Now to answer the "You know this how?" bit:

My most basic response to that would be that it's unrealistic for every society or species to be sexist in the same way, and for that sexism - regardless of the degree - to consistently manifest as the traditional male-against-female sexism. It's dumb to argue realism in a fantasy game, but the justification for sexism is often that it's more "realistic".

Oni said this in the thread: "This seed of difference [biological differences] is what leads to sexism. Sexism however, at least in my eyes, is about maintaining the status quo, that is to say it is about men maintaining dominance over women". But the presence of magic would make biology matter less, because women would have a way to bridge the biological inequality of male versus female strength. Of course, people could get around this by saying magic is learned in much the same way that complex arithmetic is learned, and that this learning is only afforded to men. At the same time, I don’t think this wouldn’t apply across the board with every single species.
And speaking of biological differences, a lot of intrinsically female things (like child birth) would be made much easier or effective in a magical world. Women could pop out their two kids without them dying then or later, and then go out to war or adventure. This especially applies to species with long life spans (like, you know, elves – they get to have their cake and eat it too). I’d understand if sexism among humans was similar to real world/historical instances of gender bias, but there are so many factors within a fantasy world which would influence the way they and other species viewed gender.
I typed my response a few times and still don't feel like I'm articulating myself well, so I hope I'm getting myself across okay. What I mentioned are just a few reasons why I think gender would (and should) work quite differently in a fantasy setting.

 

[Ariosto]

I've read on these boards that we have to guard the game against allowing any newer fantasy in.

That is not my position. I favor inclusion; the directly opposing view is one of exclusion: that we have to guard the game against allowing any classical fantasy in.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Testosterone makes you better at math and spatial ability? That's the first time I've heard that claim!

Also makes your ring finger longer!

High Testosterone is good for math, spatial ability, music (which is a spatial ability)...the usual caveats, of course, apply, and it's important to realize that testosterone does not equal male and estrogen does not equal female, but, well, there's a REASON the archetype is that playing in a band gets you groupies and hangers-on if you're a guy, but not so much if you're rocking Lilith Fair.

Except that a lot of supposed color-blindness or gender-blindness is simply a recapitulation of the positions of color and gender in the status quo.

IMXP, the bigger risk is in glossing over actual substantive differences in the interest of being PC. There's a reason multiculturalism generally means westernization: multiculturalism is basically a western idea itself.

Gender differences are tougher to erase, and easier to be concious of, because there is likely more real difference between the genders than there is between, I dunno, a Mongolian man and a guy from Florida. But there is something to the idea that gender-blindness is basically patriarchy, but just with pantsuits instead of regular suits.

 

[Hussar]

Hussar, it's your choice to put such a value on the "RPG" term. Heck, you can insist on calling your preferred mode "wargames campaigns" (as D&D was originally billed) if you like.

However, calling people sexist because they distinguish games in which one plays the role of Oliver Twist from those in which one "plays the role" not even of Charles Dickens but instead (and in a purely functional sense) that of one of a committee of editors writing a story about Oliver Twist is ... just twisted!

It's at least as meaningful a distinction as what has arisen between RPGs and wargames, or any of myriad other taxonomies. As people recognize the emergence of a new form and begin to treat it on its own terms, they naturally tend so to refer to it! The notion that it is somewhere better to remain lost in the shadow of another school seems to me pretty rare in such cases.

I'm sorry, but you've lost me here. I really have no idea what you are trying to say.

I'm saying that it's sexist to insist that D&D remain fixated or based on earlier fantasy because earlier fantasy is extremely sexist. If we base the game on Howard, for example, then the game is going to be sexist. It can't not be sexist and still remain anywhere near true to Howard.

The same can be said for pretty much any fantasy written before about 1965.

That is not my position. I favor inclusion; the directly opposing view is one of exclusion: that we have to guard the game against allowing any classical fantasy in.

How can you favor inclusion when, in your own words, you insist that

The suggestion in this day and age that a historical fiction need be bowdlerized for the sake of feminine sensibilities would, I think, be obviously patronizing -- and obviously ignorant of the contents of "romance novels".

Now, I would ask you to clarify for a moment if you include fantasy in historical fiction, or if you simply mistakenly attributed traditional fantasy to historical fiction.

In any case, you are stating that any fiction which does not follow traditional fantasy lines is a bowdlerization. How is that inclusionary?

Now, I picked you, because you posted in this thread. Given a few minutes and a search, I could pick out many, MANY other posters who have stated, pretty emphatically, that any source other than Dead Authors is bad for D&D.

 

[Bumbles]

The implication that female-against-male sexism creates evil societies (especially since there are no contrasting good matriarchal species, city, whatever) is still there.

The problem is that this implication may be the log in your own eye, not the mote in say, Gary's, or others who don't care that the drow are a matriarchy or even dare I say it...black-skinned!

Yes, there are folks who clamor that the drow are an example of racism too.

Been that way for a while.

I suggest though, that instead of arguing against it, you create something more in line with what you do want.

And I seem to recall some non-evil female dominated societies in D&D...some city in Greyhawk perhaps? The Witches of Rashemen? The Druids of the Moonshaes? There may be something in Birthright as well...or Darokin in Mystara? (And if the Hollow World doesn't have something, I'd be surprised, it has all sorts of other tropes...)