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

[ExploderWizard]

Sexism has not been a problem in our particular expanded group. We have had female players at the table in various campaigns over the years and these issues never came up. Tastes in fantasy art vary from person to person but I don't recall gaming with anyone (male or female) that couldn't deal with the cheesecake/beefcake silliness and not be able to have a chuckle and move on.

I can understand that someone actually being made unwelcome in a group over sexist issues might have a different point of view but approaching gaming with a pre-existing political chip on one's shoulder about the issue won't do much to help the situation.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

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

Which neatly gives us evidence that, however indirectly, sexism has been present in the game since the early days.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Very interesting. I thought my son was the only one - but he openly admits it. Out of his clique, he is the only one to have a good appearance, wears after shave and has his hair all perfect. Maybe that is why he has 3 girlfriends.

There are actually a bunch of books coming out on teenage boys right now that underline these issues in a big way.

We severely underestimate the social, nearly tribal, elements of male behavior at that age. Anti-social behavior is often an attempt to be pro-social in their peer group. It is both funny and sad.

 

[vagabundo]

They may also be useful to businessses - companies making and selling Role Playing Games, for instance.

When it comes to individuals, knowledge of the averages is useful when you don't have anything better to go on. If you're on the street alone at night and you're afraid of being mugged, you know on average it's safer to walk past the strange woman (or group of women) than the strange man (or group of men). That's in the absence of further information. Clothing, demeanour etc might indicate that the women are actually more likely to be dangerous.

"That man looks dangerous - but it's sexist to think like that! Women can be dangerous too. I'll walk past him!" is not a good survival strategy.

I think it is dangerous to mix possible sociological factors with genetic/biological factors and a media-heightened sense of paranoia. What is your real chance of mugged on that street? Probably a lot lower than you think, in fact, it is probably negligible considering how many people are walking home at that time, but it does happen obviously.

I'm guessing - hard to qualify IMO - but most violent criminality is due to social factors and not a testosterone fueled preposition to violence. And drug-addiction makes it all worse.

Being a realist I know I live in a society were people jump to instant judgments on others based on cleanliness, demeanor, type of clothing being worn, gender and race. It varies depending on location, when I'm away I dont feel have the warning signals that I feel I have here in Dublin. But I'll bet I'm wrong far more than I'm right, but it is a risk assessment. I pled guilty of pigeon-holing people.

If I'm walking home drunk from the pub at night and see a crowd of lads hanging about I'll probably cross over the road. They could be the nicest lads out there, but I'm going to put some distance between me and them.

And on the other side, I've noticed that younger girls now are driving like loons and violence crime from females is on the rise - anecdotal assuredly. I'm guessing social factors mixed with drink and drugs are to blame, or just me getting old and grouchy.

I think what I'm saying - after all that rambling - is that a persons potential (for good and eeevil) is not limited in any sense by gender, I think genetics and social factors are far, far more important.

 

[shilsen]

I think your proposal, that D&D is inherently sexist and that's because our society is inherently sexist, are both flat-out wrong.

Oddly, you didn't even really attempt to build a case for it either; you pointed out a few examples that you had to have gone way out of your way to find, and a couple of odd characterizations of the "ENWorld vibe" when someone reveals that they're a woman, etc.

I'm curious whether you think that my argumentation was poor or whether you think that our society (and again, I'll restrict myself to the USA) is not actually sexist. If the former, then my only excuse is that I was starting a thread to discuss something I find interesting and worth consideration, so I limited myself to a length which allowed me to make my point without making it overlong. I could write a manifesto which would explore in detail how pervasive I think sexism is in our society and gaming, but then nobody would bother to read through all of it and this conversation, which I think is at least interesting and hopefully productive, wouldn't have happened.

If you do mean, however, that you really don't believe that our society is sexist, then I can't really argue with you, because evidently your worldview and manner of seeing things is so different from mine that I don't think I could persuade you to see my POV. Let's just say that every day in the USA I see evidence in my own life and in what I hear or read about that we live in a heavily sexist society. Apparently some people on this thread (pawsplay, roguerouge and Mathew_Freeman being just three names which come to mind) agree. You clearly do not. And if the world around you doesn't make you see it, I'm quite certain that I cannot.

The null hypothesis isn't that we're all sexist and therefore activist marketing by WotC is required to cure us of our ills. First, you've got to do a much better job in building a convincing case that this is a real problem and not just a few chip on their shoulder activists who like complaining.

I see. Clearly we shall have to beg to differ on this point.

I can understand that someone actually being made unwelcome in a group over sexist issues might have a different point of view but approaching gaming with a pre-existing political chip on one's shoulder about the issue won't do much to help the situation.

Why would you assume that I'm approaching gaming with a pre-existing chip on my shoulder? Is it that far-fetched that I might have come to this conclusion on the basis of over a decade of gaming and seeing how it is presented, marketed and played, plus my experience of gaming discussions on forums such as ENWorld?

 

[ExploderWizard]

Why would you assume that I'm approaching gaming with a pre-existing chip on my shoulder? Is it that far-fetched that I might have come to this conclusion on the basis of over a decade of gaming and seeing how it is presented, marketed and played, plus my experience of gaming discussions on forums such as ENWorld?

I'm not assuming anything, and I didn't even mention you. My point was that if one (anyone) approaches something (gaming) and starts digging around for evidence of any type of "ism" then the chances of finding something are very good indeed. The basic point is that gaming is an activity participated in by people. Whatever social issues we have as people will be brought into such activities. If a gaming group has people in it that are fixated on sexist issues then sexism will be a problem for that group. It's impossible to stamp out the issues we have as human beings by altering the presentation/marketing of products. That's all I was trying to say, I meant no offense.

 

[shilsen]

I'm not assuming anything, and I didn't even mention you. My point was that if one (anyone) approaches something (gaming) and starts digging around for evidence of any type of "ism" then the chances of finding something are very good indeed. The basic point is that gaming is an activity participated in by people. Whatever social issues we have as people will be brought into such activities. If a gaming group has people in it that are fixated on sexist issues then sexism will be a problem for that group. It's impossible to stamp out the issues we have as human beings by altering the presentation/marketing of products. That's all I was trying to say, I meant no offense.

Ah, okay. I agree that it's impossible to stamp out these issues merely by altering the presentation/marketing of products. And I'm cynical enough to think that maybe we'll never completely stamp such issues out. But I think it's worthwhile to at least try to improve the situation, and in order to do that I think one needs to change the way things work in a myriad different areas. This thread is a small attempt to do so in one area, or at least get people to think about and engage with the subject. I don't think that's futile, even if it has little effect.

And thanks for the clarification, BTW. No offense taken.

 

[Proserpine]

Thoughts and feedback?

I think it's great. Then again, I'm a proponent of the same ideas.

 

[S'mon]

...aren't you the same DM who doubled Lolth's (1E) 66hp on her home plane to 122hp.

In the immortals words of Barbie: "Math is hard".

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

If you do mean, however, that you really don't believe that our society is sexist, then I can't really argue with you, because evidently your worldview and manner of seeing things is so different from mine that I don't think I could persuade you to see my POV. Let's just say that every day in the USA I see evidence in my own life and in what I hear or read about that we live in a heavily sexist society. Apparently some people on this thread (pawsplay, roguerouge and Mathew_Freeman being just three names which come to mind) agree. You clearly do not. And if the world around you doesn't make you see it, I'm quite certain that I cannot.

Thank you for the name check, particularly given how badly I put myself over with my first post in this thread!

The reason that I'm so interested in this thread, BTW, is that since getting together with my partner five years ago she's really opened my eyes to feminism and how it works, what it's about and what it's fighting against.

I'd happily point everyone in the direction of the The F-Word: Contemporary UK Feminism - The F-Word, which she blogs for, if they want to read on further about UK Feminism.

I do agree with shilsen, and I think this thread provides plenty of evidence both that gamers are pretty aware of the situation and want to change it, and that gamers are also blindly unaware of themselves, their actions, and how it makes other people feel. Gamers, of course, being a wide and varied lot, much like any other group of people that you care to lump together.