D&D 5E 5e's new gender policy - is it attracting new players?

[Istbor]

Which then begs the question why are sports like shooting, archery, and bowling still divided into men's and women's competitions?

No clue on the first two, but there is some need of strength when throwing a heavy ball.

Also, now I need to watch Kingpin.

 

[MostlyDm]

I've replied to this line of derailing once already at some length, so I'll just repeat that I am in fact familiar with the history you're talking about. It doesn't change the fact that European colonialism is uniquely nasty in scope, ugliness and effect, and that there is no good faith argument to be made otherwise.

I don't think we can really get into this in this thread, but I don't want to leave this statement totally unchallenged.

This is false. There are lots of good faith arguments against what you're saying here. Western civilization is not the boogeyman. The people who disagree with you are not just a bunch of ignorant evil liars. Denying the existence of reasonable opposition to your position is a really nasty way to try to shut down debate.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Which then begs the question why are sports like shooting, archery, and bowling still divided into men's and women's competitions?

Sexism. Nothing in my statement argues for or against the existence of ingrained sexism.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

I don't think we can really get into this in this thread, but I don't want to leave this statement totally unchallenged.

This is false. There are lots of good faith arguments against what you're saying here. Western civilization is not the boogeyman. The people who disagree with you are not just a bunch of ignorant evil liars. Denying the existence of reasonable opposition to your position is a really nasty way to try to shut down debate.

I don't think that Seraph is making the argument that Western civilization is some sort of bogeyman. I know I haven't made that argument. The argument she is making - one which can be backed up by simply looking at a map - is that the evils committed by Western European civilization are unrivaled by those of any other set of cultures in scope and power.

Western civilization has done a great deal of good in the world. I'm part of it - a white girl in North America, born in the American South and living in the Pacific Northwest. I think I'm pretty awesome, and I'm the tip of the iceberg there. But that doesn't change the scope and degree of evil in our background.

Genocide across literally all human-inhabited continents. The theft of land and resources. The drawing of national boundaries specifically to produce regional ethnic and religious tension and allow further meddling. Colonialism and the destruction of native cultures. Conversion at the point of a sword or the end of a gun. Intercontinental, intergenerational chattel slavery - not the sort of "we enslave debtors and war prisoners" known throughout the ancient world, but the mass relocation of entire ethnic groups and their coercion into brutal, body-and-soul-destroying work for generations with no real hope of escape. Deliberate, systematic destruction of natural resources in an effort at defeating in war an enemy whose land the war is being fought on and who had no chance even if the war was conducted in a purely conventional way.

Those things are as much a part of my cultural heritage as the Declaration of Independence's unique statement that people are equal, as the beauty of Versailles and Vienna, as the first touch of humanity on an alien world, as close-up pictures of Pluto, as a game that lets me interact with worlds that share the imaginations of myself, my friends, and my loved ones with specific, predictable rules that allow our souls to craft stories and people and universes together in a way nothing else ever designed ever has. I think it is an act of intense intellectual dishonesty to enjoy the fruits of these good things without also confronting the intense, unrivalled, and (this is the way it is most undeniably unique) global evil done along the way, in the name of the same set of cultures that produced these good things.

 

[Rygar]

I'm sure you're right...I'm not in the field, so I have no idea really.

In my field, I work with both genders pretty equally, and I find the idiot ratios to be pretty equal. But there's nothing about my job that favors either gender, really.

He's not. The reality is that most software engineers couldn't care less what sex you are, just how good your code is. The vast majority of software engineering occurs in large companies with large HR departments who will jump on you at the slightest hint of "Discrimination" and so there is no bias because you'd be fired long before your bias was a problem. The whole "Women aren't welcome in tech" thing is much more narrative than it is reality, because for that to be true we have to accept that pretty much all major companies in every field are run by raging misogynists and everyone is just covering it up. Sure, if you work in some random startup it might be true, but I sincerely doubt that everything from Intel (Who donates to bring in more women) to Amazon and every company in between is filled with misogyny.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

He's not. The reality is that most software engineers couldn't care less what sex you are, just how good your code is. The vast majority of software engineering occurs in large companies with large HR departments who will jump on you at the slightest hint of "Discrimination" and so there is no bias because you'd be fired long before your bias was a problem. The whole "Women aren't welcome in tech" thing is much more narrative than it is reality, because for that to be true we have to accept that pretty much all major companies in every field are run by raging misogynists and everyone is just covering it up. Sure, if you work in some random startup it might be true, but I sincerely doubt that everything from Intel (Who donates to bring in more women) to Amazon and every company in between is filled with misogyny.

Zero of the words you just said are actually true, because it doesn't take rampant misogyny or anything that would actually hold up in a discrimination case in court to make a space or field unwelcoming to women, or even to actively drive them out of it.

 

[Shasarak]

Have you taken a look at the Viking Norse? The women (some of them, anyway) tended to fight alongside the men there, if the records are to be trusted, and a few became leaders. It's not very clear, however, whether the female leaders and warriors were the same actual individuals.

Lanefan

That is probably a good reason for the long sea voyages raiding the English rather then staying home.

 

[Dire Bare]

I don't think that Seraph is making the argument that Western civilization is some sort of bogeyman. I know I haven't made that argument. The argument she is making - one which can be backed up by simply looking at a map - is that the evils committed by Western European civilization are unrivaled by those of any other set of cultures in scope and power.

Western civilization has done a great deal of good in the world. I'm part of it - a white girl in North America, born in the American South and living in the Pacific Northwest. I think I'm pretty awesome, and I'm the tip of the iceberg there. But that doesn't change the scope and degree of evil in our background.

Genocide across literally all human-inhabited continents. The theft of land and resources. The drawing of national boundaries specifically to produce regional ethnic and religious tension and allow further meddling. Colonialism and the destruction of native cultures. Conversion at the point of a sword or the end of a gun. Intercontinental, intergenerational chattel slavery - not the sort of "we enslave debtors and war prisoners" known throughout the ancient world, but the mass relocation of entire ethnic groups and their coercion into brutal, body-and-soul-destroying work for generations with no real hope of escape. Deliberate, systematic destruction of natural resources in an effort at defeating in war an enemy whose land the war is being fought on and who had no chance even if the war was conducted in a purely conventional way.

Those things are as much a part of my cultural heritage as the Declaration of Independence's unique statement that people are equal, as the beauty of Versailles and Vienna, as the first touch of humanity on an alien world, as close-up pictures of Pluto, as a game that lets me interact with worlds that share the imaginations of myself, my friends, and my loved ones with specific, predictable rules that allow our souls to craft stories and people and universes together in a way nothing else ever designed ever has. I think it is an act of intense intellectual dishonesty to enjoy the fruits of these good things without also confronting the intense, unrivalled, and (this is the way it is most undeniably unique) global evil done along the way, in the name of the same set of cultures that produced these good things.

IMO, Western Civilization isn't more or less inherently evil than any other civilization. But we were DAMN successful at spreading that misery around the world. It's not that we are/were MORE evil, it's that we are/were BETTER at it. It's a quantity rather than quality issue, I suppose.

And, while it's important to remember we are all members of the same human race and Western Civ doesn't have a monopoly on screwing over the other guy, we also can't ignore the long history of abuse our culture has inflicted upon the world. And most importantly, still does. We're not as bad as we used to be, but we haven't totally turned the corner either and become the sweet angels of the world. There's still a lot of global misery that can be laid at the feet of the USA and Europe.

This fact makes many Westerners uncomfortable, as they sometimes feel admitting the horrific past and present of our culture somehow implicates them in that evil. But ignoring it often perpetuates it, so this is a sad way to deal, IMO. It's better to realize that YOU personally, aren't responsible for the horrors of the world, regardless of where you come from or what religion you follow, but acknowledge that you benefit from the exploitation of others, and do your best to put some more positive balance on the spreadsheet!

 

[Umbran]

The vast majority of software engineering occurs in large companies with large HR departments who will jump on you at the slightest hint of "Discrimination" and so there is no bias because you'd be fired long before your bias was a problem. The whole "Women aren't welcome in tech" thing is much more narrative than it is reality...

You probably want to try to see this movie: http://www.codedocumentary.com/

It is difficult to do, because for reasons I do not understand it is not in open release, and they make you pay and arm and a leg to watch it, but you ought to see it.

It is true that women are discouraged from entering tech from a young age - our culture still discourages women from entering STEM fields. However, that isn't all of it, by a long shot.

Microsoft, Google, and pretty much every other tech company works with massive gender inequalities, both in terms of representation, and often in pay:

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/googles-gender-gap-why-technology-is-still-a-mans-world/

http://www.geekwire.com/2014/stats-gender-pay-gap-microsoft-google-facebook-tech-companies/

Early in the computer era, we had Ada Lovelace. Later, there was Grace Hopper: in her era, code was largely written by women - since computers were new, everyone focused on the electronic hardware, and thought of software as the easy part (it wasn't the easy part, but hey), and so the task of actually coding was left to women.

Back in the 1980s, we were approaching *equality* in terms of representation in software tech - if I recall the film correctly, in about 1984, in the US, over 40% (possibly 46%) of the software engineers around were women! We *lost* equality over the next decade. The film suggests the rise of the archetype of the "typical computer nerd" in the 80s, that you needed to be this geek male genius to write code, helped reverse the trend to equality.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

IMO, Western Civilization isn't more or less inherently evil than any other civilization. But we were DAMN successful at spreading that misery around the world. It's not that we are/were MORE evil, it's that we are/were BETTER at it. It's a quantity rather than quality issue, I suppose.

And, while it's important to remember we are all members of the same human race and Western Civ doesn't have a monopoly on screwing over the other guy, we also can't ignore the long history of abuse our culture has inflicted upon the world. And most importantly, still does. We're not as bad as we used to be, but we haven't totally turned the corner either and become the sweet angels of the world. There's still a lot of global misery that can be laid at the feet of the USA and Europe.

This fact makes many Westerners uncomfortable, as they sometimes feel admitting the horrific past and present of our culture somehow implicates them in that evil. But ignoring it often perpetuates it, so this is a sad way to deal, IMO. It's better to realize that YOU personally, aren't responsible for the horrors of the world, regardless of where you come from or what religion you follow, but acknowledge that you benefit from the exploitation of others, and do your best to put some more positive balance on the spreadsheet!

That's... pretty much the entire argument I've been trying to make in a nutshell, yes.

We can't make things better until we understand both what is wrong and why it's wrong.