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

[GMforPowergamers]

It's an issue of branding. Certain phrases, expressions, or terms are used to reference some other specific thing often enough that they become shorthand for that thing in the public eye. Somehow "4:20" became code for smoking marijuana, despite the fact that it's just a time on the clock. So if you hear someone say "Let's have a meeting at 4:20," it carries the implication that the "meeting" is to go light up.

This doesn't necessarily have to be the case, of course. There might very well be an actual meeting going on at 4:20 that has nothing to do with weed, the same way that there can be an issue of states' rights that has nothing to do with institutional racism, or issues of men's rights that have nothing to do with misogyny, but the use of those phrases as shorthand for the other thing is now widely understood, and so using that term will invariably invoke that thing in the minds of other people, rightly or wrongly.

I was not aware of any of those short hands

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I was not aware of any of those short hands

Which is why we're explaining them, so you don't accidentally say something you'll regret.

 

[Umbran]

Second warning - keep it to *gender policy and GAMING*, please and thank you.

 

[seebs]

wait what?!?!?!? how is states rights anything to do with institutional racism?? one has nothing to do with the other... If I oppse a national drivers licenses I'm racist now?!?!?! how crazy is this?

Politics is full of weird cases where a term gets hijacked to mean something entirely unrelated to what it sounds like it means. So people use code words for stuff because they know that the people they want to communicate with will know what they mean. Look up the term "dog whistles".

 

[Sunseeker]

This summary of the terminology is about 30 years out of date. In particular, gender identity is almost entirely not related to "social norms"; it appears to be some kind of wired-in instinct in the brain for the majority of people.

The nature v. nurture argument is still ongoing. That said, even if you're wired towards more traditionally masculine or feminine gender aspects, it is still society who is defining what is or is not a masculine or feminine gender role. If you throw out society's role in setting the boundaries for what is or isn't gender identity, then gender identity becomes meaningless as a term because there's nothing to identify with, everyone is just themselves. Which wouldn't be a wholly bad way to do things, but as we are biologically wired to categorize things for ease of information storage are unlikely to ever do that.

 

[Lanliss]

I wasn't aware there were second warnings. I was just thinking the thread was gonna get locked after people quit following the topic a second time.

 

[Werebat]

But raising your kids is a much better use of your time than paying attention to these guys.

True that.

Then again, three of my kids are boys, so I do have some interest in seeing to it they are treated fairly if they ever become fathers. Hell, I'd LIKE them to become fathers when the time is right, but things being what they are, I'm not sure how whole-heartedly I can recommend it.

But there are certainly better things to focus on than the litany of wrongs I've suffered at the hands of the "family" court.

 

[Umbran]

I wasn't aware there were second warnings. I was just thinking the thread was gonna get locked after people quit following the topic a second time.

Next time, if you have a question, please take it to e-mail or Private Message to one of the mods.

But, to answer this - we know the subject is important, and so we don't want to close it if someone's still getting good value from it. And, you know, maybe someone missed the first warning.

A third warning is less likely. And it may not be the thread that gets closed, but merely the folks who can't keep to the topic removed from the discussion. Since we don't have individual thread bans, that may mean a tempban from the boards for offenders.

 

[Werebat]

There's a conflation of numerous disparate (and often mutually hostile) groups that the SPLC has lumped together under "manosphere" in that link. Many of them would in fact reject the title of "MRA" and many self-described MRAs would likewise not associate with them. It kind of casts a bad light on the whole article, like they're trying to paint a lot of people with a very broad brush.

I think Werebat's mention, Straughan, is a much clearer example of an MRA.

Also true. For example, I would think that many feminists would take offense if I were to use Radfem hub as an example of what "most feminists" are like.

I'd even go so far as to say that most feminists and most MRAs would probably be able to find at least some common ground and mutual respect. For example, many good fathers who have been burned by the "family" courts actually HATE real "deadbeat dads", not only because abandoning your kids is just wrong, but also because they know that these idiots provide fuel for the fires that were used to roast them alive.

The difficulty can be in getting the two sorts of people to open their minds to the possibility that the other gender can and does indeed suffer from prejudice and abuse at the hands of others, specifically because of their gender.

 

[seebs]

The nature v. nurture argument is still ongoing. That said, even if you're wired towards more traditionally masculine or feminine gender aspects, it is still society who is defining what is or is not a masculine or feminine gender role. If you throw out society's role in setting the boundaries for what is or isn't gender identity, then gender identity becomes meaningless as a term because there's nothing to identify with, everyone is just themselves. Which wouldn't be a wholly bad way to do things, but as we are biologically wired to categorize things for ease of information storage are unlikely to ever do that.

That is, again, the simplified theory we threw out because it contradicts available evidence. Humans have some degree of instinctive awareness of the division, even though that doesn't necessarily correlate to any particular societally-controlled traits (like which clothing is considered masculine or feminine). Take away all the societal roles, ignore all the societally-defined things, and you still have some people whose brain has a map of what shape its body should be, based on what appears to be an instinctive knowledge of what shape male or female bodies are. Nothing to do with the societal definitions, just a thing where all mammalian life has brains that are pre-loaded with information about how the species comes in two types, and which type this brain is associated with.

The theory that it was all societally-defined was very popular in the 70s and maybe 80s, but treatment plans that presuppose that this theory is correct have a substantial body count and are no longer generally regarded as good standards of care.

Relevance to gaming: Gender identity isn't a thing that simply disappears if a society happens to have no masculine/feminine distinctions, so when worldbuilding, you can't realistically just handwave it away by declaring that your society doesn't have any of those distinctions or discriminations. Some players may not care. Others may feel very, very, strongly about that one.