Eberron: no sexism

[Grimstaff]

I just noticed this: there's no textual support for sexism in the Eberron setting. The sexes seem pretty well equally represented as heads of state, Dragonmarked houses, et cetera. I don't see any evidence that wives are more likely than husbands to stay at home and cook/clean/raise the kids while their spouse goes off to work in the field/adventure/fight the War. A female adventurer (of any class) is no more or less unusual than the corresponding male. Other than in fashion, Khorvaire seems to be a gender-blind society.

Unless there are instances of gender discrimination or such that I haven't noticed.

Why I stick to Wilderlands!

 

[Set]

Assuming no prejudice based on skin color, etc, you would expect most humans to look like multi-racial people then. (Tiger Woods is multi-racial.) You wouldn't expect people to look black, white, Chinese, or what not. Natural geographic barriers, language barriers and prejudice are the only reasons ethnic groups even exist nowadays.

I've read very few biological reasons why we aren't all black-haired, brown-eyed and dark complected. One of the few is that blue-eyed men prefer blue-eyed women because they will know if the child is brown-eyed, it's not theirs, and Lucy's got some 'splainin' to do...

 

[CruelSummerLord]

I like to point out places in our modern society that show gender bias (even the gender names themselves are biased... "female" is just "male" with a prefix, as if females were just a different type of male) because I'm aware we come from a long history of sexism and I believe we won't really start pulling away from that until we all become aware of it.

I like reading books based in historical periods that include this sexism. If a historical book about the middle ages has a female knight that nobody even comments on then it's not realistic. I'm glad, though, that they decided not to go for that kind of realism in D&D (as others have said, it's not just Eberron, the PHB itself says that females can do anything males can). I like being able to play a female knight (which I am in my current campaign) without having to explain why she decided to go against her gender role, and without having to fight the gender bias wherever she went. I'm plenty happy to leave the stuggles of a female trying to live in a male world to books.

Just out of curiousity, what about a setting where female characters are second-class citizens in only some parts of the world?

In my own Greyhawk writings on Canonfire, places like Furyondy, Onnwall, Ahlissa, Northern Aerdy, and Sterich either do not allow women the same civil rights as men, or simply oppress them in with social convention rather than official written law-think of the writings of the Brontes or Kate Chopin about women in Victorian England.

Other lands such as Geoff, Greyhawk, Sunndi, Celene and Veluna essentially treat women as equals, and they are as likely to be in positions of power as are the men.

However, even in these lands there are some gray areas-women might not be allowed to join a mercenaries' guild, for instance, or be allowed into certain bars or taverns. Conversely, women who prove themselves to be Joan of Arcs, Boudiceas (I know I spelt that name wrong-my apologies) or similar to many of the early and medieval women church leaders and thinkers, they can break the mould.

Dwarves and orcs are more oppressive of their women, elves and halflings are not.

As such, the actual status of women in the setting is a hotchpotch of different attitudes and beliefs, some enlightened, some not. There are some times you need to break the mold, but there are other times when you don't have to deal with any of that crap.

Having such an uneven, disparate approach to the setting is, in my mind, much more believable and interesting than simply imposing a one-size-fits-all solution. Would something like that be more acceptable to female gamers, than making everyone arbitrarily equal?

 

[Dirigible]

What does "historical precedence" have to do with Eberron?

Exactly my point

 

[Remathilis]

Aurala is Queen of Aundair - small correction there. Also, there is no mayor of Stormreach - it's governed by the Harbour Lord and four Coin Lords, and only two of the Coin Lords are women - the gnome Kirris Sel Shadra and the human Paulo Omaren.

Something else which is (sadly) notable, and a lot of people express surprise when they hear it: Jaela Daran, the Keeper of the Flame, is black; Five Nations describes her as having "grey eyes, short-cropped dark hair, and a chocolate-coloured complexion".

This is something I try to stress in my own Eberron games, too: the colour of someone's skin is thoroughly dissociated from their nationality, because the original humans of Sarlona who fled to colonise Khorvaire were from all different ethnic groups; anyone you meet might look "European", "African", "Asian", or like any other real-world ethnicity.

And thats what I get for trying to do it without looking at the book.

The "Mayor of Stormreach" thing is probably an artifact from playing DDO. I noticed there is a lot of difference between that Stormreach and the one in Secrets of Xen'drik.

As for Jaela Daran, I made a note of her "race" in a post not too long ago in wondering about humans of different skin colors. http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=194361

I actually like the concept of many different "types" of humans without there being "races" or "subraces" (by D&D standards). I'm also glad they got rid of gray elves and stout halflings too. Its another "Not just pseudo-Europe" but a whole special feeling of a world without human-racial and gender bias.

(Now them warforged, on the other hand...)

 

[drothgery]

What does "historical precedence" have to do with Eberron?

Yup. If the disconect with the real world is unsettling, assume that 'd20 humans' (or at least heroic d20 humans), while looking and acting much like the people of Earth, have far less sexual dimorphism (and so d20 human women can have just as much upper body strength as d20 human men).

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

You know, I've had two female gamers tell me they thought female characters should be weaker (in terms of Strength). Odd that.

I just told them that if they thought that way, then any female characters they play should have low Strength. No need for actual mods.

I think a patchwork of enlightenment is more realistic, but I don't think it's necessary to explicitly state what the patchworks are.

 

[Merkuri]

Woah. Are there any restrictions on what a pregnant changeling can change into? If the equipment really is created on demand...

Pregnant changelings are restricted to female forms. Many of them try to avoid being pregnant because of this. They find it extremely restrictive to have to stay in one gender.

Just out of curiousity, what about a setting where female characters are second-class citizens in only some parts of the world?

I'd have no problem with that. It would be a way for the DM to add the complicated issue of sexism and gender roles without having it be mandatory. If you don't want to deal with things like that, stay out of that continent/nation/city/whathaveyou.

I probably wouldn't mind playing in a setting based on a more historical version of medieval Europe where there is gender bias, but it would be a once-and-a-while thing. Like I said, I enjoy reading books where this is an issue (I'm going through the Song of Ice and Fire book series at the moment, and there are plenty of places in Westeros where females are considered inferior) so I wouldn't mind playing in a game with it every now and then.

 

[drothgery]

You know, I've had two female gamers tell me they thought female characters should be weaker (in terms of Strength). Odd that.

The other point to bring up here is that at D&D's level of granuality, it's difficult to do. I mean, shouldn't human, dwarf, and elf women be noticeably stronger on average than gnome and halfling men? And shouldn't half-orc women be noticeably stronger on average than human men?

 

[Merkuri]

I've seen D&D-like (as in, characters have 6-8 abilities that range from 3-18ish that define what the character can do) computer games that give female characters a bonus/penalty the way races often have bonuses and penalties to stats. It's usually something like -1 STR, +1 DEX. I seem to have an inkling that this was the way it was in 2e D&D, but it's been so long that I played that I don't remember (and I don't feel like poking through my AD&D book to find out).

I don't think I'd have a problem if D&D did this. It's certainly realistic in the sense that on average (note the "average" part... there are exceptions) women can't bench press as much as men but they can stretch further. It's just simpler that they don't give out penalties and bonuses based on gender, and it helps to back up the idea that women can do anything and be any race/class combination that men can. After all, as soon as you give different stats to male and female characters you begin assigning genders to classes, as in "women make better rogues and men make better fighters," the same way we now say "half-orcs make better barbarians and elves make better wizards." It may not always be true, but people will say it.