Feminist adventures?

[Kaodi]

Core feminist issues in most industrial societies aren't easy to translate into the super powered slugfests of the superhero comics. They're fights over hearts and minds and for long term individual behavioral changes.

I think one thing you could perhaps try would be to literallize this quote from billd91: The heroes are approached by an NPC who can let them into the minds of other people in order to change them from the inside out, a la Inception. What is especially cool about this I think is this way you could add obstacles to be conquered via super strength, lightning speed and eye lasers without having your "heroes" beating the snot out of people in front of the cameras.

There are a ton of ideas you could draw from feminist literature. The only problem is that many of them are perhaps much too complex for a game. For instance, I am not exactly sure how I would handle a feminist super modelled on Susan Moller Okin's theory that feminism and cultural tolerance (of any kind) are incompatible, and could perhaps be caricatured in a super who was violently ultra-cultural imperialistic (though not a racist).

 

[nedjer]

I think one thing you could perhaps try would be to literallize this quote from billd91: The heroes are approached by an NPC who can let them into the minds of other people in order to change them from the inside out, a la Inception. What is especially cool about this I think is this way you could add obstacles to be conquered via super strength, lightning speed and eye lasers without having your "heroes" beating the snot out of people in front of the cameras.

There are a ton of ideas you could draw from feminist literature. The only problem is that many of them are perhaps much too complex for a game. For instance, I am not exactly sure how I would handle a feminist super modelled on Susan Moller Okin's theory that feminism and cultural tolerance (of any kind) are incompatible, and could perhaps be caricatured in a super who was violently ultra-cultural imperialistic (though not a racist).

I'm not entirely sure Susan Moller Okin knows her arse from a pineapple?

 

[Kaodi]

I'm not entirely sure Susan Moller Okin knows her arse from a pineapple?

Well, how I described her theory is rather simplistic. She thought (since she died in 2004) that multiculturalism was too problematic because most cultural values tend to be oriented on private life, and that the norms of private life mostly concern women, thus any burdens that came from a multicultural policy would mostly fall on women. From this she reasoned that multiculturalism should be abandoned. There is a short book editted by her that has an essay accompanied by a lot of replies from fellow philosophers, like Amartya Sen, Will Kymlicka and I think Charles Taylor as well, that would be a good read for anyone who is interested (Is Multiculturalism Bad For Women? is the title I believe).

 

[nedjer]

Well, how I described her theory is rather simplistic. She thought (since she died in 2004) that multiculturalism was too problematic because most cultural values tend to be oriented on private life, and that the norms of private life mostly concern women, thus any burdens that came from a multicultural policy would mostly fall on women. From this she reasoned that multiculturalism should be abandoned. There is a short book editted by her that has an essay accompanied by a lot of replies from fellow philosophers, like Amartya Sen, Will Kymlicka and I think Charles Taylor as well, that would be a good read for anyone who is interested (Is Multiculturalism Bad For Women? is the title I believe).

the norms of private or family life can't be isolated from wider social contexts in such a way, e.g. Bernay's impact on smoking among women.

Multiculturalism's living your culture alongside other cultures, instead of assimilating or being assimilated - I say yes to trying out your music, food, etc, and no to the Borg aka the distorting globalisation of multiculturism

 

[Kaodi]

Multiculturalism's living your culture alongside other cultures, instead of assimilating or being assimilated - I say yes to trying out your music, food, etc, and no to the Borg aka the distorting globalisation of multiculturism

Not quite sure what you mean by the bolded part.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Not quite sure what you mean by the bolded part.

The Borg were a cyborg race from Star Trek: The Next Generation. They assimilated other races into the Borg Collective, where the other races lost their distinctiveness upon being assimilated by the Borg. All of the Borg were basically the same - thought the same as part of a hive mind, acted with one purpose as part of the Borg Collective, and even looked pretty much the same. No individuality at all - no freedom, no self-determination, no free will. All of those things are irrelevant.

So, I think they were saying that he likes multi-culturism in tasting ethnic foods, ethnic clothing & celebrations, etc, as he did not want everything to be part of one overriding culture with no distinctiveness like The Borg.

 

[Diamond Cross]

To draw from a media example:

Batgirl (Alicia Silverstone) in the Batman And Robin movie = no no. That's the more rabid feminist type. That brand of militant feminism should be discouraged.

Early feminism = giving women the vote because it's fair and wanting to end things like discrimination and sexual harassment is the right kind of feminism. this is the kind that should be encouraged. But I don't know of any women in media that would be a good example of this kind of feminism since they seem to all be of the Batgirl type in the media. At least to my knowledge.

See, this is what's complicated about feminism. Is that there are different flavors of it, from the extreme militant to the more moderate.

And your stories can reflect that. A villain could be of the more extreme rabid type.

In one episode of the Justice League animated series, Gorilla Grodd turned all humans into gorillas.

You could have a similar scenario in which a more rabid feminist sorceress decides to turn every person on the face of this planet to into a woman. Just as one example of how you could illustrate the differences in the two philosphies, and maybe even help her explore her character's motivations for being a feminist. And maybe even the other players can learn a thing or two about tolerance and respect.

 

[wolff96]

You could have a similar scenario in which a more rabid feminist sorceress decides to turn every person on the face of this planet to into a woman. Just as one example of how you could illustrate the differences in the two philosphies, and maybe even help her explore her character's motivations for being a feminist. And maybe even the other players can learn a thing or two about tolerance and respect.

This would be a fun thing to spring on some groups, like mine. (Other players would hate it, no matter how temporary the effect might be..)

I can just see getting back from saving the world on the Supersonic PrinJet, kicking back with a cold beer, catching some much needed sleep... and then waking up with the sudden need for a bra and a tailor for the super-suit.

What just happened? Why is everyone a woman, suddenly? How do we fix this? And does this spandex make my butt look fat?

 

[nedjer]

Not quite sure what you mean by the bolded part.

Probably that despite being able to use fairly long words, I'm still incapable of formatting a simple message properly No bold intended

 

[pawsplay]

Eh, I did most of my SMART stuff earlier in the thread.

The battles for feminism's goals just generally aren't suited to solving via fisticuffs and eye-lasers. Not too many power-armored megalomaniacs threatening the nations of the world with his Killer Satellites if they don't agree to take the right to vote away from women and all that.

Well, in a supers game, there could be some. That's why it's supers. Trying to create a complex feminist misses the point, IMO. A feminist superhero, at some level, is someone who identifies anti-feminist enemies and shoots them with eye-lasers. It doesn't have to be the Manturion, it could just as easily be some mad scientist who calls female superheroes "little girl" while he's mocking them in combat, or a mutant revolutionary terrorist who surrounds himself with "Bond girls." You can have reactionary female supervillains who insist the woman's place is the home, or essentialist supervillains who insist, even as they rob banks and/or take over the city with dinosaurs/nanites/zombies that what women really want is a man who can master them.

Wonder Woman is a feminist superhero, conceived as such. At some level, so is Catwoman.