Jack7
First Post
If the moderators will allow this then I’m going to explain a comment I made in another thread on Sexism in D&D. (I don't wanna link it, cause I was thrown out of it.) Not because I think the comment was a bad one, but because I think it was misunderstood by some. Let them read this and then make their own decisions, and if it is allowed for you to read my reply then you can read it (the thread below) and make your own decisions as to what I meant.
I was not being facetious in making the comment, as facetious means lightly joking. I was being Ironic, and those are two totally different things.
Now I also understand that irony might not translate well on the internet, in a purely written form, especially if someone reads something without knowing a person’s prior views or commenting context. That’s totally fair. Written communications are sometimes hard to correctly decipher. So it doesn’t bother me it was misunderstood, and maybe I should have expected it. I don’t expect anyone to read my mind after all.
In any case I didn’t want anyone to think I am in favor of women being injured, or of anyone being injured for that matter, for any particular reason.
My comment was aimed at what is to me the irony of this attitude: in the D&D game it is considered sexist to say that you don’t prefer female characters in direct hand to hand combat and therefore immediately subject to injury or even death, but if they were good at something else, less physically lethal, that this makes them somehow un-equal. (Actually I don’t think the game says this necessarily, I think this is an interpretation some have made.)
To me this is the same thing as saying that the only way my daughter can prove her worth, or her equality to me, is if she goes into combat and gets hurt or killed to prove that she is worthy of being equal, to say, my son (in the same circumstances). I have no interest in either proving any point to me of this kind, and I do not think that being harmed or killed is a mark, badge, or proof of equality. To me that’s an odd kind of equality and a weird assumption about what constitutes equality. Being injured or killed is no proof to me of equality. Yet this seems to be an uncritically examined assumption in some postulates, that unless females have the right in the game to be severely injured or killed in direct, hand-to hand combat they cannot prove their worth or their equality. That they will always be, in some subtle or unspoken way, deficient. I guess it is possible, as a mental exercise, to draw other kinds of conclusions, but pragmatically they would all end with the same sum - only by being in hand to hand combat can the female be truly equal, and therefore the result of this would be the injured or dead female. After all, let’s be realistic as a tactical matter, if you were an enemy, and were presented with two possible targets, a larger, more emissive male, and a smaller less massive female, who might you automatically assume would be easier to kill quickly, or who might you assume offered less of a danger to you in combat? And if that seems logical to you, not can you argue against it as a theoretical proposition, but if seems like it would be the logical move by many enemies, then isn’t putting females into hand to hand melee really exposing them to more danger, and not less? In a very strange way then they would then become the bait of the front line. Attacks would be more, not less, likely to concentrate upon them. And would that be equal, or would it just be more likely lethal? Save all my females from such logic and demonstrations of tactical brilliance just to prove to me how equal they are. (To those of you familiar with my previous comments along this line, that will make sense to you, regardless of your position on the matter.)
Yet if a female player is good at math, or let’s use a game analogy, if a female character were good at magic or clerical magic, or some other kind of capability but stayed out of combat (the close in knife fight), she cannot really be considered the “equal of her male soldier counterparts” because they do get limbs hacked off or stabbed in the chest. Unless you’re bleeding from a deep stab wound you’re not really the equal of the Barbarian taking it in the gut.
So women prove their equality by how much direct physical danger in which they are placed, so that they can be badly injured or killed, and it is sexist to think this a strange conceit.
But if flames are good at something that is useful, like math or magic, something that does not require being maimed for life, then that is not sexist because the only way to prove the value of the female is when she’s as dead or badly injured as her boy companions.
The right to be dead or injured is absolute proof of equality, and it is not sexist to say, “women should be encouraged to be endangered, this is how they prove their worth.” It is sexist to say otherwise.
But to say women can only prove their real equality with men if they are encouraged to be in a position where injury and death are likely. That is not sexist.
And the juxtapositioning of these two views seems to strike some with no tint of the color of irony?
Encourage a position that will result in danger, harm, and likely character death to the female, that’s not sexist. That’s equality. But have a position in which the female can be skillful without being maimed or killed, that is sexist because it is limiting. (Yes, it is limiting them from needless death or injury.)
But being killed, injured and harmed, to prove a point about equality, that is far more important a consideration than being dead?
To me this is a strange and counterproductively amusing position, both in-game and out. It says all characters or peoples must be equal in every way to be equal in any way, and it says that there is only one in-game way to prove your real worth as a character, and that is to be in a position to be severely harmed or killed. (You might not be harmed on any given occasion, but let’s be honest, you in the position to be.) A strange assumption to me.
Harm and death are self-limiting. I know it’s kinda strange to have to say that out loud, but apparently it’s not self-evident to everyone. There are no human liberties, nor any kind of equality, not in this world anyway, when you’re dead. Yet encouraging actions that make harm and death more likely for a certain kind of character, or a certain sex of character, is encouraging equality? It seems a contortion of logic that only our modern society could encourage as offering assumed proof of the theory of a thing while simultaneously and practically demonstrating the truth of the opposite.
I wonder how many females in the past would stand up and say, “Hey guys, I’m fighting for your right to stand in the front liens and be hacked to death as demonstration of your equality! You’re only as equal as you are injured or dead! Hooray, who is with me?” I also wonder how long such a leader for liberty would last in a stand up fight? Think some other woman might say, “Hey wait, I’m just curious, is there another way we might be able to prove our equality rather than getting hacked to pieces?”
Now does this say that in extremis women shouldn’t step to the fore and do whatever is necessary? I would never say such a thing. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Does this mean I would necessarily dissuade any female player from being a Ranger? No. Does it mean variously that I would encourage females characters into fighter roles? Or that I think the only way to prove the true value, the real equality of a female is when she lies in a pool of her own blood, because sooner or later she’s gonna meet somebody as good or better at killing than she is? No, not to me in either case.
Nor does this mean I don’t think women can be heroic. Or shouldn’t be heroic. Or haven’t been heroic and died in the line of duty, whatever those duties have been. (Though there is more than one way to become heroic, not all involving getting killed or harmed.) I just find it humorous the automatic assumption, the, in my opinion, uncritically accepted opinion is that women must fight hand to hand to prove either their worth, or their equality to anyone else in game. Or that doing so demonstrates a sublime enlightenment towards the best interests of females. If you really do think that then let me ask you this question and you can answer in your own mind. Think of any female you know. Would it prove to you her worth by seeing her injured or dead? Would it make her more equal to see her bloodied or maimed? Would seeing her decked out in armor and fighting for her life with a sword make you say, “Now you see that, finally I get it, she’s my equal. Before this I just thought she was some kinda robot-machine. But now that she’s disfigured and has had a lung poked out, well, I can finally call her Bob.”
Now I reckon some could have taken umbrage at my remark because they thought I was being either facetious, or serious even, rather than ironic. And I fully understand that due to the limitations of written words. And I reckon some could have taken offense because they assumed I was making a political remark. I understand that too. To me though assumptions like this are not political matters, they are mind-set matters. And maybe to a certain extent sociological matters, in some respects or in some cases. I do not, I admit, share the seemingly common modern practice of assuming everything is somehow really a political statement. I just don’t think that way. But I understand how some could consider such ideas as overlapping politics. But that’s wasn’t my reflexive assumption or what I was thinking about when I wrote what I wrote.
To me though I don’t consider the idea or ideal of female characters in combat as being some grand evolution of enlightened sublimity, any more than I think of it as so great an idea for real life. And I don’t consider the idea of flame characters proving their worth or equality through hand to hand combat as some great and grand gaming evolution. To me it’s just as likely a squanderous waste of a valuable resource. Though to be honest I don’t much favor men being hacked up, butchered, or killed in combat either. I’ve seen enough dead men not to be romanced by the idea as necessarily a great one. I’m not saying I’m against a necessary fight, I’m saying I’m against unnecessary dying when it can be helped. Call me funny that way. Or old fashioned.
Anywho what I said was not meant as a flippant or facetious or belittling remark. It was meant as irony directed against what I consider two silly assumptions. One, that women are better off for being able to be more easily harmed (though I know that most everything in-game, as well as many things in life, are risk-oriented, then again, there are more often than not simple and effective ways to mitigate risk for both men and women), and two, that they more fully prove their value and true equality by being able to be more easily harmed. To me those are silly assumptions and neither have anything to do with measuring anything about anyone’s “equality,” male or female.
Now assuming you ever read this it will be because the moderators allowed such a thing, for which I am grateful if they did, because I didn’t want my remarks to be misunderstood.
I did not ask them permission to do this however, and in no way hold any kind of ill-will towards whoever removed me from the other thread for two reasons: 1) it is their job to avoid trouble, just for the sake of trouble, and maybe they misunderstood my remark as well, or maybe they just wished to avoid a big fight over what they saw as a political remark, or whatever their reasons happened to be, 2) it’s their board and they must moderate it as they see fit and think best. I personally have no argument with them in any way. Hell, if they think I upset too many people and want to ban me then that’s their all too. I won’t protest.
So if they thought my remark as being more trouble than it was worth that’s their right and fine by me. They’re doing their job. Maybe they’ll let you read this and then immediately close this thread. Fine by me too. However they wanna play it.
But if you do read this now you know what I really meant. That being;
1. I am not in favor of combat injuries, 2. I am not in favor of females proving their worth through bloodletting or by getting cut or slashed, 3. I don’t think hand to hand combat is the only or even the best way for females to prove their worth and equality 4. I’m not in favor of the game promoting those ideals either, though I’m not sure it does, in fact, do that, I think the game may be rather neutral on the matter, and that players may interpret it one way or another. And finally I’m not against people who think differently than me on this matter, but I am in no way ashamed of my views on the matter, nor am I gonna retract them.
If somebody wants to discuss some aspect of what I said then if the moderators allow it, as far as I’m concerned, feel free.
I’m also though not gonna apologize for what I said because I was implying irony in my reply in the other thread. Meaning what I wrote should be interpreted by what I said above. But let me be honest too, I can’t prevent anyone from interpreting it in any way they choose. I’m not telling you what you have to think about what I said, I’m telling you what I meant by it.
However if anyone thinks I meant that I’d like to see some female injured, any female injured for that matter, then I meant the exact opposite. For that misunderstanding, assuming you got that impression and missed the irony, for whatever reason, I do apologize for that.
Well, I’m headed to bed.
Night all.
I was not being facetious in making the comment, as facetious means lightly joking. I was being Ironic, and those are two totally different things.
Now I also understand that irony might not translate well on the internet, in a purely written form, especially if someone reads something without knowing a person’s prior views or commenting context. That’s totally fair. Written communications are sometimes hard to correctly decipher. So it doesn’t bother me it was misunderstood, and maybe I should have expected it. I don’t expect anyone to read my mind after all.
In any case I didn’t want anyone to think I am in favor of women being injured, or of anyone being injured for that matter, for any particular reason.
My comment was aimed at what is to me the irony of this attitude: in the D&D game it is considered sexist to say that you don’t prefer female characters in direct hand to hand combat and therefore immediately subject to injury or even death, but if they were good at something else, less physically lethal, that this makes them somehow un-equal. (Actually I don’t think the game says this necessarily, I think this is an interpretation some have made.)
To me this is the same thing as saying that the only way my daughter can prove her worth, or her equality to me, is if she goes into combat and gets hurt or killed to prove that she is worthy of being equal, to say, my son (in the same circumstances). I have no interest in either proving any point to me of this kind, and I do not think that being harmed or killed is a mark, badge, or proof of equality. To me that’s an odd kind of equality and a weird assumption about what constitutes equality. Being injured or killed is no proof to me of equality. Yet this seems to be an uncritically examined assumption in some postulates, that unless females have the right in the game to be severely injured or killed in direct, hand-to hand combat they cannot prove their worth or their equality. That they will always be, in some subtle or unspoken way, deficient. I guess it is possible, as a mental exercise, to draw other kinds of conclusions, but pragmatically they would all end with the same sum - only by being in hand to hand combat can the female be truly equal, and therefore the result of this would be the injured or dead female. After all, let’s be realistic as a tactical matter, if you were an enemy, and were presented with two possible targets, a larger, more emissive male, and a smaller less massive female, who might you automatically assume would be easier to kill quickly, or who might you assume offered less of a danger to you in combat? And if that seems logical to you, not can you argue against it as a theoretical proposition, but if seems like it would be the logical move by many enemies, then isn’t putting females into hand to hand melee really exposing them to more danger, and not less? In a very strange way then they would then become the bait of the front line. Attacks would be more, not less, likely to concentrate upon them. And would that be equal, or would it just be more likely lethal? Save all my females from such logic and demonstrations of tactical brilliance just to prove to me how equal they are. (To those of you familiar with my previous comments along this line, that will make sense to you, regardless of your position on the matter.)
Yet if a female player is good at math, or let’s use a game analogy, if a female character were good at magic or clerical magic, or some other kind of capability but stayed out of combat (the close in knife fight), she cannot really be considered the “equal of her male soldier counterparts” because they do get limbs hacked off or stabbed in the chest. Unless you’re bleeding from a deep stab wound you’re not really the equal of the Barbarian taking it in the gut.
So women prove their equality by how much direct physical danger in which they are placed, so that they can be badly injured or killed, and it is sexist to think this a strange conceit.
But if flames are good at something that is useful, like math or magic, something that does not require being maimed for life, then that is not sexist because the only way to prove the value of the female is when she’s as dead or badly injured as her boy companions.
The right to be dead or injured is absolute proof of equality, and it is not sexist to say, “women should be encouraged to be endangered, this is how they prove their worth.” It is sexist to say otherwise.
But to say women can only prove their real equality with men if they are encouraged to be in a position where injury and death are likely. That is not sexist.
And the juxtapositioning of these two views seems to strike some with no tint of the color of irony?
Encourage a position that will result in danger, harm, and likely character death to the female, that’s not sexist. That’s equality. But have a position in which the female can be skillful without being maimed or killed, that is sexist because it is limiting. (Yes, it is limiting them from needless death or injury.)
But being killed, injured and harmed, to prove a point about equality, that is far more important a consideration than being dead?
To me this is a strange and counterproductively amusing position, both in-game and out. It says all characters or peoples must be equal in every way to be equal in any way, and it says that there is only one in-game way to prove your real worth as a character, and that is to be in a position to be severely harmed or killed. (You might not be harmed on any given occasion, but let’s be honest, you in the position to be.) A strange assumption to me.
Harm and death are self-limiting. I know it’s kinda strange to have to say that out loud, but apparently it’s not self-evident to everyone. There are no human liberties, nor any kind of equality, not in this world anyway, when you’re dead. Yet encouraging actions that make harm and death more likely for a certain kind of character, or a certain sex of character, is encouraging equality? It seems a contortion of logic that only our modern society could encourage as offering assumed proof of the theory of a thing while simultaneously and practically demonstrating the truth of the opposite.
I wonder how many females in the past would stand up and say, “Hey guys, I’m fighting for your right to stand in the front liens and be hacked to death as demonstration of your equality! You’re only as equal as you are injured or dead! Hooray, who is with me?” I also wonder how long such a leader for liberty would last in a stand up fight? Think some other woman might say, “Hey wait, I’m just curious, is there another way we might be able to prove our equality rather than getting hacked to pieces?”
Now does this say that in extremis women shouldn’t step to the fore and do whatever is necessary? I would never say such a thing. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Does this mean I would necessarily dissuade any female player from being a Ranger? No. Does it mean variously that I would encourage females characters into fighter roles? Or that I think the only way to prove the true value, the real equality of a female is when she lies in a pool of her own blood, because sooner or later she’s gonna meet somebody as good or better at killing than she is? No, not to me in either case.
Nor does this mean I don’t think women can be heroic. Or shouldn’t be heroic. Or haven’t been heroic and died in the line of duty, whatever those duties have been. (Though there is more than one way to become heroic, not all involving getting killed or harmed.) I just find it humorous the automatic assumption, the, in my opinion, uncritically accepted opinion is that women must fight hand to hand to prove either their worth, or their equality to anyone else in game. Or that doing so demonstrates a sublime enlightenment towards the best interests of females. If you really do think that then let me ask you this question and you can answer in your own mind. Think of any female you know. Would it prove to you her worth by seeing her injured or dead? Would it make her more equal to see her bloodied or maimed? Would seeing her decked out in armor and fighting for her life with a sword make you say, “Now you see that, finally I get it, she’s my equal. Before this I just thought she was some kinda robot-machine. But now that she’s disfigured and has had a lung poked out, well, I can finally call her Bob.”
Now I reckon some could have taken umbrage at my remark because they thought I was being either facetious, or serious even, rather than ironic. And I fully understand that due to the limitations of written words. And I reckon some could have taken offense because they assumed I was making a political remark. I understand that too. To me though assumptions like this are not political matters, they are mind-set matters. And maybe to a certain extent sociological matters, in some respects or in some cases. I do not, I admit, share the seemingly common modern practice of assuming everything is somehow really a political statement. I just don’t think that way. But I understand how some could consider such ideas as overlapping politics. But that’s wasn’t my reflexive assumption or what I was thinking about when I wrote what I wrote.
To me though I don’t consider the idea or ideal of female characters in combat as being some grand evolution of enlightened sublimity, any more than I think of it as so great an idea for real life. And I don’t consider the idea of flame characters proving their worth or equality through hand to hand combat as some great and grand gaming evolution. To me it’s just as likely a squanderous waste of a valuable resource. Though to be honest I don’t much favor men being hacked up, butchered, or killed in combat either. I’ve seen enough dead men not to be romanced by the idea as necessarily a great one. I’m not saying I’m against a necessary fight, I’m saying I’m against unnecessary dying when it can be helped. Call me funny that way. Or old fashioned.
Anywho what I said was not meant as a flippant or facetious or belittling remark. It was meant as irony directed against what I consider two silly assumptions. One, that women are better off for being able to be more easily harmed (though I know that most everything in-game, as well as many things in life, are risk-oriented, then again, there are more often than not simple and effective ways to mitigate risk for both men and women), and two, that they more fully prove their value and true equality by being able to be more easily harmed. To me those are silly assumptions and neither have anything to do with measuring anything about anyone’s “equality,” male or female.
Now assuming you ever read this it will be because the moderators allowed such a thing, for which I am grateful if they did, because I didn’t want my remarks to be misunderstood.
I did not ask them permission to do this however, and in no way hold any kind of ill-will towards whoever removed me from the other thread for two reasons: 1) it is their job to avoid trouble, just for the sake of trouble, and maybe they misunderstood my remark as well, or maybe they just wished to avoid a big fight over what they saw as a political remark, or whatever their reasons happened to be, 2) it’s their board and they must moderate it as they see fit and think best. I personally have no argument with them in any way. Hell, if they think I upset too many people and want to ban me then that’s their all too. I won’t protest.
So if they thought my remark as being more trouble than it was worth that’s their right and fine by me. They’re doing their job. Maybe they’ll let you read this and then immediately close this thread. Fine by me too. However they wanna play it.
But if you do read this now you know what I really meant. That being;
1. I am not in favor of combat injuries, 2. I am not in favor of females proving their worth through bloodletting or by getting cut or slashed, 3. I don’t think hand to hand combat is the only or even the best way for females to prove their worth and equality 4. I’m not in favor of the game promoting those ideals either, though I’m not sure it does, in fact, do that, I think the game may be rather neutral on the matter, and that players may interpret it one way or another. And finally I’m not against people who think differently than me on this matter, but I am in no way ashamed of my views on the matter, nor am I gonna retract them.
If somebody wants to discuss some aspect of what I said then if the moderators allow it, as far as I’m concerned, feel free.
I’m also though not gonna apologize for what I said because I was implying irony in my reply in the other thread. Meaning what I wrote should be interpreted by what I said above. But let me be honest too, I can’t prevent anyone from interpreting it in any way they choose. I’m not telling you what you have to think about what I said, I’m telling you what I meant by it.
However if anyone thinks I meant that I’d like to see some female injured, any female injured for that matter, then I meant the exact opposite. For that misunderstanding, assuming you got that impression and missed the irony, for whatever reason, I do apologize for that.
Well, I’m headed to bed.
Night all.
