Sexism and presumed sexism in RPGs

[Lwaxy]

The magic tattoos actually make sense. Just that most scantly clad fantasy women don't have those

Half naked fighters, no matter if male or female, only make sense in some settings. Like a climate like the Mwangi expanse. Or gladiators, maybe, as they are to put up a show. But I find it as unrealistic to see battle scenes in movies where the males don't wear anything but pants and their weapon.

Sexism in regards to male images is slightly different than what's directed at women, but not any less annoying. The need to show men as always strong and muscular is actually less pronounced in RPGs, I think partly because classes have different HPs and you can't put up a muscular, strong wizard so often

 

[Loonook]

The magic tattoos actually make sense. Just that most scantly clad fantasy women don't have those

That we can see... Amirite? ::chucks under ribs:: Ehh???

But seriously, magic tattoos, bracelets, amulets, hair-pins, rings, cloaks, boots... The variety of magics that affect AC and other tactical advantages are limitless. And that's just how it works.

Half naked fighters, no matter if male or female, only make sense in some settings. Like a climate like the Mwangi expanse. Or gladiators, maybe, as they are to put up a show. But I find it as unrealistic to see battle scenes in movies where the males don't wear anything but pants and their weapon.

Sexism in regards to male images is slightly different than what's directed at women, but not any less annoying. The need to show men as always strong and muscular is actually less pronounced in RPGs, I think partly because classes have different HPs and you can't put up a muscular, strong wizard so often

There are half-naked fighters in plenty of places... And the idea that strong, muscular spellslinger don't exist? I'll point back at Ripper Leatherman Hennet on that one . Sadly I can recall Volo and a lone Exarch of the Great Game who had a ridiculous name as the out-of-shape fat men of D&D. And I've been playing for coming up to a third decade .

As stated previously, with a high Dex and an item of protection from elements the need for armor is reduced. There are also glam armors, those cool little retractable torc armors from a Dragon supplement back in the day, and AC boosters about to make you safe.

Also, what monk do you know who is walking about dressed to the nines? A gentleman Monk with a top hat and a domino mask?

On second thought... Make it so moderator .

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

My Google image search for "Female Warrior" returned about 57,300,000 results in about 0.35 seconds.

Of the first 23 images (page 1):

16 display cleavage
5 have "breast-shaped" breastpieces
1 is almost butt-naked from behind - so you can't see her cleavage
1 is wearing a tabard

Most have exposed midriffs and/or thighs.



On the other hand, if I were a girl, I'd strap down my wobbly parts, put on a suit of full plate and be good to go.

Just sayin'...

 

[Mallus]

I think that RPGs are perhaps the best way to reflect one's prejudices. I've often noticed that I associate certain roles with certain genders, ages etc. Even certain NPCs with certain body-types always get specific roles.
If I have to create a town sheriff, I've noticed that it's almost always a strong man.

Creative outlets have a wonderful way of pointing out the things you think are frequently at odds with what you claim you think.

A friend of mine pointed out there was a significant difference in the portrayal of gender roles in my last two long-running D&D campaigns: in the second, there were few important female NPCs, particularly in positions of power. Things were different in first.

However, the first was conceived as a parody of fantasy conventions (well, among other things). There was predominantly female religion that worshiped a deified geisha in temple-brothels, whose mysteries included the Trampsubstantiation --I'll leave it up you to figure what got converted into what-- and sported artifacts like The Bodice of St. Tarte. Priestesses had names like Tawny Portal -- it was her stage name when she was an exotic dancer. Their spells could make a blind man see and make a dead man... better.

Then there was the immortal socialite who achieved apotheosis at the hands of an elder, evil god. She was a like a bundle of cliched screwball comedy women re-imagined as a Cenobite. A transgendered woman who was one of the world's most powerful magicians --she and socialite-Cenobite once had a catty fight over one of the PCs (even though the trans magician already had a musclebound barbarian boyfriend).

Yet for all this deliberate mockery/stereotyping, that campaign was less sexist.

Because in the other one, women just weren't an important part of the story. Hearing his appraisal was an eye-opener. When I wasn't intentionally parodying various kind of sexism in fantasy, I wound up practicing it, by virtue of subconscious exclusion.

Wow. You just reminded me why I try not to read comments on any YouTube page, news page, or really any page at all.

You should --or shouldn't-- read the comments of my local paper, the Inquirer. It's a little like Birth of a Nation, if you removed all the cinematic innovation and replaced it with terrible usage of the English language.

To everyone who has the problems with this protagonist (and I understand why)...

I never had a problem with Covenant himself. It's not like you're supposed to like him.

Well, we can't argue if TanithT thinks a picture depicts a woman as submissive, weak, and sexualized.

Right. When someone gives you their impression of a thing, it's probably best to listen to them without marshaling your arguments as to why their wrong.

Note to self: take this advice!

Personally, I don't find fantasy art as dominated by images of submissive women. But I accept other people do, and I can certainly see where that impression comes from. It's all a matter of which images you give weight to.

It was my assumption that Joss Whedon had done a pretty good job of giving us hot chicks who kick butt. Thus, they are sexualized because this is FANTASY, but they are not weak and not submissive.

The creative team behind Xena did a good job too, even though it didn't shy away from skin, or skinny, scantily-armored women (hello Callisto!).

And the recent Spartacus is a whole other can of oiled, writhing worms. It's full of highly sexualized, even exploitative, scenes. But they're not aimed exclusively at heterosexual men (you can tell by the full-frontal male nudity and gay male sex). Such an odd show; inclusive softcore, splatterpunk fight scenes, more than a bit of the old I, Claudius, I Claudius. Frankly, I much prefer this to de-sexualized genre entertainment.

As for fantasy illustrations specifically, I find myself in the odd position of both agreeing w/a lot of what [MENTION=87695]TanithT[/MENTION] posted and enjoying Frazetta -- even the most problematic of it, Dejah Thoris clinging poutily to John Carter's leg against a gloriously van-art depiction of Barsoom.

I feel the same way about video-game women, too. I find most of it embarrassing juvenile and offensive, and yet I own Bayonetta and at least one of the Dead or Alive series (not the beach volleyball one!).

In the end I guess I don't have a problem with sexualized imagery. Just witless imagery, especially the kind that portrays such a narrow --and lily-white-- band of human desire.

 

[gamerprinter]

For my Kaidan, dark Japanese fantasy setting and supplements, while a general sexism point of view in a primarily male dominated society is maintained on the surface - this rule doesn't apply to player characters. There is one known female samurai in Japanese history, which says to me, that any player wanting to play a female samurai is OK to do so. At the same time the concept of female samurai, especially among NPCs would still be almost non-existent. The same applies to yakuza rogues, monks, temple clerics. While the goal is for authenticity in details, enough exceptions occur in history to allow female players or players playing female characters have full freedom to do so.

While no specific stats, there is an illustration of the famous female samurai, Tomoe Gozen in our Way of the Samurai supplement.

All the art for Kaidan products look to realistic garb worn by feudal Japanese from whatever sources - there is no cheesecake art in any way in any of the Kaidan products. Art follows authentic designs found in feudal Japanese society, so no chain-mail bikinis in any shape or form.

 

[TanithT]

Of course, but if I depicted a woman sky-clad in any works it is going to be construed as sexualized?

Depends on what she's doing and the context. Naked while fighting a remorhaz under Arctic conditions? Yeah. Sexualized on purpose, because the nudity exists for no other reason than, BEWBIES. It's out of place, and it's kind of dumb and insulting to the viewer as well as the character being depicted. Doing a Pagan rite with a bunch of other people of mixed gender who are also skyclad? Probably not, if there are no other sexual cues in the image.

Yeah... and when we have a holy warrior who is quite obviously ignoring a section of the human condition when it doesn't seem to be part of their faith to do so, and there is no discussion...

You misssed stuff. When Paks is mourning one of her first friends to fall in battle, she spends some time talking and musing about whether she should have bedded Saben even though she cared for him only as a friend. She doesn't ignore it, but she does feel that she has a special calling that is keeping her from mortal attachments of that nature. She does also express regret at never experiencing mortal love and having children, but as a soldier who knows her duty, she accepts the price of Gird's calling.

In short, your example is one of a holy warrior who is never tempted, nor drawn upon. Even Galahad was tempted, but creating an entire work where a beautiful woman who is in her maturity does not have any leanings or crises of faith? Again, the lady knight seems quite different and above her male counterparts in literature.

Did we read the same book? The entire second book is about Paksenarrion's crisis of faith.

Stating that a virtue like romance or sexuality is unique to the woman's point of view is strange to me.

That's not what I said at all. However, it is difficult to tell a story that revolves around sex and romance and not have it be focused in gendered viewpoints. Which there isn't anything wrong with, but it's not what I'm personally looking for in an RPG. What I value is human stories, where the essential humanity of a character is what really shines through.

I want a story where a woman can be a woman in a full suit of plate, a scanty robe, or a suit of clothes.

Thing is, who gets to define what a woman is? You seem to be saying that a woman isn't actually a woman at all if she isn't sexual.

I can find a dozen fully-armored women in a google search...

So can I, though I guarantee that lots of chainmail bikinis, cleavage and boob windows will come up as well. It doesn't change my experience as a female gamer of opening any random book of RPG source material and finding way more silly clothes and poses on the females than the males, by an overwhelming percentage.

It took me over an hour to find a woman who had a skin color darker than Tanned.

An excellent and telling point.

She wears the medieval equivalent of a sports bra... Is she sexualized?

Dunno. What's she doing?

This chestnut seems to come up quite a bit, and really doesn't hold up as an 'all the time' or even 'most of the time' proposition.

Purely by statistics, I think it does. Not all of the time, but a substantial enough percentage of the time to seriously impact the day to day experience of female gamers. And heck, of some gay male gamers I know who make hilarous faces and comments about too much gratuitous bewbage in silly places.

 

[Janx]

I think, in general, that's a major part of the problem here - one person can look at an image, and say, "That's horribly sexualized!" and another can look at the same image and go, "Huh? What? It's just a woman with a sword. What's the big deal?"

And this is a good point. Where TanithT brings up going skyclad and Paganism setting her viewpoint, even that's not a common viewpoint. Scott Cunningham, a big name in pagan circles had noted that often those that insisted on going skyclad had more interest in seeing others naked.

Not saying TanithT's experiences were good or bad. But some of those people likely got a little more from their gathering than others.

In the same way, some of us may be desensitised, insensitive, or just not coming to the same conclusion when we see an attractive woman holding a sword with some cleavage armor.

 

[TanithT]

Well, we can't argue if TanithT thinks a picture depicts a woman as submissive, weak, and sexualized.

Without actually seeing the pictures I would specifically put in that category? Yeah, that does make it pretty hard to argue. Let me make it a little easier for you with two words: Frank Frazetta. Not all fantasy art looks like that any more, but he was one of the major first contributors to the genre and his iconic influence can still be seen.

I'll also repeat something else I said in another post. Chances are pretty good that you and I had different formative experiences in life, because society tends to do that by things like race, class and gender. Your different experiences and perspective does not make you wrong or bad, but they probably are pretty substantially different.

Schroedinger's Rapist is not likely to be an important part of your fundamental reality of day to day life, and quite likely your "creep alarm" has never needed to be quite as fine-tuned due to this different set of circumstances. You may not understand why women are so sensitive and why they 'overreact' to stuff you don't even notice or consider a big deal, because, it's just not for you. It's not your reality. You don't see it, so it doesn't exist and doesn't matter.

Having a different perspective and different feelings does not make you wrong or a bad person. But telling other people that their different perspectives and gut reactions are wrong, bad, invalid, etc, or casually dismissing them? Yeah, I think that qualifies.

It was my assumption that Joss Whedon had done a pretty good job of giving us hot chicks who kick butt. Thus, they are sexualized because this is FANTASY, but they are not weak and not submissive.

Whedon's female characters are generally pretty cool. No arguments there.

While I'm sure there's pics on the internet of weak submissive sexualized women, most of the book covers I see today have strong leading female protagonists who just happen to look good in skimpy outfits.

Okay, but have you asked yourself *why* she's in a skimpy outfit? Is there any reason for this other than BEWBIES? Cuz when there is, I really have no beef.

What triggered my reaction is TanithT's nearly consistent chaining of the words sexualized and submissive and weak. As if every picture she sees gives her that impression. I caution that if we all viewed the same pictures, would we all come away with that same impression consistently.

Uh, Frazetta. And his multiple stylistic imitators. Yeah, if you took a poll, you'd get pretty overwhelming agreement that the female dress and behavior and body language cues are submissive and powerless while the males are almost uniformly depicted as powerful.

Short of Frazetta? That really depends on the individual artist. I certainly don't get that impression from every picture I see, or even every gratuitously sexualized picture I see. But saying that it doesn't exist in the source material or the fandom is kind of silly.

 

[Halivar]

Why is it taken for granted that using the female form for purely aesthetic purposes is a sexual fetish? It seems (to me) to be a very puritanical, very prudish way of thinking about it. Either that, or we just have really, really dirty minds.

EDIT: To countenance that RPG art (designed for aesthetic purposes) is sexist because it relies on positive reactions to the female form is sexist and wrong requires that I reject, on the same premise, every odalisque ever painted, most classical-style garden statues, much of modern art photography, etc. etc. etc. I can't go along with that.

 

[TanithT]

It then follows that just because you see a difference between Nude and Sexualized, does not mean others would see the difference the same as you would. Some of your nude may be someone else's sexual, and some of your sexual may well not be titillating for a third person.

I think, in general, that's a major part of the problem here - one person can look at an image, and say, "That's horribly sexualized!" and another can look at the same image and go, "Huh? What? It's just a woman with a sword. What's the big deal?"

I can not speak for everyone of course, but my personal criteria for believing that an image is gratuitously sexualized pretty much goes like this.

Is it stupid for her to be (un)dressed that way? Is that boobaliciously crappy excuse for armor guaranteed to be a fast ticket to negative hit points if she actually fights in it? Is she naked or scantily dressed on the Arctic tundra or under other conditions where normal clothes would make a heck of a lot more sense? Is she wearing high heels in the dungeon, and they aren't +5 and vorpal? Heck, even if they are.

Yeah. Gratuitous. And insulting, both to the character being depicted and the intelligence of the viewer.

More subtly, and much more subjectively, do I think the artist is focusing on a more sexy appearance not because it makes sense, but because it's the automatic default for depicting a female character? Mostly I'm gonna go with the "is it stupid" criteria, because if it is, that's when I start to suspect that it's also being done by default.

Please note that I do not think that porn is, or can be, gratuitously sexualized. It IS sexual, and it does make perfect sense to draw people naked or in whatever sexual costumes float your boat if they are, yaknow, HAVING SEX. Having sex with your plate mail on would be silly. And uncomfortable. So, yeah, nekkid is good in porn. Nothing wrong with it, either.

Porn is cool. It's the pornification by default of female RPG character imagery that has bad social consequences, because that assumption of a default sexy setting in inappropriate places is what tends to spill over onto the gaming table, and onto real people who are not at that table to be sexualized.