Sexism in D&D and on ENWorld (now with SOLUTIONS!)

[Nifft]

I think there's sexism because girls have an Int penalty.

"Why am I still single?", -- N

 

[Piratecat]

I think there's sexism because girls have an Int penalty.

"Why am I still single?", -- N

Really? I thought it was guys.

 

[Hereticus]

I think there's sexism because girls have an Int penalty.

"Why am I still single?", -- N

Heh... my wife said that female characters should get an extra standard action, because they multi-task better.

I think that games that included female players have had richer role playing.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

To my eyes, I find very little of the "Bad-Stuff"-ism that shows up in D&D and most other RPGs is codified in game mechanics. Usually, game mechanics- stats, power availability, roles & archetypes- are gender/race/region/religion neutral (though not necessarily fantasy race/species neutral).

Instead, "Bad-Stuff"-ism is usually found in:

1) Artwork.

2) Fluff meant to simulate the feel of certain RW eras and societies.

3) Players' preconceived notions (sometimes based on history or misconceptions)- as pointed out, the 1Ed chart doesn't state the gender of the prostitutes or pimps- most of us just assume the former are female and the latter are male because, historically speaking, that was the way the statistics shake out. There are male prostitutes and female pimps, but they're every bit as unusual as male nurses in the 1950s.

4) The actions and attitudes of the players themselves. If someone at the table insists on sexist (or racist or other "Bad-Stuff"-ist) jokes/commentary that are both out of character and irrespective of another player's complaints, its not the game's fault.

The problem isn't the RPGs, its the RW up to which the RPGs hold the metaphorical mirror.

 

[Darkwolf71]

With more female gamers starting to play for whatever reason, at some point in the future the mix will hit near equilibrium. But as of today, we are not there yet.

A reminder for the thread, according to that Sean K Reynolds post with WotC numbers, 4/5 of gamers are men.

These.

The vast majority of gamers are male, so if things tend to be targeted to that audience, is it surprising? It shouldn't be.

Even so, as many have pointed out, the game it's self is not inherently sexist. Individual campaigns, maybe and an argument could be made for the artwork, but the game mechanics themselves have been well purged of such inequalities. The gender of any given PC or NPC is totally meaningless in game terms. The real question is whether the game is better or worse for it's androgyny.

 

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

I think there's sexism because girls have an Int penalty.

"Why am I still single?", -- N

I have to say, there are some bad gamers when it comes to sexism. I once meet a group that wanted to give ALL female characters a -2 str +2cha. Based on the fact that men are stronger but women are cuter (I you not, they said that to my face, and I am reasonable sure I could have taken half the table in a fair fight). This same group had rules for…well lets just say rolls for intimate moments. I laughed when I herd them and may have been a little insulting.

However, I don’t think it is the game it self. I started playing at age 8, because a boy I liked played. In the many years since I have continued to play, weather I had a boyfriend playing or not. However at every convention, every game day, and every new group I always find at least one person who asks “Oh, who are you here with?” This year at gameday, another player brought his Girlfriend; she sat next to me to ‘watch’ with me and was very shocked to find I came to play, and new the rules.

I have no problem with nudity in the art, or ‘over sexed descriptions’. I have no problem with the lack of female minis (Thank you for putting 1/3 of the new ones as women). I do have a problem with guys that don’t ever grow out of the stupid “Girls don’t do that” mindset.

 

[Doug McCrae]

But I also constantly see comments on the site which reinforce the idea of D&D as a boy’s club, where women are an aberration. Whether it be someone trying to be chivalrous and coming across as incredibly misogynistic

Jack7 is old school and not in a good way. He can't be defended here.

or someone very explicitly being exclusionary towards women in their game

The men are the idiots in that example, the woman's blameless. The introduction of a single woman into an all (young, I suspect) male environment made them go all love crazy with eyes like the wolf in a Tex Avery cartoon.

or someone arguing that fantasy art is about naked women

Eh, heterosexual men like to look at young attractive women who aren't wearing many clothes. Do they have to keep it a secret?

ale and whores

Agree with this one, it's veering close to FATAL territory. Going on about whores like it's all a big jolly romp could easily be off-putting to women.

or wandering harlots

Same here, could be straight out of FATAL. I hope when anyone mentions this table they are being ironic or giving an example of how not to write an rpg. But for some, anything to do with D&D pre-1985 gives them a warm fuzzy glow. They love the lot, even the cover of Eldritch Wizardry. Which looks like this, in case you're interested.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Re: Female Minis

I've been collecting gaming minis since I started playing in 1977.

As you'd expect, most of them are male, especially the older ones. However there are increasing numbers of cool female minis. Whether they're sexist or not varies over time as well, of course.

However, I have noticed that the minis in collectible minis games have a female to male ratio more like the 1980s than the non-collectible mini lines, and most of the female minis tend to be spellcasters and other non-martial types.

While on a certain level, this falls into the "artistic depiction" thing, this also must be categorized as sexism at least partially codified into game mechanics.

CLARIFICATION: I'm not saying that having a dearth of female warriors in a set is inherently sexist. It does us no good to ignore RW differences between the sexes when examining games partially based on humanity. By and large, (human) women simply aren't as physically big and strong as males.

But RPGs and minis games based on them can't use the RW as an excuse to exclude archetypes. I want my female berserkers- I love maenads!

 

[shilsen]

Yep there is no more sexism in DnD that anywhere in the 'real world' (TM)

Having seen the real world, I would say that's a problem. But then I'm a cynic, albeit an optimistic one.

but I think a lot less in ENW. I think you are being hyper-sensitive to things which have changed. Original DnD held more sexism 'cos it was launched in a sexist time. The fact that you have played as the only male in an otherwise all female group helps prove DnD is not intrinsicly sexist. Yes fantasy art includes a lot of flesh (including male) but thankfully not so much anymore or in DnD.

I don't deny at all that things have changed a lot for the better. While I appreciate that, I'm just suggesting that more needs to change.

Yes some settings are sexist to an extent.. well surprise surprise that is because they are based on medieval cultures where sexism was mostly the norm.

I've always found that to be a really hollow argument. In my opinion, D&D does not do and has never done authentically medieval settings. If you're trying to do medieval Europe without the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of Christianity, the Black Death, the interactions with the Middle and Far East, etc then it's not authentically medieval and there's no logical reason the world should look the way it does. Especially with magic and dragons and dwarves and elves. A D&D world, by definition of all it contains, cannot look like medieval Europe. And people constantly ignore and gloss over utterly non-medieval elements in these settings for the sake of gameplay. So holding up sexism as something which must be part of these settings is completely nonsensical and arbitrary to me.

And bringing up Pcats harlot table is pathetic, it is brought up because is is so anachronistic

As I noted above, I clearly missed the context in which it was brought up and was wrong there.

How do we intend to measure sexism?
Has someone defined a "sexism scale"?

Hey, AJ. Long time no see.

And no. But I'm working on it. So far I have it running from "Things Shil wouldn't call sexist" to "Things Shil would call really sexist", but I think that needs fine-tuning

What would be acceptable as evidence of "not sexism"?

For me, as far as the game is concerned, it would be egalitarian treatment, presentation of and marketing towards people irrespective of gender.

A data point:

Of 30 or more giants produced in the DDM line, three are female: two of the ogres and the storm giant.

I found that to be extremely annoying.

I'm not sure if you're being facetious or not, but that's a case in point.

With more female gamers starting to play for whatever reason, at some point in the future the mix will hit near equilibrium. But as of today, we are not there yet.

Yup. I may be deluding myself, but I think a little conversation about that is a good idea, hence this thread.

I think if people's wives, girlfriends and female players would post to gaming message boards as much as the guys and increase their presence at gamestores and conventions, the issue would more rapidly become a thing of the past.

Good point. I think the veneer and presentation of D&D has a lot to do with why women don't do so. On a positive note, just from the anecdotes I hear at ENWorld I gather a lot of people are working (intentionally or not) to change that perception of the game.

Are the mechanics of D&D sexist, or are the settings in which those mechanics live sexist?

Put another way, are the core books sexist or is the Forgotten Realms sexist?

I'd say that the mechanics are definitely not sexist. But I think some of the settings and the presentation of females in those settings are sexist. Often subtly so. For example, sometimes they are presented in faux-medieval fashion and women are presented as much less likely to be in prominent social roles than men. I can't speak of FR specifically, since it's been years since I looked at it.

If, for the moment, we except the art (because that discussion gets complicated very quickly), I don't really believe it inherently caters to men, no.

I obviously (and I think Cadfan does too) beg to differ, but I'm definitely including the artwork in my opinion as well.

The game lacks support in several areas - from watching discussions here and elsewhere, I am not of the opinion that desire for support in those areas is gender-specific.

That's an interesting point. What sort of support were you referring to?

The less sexism I see, the more discrimination based on superficial looks (i.e. clothing, build, and appearance) I see. I think I will dub it "apperancisim" for lack of a better term. If a term for this actually exist, please let me know.

I would elaborate but that would probably push the thread into social commentary. Well, even more so than it already is.

Heh! As you note, I think we're already into social commentary here, but mostly social commentary based on the game and its players (and, I guess, publishers). On the appearance thing, I would associate that with sexism too, since the influence of appearance on women and how they're perceived socially is much higher than on men. Certainly in the USA, which I'm mostly focusing on here.

And since we exist in soeciety, I think that moves over into gaming and the people who game too. I often see comments on ENWorld like Jack7's comment above, subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) objectifying women in general and female gamers in particular. But I rarely, if ever, see comments which do the same to men. I've seen threads, albeit very rare ones, discussing how hot female gamers are but nothing of the kind regarding men. I've heard female gamers mention really creepy and bad experiences at gaming conventions, but can't remember any man mentioning anything of the kind. So yes, this is a social problem, but it's one which finds its way into gaming too.

I'm reading this discussion and I keep feeling like many of the posters understand something about this issue that I'm not getting. Where and what am I supposed to be looking for?

I'm not sure that's what you're asking, but the sort of stuff I'm referring to in my original post and elsewhere is mostly language, attitudes and marketing which works on the presumption that males are the default and females are somehow the other. I see it fairly regularly, but evidently many (most?) people don't.

Random points:

Does the game appeal to the butch and the tomboy in both sexes?

I don't think so, partly because of the variety of ways in which D&D can be played. I've seen men and women of drastically different natures, tastes and attitudes enjoy the game, sometimes in the same group. I think D&D can be marketed so as to appeal to a much larger volume and wider cross-section of people than it currently does.

A reminder for the thread, according to that Sean K Reynolds post with WotC numbers, 4/5 of gamers are men.

Good to know. I'm presuming that is the highest percentage of women playing D&D than has ever been the case, and I think it could be increased substantially.

I tend to agree with PirateCat: the humor of the table is that it was published, but also that gamers need a table for everything. I really wouldn't list posting it as an example. (And I'm someone who tends to side with holding gaming companies' feet to the fire on representation.)

I already admitted that was an error, but since I made it, I figure I might as well leave it up there.

I've not done a sexist society yet in game, but I have done a class-war in game, playing the role of a Union-busting goon and a Robber Baron as a DM. I'm a union man, myself, and I include those figures as antagonists for that very reason. I can easily see someone who takes sexual relations seriously doing the same for their game. Still, it's a good point to draw a distinction between settings and individual games.

Sounds like a fun game. And definitely agreed about the distinction.

A game geared towards men is not evidence of sexism if it lacks significant markers of denigration. The denigration and disrespect are what's key in defining sexism.

I will quibble a little with that as far as my personal definition of sexism is concerned. I have some issues with treating any gender as the default in most (though not all) cases, since I usually see no rational need to do so, and because even if there's no explicit denigration there's an exclusionary vibe which I don't care for.

Where D&D is concerned, I just find it ludicrous that a game based heavily on using your imagination is seen (or was ever seen, though I understand the historical reasons for it) as something predominantly for any one gender.

The game is what you make of it. If you don't want sexism then don't make it sexist. I've run a series of campaigns set in a fantasy 19th Century Earth (both Western and Pulp genres) using D&D rules. While I tend to stick with historical facts as much as possible I have greatly expanded the female roles from what was traditiional in that society. I figure if the world can have elves, dwarves and magic then I don't have to stick to gender roles exactly as they were.

Agreed totally. I have (as noted above) major issues with sexism being justified on the basis of historical accuracy. If someone is creative enough to have a historical world which includes magic and fantasy monsters and races, they're probably creative enough to do without sexism in it. Unless they want it to be there.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Part of the point is that there's no inherent reason for D&D to cater mostly to its male audience.

I disagree. I don't think roleplaying games in their current form (and I refer to content not presentation) can ever appeal to women anything like as strongly as they appeal to men. They are way too combat heavy, way too system heavy and way too number heavy.

I'm not saying girls can't do math, or that female geeks don't exist or that women can't be interested in some number-oriented activity like Bingo or Bridge. But in ttrpgs numbers fly around like clouds of bats, many of them serving no purpose whatsoever. You have to f---ing love them to play in a way few women do.

Rpgs that do appeal to women more are mmorpgs and Murder Mystery.