Sexism in Table-Top Gaming: My Thoughts On It, and What We Can Do About It

[FickleGM]

The "dwarves and hobbits go to the whorehouse" is offensive to whomever is offended, regardless of gender. If the specific individual happens to be a woman, the existence of 50 Shades makes no difference...even if she read and enjoyed it. If she partakes in that sort of humor regularly, then claims offense, then we'll have something.

 

[technoextreme]

To a certain extent, this is precisely how geekdom got started - the geeks were unable to impress any other group that they belonged. Your membership to a certain extent depended on having that experience as a shared experience.

That is one of the most blatant no-true scotsman fallacies ever created. By your weird definition some of the most famous geeks around aren't geeks because what they did is universally considered to be cool. Unless you really want to argue that the likes of Grant Imahara, Jamie Hyneman, Limor Fried, Adam Savage, and god only knows who else I'm missing aren't actually geeks.

But every social and cultural group has a high percentage of members that desire exclusivity because it fosters high commonality and trust between members of the group. You are threatening the groups cohesion when you try to force change on them, and frankly you are telling the groups 'it's me or you'. That's not a very workable solution.

There is no commonality in the group though. There never was.
​

 

[mythago]

By Hextor... So, if a man had written Shades, targeting a male audience, what would it be, in your opinion?

What do you mean, what would it "be"? What about having a male author or a male audience would make the books "be" something else? (I guess the author photo on the jacket would be different.) Your non sequitur aside, you still haven't explained your claim because Shades of Grey is a novel written by a woman and with a female targeted audience contains very explicit sex scenes, any female player who is bothered by 'the dwarves and hobbits go to the whorehouse' is engaging in a double standard.

Regarding your other points:

Sexist game writing and "free speech": You should probably think carefully about what you mean by 'free speech', because that term gets used rather vaguely, and often people forget it's a two-edged sword. Writing Chicks Be Trippin': The RPG is free speech. Mocking the dudes who wrote the game as loser neckbeards? Also free speech. Announcing CBT:TRPG is the best game since the Sliced Bread OGL and you particularly like the Putting Her In Her Place random table? Free speech. Writing a review that CBT:TRPG achieves new heights of lamedom and would embarrass the average Maxim reader with its juvenile bigotry? Also free speech!

When you talk about "narrative functions" and "author's intentions", it might be helpful if you expanded on that instead of merely presenting these phrases as if they were a) self-evident and b) clear rebuttals to any charge of bad behavior. Bigotry, even unconscious or intentional bigotry, is very often the enemy of good writing and interesting narrative; it injects the author's failings into the work. Is it possible to write an interesting game with these elements anyway? Of course! Are "narrative function" and "authorial intent" magical Power Words that make bigotry reasonable and beyond criticism? No.

Sexist roleplaying - Yes, I do hope we all know that if I am LARPing, and while in character I shoot somebody dead because they are role-playing my character's worst enemy, that I am in fact a murderer, and the police are not going to be especially impressed if I explain that I really did like Bob very much, but I was only role-playing murder and so it doesn't count if I, coincidentally, also happened to murder somebody In Real Life.

A more apt example than murder: "Am I a jerk because my character is a jerk?" A lot of the time, the answer is going to be yes. Surely you've had the common gamer misfortune of sharing a table with the guy (or gal) who just so happens to roleplay an evil, obnoxious backstabber who argues constantly, steals from other PCs, doesn't pull their weight and messes up important beats in the game - in other words, messes up everybody else's fun - and then whines but I was rooooooleplaying! when called on it. It's possible to roleplay a jerk without being a jerk; it's not easy, and it's certainly not automatic, as if a LARP-style hand gesture magically dissipates any real-life jerkitude. Similarly, it IS possible to play a character who's a bigot without ruining the game for people who are targets of that bigotry, but it's often very difficult and "but I'm just RPing!" is not magic.

Sexism within gaming groups - What happened to "very open to interpretation"? Do you truly believe that normal people cannot disagree on whether behavior in a gaming group is sexist? We might all agree on extreme examples, but look in this very thread for how people differ on whether less-obvious things are or aren't "sexism". This especially gets complicated when people throw in all the other factors that you mention in other contexts, like "intent".

Sexism within the roleplaying community in general, or, sexism between people that don't know each other - There's no rational reason to artificially segregate this. If I walk into a convention and join a game full of people I don't know, and somebody makes a crack about dumb broads, is that not "sexism within a gaming group" as well as "sexism between people that don't know each other"?

"Normal men" - You'll note that the topic of the thread is not Men Behaving Badly, or Them Other Boys Don't Know How to Act. It is Sexism in Table-Top Gaming. Also, women can be sexist, including sexist towards other women, you'll be wholly unsurprised to hear. (In the comments to the link I provided earlier, you'll find a number of women excusing or even justifying the whole Fake Geek Girl thing.) The whole issue of 'normal men' is something you dragged in yourself, in your earlier comments about how mean gaming ladies pick on "virile men" and don't understand manly behavior like pretending your imaginary alter ego is having imaginary sex with imaginary prostitutes. Nobody, that I have seen, has suggested that sexism is some kind of endemic and uniquely male flaw. In the absence of someone claiming that it is, need we really derail the discussion into a pointless and redundant assurance that the (primarily male group of) people discussing the issue are not hating on the male gender?

 

[Umbran]

There is no commonality in the group though. There never was.

There is some commonality in the group, or there wouldn't be a group. Don't confuse "no two are exactly the same" with "no commonality at all". Definition of the group is rather like definition of a fictional genre - there's a whole set of tropes, and if you have a goodly enough smattering of them, you're recognizable as a member of the group. The set of tropes, however, is fairly large. And what people fail to see is that there is no one trope, or even small set of tropes, the lack of which clearly means you aren't part of the group.

 

[mythago]

Do I seem like someone who is afraid to rock the boat?

Well, actually, yes.

That is, while you certainly don't seem afraid to go into a towering, operating rage about matters on which you have strong feelings, over and over again you caution against behavior that is "rocking the boat" in real life. It might mess up the gaming group! We might have to call in the authorities! (i.e., the people running a convention, whose job it is, in part, to insure that the convention goes well for everyone). Confront Bob by out-geeking him so that you can turn it into a friendly trivia match, or deferentially and politely beg for him to let you play! And we mustn't be confrontational; Bad Things Could Happen, as we never know where the brutal sword of Justice might fall or what might happen. (A return of the Terror, I suppose. Or the President declaring martial law at GenCon.)

As billd91 already said, if Bob is being a jerk, then the problem is Bob, and we deal with Bob. There is no moral obligation for the players, the game and the community to bend over backward to work around Bob's issues, and should not prioritize Bob's inclusion and comfort over everyone else's. At a con, if Bob is violating the code of conduct and being a bad customer, it is very much in the interests of the people running that con to find out about it at the time and handle it appropriately - rather than to find out much later via social media that a lot of people are saying unpleasant things about the con because Bob was allowed to run rampant.

Does that mean there may be unpleasantness? In all likelihood, yes, because Bob is a jerk, and thus may not quietly accept criticism and vow to change his ways. That's unfortunate, but the alternative is to prioritize Bob over the people to whom he's being a jerk - which may be rather a lot of people. To suggest otherwise is, yes, to caution against rocking the boat.

BTW, you asked (in somewhat overwrought fashion) what 'triumphs' I have had in dealing with jerks. I will tell you what doesn't work: pretending that Self-Appointed Guardian has any legitimacy or right to insist that I 'prove myself' before I can be allowed to game, or call myself a gamer, or participate in games at a con that I paid money to attend just like he did. What does work for me may not work for a lot of other people, precisely because I am an old gaming fart, I've been to (and run) gaming cons, and I have run into SAGs before and know the drill. A 20-year-old who just got into gaming by playing World of Darkness last fall at college and whose buddies are totally cool with girl gamers? Is not going to find it helpful for me to tell her "Just look him dead in the eye and tell them you were painting miniatures back when he was still in diapers, and you have more gaming experience in your little finger than he does in his entire, pasty body."

Of course, one of the things we're all working toward, I hope, is a community where that kind of behavior is treated on par with borrowing dice without permission or filching stuff from a dealer's table. That is, negatively, swiftly, and with repercussions in case anyone else thinks it's a good idea and they can do it with impunity.

BTW, I don't think it's a bad suggestion at all for Alice Newgamer to call out the real problem: "It seems like you don't want me in this game. Why is that?" I don't, however, think she needs to deferentially plead for permission to join. That doesn't shame the SAC so much as legitimize his belief that he is the Guardian of Gaming.

 

[Umbran]

My advice is to treat this as the sort of minor hazing any cultural group does when trying to evaluate potential membership and go, "I'm geekier than thou" on them.

Your advice amounts to allowing people to be emotionally abused. Sorry, but I don't count that as one of the world's great ideas.

Turn your own idea around - the cultural group should be evaluating potential membership based in part on the question, "Are you a jerk?" and "Can you take beign asked to behave like a civilized human being?"

Don't focus on the sexism, since at least some of the time you'd be wrong - men would get the same treatment at least some of the time. Throwing it back at them is the appropriate response.

"Don't focus on the sexism," is really easy to say when you aren't so regularly subject to it. And throwing it back at them is *not* an appropriate response. That's turning it into an ego contest, and if you hadn't noticed those don't generally end well. We are not wolves, and it seems to me we left our poo-flinging monkey stage behind several hundred thousand years ago. We can, and should, do better.

 

[Celebrim]

Your advice amounts to allowing people to be emotionally abused. Sorry, but I don't count that as one of the world's great ideas.

What?? No body is being allowed anything here. No advice here can prevent a person from being 'emotionally abused'. If someone makes some one else uncomfortable, even intensely uncomfortable, no advice can retroactively stop what has already occurred. In this case the 'emotional abuse' in question is attack the identity of the person as a member of the social group, some variation presumably on, "You're not a real gamer, you're a girl!" Nothing anyone could advice to the person who has been targeted in such a manner can prevent that from having happened. What advice we must give must be in how to respond to that.

My advice is:

a) Wear your asbestos armor. Words can hurt, I should know, but at some point you have to develop 'damage resistance' to insensitivity, jerkiness, and teasing. I don't pretend that is easy, but it is necessary. Fundamentally, you should not be letting anyone, and certainly not strangers, dictate to you your feelings or any sense of self-worth.
b) Put as good of face on it as you can. It doesn't do to show you've been hurt, this just opens you up for additional bullying. Also, being polite and good natured adds to your sympathy. Yes, this often means treating people better than they deserve, but that isn't always a bad thing either.
c) Turn it back on them. Answer the implicit and explicit challenge. Some people are just jerks and aren't going to let it go, but many didn't mean to be jerks and many are willing to change their impression of you if you engage them. And like it or not, some of this is just biology. Deal with it on that level. Women in particular often inadvertently signal back low status and submissive behavior - distress cries, distress postures, losing self-control, threat displays, etc. You'd be amazed at what signaling back high status by showing you aren't distressed can accomplish at times. And I've seen women who are good at this, unconsciously imitating the demeanor of a high status male.

Turn your own idea around - the cultural group should be evaluating potential membership based in part on the question, "Are you a jerk?" and "Can you take beign asked to behave like a civilized human being?"

Certainly. And this is actually a major source of discussion within geekdom. Should we as people who in many cases were ostracized for failing to meet social norms, be understanding and accepting of everyone's antisocial behavior, and if not what do we do about it?

"Don't focus on the sexism," is really easy to say when you aren't so regularly subject to it.

I have the sense that emotional abuse is emotional abuse. I think it unfair to say that people can't empathize with other people's pain, and if it were true that everyone's pain was so individual to them that no one else could understand it then think what a terrible thing you are saying.

And throwing it back at them is *not* an appropriate response. That's turning it into an ego contest, and if you hadn't noticed those don't generally end well.

I'm speaking from experience here. I have had to socially integrate with a lot of different groups, many of which I was an obvious outsider in - from moving overseas to a 99% black nation, to moving back to rural America as a petwa speaking cultural foreigner, to working in construction as a college educated egghead, to working in academia as someone who is pretty far from the normal upper middle class progressive mold. Fundamentally, this sort of hazing occurs everywhere and in every group, and fundamentally I think it is simply attempts to establish social trust.

We are not wolves, and it seems to me we left our poo-flinging monkey stage behind several hundred thousand years ago. We can, and should, do better.

That we ought to do better I can hardly and won't deny. That we have left our poo-flinging monkey biology far behind I completely deny. Human social dynamics are still at a very real level those of simian tribal nomadic hunter gatherers. Any one with a biology background that watches a high school cafeteria or an episode of Survivor can immediately see that. For example, have you noticed that in a business environment, the highest status male almost always gives way to the lower status males but only after he 'signals' or 'allows' them to pass first. This is classic herd dominance behavior. It isn't meant as that and we've actually progressed culturally to achieve that point - in less civilized places you still see much more overt dominance/subservience behavior demanded as a cultural norm.

Do I like it? As a borderline autistic that instinctual does everything wrong, I can assure you I don't like it in the least. But I've learned how to deal with it.

 

[Mallus]

Turn your own idea around - the cultural group should be evaluating potential membership based in part on the question, "Are you a jerk?" and "Can you take beign asked to behave like a civilized human being?"

Yeah, I kinda though the notion that nerd socializing is defined by tribes engaged agonistic one-upsmanship over who knows more Who, Trek, and Forgotten Realms minutiae was, well, an unflattering caricature. The worst of us. A joke. It certainly hasn't been my personal experience of nerdery, ie various genre fandoms.

My social circles evaluated 'potential members' using criteria like, "Hey, do you like Star Trek/Babylon 5/LotR? Cool!", "Do you play D&D/RPGs? Cool!", and most importantly, "Are you a jerk? No. Cool!".

(actually, we other criteria involving liking the films of Wes Anderson, clever-talk, and drinking, but, as with all things, that's negotiable)

"Don't focus on the sexism," is really easy to say when you aren't so regularly subject to it.

I usually dislike using the term 'privilege' in it's current mostly-divorced-from-economics form, but a guy saying "Don't focus on the sexism" is a textbook example of it. Makes me reconsider my gut-level aversion to the term.

I'll try to summarize my feeling on sexism in tabletop gaming:

I feel lucky, privileged even, that I don't encounter much of it. Because I don't game at cons or other public places. Because my gaming groups are wonderful people. Because the (limited number of) mainstream RPG products are relatively free of overt sexism. And, perhaps, most tellingly, because I'm a guy.

I think RPGs have come a long way re: sexism encoded into the mechanics and the language choice in the rules text.

I think RPGs are doing better re: sexism in the art. A caveat: I have no problem with some Frazetta-style depictions of women, ie fantasy pin-up art. I don't want or need every woman to be in 'realistic armor'. I have a problem when the default depictions of female figures are as slave girls, eye-candy, rescue-bait, etc.

It's also a problem that --particularly with women, but not exclusively so-- there's such usually a limited number of body types/ethnicities/orientations on display in fantasy art. Diversity is nice -- especially when you arrive at it through a diversity of creators.

It's not really a problem that offensive niche/outlier products exist. Nobody actually plays F.A.T.A.L. It exists only as a gamer in-joke. I'm sure the number of Cthulhutech --a game I've only read about in online discussions-- campaigns is also fairly small. It sounds like Legend of the Overfiend: The Game -- how many people really want to play that? I'm guessing a number small enough to ignore completely.

I think the stories I've read about con behavior are horrifying. I can't add much more than that. There are some badly-socialized people in our hobby. These people need to be educated and/or ostracized.

I think the stories I've read about bad behavior in private games are even more horrifying. I can't image sessions where one player makes rape threats against other player's PCs. How these don't end --abruptly-- with the jackhole getting thrown out mystify me. Again, educate -- no, let's go straight to 'ostracize' here...

Lastly, to be a bit curmudgeonly, I think there are some bad social justice-oriented criticisms/accusations of sexism out there. For example, the minor kerfuffle I read about online re: the Nibovian Wife monster in Monte Cook's Numenera. I accept that some people found it offensive. But I found the criticisms pretty shallow and unpersuasive; just bad readings fueling (too easy) indignation.

But that's fine. Sexism throughout our society still exists, even if we disagree at times over what qualifies as it.

 

[Lwaxy]

I have found throwing it back at people when they go on how I'm not a true this or that works VERY well. Either they get it, or if they don't they shut up about it at least half the time.

But that's strying a bit far off topic as I can hardly (or at least don't want to) throw their sexism back them if I encounter it.

 

[Celebrim]

I have found throwing it back at people when they go on how I'm not a true this or that works VERY well. Either they get it, or if they don't they shut up about it at least half the time.

But that's strying a bit far off topic as I can hardly (or at least don't want to) throw their sexism back them if I encounter it.

I would never advice returning evil for evil.

I would advice responding to challenges to whether you belong to group with presenting your credentials and an attitude of calm assurance (if only feigned because you are hurting inside) and good natured humor that you do belong and your belongingness is so great that it can weather any challenge. I can't claim to know how it feels to be excluded or marginalized because you are a woman. I do claim that I can know how it feels to be excluded or marginalized or belittled because I am me, and that I would like to believe that people are not so far different that we can't empathize with each other's common pain. I believe that ultimately, whatever the proximate cause of the belittling or marginalizing behavior, there is a common root and that the sorts of things that work in one situation are likely to work to some degree in others.

When I say, don't focus on the 'sexism', I don't mean don't notice it or to pretend its not an issue. I mean don't dwell on it like an insolvable problem that is going to forever characterize how you experience the world and all your relationships with other people. Don't let it become the source of your own low sense of self-worth as if that jerk is the one to decide what value you have. I say this not because I'm 'male privileged', but because I've seen over dwelling on the problem of sexism become itself something that women let define them and become a source of continual anxiety and fear. I don't say it with the slightest sense that I'm asking anything easy of someone, and even if I was telling someone to do something harder than anything I've had to do, so what? It's not like I'm saying that out of a low faith in anyone's capacity or out of any belittlement of the degree of the problem. I'm saying that because I truly believe it can be done and that you'll be happier for it. If I tell a person from a broken home whose suffered terribly in ways I can hardly imagine, "Yes, I've had it easier than you. You are right to wallow in your misfortune. Don't bother trying to overcome." or "Of course you can't succeed given all you've got to face.", I'm not really being very sympathetic at all. Regardless of what someone was facing I would tell them, "Don't focus on your misfortune or the size of the obstacles you must face."