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Sexism in Table-Top Gaming: My Thoughts On It, and What We Can Do About It
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6204502" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Ok, so I'm done fighting with you (for now). Feel free to take up the steel again, and cross pens if you want.</p><p></p><p>This is obviously a topic you care a great deal about. If you want to write a great essay on sexism in gaming, do the following:</p><p></p><p>a) Get rid of the links or at least change the way you use them. Almost everyone is stronger in their own words than referencing someone else. Most of the links detract from your point rather than strengthen it, and you are also importing the opinions of those writers and by inference the writer's they link to. You can stand on your own. You can write a better essay than the one you link to in 'this is historical', and you can organize your points better and more selectively than the sites you link to. The only reason to have a link is when you are doing an in line footnote. The list of links is lazy.</p><p></p><p>b) Avoid the subject of rape. Speaking of lazy, invoking rape to make your point is pretty high on the list of lazy writing. If you really want to make a point about rapes depiction at the table, only go there if you can clearly show cases of writers normalizing, glorifying, or justifying the act of rape. Merely depicting rape in a negative way might be done in a way that is too graphic or pornographic, but that is a separate issue from sexism except when the author is actually doing that as part of an explicitly sexist ideology (see FATAL). If you can find examples in gaming of rape being normalized or glorified, that makes a strong point - but you are also likely to find it is a point that doesn't help your overall thesis since most tables even if they have a problem with sexism aren't likely to take it to that level (and if they do, they are probably beyond reach anyway). </p><p></p><p>c) Stay on target. You bring a whole laundry list of political issues and assumptions along with what you want to say about sexism. The more issues you try to address, the more you dilute your point and the more points of disagreement you potentially create with your audience. As a related point, don't defend 'feminism' if what you are really trying to accomplish is keeping sexism off the table. Feminists are an abstract group, like corporations, boy scouts, the catholic church, and government. Feminism is a controversial topic even among women, and even within feminism. I personally am rather sympathetic to the arguments of Christina Sommers in that somewhere along the line the movement got derailed from its original agenda. Bringing it up becomes another distraction. What you want to be defending is people. A really good essay might involve anecdotes of real girl gamers, not a diatribe about your stand on feminism. If you can make it personal, that's great too. Honesty is attractive and invokes empathy. A slightly less good but better essay would appeal to the women the readers know, or to their own experience. And maybe you can also write a great essay on racism in gaming, but this isn't it. You've bitten off more enough for one essay just in discussing sexism.</p><p></p><p>d) Be clear and specific. If you are going to advocate for sensitive depictions in gaming materials, you better define what the standards are and how to achieve them. Don't assume your standards are accepted or understood, because they aren't. There has to be a level that you can be satisfied at, otherwise you come off as puritanical and impossible to please and vaguely advocating censorship. And people have to be persuaded that your standards are good ones and worthy of adopting. Clearly define what you mean by sexism, sexual harassment, and so forth. Allow for the fact that we can make each other uncomfortable incidentally, and discuss what we do about it either as the uncomfortable party or the party that has incidentally given offense. And as a related note, be very clear and careful when providing examples. If 'WoD: Gypsies' is inherently racist don't just presume everyone is familiar with it and accepts your claims. This is a sub-thesis you need to discuss in detail, compare with your standards, and prove as a conclusion. And you better be prepared to demonstrate that the Vistani of Ravenloft aren't or are equally as racist by the standard you are using. But again, it's not even clear to me that WoD: Gypsies belongs in this essay, and not in another one if this is about sexism (unless the book is also very sexist, I'm not that familiar with it). So tell me about that Nibovian Wife monster and exactly why I should be offended by what is apparently a figure of horror, and why it is wrong for horror to have a sexual component to it? Given the implicit sexuality of Dracula, would Vampires fail by the same standard? Why or why not? Don't assume everyone understands what you are trying to say because the whole point is not everyone has your perspective. That's why you are writing, right?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6204502, member: 4937"] Ok, so I'm done fighting with you (for now). Feel free to take up the steel again, and cross pens if you want. This is obviously a topic you care a great deal about. If you want to write a great essay on sexism in gaming, do the following: a) Get rid of the links or at least change the way you use them. Almost everyone is stronger in their own words than referencing someone else. Most of the links detract from your point rather than strengthen it, and you are also importing the opinions of those writers and by inference the writer's they link to. You can stand on your own. You can write a better essay than the one you link to in 'this is historical', and you can organize your points better and more selectively than the sites you link to. The only reason to have a link is when you are doing an in line footnote. The list of links is lazy. b) Avoid the subject of rape. Speaking of lazy, invoking rape to make your point is pretty high on the list of lazy writing. If you really want to make a point about rapes depiction at the table, only go there if you can clearly show cases of writers normalizing, glorifying, or justifying the act of rape. Merely depicting rape in a negative way might be done in a way that is too graphic or pornographic, but that is a separate issue from sexism except when the author is actually doing that as part of an explicitly sexist ideology (see FATAL). If you can find examples in gaming of rape being normalized or glorified, that makes a strong point - but you are also likely to find it is a point that doesn't help your overall thesis since most tables even if they have a problem with sexism aren't likely to take it to that level (and if they do, they are probably beyond reach anyway). c) Stay on target. You bring a whole laundry list of political issues and assumptions along with what you want to say about sexism. The more issues you try to address, the more you dilute your point and the more points of disagreement you potentially create with your audience. As a related point, don't defend 'feminism' if what you are really trying to accomplish is keeping sexism off the table. Feminists are an abstract group, like corporations, boy scouts, the catholic church, and government. Feminism is a controversial topic even among women, and even within feminism. I personally am rather sympathetic to the arguments of Christina Sommers in that somewhere along the line the movement got derailed from its original agenda. Bringing it up becomes another distraction. What you want to be defending is people. A really good essay might involve anecdotes of real girl gamers, not a diatribe about your stand on feminism. If you can make it personal, that's great too. Honesty is attractive and invokes empathy. A slightly less good but better essay would appeal to the women the readers know, or to their own experience. And maybe you can also write a great essay on racism in gaming, but this isn't it. You've bitten off more enough for one essay just in discussing sexism. d) Be clear and specific. If you are going to advocate for sensitive depictions in gaming materials, you better define what the standards are and how to achieve them. Don't assume your standards are accepted or understood, because they aren't. There has to be a level that you can be satisfied at, otherwise you come off as puritanical and impossible to please and vaguely advocating censorship. And people have to be persuaded that your standards are good ones and worthy of adopting. Clearly define what you mean by sexism, sexual harassment, and so forth. Allow for the fact that we can make each other uncomfortable incidentally, and discuss what we do about it either as the uncomfortable party or the party that has incidentally given offense. And as a related note, be very clear and careful when providing examples. If 'WoD: Gypsies' is inherently racist don't just presume everyone is familiar with it and accepts your claims. This is a sub-thesis you need to discuss in detail, compare with your standards, and prove as a conclusion. And you better be prepared to demonstrate that the Vistani of Ravenloft aren't or are equally as racist by the standard you are using. But again, it's not even clear to me that WoD: Gypsies belongs in this essay, and not in another one if this is about sexism (unless the book is also very sexist, I'm not that familiar with it). So tell me about that Nibovian Wife monster and exactly why I should be offended by what is apparently a figure of horror, and why it is wrong for horror to have a sexual component to it? Given the implicit sexuality of Dracula, would Vampires fail by the same standard? Why or why not? Don't assume everyone understands what you are trying to say because the whole point is not everyone has your perspective. That's why you are writing, right? [/QUOTE]
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