Sexism in your campaign settings

[Brother MacLaren]

In general men and women take different approaches to situations. There are exceptions (in both directions) to any instance I might give, but there are generalities that can describe difference between sexes.

The problem is that the player isn't playing a generic "woman," nor is the DM. Generalities are not very useful when dealing with individuals. Every character has a specific set of motivations and biases, and many adventurers are quite far out of the mainstream culture (like some superheroes - loners, outcasts, perceived as suicidal). Gender is one factor among many shaping one's personality - others include culture, religion, race (more like species or even distinct orders in a fantasy world), age, experiences, etc. And, of course, there's interplay between these. Some cultures amplify gender differences, others downplay it.

There are these online tests that are meant to determine your gender from answers to various questions. I recall that most of my friends tested pretty near the middle (55% female, 45% male, or vice-versa) with quite a few ending up either 50/50 or on the "wrong" side. There are other factors that are much more influential.

I'd have to say that in 21st-century America, based on the people I know, gender does not appear to be among the top three significant factors in one's behavior and worldview; those would be religion (degree of observance as well as the denomination), political alignment, and age. Race and education/job are also very high up there.

What I meant by mentioning LOTR, by the way, was not the gender roles per se, but rather the idea that there were countries where people were just so darn good that there was no crime, no poverty, no misery. Because the story really isn't set much there, it's tolerable. But, if there were a lot more interaction with the inhabitants of the Shire or Rivendell it would have become grating to read about countries where everybody is so much better than we are. Likewise for medieval kingdoms without slavery, sexism, caste systems, or oppression - it works fine as the refuge between adventures for your typical dungeon crawl, but if there's a lot of interaction with the locals I'd rather that they have most of the problems that we've had.

 

[MerakSpielman]

I don't have sexism in my campaigns, though there might be an occasional sexist NPC. It's too much trouble for too little flavor. Plus, with a group composed of 4 women (one of whom is my wife) and only 2 men, it might be a bit dangerous.

 

[StalkingBlue]

In my experience most male DMs (including me) fall into one of four traps:

1. Women Are Invisible
2. Women Are Silent
3. Women Are Sex Objects
4. Women Are Men

All of 1-3 are problems in the game, although I haven't seen 4. To be fair, I'm getting the impression that only some part of that is the way S'mon presents female NPCs - a major part is how some of the male players react to female NPCs and immediately discard them as either pure eye candy or potentially lethal traps best given a wide berth. Certainly talking to such female NPCs or trying to build political rapport to any of them has never occurred to any of the male players. I'm afraid I have been taking my lead from them on a number of occasions, especially in the first couple of months or so after I joined the game.
OTOh, to try and be fair to us players, female NPCs in the game are sorta easy to discard. As S'mon himself has said earlier in this thread, they all seem to fit either one of two sterotypes:
- young, seductive, often scantily-clad, usually in positions where they are either consort to someone in power or easy to perceive as such; or
- withered crones who slink up from somewhere whispering scary words of omen, upgrading the enchantments on the hero's weapon, to then fade away and become invisible again.
I know S'mon is well able to portray women, for example in my game he has played a believable, strong female PC who doesn't fit either of the sterotypes from his own game.

I suspect that if I were to make female PCs who conformed to the above sterotypes, it would be easier for the group to place them in context and find a stance towards them. It still wouldn't give me a better chance to succeed on the political stage the campaign focus is moving to, but it might lessen puzzlement and friction as people try to wrestle my characters into a shape (I feel) more comfortable for them to deal with.

I don't think any guy has an excuse for doing this; especially if there are women in the group. I myself have being trying hard to overcome this, but with only limited success.

My respect to you for being aware of it and working on it, that is what counts. If you have women in the group, maybe they'd be happy to give you feedback or make suggestions?

I have only recently realised I have one player in my game for whom race issues may be somewhat sensitive. Much of my game setting as I present it is built on inherent mutual racism and distrust between various humanoid races, but I've realised I'll need to ease up on that and learn to see the signs of where I might be going too far, making the game unfun for that player.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I've asked S'mon whether he'd consider giving female PCs a break as compared to female NPCs, but apparently that is not an option. His stance as I understand it is that while it might help the female players, it would break the verisimilitude of his setting.

Actually, I would imagine that it would enhance the verisimilitude of the setting. As I understand it, making a woman effectively an honorary man is a way that people frequently deal with women who are successful in male-dominated professions--especially when the woman in question an exception. This enables people to acknowledge the reality that this particular woman is a skilled contributor in the field and to make use of the skills she has to offer without giving up the social structure in which they work.

I'm sure that a lot of 16th and 17th century englishmen would have vehemently objected to taking orders from women in general (The Taming of the Shrew being but one of many commentaries on the subject) but they made an exception for Queen Elizabeth.

 

[StalkingBlue]

Actually, I would imagine that it would enhance the verisimilitude of the setting. As I understand it, making a woman effectively an honorary man is a way that people frequently deal with women who are successful in male-dominated professions--especially when the woman in question an exception. This enables people to acknowledge the reality that this particular woman is a skilled contributor in the field and to make use of the skills she has to offer without giving up the social structure in which they work.

Hm yup, very good point. That's been precisely my experience in real life working in two extremely male-dominated professions, as well as in the martial arts.

I'm sure that a lot of 16th and 17th century englishmen would have vehemently objected to taking orders from women in general (The Taming of the Shrew being but one of many commentaries on the subject) but they made an exception for Queen Elizabeth.

Yeah well, I feel more like in the play than in the real world on that one...

 

[GSHamster]

I've asked S'mon whether he'd consider giving female PCs a break as compared to female NPCs, but apparently that is not an option. His stance as I understand it is that while it might help the female players, it would break the verisimilitude of his setting.

As neither are options at this stage, that would argue in favour of me leaving the game. :\

The only other thing I can see is that maybe you'd consider playing a male character, for example, a big dumb brute with a large sword.

I'd leave the game. You don't enjoy it. It doesn't look like it's going to change. You don't really seem to have a choice.

A final thought for S'mon is that sexism may be a worthwhile challenge for a female PC to overcome. The key word here, however, is "overcome". Like every other type of challenge, a player needs to be able to triumph over the challenge. If she will *never* be able to overcome the challenge, if victory is forever out of reach, the game becomes pointless and frustrating. And overcoming the challenge of sexism means that the NPCs of the setting grow to respect and accept the PC. If the DM decides that this will never happen, you're just going to lose female players.

A really good example of this is how R.A. Salvatore is handling Drizzt. In the beginning of the series, he's a total outcast because of his race. But now many of the societies in the North are beginning to accept him, and it is a source of triumph for him. Sure, he had to earn it the hard way, but he did eventually earn it.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

All of 1-3 are problems in the game, although I haven't seen 4. To be fair, I'm getting the impression that only some part of that is the way S'mon presents female NPCs - a major part is how some of the male players react to female NPCs and immediately discard them as either pure eye candy or potentially lethal traps best given a wide berth. Certainly talking to such female NPCs or trying to build political rapport to any of them has never occurred to any of the male players. I'm afraid I have been taking my lead from them on a number of occasions, especially in the first couple of months or so after I joined the game.
OTOh, to try and be fair to us players, female NPCs in the game are sorta easy to discard. As S'mon himself has said earlier in this thread, they all seem to fit either one of two sterotypes:
- young, seductive, often scantily-clad, usually in positions where they are either consort to someone in power or easy to perceive as such; or
- withered crones who slink up from somewhere whispering scary words of omen, upgrading the enchantments on the hero's weapon, to then fade away and become invisible again.
I know S'mon is well able to portray women, for example in my game he has played a believable, strong female PC who doesn't fit either of the sterotypes from his own game.

Hmmm. Well, it appears the game is very true to its Sword and Sorcery source material then. I would suggest that you consider the genre of the games and its conventions in your conversations with S'mon on the issue. I'd suggest acknowledging that those descriptions really DO summarize the way women are often portrayed in sword and sorcery fiction and that any campaign that eliminates that will be less recognizable as sword and sorcery (and that, to the degree players enjoy playing in a Conan or Fritz Lieber novel, that will make the game less fun). Then, I think the thing to bring up would be that slavishly following the conventions of the genre is no more necessary in a game than in a novel. Reportedly, Robert Howard wrote some strong female characters into his Conan novels and there are supposedly a few instances of such buried in the Ffard and the Gray Mouser stories (I don't remember them but apparently some others do). So there is room for his game to deviate from those expectations to some degree, to twist the stereotypes and reimagine the conventions of the genre in some instances and still be recognizably a part of it. From the sounds of things, he has the skill to do that but has chosen to keep his world fairly strictly within the sexual conventions of the genre.

There is, of course, a risk to twisting genre conventions. If you do it too much, the story ceases to be recognizable as the genre (for instance, IMO Marion Zimmer Bradley's _Mists of Avalon_ is recognizable as a pseudo-pagan feminist tract not as an Arthurian story--her changes went too far).

I suspect that if I were to make female PCs who conformed to the above sterotypes, it would be easier for the group to place them in context and find a stance towards them. It still wouldn't give me a better chance to succeed on the political stage the campaign focus is moving to, but it might lessen puzzlement and friction as people try to wrestle my characters into a shape (I feel) more comfortable for them to deal with.

Playing with the genre is probably a good option for you as well. I would imagine that it's a lot harder to try to make someone who is essentially a character from another genre fit within the sword and sorcery conventions than it is to take a character from within those conventions and give her a few twists that make her a strong, successful, and convincing character who still fits into the world. Taking a character who appears to fit one of the assigned roles and then fleshing her out into three dimensions would probably be easier than trying to create a new role entirely (though, as I said before, I think the "honorary man" angle has a lot of merit).

 

[randomling]

Playing with the genre is probably a good option for you as well. I would imagine that it's a lot harder to try to make someone who is essentially a character from another genre fit within the sword and sorcery conventions than it is to take a character from within those conventions and give her a few twists that make her a strong, successful, and convincing character who still fits into the world. Taking a character who appears to fit one of the assigned roles and then fleshing her out into three dimensions would probably be easier than trying to create a new role entirely (though, as I said before, I think the "honorary man" angle has a lot of merit).

I'm not entirely convinced - either that my information-brokering rogue and StalkingBlue's politicking witch are so far removed from genre conventions that they're difficult to fit into the game, or that I particularly want to play an honourary man (if I wanted to play a male PC, I could. I'm not sure it would keep me from experiencing sexism at the table, mind).

Due to my lack of assertion at the table I've played a succession of seemingly silent and invisible women in S'mon's game, and I'm not interested in dealing with the kind of reaction I feel I'd get if I started playing any kind of highly sexualized character.

As a last note - I'm perfectly all right with dealing with sexism (in small doses) as a roleplaying challenge to be overcome. What I find extremely difficult is the "glass ceiling", where no matter how high level I get or how hard I work as a player, I can't seem to have much impact on the political stage that is becoming the focus of the game. And the more political the game gets, the more it hampers my enjoyment.

 

[mythago]

Get rid of the Black Death? It's like our earth without that bacterium. Get rid of the One Church? It's like our earth at a different point in history, or with a few historical events changed.

Ah, but if you recall, the person to whom I was responding was not talking about "the world" and "all of history," but a generic pseudo-medieval European world, in which men were assumed superior to women. If you're going to talk about Middle Ages Europe without the Christian Church, or without the Black Death, or with elves and dwarves and orcs running around in broad daylight, you've already changed that setting enormously; so it seems disingenuous to me to say that you can take the Church out of the Middle Ages and still have a "DnD-ish" setting, but if the only thing you change is sexism, well, you've ruined the whole thing and might as well go play Boot Hill or something.

As hong pointed out, humans have all kinds of prejudices, and they have expressed themselves differently in different societies. Picking one model--the medieval European conception of the proper roles of men and women--as set in stone and unchangeable is unimaginative. If the ancient Celts were able to easily conceive of women as warriors and leaders, surely a mythical DnD-world elven king can do the same.

(And as a footnote, the main reason women were assumed by medieval philosophy and theology to be inferior is that they were thought ruled by lust, unlike their male counterparts, who were models of self-control and reason.)

 

[Lord Pendragon]

´

On the surface, you would appear to be right. However, upon some consideration, your argument is incorrect.

I'm afraid, sir, that it is you who are incorrect.

The crux of the matter is that RPGs are "games". They are simulations, in other words, of social environments. If you are roleplaying in a time, world, or setting where sexism is an inherent part of the culture, then it is the responsibility of the simulationi, for accuracy, to represent that.

You are making the assertion that the simulation-aspect of D&D takes precedence over the game-aspect. It is here where I think you make your most egregious error. A historian writing a history, or even an author writing historical fiction, has a responsibility to Accuracy and Believability above all else. A history's purpose is to create an accurate representation of the past. A historical novel, to create a believable representation of the past.

Not so with a game. A game's responsibility is to see to it that all participants are having fun. If S'mon's game is not fun for all its players, it has failed.

And since it is a modern game, at its root, forcing female participants to play men, or be marginalized, makes it a sexist modern game.

What you are arguing above would imply that an historian, when writing a book about the civil war, should re-write history to imply that there was no slavery, because to do otherwise would "disempower" modern day blacks who read his work.
Or that a playwright penning a historical drama about ancient rome should have a female emperor, even though there wasn't one, because otherwise women would feel unequal.
Or that a movie production of Henry V, or Lord of the Rings, should show female soldiers, even where there wern't any in the original stories, because to do otherwise would be insensitive.

Not at all. An interactive game is nothing like a history book, a historical play, or a historical movie.

Historical revisionism is never a solution to anything. Usually if a female actress complained because she didn't have the option of playing the King in the medieval play, you would suggest to her that she either accept it as part of the need to create an accurate simulation, or that she go find another play to be in if she really doesn't like this one.

While I disagree with your entire premise that a D&D campaign is the equivalent of a historical essay, I do agree with you on this last point. If StalkingBlue doesn't enjoy S'mon's game and he places more importance on "verisimilitude" than on her enjoyment, her best option is probably to drop the game.