Sexism in your campaign settings

[reanjr]

Regardless, since it sounds like they're not having much fun with the sexist culture, could you change or add some things? Is it possible to introduce a campaign region where things are different? Perhaps an "amazon" style culture or a place where the sexes are culturally equal?

I think adding an amazon culture would only accentuate the problem. Why does a woman-dominant culture have to be dominated by primitive, overbearing, sexist women?

Creating a culture that is subtley woman-dominant would be much better. Maybe the women control the money or all social interactions of the family. Maybe the monarchy is hereditarily passed to the oldest female. Maybe archers are traditionally female (and male bowmen are laughed at). Women do harvesting/farm work, while men do craft work, creating two distinct cultures in one depending on where one's family's income comes from. Women could be the traditional diplomats for male monarchs. Women choose mates and the men become part of the woman's family, bringing in all wealth. Women have multiple husbands (this one would be very strange, though, for logistic reason; probably a very peaceful society or there would be population problems).

Anyway... There's alot more of course. I'm tired. And sick of prejudice.

 

[Drifter Bob]

It is a good point that society in reality and history tends to be sexist, and women warriors are rare, but there are ample historical countereaxmples worth considering.

Celts and Scythians had women warriors. This is a fact. Scythian burial mounds (kurgans) have been excavated with female warriors buried in armor, with weapons, who show signs of healed battle injuires (including arrowheads lodged in their skeletons in at least two cases) the Romans reported fighting large numbers of female Celtic warriors at Anglesy among other places.

The norse had in many ways a much less sexist attitude than say, mediteranian cultures did. Women could own proprerty, could divorce for things like snoring or bad sex. Women also bore arms and fought. There are numerous points in the Icelandic Sagas recounting women fighters, in some case women fighers who were leaders of hosts. This is borne out by archeological evidence. There are also many legends of female viking pirates.

Female nobles left in charge of castles fought and directed conutersiege operations during the crusades.

There are numerous cases of female warrior societies in subsaharan Africa.

Women fighters were banned in Ireland in the dark ages under christian law, but they were frequently part of levies, forced to fight.

Medieval peasant uprisings frequently features women fighters. One excellent example were the militarily successful Hussites of the 15th century. Female fighters weilding flails protected the gunners and crossbowmen on their war wagons.

Don't forget that also during the medieval period and renaissance female nobles played leading roles in several powerful mercantile and aristocratic families, suchas the infamous Borgias, Mediciis and the Fuggers of Holland / Flanders.

DB

 

[S'mon]

If the sexism just grew out of the model as you designed things and you didn't really notice until your female players griped about it, I think they have a legitimate, but not game-breaking, gripe.

I think that's pretty much the case. I certainly never said "there are no female rulers" to myself or to the players, but there's a severe dearth of them in the area. The game-world also has plenty of anti-elf & anti-dwarf racism BTW (and intra-human racism, too) - the former can be tough on the player who always plays elves and dwarves...

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Aelyrinth's Haxan thread on Monte Cook's boards is a good example of a subtle female-dominant culture.. You kinda have to dig into it to find it, though. The females almost completely control Haxan, but it doesn't necessarily look that way on the surface. In my games I like to keep things as egalitarian as possible, mostly because I'm not a very convincing roleplayer yet and I don't particularly want to discuss any of it with my players (currently mostly sibs).

Women could own proprerty, could divorce for things like bad sex.

Good heavens, that would be embarrasing.

 

[Blue]

It's a call that ultimately depends on the group (DM & players). As was pointed out above, it's a game, and if something like sexism is really taking away from the fun for some people, look at changing it.

In my wprld (a homebrew), there is a lot of sexism. But not always male dominant. Even in the main patriarchal euro-centric human/halfling kingdom, one quarter (the "Western Marches") is ruled hereditarily by women, originally changing in a right-of-succession battle that almost caused a civil war. This is at odds with the rest of the place, which is male dominated.

On the other hand, in the dwarven kingdoms it's the sexes are treated entirely equal (though there is one additional council of mothers of the various great clans, so I guess women are slightly above, but that's not all women, just mothers.)

Now, I have more male players then female players, but they all seem to have fun, and that's the important point. I intentionally designed the cultures to have lots of grey areas because he have a mature group and the exploration of such is fun. Heck, one of the earlier parts of the campaign had the PCs choosing the idea that not all Orcs (who are definitely descriminated against) are bad.

It seems you already have a good dialog with your female players - bring up to them if this is an issue to explore, and if it's prelevant everywhere or just in the area they currently are. Perhaps their stonge female role models are out there.

=Blue

 

[Numion]

There's nothing as boring as a politically correct world where all the pubs have seperate toilets that are height-adjusted for the vertically challenged races.

Fantasy is at its heart escapism. Why saddle it with real world problems?

Look at the history, hell, look at politics today and you'll find no nation or religion where racism, sexism, bigotry and narrow-mindedness isn't an issue.

I would find realistic worlds boring.

EDIT: Let me explain some more. In realistic medieval world most people, including professional soldiers, would die of diseases rather than enemy sword. Boring. Adventurers would have hard time operating. Boring. How is then that sexism would actually enhance the game?

 

[Gez]

Some parts of my campaign worlds are, indeed, heavily sexist.

There's a few catches, though. The treatment of men and women varies depending on the race (humans and dwarves are the most likely to have separate places for men and women, gnomes and elves are the biggest believers in gender equality), social class (the local upper class may be more open, or to the contrary more reactionary, than the vulgum pecus), and culture (things are different in country A than they are in country B).
Also, there's always counterbalance. In Chandrale, the really sexist culture IMC, while the power is officially in the hands of rich patriarchal "families" (more guilds or maffias than actual bloodlines, despite the name); there's a powerful organization of female witches (the AU class), which is respected enough to grant its senior member an equal status to the patriarchs.

Likewise, Dwarven fighters are traditionally men, while dwarven wizards are traditionally women. So, a female warrior might have trouble getting paid some respect from dwarves, but they won't trust either a male arcanist.

Regardless of classes (both social and character), exceptions abound. After all, your class level is much more important than your sex for a lot of things. Even the most stubborn dwarf will acknowledge the worth of an "amazon" if she's above level 5.


I have never had any problem with the other gamers (and yes, there's a girl, sometimes two). They don't object either to issues of racism and xenophobia, or to the rampant violence, criminality and corruption. I guess that, if I were to present these things in a way which implied I thought it was Good And For The Best, they would; but I don't. I just say, "Here's the world, it's far from perfect, actually it's kinda screwed, even; but hey, you're supposed to be heroes, aren't you? You can change things, if so you want. It's up to you guys and gals."

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I think it's okay to do it - there certainly shouldn't be rules against it.

I don't do it, personally. Hell, the setting I'm designing at the moment doesn't even use primogeniture!

 

[S'mon]

Thanks everyone, lots of things to think about!

I think adding an amazon culture would only accentuate the problem. Why does a woman-dominant culture have to be dominated by primitive, overbearing, sexist women?

I agree with this - 1970s-style "sex war" themes have long existed IMC here and there, this isn't something I think my players would want me to accentuate. The campaign world has been around 18 years, so it's not very open to new cultures per se - but existing cultures do change over time of course - compare the USA in 1920s, 1950s, 1970s & 1990s. It's certainly a world where female characters can have viable roles & routes to power, the problem seems to be that certain routes seem more difficult for female PCs than for male PCs, and that the female players find this creates an oppressive atmosphere. In particular they find it seems easier for male PCs to be taken seriously by (male) NPCs.

 

[S'mon]

Perhaps a secret society of fed up women, armed and ready to ignite revolution?

I don't think this is a very good idea; but what I do have is some groups - arcane spellcasters and/or certain religions - who promote gender equality either for ideological reasons or because it's a good way of attracting the best talent. All kinds of religions IMC do this - CE (Graz'zt), N (Ksarul) LG (Thrin) etc. Mostly these are pragmatic male deities (or demon princes!) though; if anything the female deities are more likely to have gender-segregated clergy than the male.