Sexism in your campaign settings

[Arnwyn]

As GMs and players, do you think it's ok to have sexism inbuilt into the cultures of a campaign setting? Should it apply equally to PCs and NPCs, or should PCs be exempt from problems due to the PCs' gender?

Have any other players/GMs had similar experiences? How did you handle it?

Sure - it's okay if your players are okay with it (otherwise, what's the point?). I have a rare culture or two that are sexist (a couple male-dominant, a couple female-dominant) - and it most certainly applies equally to PCs and NPCs.

There has never been a problem with it IMC - but that's just me and my players... everyone's different. (Though, I've discovered, my players don't seem to get offended about anything. Guess that's why I hang with 'em.)

 

[random user]

I fight an uphill battle every single time to be heard at the table, but I kinda manage.

[...snip...]

The worst thing is that it feels to me as if the gender bias from the world echoes out into the gaming group. The same guys who have no problem gathering what I say and accepting my authority in the game I run, will happily and consistently ignore me at S'mon's table.

Are the other people aware that they are doing this? Gender bias is a slippery and often subtle thing, and well-educated and good-hearted individuals can still be a victim without even noticing it.

I remember reading this one study where they looked at 4th grade teachers. They were asked if they were biased in any way in the classroom. They all said no. But when they were videotaped, (numbers are made up because it's been too long, but the trends are right), it showed that they called on boys only a little more often than girls. But, when the boy answered incorrectly, they were twice as often more likely to give boys a second chance to answer the question correctly. Furthermore, they were far more likely to compliment a boy on a right answer than a girl.

When the teachers were shown the videotapes they were all mortified and consciously tried to make sure they were fair. They were again videotaped and they were indeed much more fair this time around.

When I DM I consciously try to look at each person at the table about the same amount of time. I *know* if I didn't do this consciously, there would be certain people I gravitated to (mostly because they seem to be the most interested in the campaign).

It can especially be hard to remain unbiased when you are getting environmental cues to be biased (ie the in-game material). It's possible that they aren't even aware they are really being biased. If this is the case, then some documentation might open their eyes. Or it might not... I'm not sure.

Just my 2cp

Edit: I was a little uncomfortable using a study which was vague because my memory sucks. I googled a little and found:

http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/papers/genderbias.html

which at least references several studies which you can persue if you want to get the actual figures. Though the site talks about Canada, many of the papers referenced deal with American schools. Not that that matters, except that I should have disclaimed at the front that it was an American study. I apologize for my Americo-centric view and not explicitly stating that it was a US study. Kind of ironic that my own bias slipped into a thread in which we are discussing bias.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

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.

Don't forget curses or enchantment. The saga of Burnt Njal begins by recounting Hrut's divorce on account of his being enchanted/cursed by the queen of Norway.

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.

Really? Which characters in which sagas are you talking about? I've read about half of the sagas I know of and the only woman fighter I've read of is Brynhild in the Volsungsaga. THe Volsungsaga is the least historically credible of all the sagas I've read and, even there, Brynhild doesn't do much in the way of fighting--at least not compared to Sigurd, Siegfried, et al.

There are also quite a few instances where one might have expected the women to fight if that were something common (specifically, the siege of Gunnar of Lithsjorm's house and the siege of Njal's house that ended in it being burned). In both cases, however, only the men were mentioned as fighting.

In the sagas I've read, women are frequently the causes, or motivations of violence but only very very rarely the perpetrators.

This is borne out by archeological evidence. There are also many legends of female viking pirates.

Such as which legends? If there are, I'd be interested to read them.

 

[billd91]

Except that if you're talking a standard "medieval european fantasy world but with magic" scenario, that magic would also very quickly be monopolized by men if it at all could be. That is, unless magic was absurdly easy to learn/get, you would see men shutting women out of the study of magic.
And if you had a scenario where women were he only gender capable of magic use, you would almost certainly see men declaring it "evil" and wiping the magic using women out. So again unless it was ridiculously powerful or ridiculously easy to learn, I don't think magic does anything to overcome the gender barrier.

Nisarg

My answer to this is, "It depends." It depends on other factors that tend to produce sexism in the surrounding world. If it's a relatively egalitarian culture already because of other factors, I don't see it being terribly monopolized by either sex. If it's not, again, it depends on how magic functions. Even the patriarchal Romans had legends about female sorcerers and seers. Now imagine if that power were actually real and not just in a bunch of superstitious legends. Maybe the Romans would try to supress it. Maybe they'd fail and have to come to terms with it, being as pragmatic as they certainly could be from time to time.
If you don't see magic overcoming the gender barrier in any circumstances, maybe it's you who isn't thinking about the wider implications real magic could have. I think magic could be a considerable equalizer, especially if developed early in a culture, because it could undermine the physiologically-based division of labor and political power between the sexes. If magic can have a significant battlefield effect, then the war path to political power need not be monopolized by the sex more physiologically suited to physical warfare.

 

[Drifter Bob]

that grant real spells, demihumans, and racial and gender equality, and yet NONE of these things actually change anything in the society to make it NOT like medieval europe, you are playing in a highly unrealistic world. And by realistic here, i mean a credible simulation of social consequences.

This idea that in medieval europe women were powerless is itself unrealistic. There was sexism and women had a specific place in society, but that was hardly a universal hard and fast rule. It can be taken so far in the name of realism as to make a fake world. Even in the most repressive patriarchal socities on earth women have made their voices heard, and wielded power. Arab kindoms in the middle ages were often ruled from the Harim.

And again, as I pointed out before, there were many examples were women bucked the trend. The vikings, as I pointed out had their women warriors. Even in France and England, in the highest realms of society, i.e high aristocracy, and the lowest relams, the peasants, the rules were basically ignored. Also, as people mentioned, there were massive networks of pagan midwives and such, many of whom were the leaders of witches covens (certainly if you go by the staistics of the witch burnings, in which the vast majority of the thousands and thousands burned were women, often young women)

Europe in the medeival period was not king arthur and chivalry, that is all walt disney palblum. It was just as nuanced and variegated as today in many respects.

For example, consider Aud the 'deep-minded', a 9th century norse woman, who was one of the four founding settlers on Iceland. Not all formidable women of the era were benign either. Consider the scandalous Freydis from Eriks saga, who after bravely fending off a party of 'skraelings' (Indians) pregnant, bare breasted with a sword in her hand, she later on slew several members of her own expedition (with a sword) when her husband refused to do it.

For some examples of archeological, literary and historical evidence of viking women, check this link

http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/womenvik.html


DB

 

[S'mon]

When your GM and fellow players are so busy male-bonding with one another that you can't get a word in edgewise...

Ok, this isn't exactly how I see it...

 

[S'mon]

Are the other people aware that they are doing this? Gender bias is a slippery and often subtle thing, and well-educated and good-hearted individuals can still be a victim without even noticing it.

Yes, I probably do often pay too much attention to certain players, and not enough to others; more a personality thing than a gender thing I think, but it's hard to say. It seems like the less assertive players often tend to pick 'outsider' or other disadvantaged types of backgrounds for their PCs, which can accentuate this.

 

[mythago]

Also, as people mentioned, there were massive networks of pagan midwives and such, many of whom were the leaders of witches covens

The witch-burnings were almost entirely of Christians, not pagans or people who thought of themselves as other than Christian, in much of Europe. There was no super-secret pagan underground. As with most religious supercessionism, people just grafted their former practices onto the new ones and thought nothing of it. That didn't make them secretly pagan, anymore than a Christian today who reads her horoscope is really Zoroastrian.

In some countries, like Germany, the burnings were far more about politics and land-grabs than punishing witches. In Spain they largely thought it was silly to burn witches, because it got in the way of burning Jews and heretics.

I agree with your points about sexism not meaning women were powerless, but the "Burning Times" are a part of a mythic tradition--not history.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Religion may also be a way out. Having a powerful goddess figure will give women in the society role models that are very powerfull politically, magically and spiritually. Indeed with having powerful goddesses it's unlikely an Earth-like male-dominated society is going to exist anyway save in small areas, because there won't be an all-male clergy.

Female dominated priesthoods and female deities (which people actually believed to grant real powers and blessings) don't seem to correlate to what we now call female empowerment in real-world history. As I understand it, the temple of Artemis at Ephesus was extremely important to the city, featured a female dominated clergy, and honored a goddess but didn't change the fact that the greek culture, there like most everywhere else was male-dominated. In fact, the female clergy (temple prostitutes) would probably be considered to reinforce the male dominance of the society. The (often female IIRC) oracle of Apollo at Delphi didn't do anything to change matters either. Nor did the worship of Athena as the goddess of Athens nor the worship of Aphrodite as the goddess of Corinth. In Rome, the godess Vesta was honored with a prominent temple and a priesthood of virgins (well, at least they're not temple prostitutes), but Rome was about as male-dominated as societies come.

The ancient middle east with their worship of Astaroth exhibited a similar dynamic. Lots of temple prostitutes who represented their goddess, a goddess central to the lives of the people, and not the slightest trace of anything non-patriarchal.

Similarly, my understanding of traditional Hindu beliefs places a lot of significance in godesses who are supposed to have power every bit as real as the clerics of D&D. Even with all that though, they managed to have a culture where high caste women were burned alive on their husbands' pires.

There is little to no historical support for the idea that the worship of goddesses or the presence of female clergy prevents male-dominated societies.

 

[S'mon]

EB - yup, my female players definitely don't think that the frequent presence of female priesthoods obviates the largely male-dominated societies IMC, especially when those priesthoods seem to fit the 'virgin' or 'temple prostitute' mold.