The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

[Ralanr]

Missed this, in the bad FMA anime, sloth was also female.

In the comic and in the better FMA anime, it is just lust but I think that Envy was meant to be non-gendered. Despite this, Lust in this series only ever manipulates the lust of others. She herself never appears to desire anyone.

Since Lust was the removed sinfulness of Father, it's possibly that he himself wasn't particularly lustful. It is also a likely enough explanation as to why many of his homunculi are male as he identifies as male. Since he wasn't originally human at all, his feelings of lust may very well be different from the norm and his ideas about gender and his own gender are probably a bit confusing.

As a note, the manga was written by a woman. I feel as though she still tried to make choices that would resonate with a widely male audience though.

To be fair, Lust didn't get much characterization in the manga.

[Yukitsu]

To be fair, Lust didn't get much characterization in the manga.

The only ones that do are Greed and Envy, and Envy gets it all in one go really. She still had more than Pride, Gluttony and Sloth though.

[Milo v3]

Wrath gets a decent amount of characterization, though some of that characterization fake.

[Sith_Happens]

While this entire thread treaded on a number of issues I typically prefer observing in silence, the "gender-swapping" experiment is one that I often indulge into, and i find is particularly interesting whenever it is brought up in relation to anime. Seeing as how you referenced Akamatsu Ken (one of my favorite mangaka, for a variety of reasons, but whose works have never been the most politically correct) I find myself curious about what specific examples you mught have had in mind.

How about the entire premise of Negima?


[Snip]

I won’t provide my interpretation on this yet. I’m curious what others feel.

Personally I have no ingrained expectations as to who was "supposed" to have paid if the date had gone better (yay me?), so I really can't say.


I'm pretty sure that the Homunculi in FMA have more than one female.

Only in the first anime which only adds one more, though it also makes Lust a far deeper and more active character.

EDIT: Man, I really let time fly while typing this post. Probably on account of tabbing over to TV Tropes after the Negima part.

[Ralanr]

The only ones that do are Greed and Envy, and Envy gets it all in one go really. She still had more than Pride, Gluttony and Sloth though.

I considered pride to have more characterization (if we are talking about the manga and second anime. I agree on the first anime) than Lust.


Wrath gets a decent amount of characterization, though some of that characterization fake.

How so (which series)?

[Milo v3]

How so (which series)?

In Brotherhood Wrath is present in a large amount of episodes, it shows his past, is present, how he interacts with a variety of characters, how he interacts with his family, his general mental state, etc. But he has at least two identities so you can't be sure what things are real and which are fabricated except for crucial things like family.

[Ralanr]

In Brotherhood Wrath is present in a large amount of episodes, it shows his past, is present, how he interacts with a variety of characters, how he interacts with his family, his general mental state, etc. But he has at least two identities so you can't be sure what things are real and which are fabricated except for crucial things like family.

Oh I see what you mean. I think his best character development was in the final arc (a lot were, I really liked FMA and how it handled most characters). His speech before his last fight is a good example to me.

[SpectralDerp]

For reference, an example counter to a convention does not mean it isn't a convention.

First of all, the word is "counterexample". Second, they happen to matter when the topic is ... the topic of this thread. And finally, "there are no examples of this being a convention" does counter any claims regarding the existence of conventions.

[Zombimode]

Not saying they're bad stories. Just saying that the gendered tropes aren't going anywhere for a while, and giving a couple of examples of subversion of trope doesn't negate the existence of the trope. (Which kind of keeps happening throughout the thread).

There are some dimensions to this point.

One is exposure. Another is significance.

The level of exposure to a trope varies between persons depending on their preferences. And it can vary significantly.
This results in a subjective view on prevalence of a specific trope. In one persons experience a trope might not be prevalent at all, while subversions are numerous. In this persons view, a statement like "Trope A is prevalent" is flat-out wrong. As a rebuttal the most important counterexamples from this persons experience are cited.

Then, there is the notion that not all media instances have the same significance. It ties in the correlation of product quality and effort. Crap is easy to produce and thus more prevalent then quality products. But the quality products at least tend to have a much higher cultural impact then bad products, and not just on an individual level but in general (i.e. 10% of media instances make up for 90% of the cultural impact). This can lead to the conclusion that "bad" products are not really relevant in evaluation how prevalent a certain trope may be. Thus, counterexample of works that are individually deemed as relevant are cited. In short: "Trope A is not prelavent because the majority of works that actually matter (insert list of examples) subvert it."

Now, any of these points can be discussed at length, but I don't think that the question of how resilient or prevalent a certain trope is is just a numbers game.

[SpectralDerp]

It's also possible that people expect a trope and then delude themselves into thinking it's a real thing because they primarily remember what they think they know. Just like everyone "knows" that Kirk says "Beam me up, Scotty" and McCoy says "Damnit man, I'm a doctor, not a ..." anf Darth Vader says "Luke, I am your father".

[Amphetryon]

I've never understood why lust personifications always looks beautiful.... lust isn't "it's evil to look sexy" it's "it's evil to want sex". If anything the archetype should look like a creepy pervy guy.

I've never understood why personifications of Lust are considered reactive, rather than proactive ('Men Do, Women Are' cited as a trope up-thread). Stories abound of various goddesses (and gods, for that matter) of sexual desire actively working to achieve their goals. They act both on the front-lines of battle and behind the scenes.

[Segev]

Speaking of which, this has an interesting effect: quite often in case of sexually dimorphic fantasy creatures, the male creatures can be notably inhuman and ugly, yet the females are still designed to be attractive. Shades of this also appear every time "satyrs are all males" and "nymphs are all females" (etc.) gets explained by "the former is really the male of the species, and the latter is female". I'm hard-pressed to think of a single fantastic species where the male is conventionally attractive while the female is genuinely monstrous.This tends to be especially true with "alien bug" races: the Queen (who is the borg queen/hive queen/etc.) is often - not always, but often enough to be noteworthy - attractive in a human female sort of way, even if the rest of the insects are hideous giant ... well, bugs.

Interestingly, if such things had been written by authors from the middle ages and even though parts of the rennaisance, the leader of these bugs would be a "King Bee" or the like; it took a long while for science to realize the big bug cared for by the whole hive was female (because she laid eggs, rather than fertilizing a harem of females).

You can't even take a gender-inversion here without highlighting another oddity: any time there is a sexual aspect to a cultural construct, it is almost always interpreted as being anti-female by analysts. The straight extrapolation starts off with indignation that a woman, to rule, must be the mother of her species, and has her authority tied to her sexual reproductive capacity. The inverted one - a King Bee who has a harem of drones he impregnates (rather than being impregnated by them) - would be "anti-woman" because it's a male power and sexual fantasy of having lots of women to use.

If you disagree - and I hope some of you do, because I'd love to be proven wrong, here - can you outline how either version would be written such that it would not fall under broad criticism of the sort outlined?


Back to the first topic in the quoted bit, though: It would be kind-of neat to meet a species where the males are traditionaly handsome by human standards but the females are hideously ugly by those same standards. PARTICULARLY if the males, as appropriate for a species that is maintaining its numbers, find the hideously ugly females to be attractive and desirable, and are off-put by the human standard of female beauty. (This, however, would not be a fair inversion, because the attractive females in races with ugly males never seem to find the human standard of male attractiveness to be unpleasant. Because really, the reason females of the species are human-attractive is meta: it's no fun kissing a slug. Thus the male inversion woudl treat it the same way, as the Hive King would be an attractive male love interest for the female human protagonist.)

Musclebound men in loincloths aren't sexual fantasies for women: They're male power fantasies.

He-Man was not designed to make little girls watch the show, he was the power symbol the boys were supposed to get excited about wanting to be. Same thing with every other Barbarian archetype of the past 40 years. Thundarr, the Herculoids, Beastmaster, etc.

Female sexual fantasy in mass media tends to be more towards how singers are presented. From Frank Sinatra, Elvis, the Beatles, and Bowie up to N'Sync and One Direction. Slender, pretty, and not musclebound (though often with some nice muscle definition ala Michael Phelps or Tom Hiddleston or Benedict Cumberbatch).

The whole "Men in Loincloths" thing is a common misconception.I hear this fairly often, and the discussion in this thread gives some good evidence of what a female sexual fantasy (about men) would be. However, I'm left to wonder... what would a female power fantasy be?

Not described in terms of what she does in the story, or her role and personality. Because these male power fantasies aren't given that much depth before they're judged "male power fantasy, not female sexual fantasy."

If you had a single, eye-catching poster, one image to portray the woman who is supposed to be the female power fantasy, what would she look like? How would she be dressed?

If the male power fantasy is a muscle-bound man in a loincloth and body oil (which, interestingly, often depicts a man with little to no body hair, now-adays, whereas in the 70s or so a lot of body hair was considered sexy AND manly-powerful), what is the female power fantasy in both body type, pose, and clothing style?


Okay, that's fair. Follow-up: Why do we need to be able to easily identify a creature as female?Because if we can't, the default assumption is "male" (because of how our pronouns work, as well as cultural "men are generic" tropes). And, as the context of such discussions goes when these sorts of things are brought up, we're then told that the work is sexist against women by excluding them.


Great example of Women Are and Men Do.

The Seven Deadly Sins will be personified as six men and one woman.
(...)
But Lust will be sexy and everyone will be attracted to her. She will be passively gorgeous and other people will act on their lust towards -her-. She will never be depicted as hunting down people she lusts over, possibly assaulting them in the process to show that she herself is evil, they'll come to her the moment they see her.

Because being sexy itself is evil. Inspiring lust in others is just as wrong as theft, murder, and destruction.Not quite. I know you can find examples of this, but usually? Lust is actively pursuing and seducing men, using her powers (and "A Man Is Always Eager") to pull him into cheating on his wife/girlfriend, lying to hide it, and performing increasingly vile acts to please her, get more sex from her, and cover up his sins.

Lust aggressively uses sex to control people and ruin their lives and those around them, in most depictions. She's not passive. She's predatory. At her most passive, Lust typically is shown ACTING helpless in just the right way to spur men to be interested in protecting/having her. Lust-the-embodiment-of-sin is NOT the woman who is unfairly accused of leading men on when she just wants to be left alone. She's actually doing it.


This actually highlights a big problem with the presentation of sin demons through the generations. See, the point of demons of X sin wasn't originally to embody a given sin, but rather to be in a form perfect for tempting humans to those sins. However, for pretty much every sin except lust, this has flipped around. Demons of gluttony are represented as monsters who devour everything in their path, demons of wrath get mad easily and smash everything, demons of pride are, well, extremely prideful, and demons of greed want to horde everything and be extremely wealthy. But demons of lust, while also lustful, still stick to the original point of their presentations, tempting people into lust. If other demons had carried through the way demons of lust had, then demons of pride would often seem very meek, and be extremely effectively at bolstering your pride, subtly manipulating you to make mistakes on account of it; a demon of gluttony might be a gourmet chef, convincing you that your money isn't well-spent on necessities or charitable work but rather quick bursts of satisfaction; a demon of greed or envy might convince you that since person X clearly isn't using their possessions as effectively as you would, you are more worthy of their things, and thus you should steal them.

How you'd rather fix this depends on you, really. If you want to bring the other types of demons back to their roots, well, I've begun to outline it above. The easier solution, though, would be to implement the above suggestion, simply finishing the conversion of the demons, making demons of lust creepy, delirious perverts who will do anything they have to in order to get in bed with anyone, rather than beautiful masters of seduction.I actually like this. Making the demons more about tempting than about embodying. That said, the Greed and Pride demons tend to do both: Greed is selfish...but he's preaching to others about the "virtues" of selfishness. He may covet, but he seems to make exception for his "friends" he's trying to corrupt: he shares his vast wealth and creature comforts with them as a 'first hit,' then encourages them and helps them find ways to build their own fortunes through a nefarious array of nasty, underhanded, greedy tactics. Pride is arrogant...but he is the arrogance of a narcissist, and he takes his prospects under his wing to teach THEM to be as proud and "worthy" as he is.

In essence, at least those two take on a "mentor" role to tempt people.

I think a lot of Succubi do a half-and-half thing there, too: they tempt by being sexy, they predate by actively seducing, but they also encourage promiscuity and seductive behavior. They'll teach that man (or that mousy librarian woman) to BE sexy and domineering/attractive. They'll not just seduce, but teach to seduce.


While this entire thread treaded on a number of issues I typically prefer observing in silence, the "gender-swapping" experiment is one that I often indulge into, and i find is particularly interesting whenever it is brought up in relation to anime. Seeing as how you referenced Akamatsu Ken (one of my favorite mangaka, for a variety of reasons, but whose works have never been the most politically correct) I find myself curious about what specific examples you mught have had in mind.

Also, to *someone farther behind in the thread whose name escapes me at the moment*: I believe you meant to bring up Lysistrate's Gambit. Minor correction.It's spelled "Lystrasia" on TVTropes, which is where I first ran across it.

As for which of Ken's works, Negima and Love Hina are the two biggest offenders. Just imagine a story about a 10-year-old girl teaching 14-year-old youths who all want to take her into the bath with them, snuggle into bed with her, and find story-based reasons to kiss her.

Imagine a male rocket-punching a landlady because the male decided she was being perverted, up to and including because HE came into HER room unannounced and found her naked due to changing clothes.


UQ Holder is less an offender and more a really interesting one. Particularly Kuromaro. Why would Kuromaro be so insistent, in the gender-swapped version, on saying, "I AM NOT A BOY!"?


I would like to bring up a case that isn't from an anime, just something that some guy on the internet mentioned. I have attempted to retrace the anecdote, but to no avail. So I’ll just say what I remember.

A man (the ‘I’ in the original anecdote) and an woman were on their 6th date. They’ve (presumably) just finished a dinner at a restaurant. The woman says that she has lost interest, and wants to stop dating him. The man asks for separate checks (aka the man and woman pay their share). The man portrays this as him being in the right.

Let’s do the gender-swap!

A man and an woman were on their 6th date. They’ve (presumably) just finished a dinner at a restaurant. The man says that he has lost interest, and wants to stop dating her. The woman asks for separate checks (aka the man and woman pay their share). The woman portrays this as her being in the right.

I won’t provide my interpretation on this yet. I’m curious what others feel.Personally, I think both instances have it "right."

I do fall into the camp that believes the guy should pay for the date under normal circumstances. Call me sexist if you like, but that's my stance as a general rule. If the guy is breaking it off, he should still expect to pay for the date he asked her out on. That she says, "no, if we're breaking it off, then I'll pay for my own meal, thank you," she is tacitly agreeing with his request AND she's stating that she does not wish to accept a gift from a man who isn't in to her. If the girl is breaking it off, the guy is in the right to accept that she's done so by acknowledging that she does not want anything from him anymore.

[Socksy]

I've never seen a series where lust, and only lust, is a woman.
The first picture I get Google Image searching "Personification of lust" is a male demon of some kind.
The only series I've read where I'm certain 7 characters represent the deadly sins have all seven as male.

[Sith_Happens]

You can't even take a gender-inversion here without highlighting another oddity: any time there is a sexual aspect to a cultural construct, it is almost always interpreted as being anti-female by analysts. The straight extrapolation starts off with indignation that a woman, to rule, must be the mother of her species, and has her authority tied to her sexual reproductive capacity. The inverted one - a King Bee who has a harem of drones he impregnates (rather than being impregnated by them) - would be "anti-woman" because it's a male power and sexual fantasy of having lots of women to use.

That's just a simple case of confirmation bias. Once you've committed to the idea (however correct) that it's generally the women who get the short end of the stick with this sort of thing, it's easy to fall into the trap of interpreting everything in that light even if it means contradicting yourself.


I hear this fairly often, and the discussion in this thread gives some good evidence of what a female sexual fantasy (about men) would be. However, I'm left to wonder... what would a female power fantasy be?

Not described in terms of what she does in the story, or her role and personality. Because these male power fantasies aren't given that much depth before they're judged "male power fantasy, not female sexual fantasy."

If you had a single, eye-catching poster, one image to portray the woman who is supposed to be the female power fantasy, what would she look like? How would she be dressed?

If the male power fantasy is a muscle-bound man in a loincloth and body oil (which, interestingly, often depicts a man with little to no body hair, now-adays, whereas in the 70s or so a lot of body hair was considered sexy AND manly-powerful), what is the female power fantasy in both body type, pose, and clothing style?

I'm going to refrain from answering this for two reasons. One, my answer would obviously be second-hand. Two, I think part of the problem is the idea that male and female power fantasies would or should look any different in the first place.

...Okay, I lied about the "going to refrain from answering" bit, because "Korra" seems like far too good of a guess to not make. Or Asami in books/seasons three and four, for that matter.


I've never seen a series where lust, and only lust, is a woman.
The first picture I get Google Image searching "Personification of lust" is a male demon of some kind.
The only series I've read where I'm certain 7 characters represent the deadly sins have all seven as male.

In that case you need to start reading Fullmetal Alchemist right now because it's really good.:smallwink::smalltongue:

[Segev]

Part of the point of this "female power fantasy" exercise is to identify the visual traits that make a character one.

Male power fantasies apparently involve being huge, muscular, and nearly naked (as a sign of strength?). This makes them automatically not female sexual fantasies.

In general, a female character held up as a "female power fantasy" or "female empowerment" is pretty sexy in her dress, often with less clothes than you might see on a woman-on-the-street. This seems to be attributed to male gaze and audiences of men needing something to let them objectivy the woman so she isn't threateneing, and therefore also invalidates the claim that the character is, in fact, a female power fantasy because she is a male sexual fantasy.

Is Korra, in a single still shot, a female power fantasy? What makes her so, in the same sense that He-Man is a male power fantasy but, say, She-Ra is not a female power fantasy?

Asami is gorgeous, and I've seen that used to indicate that she's anti-empowerment because the "empowered" nature of her actions are undermined by her presentation as a pretty girl who is vying for the male lead's affections.

[Sith_Happens]

Is Korra, in a single still shot, a female power fantasy?

So many examples to choose from, but I think for now I'll go with this one (http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/comicsalliance.com/files/2012/04/korrabig2.jpg) (way too big to image-link).


What makes her so, in the same sense that He-Man is a male power fantasy but, say, She-Ra is not a female power fantasy?

As demonstrated by the discussion of romance novel covers, the difference (for both men and women) is at least 95% one of posing and camera-work. The above Legend of Korra artwork, for example, screams "Someone's about to get wrecked" without the usual side of "Check out that rack/ass" tempering it. Not that Korra doesn't have Boobs of Steel (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BoobsOfSteel), but the emphasis in the illustration is clearly on her being in the middle of kicking fifty pounds of high speed hurt at someone.


Asami is gorgeous, and I've seen that used to indicate that she's anti-empowerment because the "empowered" nature of her actions are undermined by her presentation as a pretty girl who is vying for the male lead's affections.

That would be a fair assessment for the first half of the series, for the second half though she's pretty much Kung Fu Tony Stark.

[Socksy]

In that case you need to start reading Fullmetal Alchemist right now because it's really good.:smallwink::smalltongue:

I mean toooooo. But it's just so loooooong!
And in all my power fantasies I have at least some degree of telekinesis, if female power fantasies are still relevant.

[Segev]

So, then, take She-Ra in her iconic pose (sword aloft, hair flying out with magical power, etc.). Is she a male sexual fantasy or a femals power fantasy, both, or neither? If both, it it as much "both" as He-Man is "both" a male power fantasy and a female sexual fantasy? She definitely has a short skirt and thigh-high boots, but she's pretty well-covered despite that and, frankly, as a guy, I've never found her "sexy." She's drawn attractively, but not really "hot." Though I imagine that, if I saw a girl dressed in her costume IRL, I'd probably think it was more sexual than I do in the cartoon drawing. The unreality of fantasy garb in drawn artwork (and CGI) tends to diminish its sensuality for me.

Not being a woman, however, I don't know what their power fantasies are supposed to be.

On the villainous side, is Shadow Weaver a female power fantasy?

[SpectralDerp]

A lot of people confuse "female fantasy" with "universal female fantasy" and "female power fantasy" with misandry and they do so in the name of feminism, so it's not surprising that the lines are blurry.

[Steampunkette]

Power Fantasy has very little to do with whether a character is strong or physically powerful and has more to do with Power in general.

Physical Power is simply the easiest to show, directly, in an image.

A Female Power Fantasy would be any female character who has social, political, physical, or metaphysical power over the world around her. Whether it's fighting crime or arguing a case in court or simply being able to walk up to her boss and tell him off with no repercussions. All of these things are basic power fantasies that represent situations in a person's life, or imagined life, where they may not have power, but the fantasy of power can be created.

These things can be found scattered all across media. However they're only rarely maintained to any degree and almost never have anything to do with the core structure and story of the movie. The powerful lawyer/businesswoman/media manager is shown in the first 15 minutes to be capable, powerful, and fairly happy with her life... in a Romantic Comedy. And then her friend or her sister or her mother shows up and reminds her that she has to have a man to validate her life and all of her power in a given arena becomes backdrop for the bumbling romance that she pursues that is the core of the movie, stripping her power away because it's not needed (and may, indeed, be threatening to her potential partner).

So while FPF exists in the media it is often psychologically unfulfilling. Now there are some female power fantasies that aren't undercut by such plot elements: Like most of Tomb Raider's incarnations. But it is heavily underscored as male sexual fantasy, not for the large chest on Lara herself, but for the cheesecakey fanservice elements like Lara preparing to take a shower, or extravagantly pulling herself up a ledge in a way that makes no sense but shows off her butt/legs.

But then they had to go and make teenage Lara Croft in order for men to feel "Protective" of the character. That was the actual intent of the director, to make Lara mostly powerless and rely on the player to get her through dangerous and violent situations, including one that was very nearly a rape scenario (and still has fairly heavy handed rape implications before a sudden change in dialogue and presentation). While the story was pretty interesting and a lot of the characterization was good I still feel like it was a mistake from a sociological standpoint, and they should have either invented a new female character for the story, whole cloth, or used a male character to show an emotional and scared man who needed the player's protection.

[Sith_Happens]

So, then, take She-Ra in her iconic pose (sword aloft, hair flying out with magical power, etc.). Is she a male sexual fantasy or a femals power fantasy, both, or neither?

Personally I'm not seeing much of either.:smallyuk:


But then they had to go and make teenage Lara Croft in order for men to feel "Protective" of the character. That was the actual intent of the director, to make Lara mostly powerless and rely on the player to get her through dangerous and violent situations, including one that was very nearly a rape scenario (and still has fairly heavy handed rape implications before a sudden change in dialogue and presentation). While the story was pretty interesting and a lot of the characterization was good I still feel like it was a mistake from a sociological standpoint, and they should have either invented a new female character for the story, whole cloth, or used a male character to show an emotional and scared man who needed the player's protection.

It looks like the sequel is basically going be her rise back into badassdom, in which case this is largely just a case of a story coming out too slowly.

[Segev]

Power Fantasy has very little to do with whether a character is strong or physically powerful and has more to do with Power in general.

Why, then, is Conan or He-Man, from purely the images of "beefy guy in loin cloth," strictly a male power fantasy?

Like I said, ignore anything but your one poster, photo, action shot, whatever image you want to use. Those images alone of men are enough to state, "male power fantasy," and do so thoroughly enough that it is definitely NOT a female sexual fantasy. What images alone are enough to depict "female power fantasy," and do so thoroughly enough that it is definite NOT a male sexual fantasy?

[Steampunkette]

Because of the entire rest of my statement of what power fantasy is, Segev.

Conan and other big beefcake dudebros who crush their enemies and violently murder their way through life are a power fantasy not because muscles are the definition of power fantasy. Because power fantasy is the fantasy of being powerful, whether physical, political, interpersonal, economic, or otherwise.

The loinclothed barbarian slaughtering his enemies is just a visual example because it's easier to put on a poster or show in a film. It's a power fantasy that is easily received. I was trying to explain that physical power fantasy is not nearly the extent of power fantasy.

For your power fantasy poster of a FPF in the same vein? Show a female character positioned, framed, and shown as a powerful character. Whether that means sword raised with violent features or a gun leveled or fist drawn back and ready to punch the camera (and thus the viewer of the image) it doesn't matter.

You could also use an image of a female politician, proud before her constituency. Or a lawyer, triumphant, as her client is vindicated (or the suspect is convicted).

I was just trying to explain that power fantasies don't always -have- to be violent.

[Ralanr]

Power Fantasy has very little to do with whether a character is strong or physically powerful and has more to do with Power in general.

Physical Power is simply the easiest to show, directly, in an image.

A Female Power Fantasy would be any female character who has social, political, physical, or metaphysical power over the world around her. Whether it's fighting crime or arguing a case in court or simply being able to walk up to her boss and tell him off with no repercussions. All of these things are basic power fantasies that represent situations in a person's life, or imagined life, where they may not have power, but the fantasy of power can be created.

These things can be found scattered all across media. However they're only rarely maintained to any degree and almost never have anything to do with the core structure and story of the movie. The powerful lawyer/businesswoman/media manager is shown in the first 15 minutes to be capable, powerful, and fairly happy with her life... in a Romantic Comedy. And then her friend or her sister or her mother shows up and reminds her that she has to have a man to validate her life and all of her power in a given arena becomes backdrop for the bumbling romance that she pursues that is the core of the movie, stripping her power away because it's not needed (and may, indeed, be threatening to her potential partner).

So while FPF exists in the media it is often psychologically unfulfilling. Now there are some female power fantasies that aren't undercut by such plot elements: Like most of Tomb Raider's incarnations. But it is heavily underscored as male sexual fantasy, not for the large chest on Lara herself, but for the cheesecakey fanservice elements like Lara preparing to take a shower, or extravagantly pulling herself up a ledge in a way that makes no sense but shows off her butt/legs.

But then they had to go and make teenage Lara Croft in order for men to feel "Protective" of the character. That was the actual intent of the director, to make Lara mostly powerless and rely on the player to get her through dangerous and violent situations, including one that was very nearly a rape scenario (and still has fairly heavy handed rape implications before a sudden change in dialogue and presentation). While the story was pretty interesting and a lot of the characterization was good I still feel like it was a mistake from a sociological standpoint, and they should have either invented a new female character for the story, whole cloth, or used a male character to show an emotional and scared man who needed the player's protection.

I'll be honest, I really don't like it when people say that the feats of a gameplay character don't matter since the player is controlling them.

Despite their attempts to be, "real" stories, all games tell a story in its own universe. The player has as much input on the story as the reader of a book does. They progress through it, just like how a reader turns the page.

The whole, "Lara's controlled by a boy so she can't be considered strong/powerful" should not be taken seriously. Is she actively asking the player for help? Is she aware of your existence? Last I remember she wasn't begging the player specifically to do something for her. You don't control Lara, you play as Lara. If all of her character accomplishments mean nothing in story simply because the player is male, then doesn't that apply to everyone video game protagonist? Even Mario and Link?

The player, unless the game has you specify it, is genderless and not important to the story. They can interact, but only games that allow these interactions to matter are effected in the end, and they can only be effective as they are allowed to be within the program.

And of course power fantasies aren't always violent. There the, "I'm so rich that Richie Rich is envious." Fantasies.

[Amaril]

My opinion is obviously second-hand as well, but whenever I hear the phrase "female power fantasy", I immediately think of Samus Aran (Other M doesn't count).

[Gilphon]

It's perhaps quite telling, in this context, that it's usually not obvious that Samus is female.

[Steampunkette]

Ralanr: That's not what I'm saying.

The game was written with the explicit intent of removing all of Lara's power and making her into a scared teenage girl so that the (Explicitly stated) Male player would feel he had to protect her. This is not me discussing the vagaries of characterization or viewer insertion overriding character intent (which is a completely different and valid discussion)

I'm saying that the game was written from that standpoint. The willful intent to depower a character to elicit protective feelings from the player, rather than inspire a power fantasy.

I'm not even making any kind of moral judgement on the story itself, which was told particularly well. I'm literally just saying that was the author's intent.

[Ralanr]

Ralanr: That's not what I'm saying.

The game was written with the explicit intent of removing all of Lara's power and making her into a scared teenage girl so that the (Explicitly stated) Male player would feel he had to protect her. This is not me discussing the vagaries of characterization or viewer insertion overriding character intent (which is a completely different and valid discussion)

I'm saying that the game was written from that standpoint. The willful intent to depower a character to elicit protective feelings from the player, rather than inspire a power fantasy.

I'm not even making any kind of moral judgement on the story itself, which was told particularly well. I'm literally just saying that was the author's intent.

My apologies, I just remembered a lot of debates going about on it when the newest version was released that got really annoying after a while.

Do you have a link to that info? I was unaware of it.

[Steampunkette]

http://kotaku.com/5917400/youll-want-to-protect-the-new-less-curvy-lara-croft

They've backed up off of it since then, but I've talked with people related to the project. That was the explicit intent, not just a Producer trying to spin hype (which is far more common).

[Ralanr]

http://kotaku.com/5917400/youll-want-to-protect-the-new-less-curvy-lara-croft

They've backed up off of it since then, but I've talked with people related to the project. That was the explicit intent, not just a Producer trying to spin hype (which is far more common).

...cause apparently that's what attracts people to a character?

New thing for RPG's: the male is rarely the target of traumatic sexual advances.

[Red Fel]

New thing for RPG's: the male is rarely the target of traumatic sexual advances.

Definitely going to go with this. That's an ugly gender stereotype in games, as in far too many other media.

When you want to show a male character weakened or humiliated or broken, you just let him get his butt kicked. With a female character, it has to be traumatic sexual assault. When you want to give a male character a traumatic history, it's usually the death of parents or a loved one. Female character, sexual assault. (Or slavery, in which case the assault is implied.)

Hasn't happened in any of my games (actually, the only traumatic sexual assault I've encountered was to my male PC once, which still does not make it okay), but the fact that it hasn't happened to me is anecdotal, not trope-subverting. It's a thing, and it's pretty horrific that it's a thing.

[Ralanr]

Definitely going to go with this. That's an ugly gender stereotype in games, as in far too many other media.

When you want to show a male character weakened or humiliated or broken, you just let him get his butt kicked. With a female character, it has to be traumatic sexual assault. When you want to give a male character a traumatic history, it's usually the death of parents or a loved one. Female character, sexual assault. (Or slavery, in which case the assault is implied.)

Hasn't happened in any of my games (actually, the only traumatic sexual assault I've encountered was to my male PC once, which still does not make it okay), but the fact that it hasn't happened to me is anecdotal, not trope-subverting. It's a thing, and it's pretty horrific that it's a thing.

I've only seen it happen once in a fantasy story. And does it very well.

Guts does not like being touched.

[cobaltstarfire]

What images alone are enough to depict "female power fantasy," and do so thoroughly enough that it is definite NOT a male sexual fantasy?

I think anything can be a male or female sexual fantasy to be honest.

I think most images I can find from Moribito, both the anime and the manga features pictures of Balsa who's pretty "female power fantasy" or at the very least they are to me. Can't speak for other females of course. I haven't watched the whole series, but the whole reason I was drawn to it in the first place is because netflix had a giant picture of her (Balsa) with her spear looking confident and powerful.

I would say the same applies to single images advertising Legend of Korra, which just about always feature Korra looking extremely confident and strong.

[Red Fel]

I would say the same applies to single images advertising Legend of Korra, which just about always feature Korra looking extremely confident and strong.

I think this is a major part of it.

A power fantasy, as Steampunkette points out, need not be physical. This can be true for men or women. For example, Lex Luthor is, at least to me, a male power fantasy - he's smart, successful, outrageously wealthy, has pretty much anything he wants, and rivals one of the most powerful beings in the world without having any powers of his own. In many ways, he's the power fantasy of the smart nerd - he's a genius who built his brain into a corporate powerhouse, and ultimately presidency.

He's not a physical powerhouse. At best, he's a sharp dresser with a broad build. He's not Conan; it would frankly be disappointing if he was. In fact, when you see him engaging in the rare physical bout with his nemesis, he's usually doing so from within a completely ridiculous-looking suit of power armor. It was never about him looking powerful; it was always about his confidence, his authority, and his deep, rich voice. (Clancy Brown, ladies and gentlemen!)

A female power fantasy works the same way. It doesn't require stunning looks; it requires confidence and ability. A female power fantasy is someone who is strong, capable, successful, intelligent. Just like a male power fantasy, only female. I think both genders value these traits; I think everyone imagines themselves in that role from time to time. That's what a "power fantasy" is - a form of escapism, where you look at a character on screen or in a book and think, "You know, if I was like that..."

The problem is that, at least in media depictions, our power fantasies have to be attractive. In my example, Lex Luthor, here's a character who is extremely self-conscious about his appearance - originally, the reason he declared a vendetta against Superman is that the guy rendered Luthor bald. Luthor was never meant to be physically impressive, and yet over time, he became so. By the time you got to his depictions in the DC Animated Universe, he was a bit of a stud (for an animated character). You don't generally see a male power fantasy who is unattractive. The same holds true of female power fantasy characters - they tend to be presented as attractive.

Which is not inherently problematic. I think it's safe to say that Korra is in many ways a female power fantasy. She's strong, capable, confident. Flawed, yes, but not because of gender; her flaws draw from naivete and inexperience. And she's not unattractive (again, for an animated character).

The problem is that we go to extremes. The ones who are attractive, but not drop-dead gorgeous, are the exceptions, not the rule. Physical beauty is seen as a substitute for power. But here's the distinction - the male power fantasy's attractiveness is functional - it's muscle, brute power, a physical appearance that belies terrible force. The female power fantasy's attractiveness, instead, is made into something purely aesthetic, not functional; she's simply hot. At that point, it crosses the line from female power fantasy to male sexual fantasy. Her appearance does not reflect a level of empowerment or confidence, but rather shows her off physically, as though that's all she has to offer. When pure physical beauty is all the characters have to offer, they cease to be power fantasies and become sex objects.

[Steampunkette]

Hit it out of the park, Red Fel. I'd like to add an addendum:

The reason so many female characters are made to be beautiful to the point of ditching other characterization in favor of titillation or sexualization is because of the long history of the really insulting assumption that women have sexual power over men. And so a lot of men, trying to make a powerful female character, made a character who had sex as a power.

Yes. A pretty girl in a bar can spend all night declining the advances of whatever men she doesn't fancy. So can a hot guy (though in reality he's less likely to get approached at a bar due to the cultural assumptions in that setting and more likely to turn down potential dates at work, school, online, etc). Meanwhile the unattractive girls and guys are the ones making the advances that get shot down and not getting advanced on themselves. Our social bias to see it in women, and specifically to apply negative connotations to it, inflates the imagery to all women somehow holding power.

Similarly, people often talk about women as gatekeepers to sex who have the power to cut their husbands/boyfriends/hangers on off from nookie. But guys have that same power. It's called Consent. If a guy wants to have sex and a woman doesn't she's not denying him sex like it's something he's owed or deserves on some fundamental level that she's supposed to provide. The reverse is, similarly, true. But, due to the public discourse and focus on negative traits for women, it has become viewed as the woman keeping something from the man.

Frigid, uptight, old maid, ice queen, prude, tease, and dozens more words are used to describe this. But few, if any, apply to dudes.

Though in part that's cultural assumption of male sexual eagerness/readiness.

[Vitruviansquid]

The way people throw around "power fantasy" and "sexual fantasy" these days is sort of... ehh... sloppy. I recommend doing away with these terms altogether.

Let's say you take a classic Frank Frazetta image of Conan the barbarian. You know that it describes a book which is a male power fantasy (and other stuff) because we know what Conan the barbarian is. But let's suppose, in thought-experiment-world, that Conan the barbarian is actually muscle fetish erotica targeted at gay men and straight women. When you flip open the book, and you realize that there is only, like, one barbarian battle, and it's actually mostly full of huge, musclebound men in erotic situations with erotic descriptions, you'll realize that the image you are looking at is not an accurate indication that the book it describes is a male power fantasy. We might also suppose an alternate-thought-experiment-world where you finish the book and realize that Conan never wins and never gets to do anything powerful.

Perhaps uncomfortably, you will notice that this isn't an exact science. You could have a book that included both empowering barbarian battles and huge, musclebound men in erotic situations. In this way, you have a Conan who is both a male power fantasy and a female sexual fantasy. Also, you could have a book that different people interpret in different ways - and there's nothing wrong with that. Criticism is subjective.


So here is what a lot of people do with this sloppy "fantasy" centered art criticism that I dislike, and I'm going to use some feminist criticisms as an example:

A feminist critic already pre-suppose that there is a pervasive culture of patriarchy, and that patriarchy includes these two facts:

1. Men always want to feel powerful and make women their sexual objects.

2. Patriarchy has been around and has been so pervasive for so long, the above apply in situations where it is not explicit. For example, men are supposed to feel powerful in literature that is not explicitly empowering for men, and women are sexual objects in literature that is not explicitly erotica or pornography.

So when the feminist critic examines a text, this process happens:

1. Feminist reads/watches/plays/intakes a text that contains a portrayal of a sexy man or sexy woman.

2. Feminist believes the above facts about patriarchy, and thus the sexy man portrayal as indicating the text is a male power fantasy, citing that it allows men to feel as if they are musclebound (Conan), or that it allows non-musclebound men to feel very strong in a fight (Cloud Strife), citing that it allows men to feel as if they are able to get a lot of women (any generically handsome men). They are also very very likely to see sexy women as indicating the text is a male sexual fantasy because they believe in the above facts, citing that it allows men to gawk at sexy women (if the women are constantly placed in sexual situations) or that it allows men to gawk at sexy women on the sly (if the women are not constantly placed in sexual situations)

3. Because the critic believes that men are always trying to feel powerful or sneak in views of sexy women, they disqualify all other evidence that the text is not really about that. It doesn't matter how explicit your text is with subverting patriarchal values, feminists will say that the subversion bit is hypocritical or misguided or just a smokescreen to make men feel okay about feeling powerful or sexualizing women. What they do not account for is that some texts show you sexy ladies in sexual situations in order to make you feel dirty and shameful for sexualizing them later (Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite do this a lot, only to come under fire from feminist game critics), or they show you sexy ladies who are also supposed to make women feel empowered (Bayonetta does this by making feminine sexuality physically powerful), or they show you men who are supposed to be sexy to ladies with some particular fetish, and so on and so forth.

4. Taking this a step further, many feminist critics then improperly use what they found as evidence in texts to make personal attacks. The critics often then accuse the producers of the text of being sexist, or supporting the patriarchy. This is, of course, nonsense, because these accusations are about intentions, and so fail when you consider that maybe the creator of the text has tried to communicate one thing, whether well or stupidly, but was read counter to his/her intentions.

[Milo v3]

Frigid, uptight, old maid, ice queen, prude, tease, and dozens more words are used to describe this. But few, if any, apply to dudes.
Strangely I've been referred to as all of those except old maid and ice queen. Not saying what you said was wrong though, 99% of the time they're basically only applied to females.

[Segev]

Because of the entire rest of my statement of what power fantasy is, Segev.

Conan and other big beefcake dudebros who crush their enemies and violently murder their way through life are a power fantasy not because muscles are the definition of power fantasy. Because power fantasy is the fantasy of being powerful, whether physical, political, interpersonal, economic, or otherwise.

The loinclothed barbarian slaughtering his enemies is just a visual example because it's easier to put on a poster or show in a film. It's a power fantasy that is easily received. I was trying to explain that physical power fantasy is not nearly the extent of power fantasy.So, if the "beefcake dudebros" were displayed exactly as shown, but the story revolved around them doing their best to be appealing to her desires, romancing her and the like, would it be a female sexual fantasy? Particularly if focused on her thoughts and feelings about them rather than on their actions directly?


For your power fantasy poster of a FPF in the same vein? Show a female character positioned, framed, and shown as a powerful character. Whether that means sword raised with violent features or a gun leveled or fist drawn back and ready to punch the camera (and thus the viewer of the image) it doesn't matter.

You could also use an image of a female politician, proud before her constituency. Or a lawyer, triumphant, as her client is vindicated (or the suspect is convicted).Alright. So are there male power fantasies that don't involve nearly-naked man-beefcake?

I suppose my question here is: why is a guy in various stages of undress still a male power fantasy and in no way a female sexual fantasy, but it seems that if there's anything the least bit sexual about a portrayal of a woman, it's not a female empowerment fantasy but 100% is a male sexual fantasy? Or is that not the case? If not the case, please present a counterexample.


I was just trying to explain that power fantasies don't always -have- to be violent.Sure, that's fine. Though for the purpose of my question, I'd prefer as direct a parallel as possible to the "loinclothed beefcake" version that is pure male power fantasy. Unless that's impossible because female power fantasies never are violent?

If I sound sarcastic or incredulous, it's because I'm tired and trying to fumble about for possible examples. I'd prefer others provide them, because I'm not seeing a way to produce a female empowerment fantasy that isn't going to be called out in some way as being "really" "only" a male sexual fantasy. I hope I'm wrong. But right now, we're told that the nearly-naked men are in no way sexual fantasies for women because they're totally male power fantasies, and it seems like an attractive portrayal of a woman cannot possible be a female power fantasy because her being attractive makes her totally a sexual fantasy for men, instead.

(I'm honestly of the opinion that the scantily-clad, physical god portrayals of men AND women are BOTH their own sex's power fantasy AND the opposite's sexual fantasy. I could be wrong, of course.)

[goto124]

I'm not seeing a way to produce a female empowerment fantasy that isn't going to be called out in some way as being "really" "only" a male sexual fantasy.

You're pretty much right there. Especially with the 'pariachy' (spelling) assumption.

Examples of female power fantasies have already been given. They are attractive, yes, but the main focus is on their power, toughness, and abilities. Similarly, there are female sexual fantasies, Magid Mike fashion. If I'm not wrong, male superheros in movies double as male power fantasies and female sexual fantasies (if only because catering to females = more $$$).

In the case of a tabletop, the 'authors' are (sometimes literally) sitting at the same table as you are. I mean the DM (who controls the NPCs) and the players (who controls the PCs). It's a lot easier to pick out their intentions.

I'm female IRL. I have a PC who could be considered a female power (and sexual :3) fantasy. She dresses in impractical clothing for battle, and acts in a sexual manner that could be mistaken for a male sexual fantasy. But I know the reasoning behind her thinking very well, and I am confident I am not trying to cater to some straight male auidence.

[Segev]

But here's the distinction - the male power fantasy's attractiveness is functional - it's muscle, brute power, a physical appearance that belies terrible force. The female power fantasy's attractiveness, instead, is made into something purely aesthetic, not functional; she's simply hot. At that point, it crosses the line from female power fantasy to male sexual fantasy. Her appearance does not reflect a level of empowerment or confidence, but rather shows her off physically, as though that's all she has to offer. When pure physical beauty is all the characters have to offer, they cease to be power fantasies and become sex objects.

That almost seems a circular argument, though, given the nature of what is considered attractive in a man.

DCAU's Lex Luthor, for instance, you describe as "a bit of a stud." However, for him and the kind of power fantasy you cite him as representing, those muscles are actually entirely NON-functional. (I'm not saying he's not buff in the artwork, or that he's really physically weak compared to a normal human, or that he has a crippling ailment. Just that his physical strength is next to useless in terms of the story and the role he plays.) Does this make him cross the line into "female sexual fantasy," because him being simply hot is the sole reason for it? Is that "as though it's all he has to offer?"

What makes the simple fact of a woman's beauty/sexual appeal being present and not integral to her character's power automatically cross the line to "male sexual fantasy," robbing women of their empowerment fantasy?

Especially since it seems to me that any effort to make her beauty/sex appeal "functional" will be derided as an effort to justify sexualizing her and, worse, reducing her to a sex object because her power is tied to her sexiness - her appeal to men.

I would say that Ar Tonelico ... 3 or 4, whatever came out in 2011 or so ... was definitely a male sexual fantasy, but its attractive female powerhouses had power directly tied to their sexiness. Frankly, it made me uncomfortable watching my friend play it; the girls' "power-up" stages in combat stripped them of layers of clothing until they were in undies. It was supposedly "functional" in that it tied them more closely to the planet or somesuch, but honestly, it was an excuse to make them more naked as fights went on.

Male muscle is potentially functional, certainly, but it being on display, oiled and bared with body hair removed... is that "functional?" Even if you lean back into saying, "Well, for Greek wrestling it was!" it's wearing kind-of thin. You can bet a depiction of Greek wrestling in the modern era is being chosen SPECIFICALLY to show off naked men getting "innocently" physical in suggestive ways.

So my question is, how do you satisfy this standard such that it's not damned if you do, damned if you don't? Give examples of how you'd portray a woman such that she is a power fantasy and not a sexual one, in spite of apparent elements which a straight woman might THINK a straight man would find sexually appealing (the way straight men might think straight women find He-Man or Conan sexually appealing due to their near-nakedness).

[Segev]

You're pretty much right there.

It is, indeed, hard to tell if a female character is intended to be a female power fantasy, or a male sexual fantasy, without mind-reading the authors or having said authors mention their thoughts explicitly.

In the case of a tabletop, the 'authors' are (sometimes literally) sitting at the same table as you are. I mean the DM (who controls the NPCs) and the players (who controls the PCs). It's a lot easier to pick out their intentions.

I'm female IRL. I have a PC who could be considered a female power (and sexual :3) fantasy. She dresses in impractical clothing for battle, and acts in a sexual manner that could be mistaken for a male sexual fantasy. But I know the reasoning behind her thinking very well, and I am confident I am not trying to cater to some straight male auidence.

Because part of just about any power fantasy is, on some level, a desire to be seen as desirable (whether by romantic partners or merely the world at large), attractiveness is going to be part of nearly every power fantasy. And especially in today's culture, there's an element of, "If you've got it, flaunt it." You demonstrate attractiveness by demonstrating sexual appeal, at least on some level.

Therefore, I honestly think it most likely that power fantasies for a given target audience are going to have elements of sexual fantasies for the target audience to whom the power fantasy audience wishes to be attractive. i.e., a male power fantasy is going to include at least some elements of female sexual fantasy, and a female power fantasy is going to include at least some elements of male sexual fantasy. (I will not attempt to address the homosexual versions of these; I honestly do not know if gay men find the same things attractive in men that straight women do, or if gay women find the same things attractive in women that straight men do. They might, but I hesitate to assume they do.)

[goto124]

DCAU's Lex Luthor, for instance, you describe as "a bit of a stud." However, for him and the kind of power fantasy you cite him as representing, those muscles are actually entirely NON-functional. (I'm not saying he's not buff in the artwork, or that he's really physically weak compared to a normal human, or that he has a crippling ailment. Just that his physical strength is next to useless in terms of the story and the role he plays.) Does this make him cross the line into "female sexual fantasy," because him being simply hot is the sole reason for it? Is that "as though it's all he has to offer?"

Superheros are often drawn with muscles because comic book artists don't know any other way of drawing superheros (or don't want to change). Even when the superhero's superpower has nothing to do with strength, or muscles. I think.

About the 'justification of sexiness by plot element': that's an interesting one. At the point where all female chars are stripping to near nudity every fight, I think that's overboard xD. And I won't play in a game system that did that. Really, if one crafts a system for the purpose of getting people* naked, there's something wrong.

* Both males and females included. Would make for a funny one-shot though.

Also: http://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-0130fbb643810c5bb11470de093ae64e?convert_to_webp=t rue

Does sexiness degrade the power of a character? You'll have to look at the context. How ridiculous and over-the-top is the 'fanservice'? Why is she wearing a chainmaip bikini when all the males are wearing full plate? The character being 'powerful' does help make it less of sexual objectification and more of sexual enpowerment.

And I have no idea what else I was supposed to say, so I'll stop here.

[Steampunkette]

So, if the "beefcake dudebros" were displayed exactly as shown, but the story revolved around them doing their best to be appealing to her desires, romancing her and the like, would it be a female sexual fantasy? Particularly if focused on her thoughts and feelings about them rather than on their actions directly?

A story in which characters cater to female sexual desires, whether they're beefcakes or slobs, could be considered a sexual or power fantasy, depending on the context.

Alright. So are there male power fantasies that don't involve nearly-naked man-beefcake?

Yes. Several have been listed already. Most of them by me in previous posts as I tried to explain the psychological underpinnings of a power fantasy. Winning the big game, telling off your boss, having billions of dollars. All power fantasies.

I suppose my question here is: why is a guy in various stages of undress still a male power fantasy and in no way a female sexual fantasy, but it seems that if there's anything the least bit sexual about a portrayal of a woman, it's not a female empowerment fantasy but 100% is a male sexual fantasy? Or is that not the case? If not the case, please present a counterexample.

Because of the context. Conan is not just a guy in half clothes. He's the badass warrior king of Cimmeria, a powerful and violent rogue who destroys evil where he finds it. He just happens to be wearing a loincloth at the time.

Sure, that's fine. Though for the purpose of my question, I'd prefer as direct a parallel as possible to the "loinclothed beefcake" version that is pure male power fantasy. Unless that's impossible because female power fantasies never are violent?

It would be impossible in our society to create a direct parallel because of the way our society is developed around viewing women. The closest parallel you could get would probably be Brienne of Tarth... but that's not the same when you start looking at it with any scrutiny.

If I sound sarcastic or incredulous, it's because I'm tired and trying to fumble about for possible examples. I'd prefer others provide them, because I'm not seeing a way to produce a female empowerment fantasy that isn't going to be called out in some way as being "really" "only" a male sexual fantasy. I hope I'm wrong. But right now, we're told that the nearly-naked men are in no way sexual fantasies for women because they're totally male power fantasies, and it seems like an attractive portrayal of a woman cannot possible be a female power fantasy because her being attractive makes her totally a sexual fantasy for men, instead.

Because of the way our culture treats men and women so radically differently that is pretty much the case. Content producers still fight against execs to try and get female protagonists in anything at all, much less show them as more than cheesecake when it comes to fantasy, scifi, and action.

(I'm honestly of the opinion that the scantily-clad, physical god portrayals of men AND women are BOTH their own sex's power fantasy AND the opposite's sexual fantasy. I could be wrong, of course.)

It's nice in theory. But when it hits reality, and marketing directors, it really shifts.


Read the pink.

[goto124]

What is up with the execs anyway?

[Lord Raziere]

What is up with the execs anyway?

who knows? there are theories to explain the behavior of such powerful people, that they have this hoarding instinct for money, that they have similarities to alpha wolf pack behavior, things like that...but I don't really know what goes through their minds.

the idea being, that somehow they don't just like making money....they can't stop making money because doing it makes them feel safe, in a way. like they need ever more money to hoard all to themselves, because the way capitalism works is that you need to keep making money to stay afloat, and anything non-profitable has to go because, what doesn't make money can't be allowed to stay. Thus you have a system where all the people with the most money constantly try to get even more money because its like a competition- if your not the guy with the most money, you lose and your not safe, I guess?

now imagine if you will, that the system has certain biases proven to work, time-tested facts. now imagine that one of these facts is that you make the most money by appealing to the lowest, most base parts of human nature in the simplest most clear manner possible. imagine that one of these is well....sex. sex sells see? its one of the strongest most base parts of human nature and you try your best to capitalize on something that strong. Now imagine the fact that all of the people in the positions to take advantage of this system, are old enough to have grown up and become set in their ways before our more progressive values came along, that they hold to certain things that was though that was true back then but isn't now, and probably grew up in families that were already rich and thus have a conservative bias already, because the system in place supports their richness and keeps it existing and they don't want to give that up, and that they were sent to the richest most expensive schools money can buy at the time and those probably might also have a conservative bias because they are so famous and such that why should they change their ways when they are already doing so well, and that all these powerful people know each other and thus talk and reinforce their own views, and that you basically got a closed system of self-perpetuating views that doesn't have a lot contact with the rest of the system that might disagree with those views, to the point where the execs don't realize they are doing anything wrong.

see? I'm hoping thats accurate because that kind of sounds like the complex social reality that would lead to this kind of thing.

[Reltzik]

Under no circumstances may a fat, overweight, or obese sympathetic character be female. Buxom, sure. Curvy in all the right places, definitely. Pudgy, if you're feeling daring. But even if the backstory, skillset, and powerset justifies calorie intake in excess of exercise, sympathetic females cannot be fat. Not even if they are dwarves. That body type is reserved for unsympathetic females, and males both sympathetic and unsympathetic. MAYBE you can have a sympathetic, heavy-set, lower-class woman in a motherly or servant role, or as comic relief, but definitely not as a main character.

Similarly, women near the upper limits of physical strength are required to either be lithe or have the highly-defined muscles of a body-builder type, with a minimal layer of curvacious fat, but the model of heavy muscle under significant fat is straight out.

Under no circumstances, save as comic relief (as a result of weird tastes by an NPC or some hackneyed plot device like a love potion) is anyone to be sexually attracted to a full body type female.

Oddly enough, none of these fantasy women who avoid this body type do so through anorexia or bulimia. ... I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

[Steampunkette]

You've got it mostly right, Raziere, but add in another factor.

Age.

Most owners of large media companoes, and most of the execs below them, are upper class white heterosexual men in their 60s to 80s.

These are people who grew up in a vastly different society from modern America. Where homosexuals were boogeymen who had PSAs about them being dangerous shown in schools. Who watched Black folks lynched on their brand new black and white TV where the news anchor openly used racist speech. Who saw June Cleaver give way to Roseanne and had been raised in middle class neighborhoods during one of the largest economic booms of the past 200 years.

Then there's the psychological implications of being rich, which are pretty significant, and the disconnect from other people's reality.

Combine these things and you get a profoundly different mindset that. And what's worse, most of them surround themselves in echo chambers. Where Yes Men agree in the hopes of avoiding being fired.

Sex? Doesn't sell. But it's still the common thought. Http://www.businessinsider.com/do-you-think-sex-sells-think-again-2012-4

But tell an ad exec that and watch them sputter in indignation at the idea that it doesn't.

Edit. Remind me not to post while half asleep at work... I just reworded your post... blegh. Basically everything you said, but with more focus on the social issues when those old dudes were being raised and taught what was or wasn't inappropriate.

[goto124]

What about 'fat' males? I think 'fat' males have a higher chance of being sympathic characters than 'fat' females?

[Steampunkette]

Most sitcom dads agree with that statement.

And has a hot wife who would be out of his league.

[goto124]

Having a hot wife automatically means the lucky guy scored. No need to know anything else about her.

And yes, Sith is right. Brain fart.

[Sith_Happens]

Having a hot wife automatically means the lucky guy scored. No need to know anything else about her.

I assume you meant this as "This is a trope that exists," yes? Just trying to head off an extremely unfortunate misunderstanding.

[Eisirt]

Artemis, Greek war goddess. PF's Golarion boast several war goddesses, including "Chaldira Zuzaristan", halfling goddess of battle :smalltongue:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis

No war in her domain.

The Dark Eye has Rondra (http://www.wiki-aventurica.de/wiki/Rondra) in it's pantheon.

Rondra ist die Göttin des Kampfes und des Gewitters. = Rondra is the goddess of battle and the storm.

[Reltzik]

Artemis, Greek war goddess.

I think you're thinking of Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom, knowledge, science, crafts, art, justice, law, and war. She contrasted to Ares, straightforward God of War, in that Ares was a blood knight who just waded into combat and pwned everything through sheer martial prowess, while Athena was queen of gambits, ploys, maneuver, and logistics.

Hardly the only war goddess (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:War_goddesses) out there.

[Steampunkette]

When are we going to get a decent female protagonist who is curvy in all the wrong places?

Give me my noneuclidean female heroes, already! I want a hero with shapely elbows and plump ears you can bounce a quarter off of!

[Daedroth]

Because of the context. Conan is not just a guy in half clothes. He's the badass warrior king of Cimmeria, a powerful and violent rogue who destroys evil where he finds it. He just happens to be wearing a loincloth at the time.



So... lets get that straight and apply inversion rule... if i have a character called Conette, who is a badass warrior queen of Cimmeria, a powerful and violent rogue who destroys evil where she finds ir and she just happens to be wearing a bikini mail at the time... is totally a female power fantasy?

[Sith_Happens]

When are we going to get a decent female protagonist who is curvy in all the wrong places?

Give me my noneuclidean female heroes, already! I want a hero with shapely elbows and plump ears you can bounce a quarter off of!

"Non-Euclidian" is generally an antagonist trait.:smalltongue:

[Steampunkette]

So... lets get that straight and apply inversion rule... if i have a character called Conette, who is a badass warrior queen of Cimmeria, a powerful and violent rogue who destroys evil where she finds ir and she just happens to be wearing a bikini mail at the time... is totally a female power fantasy?

If all other cultural dynamics were similarly inverted, sure. But they aren't. So no.

I get why it's hard to understand, I really do. But based on the structure of our society and the cultural context for what you're proposing two seemingly identical things aren't actually identical. Related, similar, intertwined, sure. But not identical.

It don't work.

[TheCountAlucard]

...Ares was a blood knight who just waded into combat and pwned everything through sheer martial prowess...So much so that a mortal without a drop of divine blood in his veins was able to best him in battle, yes.

[Red Fel]

Here's one.

In Forgotten Realms, Mystra is the goddess of magic. Aside from her origin story, her role is to basically have romantic relationships with male spellcasters.

Do you love death? You probably worship a death god. Love money? Worship a trade god. Love magic? Then you love magic.

Oh, and then there are her daughters, the Seven Sisters. You don't have to know their names. They're not particularly active. They're leaders, or healers, but despite being epic-level spellcasters (thanks mom!) they don't really go out into the world. They stay in one place and look impressive and generally caution people not to do what they're thinking about doing. They have histories, but most people probably haven't bothered to learn them. Also, like their mother, they bed powerful spellcasters. Because everyone should have the chance to love magic.

I was in a campaign where this was a thing. The DMPC had previously bedded one of the Seven Sisters, at her request, and she was predisposed to help the party out.

Contrast that with WH40K's Emperor & Sons. He's a physical god created to be the perfect and eternal symbol of humanity. They're a bunch of whackadoodle warrior nutjobs. (To be fair, everyone in WH40K is a whackadoodle warrior nutjob. Except for CIAPHAS CAIN, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!!! He's a bit alright.) Each has a specific personality, a history, and a chapter of whackadoodle nutjob soldiers at his back, and you will know them, because they will be on the exam.

You do not bed the Emperor. That would be heresy.

[goto124]

So... lets get that straight and apply inversion rule... if i have a character called Conette, who is a badass warrior queen of Cimmeria, a powerful and violent rogue who destroys evil where she finds ir and she just happens to be wearing a bikini mail at the time... is totally a female power fantasy?

Is that not Red Sonja? Such a character could be a female power fantasy since she's a deliberate subversion of the typical 'male barbarian' trope.


Here's one.

In Forgotten Realms, Mystra is the goddess of magic. Aside from her origin story, her role is to basically have romantic relationships with male spellcasters.

Oh, and then there are her daughters, the Seven Sisters. You don't have to know their names. They're not particularly active. They're leaders, or healers, but despite being epic-level spellcasters (thanks mom!) they don't really go out into the world. They stay in one place and look impressive and generally caution people not to do what they're thinking about doing. They have histories, but most people probably haven't bothered to learn them. Also, like their mother, they bed powerful spellcasters. Because everyone should have the chance to love magic.

I thought that's a lazy god(dess) thing =P

What do the other gods and goddesses in FR do then? Got to have a basis of comparison.

[Steampunkette]

Depending on the day they walk among us and kick all kinds of ass. Or direct their paladins and clerics in holy wars.

But none of them shpadoinkle their followers outside of INCREDIBLY specific Deity-Mortal Romance situations. And none of them send their only children into the world to act as their Sacred Prostitutes so their followers can feel close to their god.

[Ralanr]

Not the Original Red Sonja probably, considering she was obligated to have sex with any man who could beat her in combat.

From what I understand.

[Daedroth]

Is that not Red Sonja? Such a character could be a female power fantasy since she's a deliberate subversion of the typical 'male barbarian' trope.

Hell yeah... thanks for pointing it out, i love subversions, my next character would be like this... well, my next character after i got to play my awesome idea for a bard (Who happens to be a female, too).

[goto124]

@Ralanr: Dammit, comic books and their many versions of the same character!

They made fun of themselves for the backstory that led to that though. By introducing a male character who mentioned his similar backstory, and Red Sonja just said 'that's stupid'. I hope I haven't been misinformed on this bit?

I have a lady barbarian, but there're many aspects of her that exist almost purely in my mind, since I just can't play said aspects up much (such as sexuality- I don't want to make players feel uncomfortable).

[Red Fel]

Not the Original Red Sonja probably, considering she was obligated to have sex with any man who could beat her in combat.

From what I understand.

There's another convention for you, which you can attribute to Atalanta, Hyppolyta, or Brunhild/Brynhildr (or even early versions of Wonder Woman, to a degree) - the mighty warrior maiden is forced to submit - in the intimate sense - to any man who can best her in combat. (In the case of Wonder Woman, it was simply that she was robbed of her powers, but still.)

Have you seen that in an inverted context? The man forced to become a devoted and subservient spouse to any woman who could defeat him? We're not counting Grim and Mandy, that's... Just no.

[Ralanr]

There's another convention for you, which you can attribute to Atalanta, Hyppolyta, or Brunhild/Brynhildr (or even early versions of Wonder Woman, to a degree) - the mighty warrior maiden is forced to submit - in the intimate sense - to any man who can best her in combat. (In the case of Wonder Woman, it was simply that she was robbed of her powers, but still.)

Have you seen that in an inverted context? The man forced to become a devoted and subservient spouse to any woman who could defeat him? We're not counting Grim and Mandy, that's... Just no.

Yes, in the new Red Sonja actually (or recent, I read about it online).

She told him that was stupid.

[Segev]

When are we going to get a decent female protagonist who is curvy in all the wrong places?

Give me my noneuclidean female heroes, already! I want a hero with shapely elbows and plump ears you can bounce a quarter off of!
So... Ferengi? :smallwink:

Here's one.

In Forgotten Realms, Mystra is the goddess of magic. Aside from her origin story, her role is to basically have romantic relationships with male spellcasters.

Do you love death? You probably worship a death god. Love money? Worship a trade god. Love magic? Then you love magic.

Oh, and then there are her daughters, the Seven Sisters. You don't have to know their names. They're not particularly active. They're leaders, or healers, but despite being epic-level spellcasters (thanks mom!) they don't really go out into the world. They stay in one place and look impressive and generally caution people not to do what they're thinking about doing. They have histories, but most people probably haven't bothered to learn them. Also, like their mother, they bed powerful spellcasters. Because everyone should have the chance to love magic.

I was in a campaign where this was a thing. The DMPC had previously bedded one of the Seven Sisters, at her request, and she was predisposed to help the party out.

Contrast that with WH40K's Emperor & Sons. He's a physical god created to be the perfect and eternal symbol of humanity. They're a bunch of whackadoodle warrior nutjobs. (To be fair, everyone in WH40K is a whackadoodle warrior nutjob. Except for CIAPHAS CAIN, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!!! He's a bit alright.) Each has a specific personality, a history, and a chapter of whackadoodle nutjob soldiers at his back, and you will know them, because they will be on the exam.

You do not bed the Emperor. That would be heresy.
Except...the Emperor also just kind of sits there. He's a Barrier Maiden, not a character. Do a gender inversion on WH40K and you don't really get anything jarring from the Empress Of Humanity on her throne and her badass daughters going out and kicking ass and taking names. We're used, as a culture, to individual and even cadres of named badass females, by now.

Meanwhile, if you gender-invert Mystra and her daughters to Mythra and his sons, you still don't get much that's jarring. For all that he's talked up, Elminster really just...kinda sits around being a landscape feature to visit and maybe get quests or favors from. Having Mythra's sons do much the same wouldn't be jarring. The one point of interesting attitude switch is the whole "sleep with spellcasters" thing.

If a male god sleeps with powerful worshippers/followers, he's seen as a serial abuser of his privileges or, at best, a "lucky dog" who gets to sleep around. The god's sons who sleep with powerful spellcasters would be seen as demeaning those spellcasters by making them into sex objects and depriving them of their individual awesome. "What, the only reward a powerful sorceress can expect is to become the sex-toy for one of the god of magic's sons? How outrageous!"

But when it's the goddess and her daughters, the idea that they would sleep with the (male) spellcasters is most definitely viewed as a reward for the mortals, and moreover, the indignation is at how the goddess and her daughters are reduced to sex objects that are rewards for mortals who "love magic."

I think there is, in this analysis, a confirmation bias or a form of circular logic. The presupposition is that if there is a sexual relationship, the females are being demeaned and reduced to sex objects. So it doesn't matter which side of the power dynamic they're on, they're being diminished by it and the (implied nasty selfish) men are getting treated to rewards or abusing their power in ways that diminish the women.


There's the standard hero reward that's often held up as an example of male power fantasies relegating women to trophies (i.e. hero marries princess, gets kingdom). What do we say about, however, Cinderella? Most criticisms and analyses that touch on it at all bemoan that the "only" thing she has at the end is that she's proven herself "worthy" of the Prince. As if her being in that place is an imposition that diminishes her story as an individual. But it's really just the standard hero reward, but gender-swapped.



As for the "our society makes it so that any sexual depiction of a woman removes all female power fantasy and makes it pure male sexual fantasy" argument...that is, again, circular. The conclusion is stated as a premise, and then used to prove itself with confirmation bias.

Bemoan execs all you like; Hollywood actually is a bastion of all sorts of depraved ideas on both sides. Whether they're trying to pander or trying to push an agenda, you can find all sorts of movies supporting "progressive" causes both overtly and subtly. So it's not a monolithic cultural message against women (or gays, or transgenders, or whatever category you want to discuss).

[goto124]

There's another convention for you, which you can attribute to Atalanta, Hyppolyta, or Brunhild/Brynhildr (or even early versions of Wonder Woman, to a degree) - the mighty warrior maiden is forced to submit - in the intimate sense - to any man who can best her in combat. (In the case of Wonder Woman, it was simply that she was robbed of her powers, but still.

Wait, what? They're FORCED to? I was under the impression that the women were simply impressed by the man who could defeat her in combat.

We've grown out of this convention luckily.

[Daedroth]

Have you seen that in an inverted context? The man forced to become a devoted and subservient spouse to any woman who could defeat him?

Mind if i steal your idea for my next male character?

[Red Fel]

Wait, what? They're FORCED to? I was under the impression that the women were simply impressed by the man who could defeat her in combat.

We've grown out of this convention luckily.

It's functionally the same thing. In the case of Atalanta or Hyppolyta, they basically ceased to exist as independent entities, performing a total personality shift and becoming a devoted wife or lover. That's not the behavior of a person who says, "Wow, I'm impressed, maybe I'll reconsider my position on men." That's the behavior of a person who has become an entirely different and subservient person.

In the case of Brynhildr, she actually becomes violent about it, but she really doesn't have much choice in the matter.


Mind if i steal your idea for my next male character?

Go right ahead. My advice, though? Have the marriage happen before the game, so the DM doesn't get to hijack it. Then have your PC's wife - who is more powerful than your PC, and by all rights could be adventuring in his place - berate him for "only sort of killing that dragon." Because she probably could have done a better job, anyway.

[Frozen_Feet]

I can't from the top of my head remember an example of man being defeated in a fight and then being forced to submit to a woman. On the other hand, the concept does remind me of the trope where a rowdy man with a violent past is wrapped around the little finger of a virtuous or canny woman and hence "tamed". (Specifically, I'm thinking of a Finnish song, Rosvo-Roope [=Robert the Robber] and the verse "Hän lesken eessä nöyrtyi ja joutui naimisiin / ja sillä lailla Rosvo-Roope hiljaa hirtettiin" ["he humbled before a widow and ended up married / and hence Robert the Robber was slowly hanged"]).

There are similar folk tales elsewhere. From what I can tell, it's very rare for a woman to best a man in battle, but not at all uncommon for a woman to best or dupe a man socially or intellectually so that he ends up having to swallow his pride and serve her. Of course, half of the time it's a "power of love" (or sex) thing, with the barbaric man needing some female attention to become "civilized". This latter goes back to Enkidu.

[Eldan]

I'm also a fan of the 40k fluff, as long as it doesn't involve the humans in any way. Because Great Khaine, ar ethe humans in 40k ever dull.

As for a case of men wrapped around women's fingers to be tamed, don't forget the literal Ur-example, Enkidu.

Edit: which you mentioned. Derp.

[Steampunkette]

So... Ferengi? :smallwink:

I do like my Ferengi...


As for the "our society makes it so that any sexual depiction of a woman removes all female power fantasy and makes it pure male sexual fantasy" argument...that is, again, circular. The conclusion is stated as a premise, and then used to prove itself with confirmation bias.

Bemoan execs all you like; Hollywood actually is a bastion of all sorts of depraved ideas on both sides. Whether they're trying to pander or trying to push an agenda, you can find all sorts of movies supporting "progressive" causes both overtly and subtly. So it's not a monolithic cultural message against women (or gays, or transgenders, or whatever category you want to discuss).

Actually, no. It's not circular logic. Circular logic would be "Society makes it impossible and it being impossible makes society what it is". That said, there's a heck of a lot more explanation to get into to give you the full context, to the point where a College Course in women's studies would do you a heck of a lot more good than I could.

However I don't wanna get banned for writing a full explanation of all the factors that I know of at play, so let's just say that there's more to the conversation and leave it at that.

[Vitruviansquid]

I can't from the top of my head remember an example of man being defeated in a fight and then being forced to submit to a woman.

There is the legendary origin story of the martial art of Wing Chun:

A warlord during the Qing dynasty wanted to marry a woman who rebuffed him. Being a powerful warlord, the man did not take the woman's no for an answer, and kept on insisting that she marry him, giving her little way out because you don't really get to say "no" to the warlord for long during the turbulent times in the Qing dynasty. So the woman proposed that she would only marry a man who could defeat her in a fight, which seemed as good as assent to the warlord, since she was a small, slim woman and he was a large, strong man. However, the woman had a secret weapon for the fight. Knowing that a smaller person has the advantage if she could get in very close quarters to a larger person, nullifying his reach and exploiting his awkwardness in close range she invented a fighting style that closes in and delivers quick blows without letting the enemy get away. She then used that style to defeat the warlord, who was forced to honor the deal. The fighting style that she used to defeat the warlord would later be known as Wing Chun.

To be fair, the story doesn't necessarily include the protagonist dominating and controlling the warlord with the rapey context of the contrasting stories, but she uses force to make a powerful man bend to her will.

[Segev]

I will say that a college course in women's studies, from what I do know of what's taught in them, is more likely to be a source of more problems and misunderstandings and misogyny and misandry than it is to be "helpful." I don't deny there are problems. I do think that these things are slanted to create and "discover" problems that perform confirmation bias. As discussed thus far.

I'm sure there is more to the discussion. Sadly, even without rules preventing us from going into it, I don't think it would be productive simply because too much "you can only be a good person if you agree with me" rhetoric tends to substitute for actual logic. (By which I mean, I fully expect an in-depth discussion to be derailed by "Segev is a mean and horrible person for thinking as he does." Which saddens and frustrates me.)

So...sure. Let's agree to disagree. I don't believe I could be persuasive enough to make the emotional pain the discussion would create worth it to anybody.


It's functionally the same thing. In the case of Atalanta or Hyppolyta, they basically ceased to exist as independent entities, performing a total personality shift and becoming a devoted wife or lover. That's not the behavior of a person who says, "Wow, I'm impressed, maybe I'll reconsider my position on men." That's the behavior of a person who has become an entirely different and subservient person.

In the case of Brynhildr, she actually becomes violent about it, but she really doesn't have much choice in the matter.Most of the depictions I've seen show the woman being much the same, but with a huge soft spot for her man and a protective streak a mile wide. Or, if the man is truly more than her match and as overbearing a personality as she is, she does get the subservient thing going on...but only towards him. While you can certainly read unfortunate implications into that without difficulty nor stretching, it's not quite as bad as "she's a totally different person."


My advice, though? Have the marriage happen before the game, so the DM doesn't get to hijack it. Then have your PC's wife - who is more powerful than your PC, and by all rights could be adventuring in his place - berate him for "only sort of killing that dragon." Because she probably could have done a better job, anyway.I'm not sure why you suggest this. The "defeat means marriage" bride, if/when she goes adventuring afterwards, is never berated for doing things "not as well as [her husband] would have."



All of this said, the whole notion of "suitor must beat would-be spouse in combat" is one inherently tied to the standard sex and gender roles. The reason it's considered a "thing" is because it's viewed as rare for a woman to be so powerful a combatant that this would be a difficult challenge which leaves her unwed for very long. Moreover, her nature as a warrior-woman is unusual, giving her a pride at being better than the men. Her bona fides are established by virtue of defeating all comers, which generally include legendary warriors from across her realm.

This makes the man - usually the protagonist - who eventually does best her all the more mighty. He beat her in combat, and, by proxy, all those legendary men she defeated before.

The depth of this narrative's roots in the expected cultural norms is very well highlighted by my favorite game.

The man who refuses to marry a woman who cannot best him in combat immediately conjures a much stranger image. Implicit in the warrior-woman is the idea that she obviously bests other women, because women are not usually warriors. The very notion that this man feels he must physically fight women to prove those women's worth as brides is weird, because there's no implication that a man who can beat women in combat is unusual.

Moreover, the man seeming eager to fight women brings up images of an abusive individual. Far from proving his warrior chops, the idea that he expects a woman to beat him before he'll marry her suggests a lack of prowess. Beating up a girl is just... not only is it wrong, but it makes you look weak AND evil. There's no victory in it, unless that girl has made a massive reputation that she is better than men at fighting.

So when the man is finally defeated by a woman, it is impressive that she did so...but the image is more that he was so weak he was beaten up by a girl. He's a punchline, not a worthy husband she had to work hard to win over.

The story could be done without these unfortunate tones, but not with the man openly declaring he's only marrying the woman who can beat him in battle. Such a tale would have to have a proud and mighty warrior who is beaten by a woman warrior due to other circumstances. He may well be impressed by her, and fall for her, but it won't be a formal "I will only date the woman who can defeat me" thing. It will be a realization that this is a woman he respects on an emotional level.

So yes, that entire narrative - the warrior who will only marry one who defeats her - is very much tied to gender roles and cultural expectations. It is, in itself, toying with subverting them, but by the nature of the subversion, it reinforces them as well.

[Steampunkette]

... well that was backhanded and emotionally manipulative and completely misrepresented basically everything I've said by flatly stating that I'm in a confirmation bias situation while you are, apparently, clearly not. Well done.

If I could I'd pay for the women's studies course for you. Just to watch you argue with the professor about the world as experienced by people beyond your perception. It'd be neat.

[Ralanr]

Not disagreeing, but the concept of "Beating you means I can beat all those you've beaten" doesn't make sense to me. If you kill an assassin (who doesn't fight in the open) in a straight fight, that doesn't automatically mean you are stronger than any of the assassin's previous targets. Sometimes you're just lucky. Even if you planned it, you aren't exactly stronger than the previous, you are just better than the assassin.

You can hire an assassin to kill someone you cannot defeat. Just because they can doesn't mean you do if you kill them by Proxy. You're responsible sure, but that's not the same as killing the person yourself.

[Hawkstar]

Is Korra, in a single still shot, a female power fantasy? What makes her so, in the same sense that He-Man is a male power fantasy but, say, She-Ra is not a female power fantasy?

Wait.... are there people who say She-Ra, Princess of Power, and Xena, Warrior Princess, are not Female Power Fantasies? If anyone actually does hold that opinion, they should be forever ignored on this issue, because they are objectively wrong, and may need mental help because they've lost even the most tenuous grips on reality.


If I could I'd pay for the women's studies course for you. Just to watch you argue with the professor about the world as experienced by people beyond your perception. It'd be neat.From the few Women's Studies courses I had to take during my 6 years of college (For a 2 year degree. I kept failing that course), I'd have to advise against getting into such an argument. Odds are, the professor is a complete friggin' idiot.


Not disagreeing, but the concept of "Beating you means I can beat all those you've beaten" doesn't make sense to me. If you kill an assassin (who doesn't fight in the open) in a straight fight, that doesn't automatically mean you are stronger than any of the assassin's previous targets. Sometimes you're just lucky. Even if you planned it, you aren't exactly stronger than the previous, you are just better than the assassin.

You can hire an assassin to kill someone you cannot defeat. Just because they can doesn't mean you do if you kill them by Proxy. You're responsible sure, but that's not the same as killing the person yourself.It doesn't work for assassins, but it does work for more structured/'fair' fights.

[Ralanr]

Wait.... are there people who say She-Ra, Princess of Power, and Xena, Warrior Princess, are not Female Power Fantasies? If anyone actually does hold that opinion, they should be forever ignored on this issue, because they are objectively wrong, and may need mental help because they've lost even the most tenuous grips on reality.
From the few Women's Studies courses I had to take during my 6 years of college (For a 2 year degree. I kept failing that course), I'd have to advise against getting into such an argument. Odds are, the professor is a complete friggin' idiot.

It doesn't work for assassins, but it does work for more structured/'fair' fights.

So rock can beat paper because it can beat scissors?

Ignoring the logic of paper beating rock in the game simply by covering it.

[Red Fel]

Wait.... are there people who say She-Ra, Princess of Power, and Xena, Warrior Princess, are not Female Power Fantasies? If anyone actually does hold that opinion, they should be forever ignored on this issue, because they are objectively wrong, and may need mental help because they've lost even the most tenuous grips on reality.

Blanket statements are universally wrong, and should always be ignored.

There is an argument to be made that characters like She-Ra and Xena are not power fantasies, and part of that argument is that they are distaff counterparts. Specifically, She-Ra is a female He-Man, and Xena emerged from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys as a female counterpart to that character. It's somewhat less empowering when the character is basically "This awesome dude, but a chick."

That said, I happen to think that Xena is an extremely empowering character in many ways. Perhaps the series' quality dwindled as it aged, but the character was confident, savvy, complex, and capable. She-Ra is a different story in my mind; while the character is still powerful, and her origin in some ways darker than He-Man's, the presentation of the character is a bit "girly." I'm not saying that "girly" is bad, and I get that she was supposed to be "He-Man for a female audience," but when you talk down to that audience, it's less empowering and more stereotyping.

As an aside, I thought the story of Wing Chun was that she was to be married to a horrid man (possibly a warlord, I don't recall), and became a student of Ng Mui, one of the Five Elders of Shaolin; according to this story, she was either considered unfit to wed as a result of being a martial artist, or was able to fend off his advances. (I forget which.) In either event, she didn't so much bend him to her will by defeating him; rather, she simply humiliated him and was rid of his advances.

[Amphetryon]

Not disagreeing, but the concept of "Beating you means I can beat all those you've beaten" doesn't make sense to me. If you kill an assassin (who doesn't fight in the open) in a straight fight, that doesn't automatically mean you are stronger than any of the assassin's previous targets. Sometimes you're just lucky. Even if you planned it, you aren't exactly stronger than the previous, you are just better than the assassin.

You can hire an assassin to kill someone you cannot defeat. Just because they can doesn't mean you do if you kill them by Proxy. You're responsible sure, but that's not the same as killing the person yourself.

Rock-Paper-Scissors is a valid analogy here. Going back a few years, Ali could beat Foreman but had real trouble with Frazier; Frazier could beat Ali but stood no chance against Foreman.

[Steampunkette]

I definitely agree with Red Fel on the distaff counterparts. And on She-Ra talking down to the audience. Especially for young girls who are impressionable repeatedly talking down to the audience is a bad idea, when the counterpart of the same show doesn't do it nearly as much.

Here's a convention for you: Men can become heroes because becoming a hero is an acceptable path.

Women must undergo tragedy to become a hero.

[Yukitsu]

Tragic back story is a pretty common thing for male characters as well. I think it's a key component to some of the more popular ones and it's definitely a key component to all of the lazy ones.

I mean a couple of the most quintessential male power fantasy heroes, batman and superman both had to lose something tragically for them to have become heroes. It's a prime motivator for a load of characters.

[Red Fel]

Here's a convention for you: Men can become heroes because becoming a hero is an acceptable path.

Women must undergo tragedy to become a hero.

Disagree. The classic hero story, as plotted out by Joseph Campbell1, basically requires that the hero be forced into taking up the role, usually at great personal cost or tragedy. I mean, Star Wars follows Hero of a Thousand Faces pretty rigidly, and opens with Luke being forced to accept the call to glory after the only family and home he has ever known is brutally and senselessly destroyed. This is true irrespective of gender; the tradition has become that the hero is forced into the role, in a sequence of events usually involving pain and even self-disgust.

1 To be fair, the monomyth is supposed to be a descriptive roadmap of how classical legends tended to run. Sadly, storytellers have turned it into a prescriptive mandate on how to tell the hero's story. And that's terrible.

[Steampunkette]

Oh. I'm not saying male characters don't become heroes because of tragedy. It obviously happens.

But they can also become heroes just because. A hero can take up his father's sword to make him proud. Or because he wants to be a leader, or a king. He can take up the Guard's Rainment and then have greatness thrust upon him by circumstance, becoming the "Hero of the Wall" or "Savior of the City".

Men in stories may not always, but often do choose to become heroes to satisfy their personal ambitions or just because they want to help people. Female characters, however, becoming heroes is culturally divergent and we often feel the need to give them a tragic, and almost invariably violent, inciting incident that shakes them out of "Raised as a normal girl" mode and puts them on the path of becoming a hero.

It's much more rare for a female character to become a hero without some tragic backstory than it is for a male character.

[Red Fel]

Oh. I'm not saying male characters don't become heroes because of tragedy. It obviously happens.

But they can also become heroes just because. A hero can take up his father's sword to make him proud. Or because he wants to be a leader, or a king. He can take up the Guard's Rainment and then have greatness thrust upon him by circumstance, becoming the "Hero of the Wall" or "Savior of the City".

Men in stories may not always, but often do choose to become heroes to satisfy their personal ambitions or just because they want to help people. Female characters, however, becoming heroes is culturally divergent and we often feel the need to give them a tragic, and almost invariably violent, inciting incident that shakes them out of "Raised as a normal girl" mode and puts them on the path of becoming a hero.

It's much more rare for a female character to become a hero without some tragic backstory than it is for a male character.

I'll agree in part, inasmuch as I don't know many female characters who become heroes who don't have a tragedy in their backstory. But I'll disagree in part, because although you say that heroes don't need the tragedy, there are very few who don't have it. I'd say heroes with a personal tragedy substantially outnumber those without.

[Amphetryon]

We are still limiting our discussions to gender conventions as seen in RPGs, right?

[Ralanr]

We are still limiting our discussions to gender conventions as seen in RPGs, right?

I think we're attacking fictional narratives also.

[Red Fel]

I think we're attacking fiction also.

Yeah, I think that somewhere along the line, we got around to fiction.

I wouldn't object to coming back to games.

[Steampunkette]

My last one applies to tabletop more than standard fiction, I think?

[The Fury]

My last one applies to tabletop more than standard fiction, I think?

I'll grant that the only tabletop RPG character that I've ever made with no tragedy whatsoever in their backstory was male. Waldo Walnut-tree: dock worker by day, dungeon-diving sword-guy on other days. He wasn't a very interesting or memorable character though. However that was mainly because he was for a two player pick-up game where we were mainly just testing out the rules for 4th Edition so his backstory was handled pretty lazily, and he was only male because I decided his gender based on a coin-toss.

[Steampunkette]

I've seen plenty of guard captains turned adventurer. Bards who want to see the world. Rogue who wants to make a fortune. Wizard seeking arcane lore. All of them without any kind of tragic impetus.

And of course the general "I wanna grow up to be an adventurer like (Insert NPC here who may or may not be a relative to hero)" It's even more common in Pathfinder where they have... Pathfinders. People who get famous by adventuring and writing books about it.

[Yukitsu]

I am trying to go over all my characters as there's a lot. I think almost all of my male characters have some element of tragedy but it's not what usually motivates them to be an adventurer. All my female ones definitively just decide to go and be a hero or to get into trouble variably. One of them I remember just wanted to get ludicrously, ridiculously wealthy for no deeper reason.

Although people have commented that my characters are more like villains rather than proper heroes so I may be looking at the wrong set of archetypal motives.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I skipped right from Page 9 to 20.

Looks like the discussion is moving sideways as usual.

[The Fury]

I've seen plenty of guard captains turned adventurer. Bards who want to see the world. Rogue who wants to make a fortune. Wizard seeking arcane lore. All of them without any kind of tragic impetus.

And of course the general "I wanna grow up to be an adventurer like (Insert NPC here who may or may not be a relative to hero)" It's even more common in Pathfinder where they have... Pathfinders. People who get famous by adventuring and writing books about it.

I guess that I do have that guard captain turned adventurer too-- but she's an even worse example of the "no tragedy" character than ol' Waldo. Largely because of how the campaign was run though, sessions got cancelled, DMs changed, reality rewrote itself, and when I did have a clear idea of what was going on and why I seemed to be participating despite my character's motivation rather than because of it. It was basically a mess.



Although people have commented that my characters are more like villains rather than proper heroes so I may be looking at the wrong set of archetypal motives.

Possibly, but then again possibly not. Looking at a lot of heroic characters, in RPGs but also other media, many of them had something horrible happen to them in the past. This horrible event is what made them devote their life to helping people, or otherwise make sure that no one else will ever have to suffer the same way they did. This happens with villains too, though I think the main difference is villains are willing to go further, (too far,) to accomplish those ends.

[Red Fel]

I worked on one character (who sadly never saw play) who only had tragedy in her backstory when I decided I needed to add some for dramatic purposes. Frankly, it was so non-essential to her character that I could have dropped it just as easily as I snuck it in.

She was a psychic Tibbit (sort of like a halfling that turns into a housecat) with a big construct minion she had psychically enthralled. She was vaguely Evil, sublimely selfish, and went by a name that was actually a title. (I went back and forth between Tessa, short for Countessa, and Chessa, short for Duchess.) She didn't need trauma to make her a compelling character, she didn't want to go into the world to be a hero like some role model, she just wanted power and minions, and found that traveling with adventurers was one way to acquire the former.

After writing her, I thought about scenarios that would allow me to introduce her to other PCs. For the purpose of one such scenario, I allowed the idea that her village had suffered persecution, and she was out for vengeance. That was pretty much the closest I had to trauma.

Contrast that with some of my other (male) characters. One was a murderhobo, with no motivation whatsoever. One was sworn into servitude to an idiot; I'd consider such slavery to be a bit punitive. One was compelled to travel with PCs whom he found personally abhorrent because they were on a vital mission; he was also supposedly among the last of his race, which meant he carried the whole burden of the lone survivor. (Not as a snowflake, either; this race was canonically rare.) One was an escaped slave-warrior who was still haunted by the terrible acts he had committed.

Frankly, my male characters suffered more pre-game trauma than my female ones.

[Sith_Happens]

If all other cultural dynamics were similarly inverted, sure. But they aren't. So no.

I get why it's hard to understand, I really do. But based on the structure of our society and the cultural context for what you're proposing two seemingly identical things aren't actually identical. Related, similar, intertwined, sure. But not identical.

It don't work.

Correction: it can work, but that takes a heroic amount of consistency in the face of the constant temptation to throw in gratuitous cheesecake. Take this Red Sonja cover, for example:

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_large/2/27873/599161-redsonja38_cover_pablomarcos.jpg
Her body is on full display yet I find it relatively difficult to ogle her. Why? Because the shot is composed such the all the emphasis is on the fact that she's decapitating some lizard men.

If it didn't take me twenty minutes to find a cover remotely like that one then Red Sonja would be a power fantasy par excellence. But alas*, everything else I came across was much closer to this:

http://www.dynamite.com/previews/C725130146717/ArtOfRedSonjaSelfCover.jpg
* From a sociological standpoint, that is. I'd be lying if I said I minded on a personal level.:smalltongue:


Oh, and then there are her daughters, the Seven Sisters. You don't have to know their names. They're not particularly active. They're leaders, or healers, but despite being epic-level spellcasters (thanks mom!) they don't really go out into the world. They stay in one place and look impressive and generally caution people not to do what they're thinking about doing. They have histories, but most people probably haven't bothered to learn them.

Isn't that true of every epic spellcaster in the Realms?


You do not bed the Emperor. That would be heresy.

Would it? (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5354511/1/Formal-Declaration):smallwink:


Not the Original Red Sonja probably, considering she was obligated to have sex with any man who could beat her in combat.

From what I understand.


There's another convention for you, which you can attribute to Atalanta, Hyppolyta, or Brunhild/Brynhildr (or even early versions of Wonder Woman, to a degree) - the mighty warrior maiden is forced to submit - in the intimate sense - to any man who can best her in combat. (In the case of Wonder Woman, it was simply that she was robbed of her powers, but still.)

Already been mentioned, but the way I've always heard and read it (all of the above examples included) it's less that she has to marry anyone who does defeat her and more that she won't marry anyone who can't. Any functional similarity is more due to the attitudes towards marriage in general in those characters' cultures (i.e.- once you do find a prospective spouse who meets your exacting standards you don't wait around to see if there will be a second one you like better).


[Various posts]

It seems to me like you two are agreeing on the broad strokes of everything but getting your nipples in a twist over minor details.


Wait.... are there people who say She-Ra, Princess of Power, and Xena, Warrior Princess, are not Female Power Fantasies?

"You're a fantasy alright, but you're not a power fantasy."

"Oh yeah? What's the difference?"

"PRESENTATION."

(See above re: Red Sonja.)

[Red Fel]

"You're a fantasy alright, but you're not a power fantasy."

"Oh yeah? What's the difference?"

"PRESENTATION."

I like this one. Can you tell that I like this one? I like this one.

[TheCountAlucard]

I like this one. Can you tell that I like this one? I like this one.I never would've guessed. :smalltongue:

[goto124]

I figured they're less and less male characters without tragic backstories.

Both trends of 'make female heros' and 'make tragic heros' are on the rise, and the lack of non-tragic female heros is due to overlap of the two trends.



If it didn't take me twenty minutes to find a cover remotely like that one then Red Sonja would be a power fantasy par excellence. But alas*, everything else I came across was much closer to this:

Probably because you're looking at comic covers, which fall prey to fanservice so easily they can depict characters that don't exist in the story.


she won't marry anyone who can't

May I ask why this is problematic? I feel really dumb and need a detailed explanation for why 'Person A refuses to bed/marry anyone who can't defeat hir in combat' is stupid/insertnegativeadjectivehere.

When combat is a valid way of measuring worthiness, and women are equal to men, it should be valid for a man to refuse to bed women who can't defeat him in combat. It's also valid for an woman to refuse to bed men who can't defeat her in combat.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Well, it's actually impossible for Sonja to marry a man who doesn't beat her in combat, unless she doesn't want to be a warrior anymore. The source of her strength is supernatural. She actually did want to marry a man who wasn't strong enough to beat her, and was almost willing to give up her power, but she ended up protecting him and decided that without her strength things would be worse.

[Ralanr]

Women must undergo tragedy to become a hero.


Since I've been blessed with the luck of playing D&D with the opposite sex, I can say I have seen enough female characters without tragic back stories to disagree with the incorrect notion. I'll explain what I mean by incorrect notion.

"Hero" is not an adventurer. Not every is a hero in a tabletop RPG, sometimes they are villains, sometimes they are just there and don't have heroic intentions. Sometimes they don't even bother to help people. I'm going to assume you meant adventurer.

I've seen a street kid in a gang who knows nothing of their past. Tragic? It didn't eat away at the character, so it probably wasn't tragic to her. I've seen a damphir samurai who's wandering the world for no real reason because her mother kicked her out of the house. I've seen an Oni sorcerer who just likes to blow **** up and is only in a monastery so she can learn to be constructive. I've seen a dragonborn cleric sent on a quest to return her Dragon Master's eggs.

People go out and adventure for a bunch of reasons, I won't sugercoat that tragedy is not a big one. It's a huge reason why people adventure, but that's for both genders. I'll admit it's seen in girls alot, but the ones that avert it are very good in fiction (Read up Rat Queens. Seriously it's amazing).

I'm guilty of tragedy in characters though. The only nontragic character with a "developed" backstory I can think of is one I based off an idea that was basically, "Fanboy adventuring to build his own story." and I just decided to swap the gender (granted there is tragedy in her story, but it's in the story rather than before).

Though I guess I need more experience in playing female characters, I just find it awkward (Voice wise. Seriously I find it awkward if I can't get a basic voice for my character down). I've only played one other female character in an tabletop game, which was a gnoll paladin.

[goto124]

This forum has a Free Form Roleplaying section. Hop there (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?32-Free-Form-Roleplaying) and you won't need to use your voice!

As a female IRL, I've found 'male players struggling to roleplay female characters' to be interesting. Does the inverse (aka 'female players struggling to roleplay male characters') exist? Or is it due to sexism in media sterotyping females more than males? Am I using the right words?

I once used female pronouns for playing a male character (call him N), because he was rather effeminate and the idea was that he's mistaken for a female. I let him do girly things (e.g. being shy, blushing, batting eyelashes instead of just blinking), though I did try to avoid the more negative parts of the 'gay' sterotype (I didn't give N a sexual orientation, though I sorta saw him as straight). It was kind of funny when another man kissed his hand and called him 'milady'. N just took it as a compliment, and N is so often mistaken for a lady he stopped being bothered about 500 years* ago anyway.

* Elf.

[Ralanr]

This forum has a Free Form Roleplaying section. Hop there (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?32-Free-Form-Roleplaying) and you won't need to use your voice!

As a female IRL, I've found 'male players struggling to roleplay female characters' to be interesting. Does the inverse (aka 'female players struggling to roleplay male characters') exist? Or is it due to sexism in media sterotyping females more than males? Am I using the right words?

Out of my group I'm the only person who has expressed why they struggle with it (the other guy just doesn't do it and no one really asks). Out of the six of us only two really stick to our gender most of the time. I like to think there are female players who struggle playing the opposite sex, but I think it's much rarer.

My reasoning is kinda biased however. Another reason I don't play female characters in person (because in video games or forums I don't hear myself speak) is also because I don't want to seem insensitive and get those, "You sexist" stares from people. I think this is a common reaction probably due to the stereotype that women are more sensitive than men, who are portrayed as taking such things in stride in such environments.

I usually avoid this by staying as far away from gender as I can when it comes to the overall plot of the story. Which usually makes it more difficult when a friend decides to make a hermaphrodite who is ashamed of being a hermaphrodite.

@goto124: I'm interested to see how that would work with a dwarf.
Actually an effeminate dwarf would be interesting in general, or not considering how dwarf women are portrayed as very tomboyish most of the time...but there may be exceptions. I should save this for a character idea in a future story.

[goto124]

I don't want to seem insensitive and get those, "You sexist" stares from people. I think this is a common reaction probably due to the stereotype that women are more sensitive than men, who are portrayed as taking such things in stride in such environments.

I think it's more due to positive discrimination going a bit too far. Women are percieved as the 'discriminated' sex, thus there's a lot of work and thought put into the various ways misgyny turns up in fiction. This leads to people seeing sexism towards women a lot more often than sexism towards men. IMHO.

Effeminate dwarves would be interesting, since all dwarves male or female are usually portrayed as being 'tough' and 'manly'. Also, the "dwarves hating 'those sissy elves'" stereotype =P

I have a lady barbarian. She's not remotely trying to be 'manly', whatever traits she has is due to her being herself. I'll say Red Sonja is the nearest pre-established character to mine (who is not based on Red Sonja, pure coincidence!). I don't know Red Sonja's attitude to sexuality though- I think one of her reworks beds a lot of people? What does she say to people who call her 'easy'?

[The Fury]

Effeminate dwarves would be interesting, since all dwarves male or female are usually portrayed as being 'tough' and 'manly'. Also, the "dwarves hating 'those sissy elves'" stereotype =P


That reminds me of a conversation some members of my group had about the stereotypical bad, harsh-sounding, Scottish-ish accent dwarves often get in D&D, and how funny it would be if the stereotypically sissy, femmy elves got that accent instead. It was mostly us being snobby and talking about practicing the high harp and poetry in that awful accent. And it was probably not quite as funny as we thought it was at the time.

[EvilAnagram]

As a female IRL, I've found 'male players struggling to roleplay female characters' to be interesting. Does the inverse (aka 'female players struggling to roleplay male characters') exist? Or is it due to sexism in media sterotyping females more than males? Am I using the right words?
In my experience, male players tend to have a much harder time playing female characters than the other way around. In popular media, it's only been quite recently that we've seen heroic examples of female characters featuring prominently and on the same levels as men. The only female main characters we saw in action films, for example, were hypersexualized and often meant for male viewing pleasure. It can be hard for some people to envision themselves as heroic women when they simply haven't seen women acting heroic before.

Powerful and heroic men, however, are the norm, and both male and female gamers seem to be able to play them easily.

[goto124]

Guys, I found a gender-swap thing.


http://rs271.pbsrc.com/albums/jj128/IMDrewID/FrankFrazetta-ConantheAdventurer.jpg~320x480

Parody:
http://pre02.deviantart.net/ee27/th/pre/i/2015/092/e/1/frazetta_parody_art_challenge_by_artmageillustrati on-d8o50vh.jpg

Artist who drew the above also drew this (http://pre13.deviantart.net/6c5a/th/pre/i/2015/092/d/4/fighter_female2_by_artmageillustration-d8o51o5.jpg) and this (http://pre05.deviantart.net/5e8a/th/pre/i/2015/092/9/1/treasure_cove2_by_artmageillustration-d8o4sxf.jpg). Artist's deviantart page here (http://artmageillustration.deviantart.com/).


Random observations:
Note their facial expressions.
Their bodies are equally unrealistic.

[SpectralDerp]

There is an argument to be made that characters like She-Ra and Xena are not power fantasies, and part of that argument is that they are distaff counterparts. Specifically, She-Ra is a female He-Man, and Xena emerged from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys as a female counterpart to that character. It's somewhat less empowering when the character is basically "This awesome dude, but a chick."

Which is great, seeing how "This character is great regardless of sex" is a point anyone who isn't a sexist should appreciate (unless the character sucks).


Here's a convention for you: Men can become heroes because becoming a hero is an acceptable path.

Women must undergo tragedy to become a hero.

Wow, this sounds like it might actually be about roleplaying games for once. Which makes me sad that I have to call BS on this. In my experience, whether or not a character becomes a hero due to tragedy or because the campaign demands it is far more dependant on whether or not the player wants to have a personal backstory that eventually influences the main story, or not.

[goto124]

There is an argument to be made that characters like She-Ra and Xena are not power fantasies, and part of that argument is that they are distaff counterparts. Specifically, She-Ra is a female He-Man, and Xena emerged from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys as a female counterpart to that character. It's somewhat less empowering when the character is basically "This awesome dude, but a chick."

I'm not sure what you're getting at. What do you think should be done about it?

Do you mean that female characters should be written independantly, without looking at other male chars to gender-flip?

[Daedroth]

As a female IRL, I've found 'male players struggling to roleplay female characters' to be interesting. Does the inverse (aka 'female players struggling to roleplay male characters') exist? Or is it due to sexism in media sterotyping females more than males? Am I using the right words?

I once used female pronouns for playing a male character (call him N), because he was rather effeminate and the idea was that he's mistaken for a female. I let him do girly things (e.g. being shy, blushing, batting eyelashes instead of just blinking), though I did try to avoid the more negative parts of the 'gay' sterotype (I didn't give N a sexual orientation, though I sorta saw him as straight). It was kind of funny when another man kissed his hand and called him 'milady'. N just took it as a compliment, and N is so often mistaken for a lady he stopped being bothered about 500 years* ago anyway.

* Elf.

From personal experience I can say that yes... exist. I have roleplayed females more than once and they feel pretty natural to me and other people roleplaying with me. On the other hand, the same can't be said about my girlfriend, she feels uncomfortable roleplaying males, textually "I can't get into a male mind".

[Alent]

I also disagree with the idea that tragedy is a gender convention. It's a tool, but there are others that can be used, such as the coming of age. (Although there are some who would probably argue becoming an adult is tragedy)


As a female IRL, I've found 'male players struggling to roleplay female characters' to be interesting. Does the inverse (aka 'female players struggling to roleplay male characters') exist? Or is it due to sexism in media sterotyping females more than males? Am I using the right words?

I'm curious to know the answer to this question, as well. My group is all guys, and while I can't answer the question even by observation, I have an observation in the other way: I think some instances of "males having trouble playing female characters" is just due to group flak.

I find it fairly easy to play a female character- I actually find it easier than playing a male character for some reason. At the time I joined my group, someone else was playing an, *ahem* "Cha = boobs" human sorceress and everyone seemed to see that in good humor without any issues. So once that campaign ended and the next one started, I decided to try a female character since I had an interesting idea in my head. Yeah, the guy who played the Sorceress ended up heckling me and making things social awkward that time and every time thereafter where I played a female character right up until he quit the group.

Based on my experience, I would suspect there to be peer group issues at hand in some cases where people express difficulty in playing female characters. If I had not successfully played a female in several in online play-by-posts and chat-room RPs prior to that, I would have likely become self critical and decided it was due to an inability to play a female character.


Guys, I found a gender-swap thing.


http://rs271.pbsrc.com/albums/jj128/IMDrewID/FrankFrazetta-ConantheAdventurer.jpg~320x480

Parody:
http://pre02.deviantart.net/ee27/th/pre/i/2015/092/e/1/frazetta_parody_art_challenge_by_artmageillustrati on-d8o50vh.jpg

Artist who drew the above also drew this (http://pre13.deviantart.net/6c5a/th/pre/i/2015/092/d/4/fighter_female2_by_artmageillustration-d8o51o5.jpg) and this (http://pre05.deviantart.net/5e8a/th/pre/i/2015/092/9/1/treasure_cove2_by_artmageillustration-d8o4sxf.jpg). Artist's deviantart page here (http://artmageillustration.deviantart.com/).


Random observations:
Note their facial expressions.
Their bodies are equally unrealistic.

I don't have another version of the original handy other than that tiny thumbnailish ver you linked, so I'm not 100% sure, but I think neither parody character makes the equivalent facial expression of their non-parody counterparts, so the painting seems to fail at being a literal role reversal.

Basically, from what I can tell in the thumbnail, the original female had a somewhat confident look on her face while the parody male has a "oh god what is it going to do to me?" look. The Original male also looks disinterested to me, like he's staring at a dot just over the artist's shoulder, but the parody female looks confident and pleased while being actively making eye contact with the artist. (Although I would say that's actually an improvement from the original, as the original male face looks terrible.)

I'll let someone else speak to the power fantasy part of it tho'. To me, a power fantasy is defined by actions, not appearances, and these characters are just appearances to me since I don't know the characters.

[Amphetryon]

This forum has a Free Form Roleplaying section. Hop there (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?32-Free-Form-Roleplaying) and you won't need to use your voice!

As a female IRL, I've found 'male players struggling to roleplay female characters' to be interesting. Does the inverse (aka 'female players struggling to roleplay male characters') exist? Or is it due to sexism in media sterotyping females more than males? Am I using the right words?


It exists. I've seen proportionately* more female roleplayers who played male Characters as a walking collection of negative stereotypes of the male gender than the inverse.

*RPGs have been a primarily male hobby for much of the time I've been involved in them, in my experience. I'm not assigning a value to that statement, merely noting that the guys have always outnumbered the gals by at least one Player, generally more, at any table I've played IRL.

[Hawkstar]

I don't have another version of the original handy other than that tiny thumbnailish ver you linked, so I'm not 100% sure, but I think neither parody character makes the equivalent facial expression of their non-parody counterparts, so the painting seems to fail at being a literal role reversal.

Basically, from what I can tell in the thumbnail, the original female had a somewhat confident look on her face while the parody male has a "oh god what is it going to do to me?" look. The Original male also looks disinterested to me, like he's staring at a dot just over the artist's shoulder, but the parody female looks confident and pleased while being actively making eye contact with the artist. (Although I would say that's actually an improvement from the original, as the original male face looks terrible.)

I'll let someone else speak to the power fantasy part of it tho'. To me, a power fantasy is defined by actions, not appearances, and these characters are just appearances to me since I don't know the characters.
Actually, the facial expressions are pretty comparable.

That said - I do notice that the parody has both wearing noticeably more (The barbarian has a chest covering, the 'damsel' is wearing a loincloth)

[Segev]

... well that was backhanded and emotionally manipulative and completely misrepresented basically everything I've said by flatly stating that I'm in a confirmation bias situation while you are, apparently, clearly not. Well done.

If I could I'd pay for the women's studies course for you. Just to watch you argue with the professor about the world as experienced by people beyond your perception. It'd be neat.If somebody had the popcorn, I don't doubt it would be. I also expect that nobody would be persuaded; both sides would feel the other was unreasonable and clearly wrong (and at least one side would feel the other is evil for daring to disagree), but it WOULD be entertaining.

Though as evidenced by the replies to ever suggested female power fantasy so far - and it seems a failure to produce ANY examples (not hypothetical examples, but actual ones) which are female power fantasies without being male sexual fantasies - I do think there's confirmation bias: any example of a male character will be a male power fantasy; any example of a female character will be a female sexual fantasy. Confirming that there is a horrific anti-woman bias in all media.

I contend that this is not actually true. While bias exists in both directions depending on the work, I would argue that modern media tends to TRY to be more anti-male: the evolution of the "sitcom dad" is an excellent example of this trend. Back in the early days of TV and movies, "the dad" was stern but wise, firm and logical, and generally was the final authority to clean up messes at home. If there was a bumbling buffoon, it was the wife (see: I Love Lucy), though this was hardly a universal wifely trait. (Still, "Wait 'til your father hears about this" was a common line, implying once again that the father was the more frightening or final authority figure.)

At some point, taking full form in the 90s and still in effect today, "the dad" became the bumbling buffoon. He is, at best, only marginally competent at anything other than one area in which he's allowed to be a savant (such as construction or math), and sometimes he isn't even that (Tim Taylor was a Miles Glorious about home improvement, not an actually competent handiman). The wife, meanwhile, is competent, long-suffering, and a mistress of the aside zing. She is the one to whom everybody goes when they want a "real" perspective on things, or want problems actually solved. The husband is generally tolerated as the largest (and least well-disciplined) kid in the family, at best.

There are other aspects to this shift, but most of them are tied to elements that have NOT changed in the expected gender-roles, so would make this post even longer than it's already going to be to even try.


Not disagreeing, but the concept of "Beating you means I can beat all those you've beaten" doesn't make sense to me. If you kill an assassin (who doesn't fight in the open) in a straight fight, that doesn't automatically mean you are stronger than any of the assassin's previous targets. Sometimes you're just lucky. Even if you planned it, you aren't exactly stronger than the previous, you are just better than the assassin.

You can hire an assassin to kill someone you cannot defeat. Just because they can doesn't mean you do if you kill them by Proxy. You're responsible sure, but that's not the same as killing the person yourself.While technically true, the context is generally of a "fair fight" (i.e., one where both combatants are engaged in the same general style of straight-forward physical struggle; even with different fighting styles, the contest uses the same general rules and expectations) AND the narrative construct (at least in the minds of those who matter in the story) ignores the fact that you can have rock-paper-scissors and uses a more tournament type mentality: if Alice and Bob have both beaten half the rest of the combatants in the tournament to get to the finals, the one who beats the other is clearly the best and could beat all of those the other one beat, too.
It doesn't work for assassins, but it does work for more structured/'fair' fights.Or, yeah, what he said.


Wait.... are there people who say She-Ra, Princess of Power, and Xena, Warrior Princess, are not Female Power Fantasies? If anyone actually does hold that opinion, they should be forever ignored on this issue, because they are objectively wrong, and may need mental help because they've lost even the most tenuous grips on reality.*cough* Let's just say that I'm worried about seeing just that argument being made, and leave it at that. At the least, I'd like to see discussion as to why this is or is not true, because I'm pretty sure I've seen exactly this argument made: Xena is a male sexual fantasy and not a female power fantasy because boobs are visible.

From the few Women's Studies courses I had to take during my 6 years of college (For a 2 year degree. I kept failing that course), I'd have to advise against getting into such an argument. Odds are, the professor is a complete friggin' idiot.I agree, and would also likely fail the course. Of course, this only tells those who think we need to take it that we're close-minded fools who aren't smart enough to pass it nor understand the material.

Which is why I agree that it would be a fascinating thing to watch, but don't think it would be worth more than that entertainment value as an exercise.



There is an argument to be made that characters like She-Ra and Xena are not power fantasies, and part of that argument is that they are distaff counterparts. Specifically, She-Ra is a female He-Man, and Xena emerged from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys as a female counterpart to that character. It's somewhat less empowering when the character is basically "This awesome dude, but a chick."The trouble is that most of the feminist movement, especially in its early-mature forms, was all about saying that there's no real difference between men and women, and that the only reason women were (in the feminist movement's own minds) "made lesser" is because culture portrayed men and women differently. Distaff counterparts would be the ideal way to avoid that and give examples of women doing everything a man can do.

Worse, any effort to make "this awesome chick, who is totally unique" will be met with the objection that some feature or another of her character is sexist stereotyping because it's not something that would be done on a male character who wasn't a distaff counterpart to her!

In truth, I think that it's all over-analyzed to heck and back in the name of "women's studies," seeking to find problems where there aren't any and magnifying things into problems that are just quirks of individual instances. (Also glossing over unfortunate implications that go the other way, as evidenced by some examples from my own favorite game being played - e.g. the Babylon 5 episode.)

Attempting to create distaff counterparts of "male power fantasies" is the natural and perhaps least problem-prone way to try to make the female power fantasy, if one does not wish to risk being accused of sexism for how your female power fantasy differs from male ones.


That said, I happen to think that Xena is an extremely empowering character in many ways. Perhaps the series' quality dwindled as it aged, but the character was confident, savvy, complex, and capable.And hillarious in her quips. I think she had better zingers than Hercules, as a general rule. (This is, hopefully obviously, unrelated to either's sex and more related to the characterization and writing on the shows.)


She-Ra is a different story in my mind; while the character is still powerful, and her origin in some ways darker than He-Man's, the presentation of the character is a bit "girly." I'm not saying that "girly" is bad, and I get that she was supposed to be "He-Man for a female audience," but when you talk down to that audience, it's less empowering and more stereotyping.I have a confession to make: as a kid, I liked He-Man, Transformers, She-Ra, Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony, the Smurfs, Jem, Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles, and just about anything that portrayed fantasy and sci-fi. I didn't really care if it was "for boys" or "for girls."

Therefore, I have no idea whether they were "talking down" to their target sexual demographic. How did She-Ra talk down to girls? Even having re-watched a bunch of it within the last couple of years, it just seemed like a kid's cartoon adventure story. The only talking down was in the "here's your lesson for the day" structure, which was inherent to He-Man as well.

In a total aside, is anybody else horrifically disappointed that the Jem movie they're making drops the elements of the story that involved a secret identity and Synnergy holographically making the lead look like Jem? It's kind-of sad when Hannah Montanna looks closer to the original Jem than the movie titled as such.


I definitely agree with Red Fel on the distaff counterparts. And on She-Ra talking down to the audience. Especially for young girls who are impressionable repeatedly talking down to the audience is a bad idea, when the counterpart of the same show doesn't do it nearly as much.If you could also provide examples of how She-Ra talked down to girls (and, to contrast, how He-Man did not do the same to boys), I'd appreciate it. I am seriously not seeing it.


Here's a convention for you: Men can become heroes because becoming a hero is an acceptable path.

Women must undergo tragedy to become a hero.Um... nothing in Adora's backstory indicates her heroism is due to tragedy. Her tragic backstory is simply because they needed to invent a reason why Adam's twin sister was "long-lost," since she hadn't been around before.

As for heroines without tragic backstories, how about Slayers? Lina Inverse and Naga and Amelia are not spurred to adventure by tragedy.

Supergirl is arguably "created by tragedy," but then, so is Superman, so that doesn't really make the point.

Korra definitely doesn't come from tragedy. "I'm the Avatar! And you have to DEAL WITH IT!"

Rainbow Brite doesn't come from tragedy; she came to a desolate world and restored it in her hero's journey, but if you try to call that a "tragic backstory" then every hero's formative adventure is a "tragic backstory."

Wonder Woman certainly isn't tragic in backstory. Hawk Girl's tragedy is in-story; prior to that, she's just an alien stranded on Earth. Starfire isn't even stranded; she's just hanging out here.

A lot of heroines are spurred to being heroes because they've got powers which set them apart in some fashion. However, this is equally true of male heroes with powers.



I've seen plenty of guard captains turned adventurer. Bards who want to see the world. Rogue who wants to make a fortune. Wizard seeking arcane lore. All of them without any kind of tragic impetus.

And of course the general "I wanna grow up to be an adventurer like (Insert NPC here who may or may not be a relative to hero)" It's even more common in Pathfinder where they have... Pathfinders. People who get famous by adventuring and writing books about it.
I don't see this one, sorry. The closest thing you've got is that a girl in a faux-medieval setting who wants to be a guardswoman or a heroine is met with an extra heaping of disbelief over the boy who wants to do the same because she's violating her cultural gender role. (This often comes off stupidly heavy-handed and silly because the setting is then shown to have female adventurers and heroines in near-equal proportion to males.) In general, if a girl wants to be an adventurer, she gets the same disbelief as the boy; both are basically saying "I wanna be President when I grow up" as far as adults are concerned. And the Pathfinder Society in-setting doesn't seem to have a predominance of male members over female ones. Nor are adventuresses more prone to tragic backstory than males.


Correction: it can work, but that takes a heroic amount of consistency in the face of the constant temptation to throw in gratuitous cheesecake. Take this Red Sonja cover, for example:

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_large/2/27873/599161-redsonja38_cover_pablomarcos.jpg
Her body is on full display yet I find it relatively difficult to ogle her. Why? Because the shot is composed such the all the emphasis is on the fact that she's decapitating some lizard men.

If it didn't take me twenty minutes to find a cover remotely like that one then Red Sonja would be a power fantasy par excellence. But alas*, everything else I came across was much closer to this:

http://www.dynamite.com/previews/C725130146717/ArtOfRedSonjaSelfCover.jpg
* From a sociological standpoint, that is. I'd be lying if I said I minded on a personal level.:smalltongue:Sadly, I can't see the "parody." It's coming as a broken image link over my network, for some reason. What's different about their expressions?




"You're a fantasy alright, but you're not a power fantasy."

"Oh yeah? What's the difference?"

"PRESENTATION."

(See above re: Red Sonja.)


I like this one. Can you tell that I like this one? I like this one.It is a reference to one of the best lines in a truly wonderful movie. :smallcool:


As a female IRL, I've found 'male players struggling to roleplay female characters' to be interesting. Does the inverse (aka 'female players struggling to roleplay male characters') exist?It does. I think it only seems less common because there are fewer female gamers than male gamers, so the absolute count is lower.



From personal experience I can say that yes... exist. I have roleplayed females more than once and they feel pretty natural to me and other people roleplaying with me. On the other hand, the same can't be said about my girlfriend, she feels uncomfortable roleplaying males, textually "I can't get into a male mind".

I think George R.R. Martin had the best advice regarding this: first and foremost, remember that characters are people before they are male or female.

While the two do have differences, "getting into the (fe)male mind" isn't has hard as people think. Play them as you would the sex into whose head you can get, at first, and don't worry about it otherwise. It will work surprisingly well.

[Daedroth]

I think George R.R. Martin had the best advice regarding this: first and foremost, remember that characters are people before they are male or female.

That's what i do, and thats why they feel so natural to me.

[SpectralDerp]

Martin writes his female characters as "she walked across the hallway and she had breasts", so he might want to consider taking his own advice.

[Amphetryon]

Martin writes his female characters as "she walked across the hallway and she had breasts", so he might want to consider taking his own advice.

Page number for this hilarious quote?

[Segev]

Martin writes his female characters as "she walked across the hallway and she had breasts", so he might want to consider taking his own advice.

I'm... not sure where you get that.

The paraphrased advice from him came in response to somebody actually asking him how he wrote such compelling female characters; it wasn't unsolicited.

[Hawkstar]

Page number for this hilarious quote?
It's probably a paraphrase of something where body mechanics got mentioned. Something difficult to pull off in non-visual media.

[SpectralDerp]

It's not a quote, it's a knock on Martins occasional habit of throwing in pointless remarks about female parts in situations that don't call for it. If I had to guess it's because he feels he needs titilation to keep the reader interested.

Edit: I don't have notes ready to find odd passages in books I don't like, so I'm afraid I don't have an example. It's just something that stuck out to me. I also don't have notes to compare mentions of male parts either, maybe I forgot the random erections that happened to everyone, who know? Not me, because I don't care. Sorry. Also Segev, I have no idea why you think "unsolicited" would be a factor here.

[Hawkstar]

It's not a quote, it's a knock on Martins occasional habit of throwing in pointless remarks about female parts in situations that don't call for it. If I had to guess it's because he feels he needs titilation to keep the reader interested.

Edit: I don't have notes ready to find odd passages in books I don't like, so I'm afraid I don't have an example. It's just something that stuck out to me. I also don't have notes to compare mentions of male parts either, maybe I forgot the random erections that happened to everyone, who know? Not me, because I don't care. Sorry. Also Segev, I have no idea why you think "unsolicited" would be a factor here.

Comparing highly-visible secondary sexual characteristics to largely-invisible (Outside of a few circumstances) primary sexual characteristics is a false equivalence.

Also - people have boobs, and they tend to bounce in a quite visible manner if not fully restrained. Being a person is not exclusive with being a woman, nor is being a person exclusive with being a man.

[Amphetryon]

It's not a quote, it's a knock on Martins occasional habit of throwing in pointless remarks about female parts in situations that don't call for it. If I had to guess it's because he feels he needs titilation to keep the reader interested.

Edit: I don't have notes ready to find odd passages in books I don't like, so I'm afraid I don't have an example. It's just something that stuck out to me. I also don't have notes to compare mentions of male parts either, maybe I forgot the random erections that happened to everyone, who know? Not me, because I don't care. Sorry. Also Segev, I have no idea why you think "unsolicited" would be a factor here.

That's. . . wow. Okay, then.

Re: solicited vs. unsolicited - do you, personally, find no difference in context when a person is responding to praise, responding to criticism, or speaking unprompted?

[Segev]

I also don't have notes to compare mentions of male parts either, maybe I forgot the random erections that happened to everyone, who know?IIRC, Jon Snow had a few. Largely thanks to Ygritte, long before they *ahem* consumated anything.

But as Hawkstar said, inconvenience or obviousness of portions of anatomy behaving in particular fashion is useful in describing the scene from somebody's perspective.

Robert Baratheon's gut was similarly described fairly frequently, as was Tyrion's height (and, later, nose) and Jaime's beauty (when at all useful) and later his hand. Brienne is only, I think, so insistently described and re-described in homely terms to combat the propensity of the western audience to assume women are attractive unless otherwise stated, particularly when said women are athletic.


Also Segev, I have no idea why you think "unsolicited" would be a factor here.

"Mr. Martin should follow his own advice," makes it sound like he gave advice he wasn't following, as if he were being in some way a hypocrite. The context of it being a solicited response to somebody else saying his female characters were convincing is important to understanding that he probably IS following that advice, given that others noticed the quality before he said anything about it.

[SpectralDerp]

Comparing highly-visible secondary sexual characteristics to largely-invisible (Outside of a few circumstances) primary sexual characteristics is a false equivalence.

Also - people have boobs, and they tend to bounce in a quite visible manner if not fully restrained. Being a person is not exclusive with being a woman, nor is being a person exclusive with being a man.

From that pespective, Martins advice is meaningless gibberish.

[Segev]

From that pespective, Martins advice is meaningless gibberish.

Nonsense. It's perfectly clear.

Women are people first. That doesn't mean they're identical to all other people.

Robert Baratheon is a person before he's a man, and a person before he's a fat guy. But that doesn't mean his being fat has no impact on his character or his experience in the story.

[SpectralDerp]

Nonsense. It's perfectly clear.

No, it's meaningless. By that logic, if the only description a female character ever receives is "She's a woman", well, women are people too, so she's clearly described as a person!

[Ralanr]

No, it's meaningless. By that logic, if the only description a female character ever receives is "She's a woman", well, women are people too, so she's clearly described as a person!

It might also depend on the importance the character has to the overall plot.

Like say...sleeping beauty's mother in the original film. Or was her mother dead (cause that's common).

[SpectralDerp]

In the disney movie, Sleeping Beauty has indeed a mother, who is only in the movie because Sleeping Beauty has just been born and the primary tragedy is the curse Maleficent puts on her, so her mother having died during childbirth would have detracted from the actions of the villain, so the mother has to be alive and if she recently gave birth, it doesn't make sense for her not to be present during the celebration. She effectivly isn't a character (and, to a lesser extent, so is anyone besides the 4 casters). Now imagine there would have been random frames that zoom in on her chest. Does that make her more of a person, or less?

[Segev]

No, it's meaningless. By that logic, if the only description a female character ever receives is "She's a woman", well, women are people too, so she's clearly described as a person!

Ah, okay. Yes, the denotation of that advice, bereft of context and interpreted as broadly as possible, is meaningless.

Except that it's very clear that he means exactly the opposite of what you just said, since you're ignoring the context that he's talking about how to write convincing characters.

It would be equally meaningless to say, "He's a man," and since men are people, the advice has been followed with nothing more than that.

But what's very clearly being said is to worry about describing a PERSON first, in the depth you would give a person, and only worry about whether that person is male or female as it comes up in fleshing out that description. It is not intellectually honest to turn it on its head to win a rhetorical argument.

I suppose a better counterpoint to your complaint, however, is that he says to start by thinking of the character as a person. He never says "don't think of her as a woman." Just that it isn't the first thing to do, and, implicitly, not to allow "she's a woman" to dominate "she's a person" in your portrayal.

[Ralanr]

In the disney movie, Sleeping Beauty has indeed a mother, who is only in the movie because Sleeping Beauty has just been born and the primary tragedy is the curse Maleficent puts on her, so her mother having died during childbirth would have detracted from the actions of the villain, so the mother has to be alive and if she recently gave birth, it doesn't make sense for her not to be present during the celebration. She effectivly isn't a character (and, to a lesser extent, so is anyone besides the 4 casters). Now imagine there would have been random frames that zoom in on her chest. Does that make her more of a person, or less?

Less.

Which character in game of thrones is important to the story but only described for "breasts". An example would help your point.

Cause honestly you're just stating the obvious as though we don't understand the concept of how a character works.

I know that you cannot build a character on one thing only and still have them interesting. Flat characters are not fun at parties.

[SpectralDerp]

I happen to think that narration that seems to primarily indicate that the author believes there have been too many pages since the last titilation takes away from a character as a person, is that so hard to understand?

[Ralanr]

I happen to think that narration that seems to primarily indicate that the author believes there have been too many pages since the last titilation takes away from a character as a person, is that so hard to understand?

As someone who has not read the books or watch much of the show, yes. This is because I don't know enough of his writing style to see your points.

[Segev]

I happen to think that narration that seems to primarily indicate that the author believes there have been too many pages since the last titilation takes away from a character as a person, is that so hard to understand?

It's not hard to understand that you think that would be a problem. What we're saying is that we don't see where you get this impression.

"I think that Barack Obama's autobiography's repeated calls for puppies to be drowned in front of orphans to be uncalled-for."

"Um. what? Where does he...?"

"I can't think of any specific examples, but it's all over. He's a bad man for thinking that."

"The closest I can think he comes is where he talks about dining in Indonesia as a child. That's totally within reason."

"I think drowning puppies in front of orphans is wrong. What's so hard to undertand about that?"

[Frozen_Feet]

Eh, the only time I followed that advice to a letter, I ended up unable to tell what sex or gender that character was. I asked people to vote for it, but the vote came up even, so I decided to never refer to the character in a gender-specific way. Some other players did, with at least two deadset on the character being a woman. Most remained as uncertain as me.

In retrospect, I should've asked what exactly they found so feminine about the character, because I thought my own masculinity would've trickled through when I wasn't paying attention. But apparently it didn't.

[Segev]

Eh, the only time I followed that decision to a letter, I ended up unable to tell what sex or gender that character was.

Possible at times. Sometimes, the character's sex is dictated by role in the story. The Queen is, perforce, going to be female, unless the narrative is going to at least be partially taken over by explaining why he isn't (thus throwing MORE attention on the sex of the character, not less). The soldier with a spouse and imminent child to return to is almost certainly going to be male, because pregnant soldiers have very different tales than non-pregnant ones.

[SpectralDerp]

It's not hard to understand that you think that would be a problem. What we're saying is that we don't see where you get this impression.

Earlier, you argued "He can't be a hypocrite, because he was asked for advice" and now you give a comparison that's just blatant flamebait, so I'm not going to pretend to believe that you were trying to begin with.

[Ralanr]

Trickster gods are rarely female, compassion or other warm emotion based gods are rarely male.

You know, to get back on topic in this thread.

[goto124]

In the disney movie, Sleeping Beauty has indeed a mother, who is only in the movie because Sleeping Beauty has just been born and the primary tragedy is the curse Maleficent puts on her, so her mother having died during childbirth would have detracted from the actions of the villain, so the mother has to be alive and if she recently gave birth, it doesn't make sense for her not to be present during the celebration. She effectivly isn't a character (and, to a lesser extent, so is anyone besides the 4 casters). Now imagine there would have been random frames that zoom in on her chest. Does that make her more of a person, or less?

Neither.

She's already lacking character. Random cleavage zooms only add more fanservice. Without those zooms, she is still, well, not really a character.

Also:


While the two do have differences, "getting into the (fe)male mind" isn't has hard as people think. Play them as you would the sex into whose head you can get, at first, and don't worry about it otherwise. It will work surprisingly well.

Does it work like this?

1) Change the pronouns used for your female character from female (she, her, hers) to male (he, him, his). Change the name of your female character to a masculine one as well.

1b) If romance is involved, flip a coin. If heads, gender-flip your character's love interests. If tails, keep the genders of said love interests (turns heterosexual relationships into homosexual ones, and vice versa).

2) Write as per normal. It's good to have a gender-flipped version of the character sheet for this.

3) Change back to the female pronouns.

I should try a similar version of this with my female chars.

[Steampunkette]

Trickster gods are rarely female, compassion or other warm emotion based gods are rarely male.

You know, to get back on topic in this thread.

Whenever a gendered title is applied to a group of mixed gender individuals the group term will be masculine.

For example, the Lords of Hell, even though one or more is generally female. Or the Demon Lords, even though an equal, infinite, number of them are of each and every gender.

[Segev]

Earlier, you argued "He can't be a hypocrite, because he was asked for advice" and now you give a comparison that's just blatant flamebait, so I'm not going to pretend to believe that you were trying to begin with.No, I gave an example that is meant to demonstrate how your complaint is sounding because of your lack of examples. It seems that you are complaining about something that isn't there. Just as Obama never advocated drowning puppies in front of orphans.


Does it work like this?

1) Change the pronouns used for your female character from female (she, her, hers) to male (he, him, his). Change the name of your female character to a masculine one as well.

1b) If romance is involved, flip a coin. If heads, gender-flip your character's love interests. If tails, keep the genders of said love interests (turns heterosexual relationships into homosexual ones, and vice versa).

2) Write as per normal. It's good to have a gender-flipped version of the character sheet for this.

3) Change back to the female pronouns.

I should try a similar version of this with my female chars.If you want to treat it as a writing exercise, I suppose. But all Martin was saying is that how he writes female characters is that he writes characters who happen to be female. They're people, characters, first. They don't have some magic switch in their personality that makes them mysterious creatures with minds too alien for men to comprehend. What differences in their characterization extend from their sex are due to physiological truths (they might, in fact, worry about whether their clevage is presented attractively if trying to woo a man, whereas a man is going to be more concerned about how well-groomed his mustache is) or cultural realities (Arya's lack of facility in the femanine arts is an issue because she lives in a society where a girl should know those things and should not be playing at 'boys' games' to their exclusion).

I honestly thought it pretty straight-forward and uncontroversial advice, myself. :smalleek:

[Hawkstar]

No, it's meaningless. By that logic, if the only description a female character ever receives is "She's a woman", well, women are people too, so she's clearly described as a person!... way to completely miss the point. By saying someone is a person, it means they have their own personality, motivations, and agency. Those should be taken into consideration when writing the character. Of course, people also have a body and appearance.


In the disney movie, Sleeping Beauty has indeed a mother, who is only in the movie because Sleeping Beauty has just been born and the primary tragedy is the curse Maleficent puts on her, so her mother having died during childbirth would have detracted from the actions of the villain, so the mother has to be alive and if she recently gave birth, it doesn't make sense for her not to be present during the celebration. She effectivly isn't a character (and, to a lesser extent, so is anyone besides the 4 casters). Now imagine there would have been random frames that zoom in on her chest. Does that make her more of a person, or less?No. it would have had no effect on her status as a person, though it probably would have come across as gratuitous - However, visual media can easily portray body shape and animation(including breasts) without drawing undue attention to them in a way books cannot.

Personhood of a character is something to keep in mind when writing said character, asking "Why is she acting the way she is? What is her motivation?" 'Fanservice' has absolutely nothing to do with those.

[Steampunkette]

Whenever a gendered title is applied to a group of mixed gender individuals the group term will be masculine.

For example, the Lords of Hell, even though one or more is generally female. Or the Demon Lords, even though an equal, infinite, number of them are of each and every gender.

Taking it a step further, a group of men and women will be referred to as You Guys rather than You Girls. Simply because it is more socially acceptable to refer to women with masculine words than to refer to guys with feminine ones.

See also, wearing women's clothes as compared to wearing men's clothes, or wearing makeup, bor generally being a man in a profession thought to be dominated by women. The feminine is derided when adopted by men. But a woman wears a pair of jeans or a pin stripe suit and no one thinks anything of it, or even cheers for it.

Masculinity is to be embraced, while femininity is to be shunned, even in name only.

[Segev]

Taking it a step further, a group of men and women will be referred to as You Guys rather than You Girls. Simply because it is more socially acceptable to refer to women with masculine words than to refer to guys with feminine ones.This is true. It's even a rule of grammar in English.


See also, wearing women's clothes as compared to wearing men's clothes, or wearing makeup, bor generally being a man in a profession thought to be dominated by women. The feminine is derided when adopted by men. But a woman wears a pair of jeans or a pin stripe suit and no one thinks anything of it, or even cheers for it.Technically, the fact that women can dress as men and do "masculine" things without negative comment is relatively new. Tomboys used to be acceptable only in the "kids will be kids" sense; girls were expected to grow out of it, and wearing boys' clothes just Did Not Happen.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the 70s-era "feminist" movement is that they didn't really celebrate femaninity and female empowerment; they instead sought to make women into men, forcing their way into traditionally male roles and calling it progress. There's nothing wrong with women doing such things, but it went overboard to the point where they actively attacked women who stuck to "traditionally female" roles as "traitors to the sisterhood."


Masculinity is to be embraced, while femininity is to be shunned, even in name only.I assure you, I'd love to embrace a female. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for time and eternity... ...and I certainly wouldn't want to do so with a male.

I also think that saying "male as default gender of pronouns" is "shunning femaninity" is...a bit of a stretch. It relates much more strongly to "men are generic," which we've touched on before.

[Ralanr]

Whenever a gendered title is applied to a group of mixed gender individuals the group term will be masculine.

For example, the Lords of Hell, even though one or more is generally female. Or the Demon Lords, even though an equal, infinite, number of them are of each and every gender.

English could use some gender neutral pronouns that aren't considered demeaning when used.

I see no reason why the word, "god" cannot be neutral, instead we make it masculine and introduce the feminine "goddess".

There are examples of where this doesn't apply, like the word "boss". While the gender of a female boss will be pointed out with an extra word, boss remains unchanged.

[Steampunkette]

Yeah. Think of most gender neutral titles or job names and ask yourself which one seems masculine or feminine!

Dr.
Judge.
Prosecutor.
Attorney.
Nurse.
Secretary.
Mechanic.
Engineer.
Officer.
Scientist.
Pastor.
Priest.
Rabbi.
Ruler.
Conqueor.

Teacher.
Professor.

These last two are especially interesting to me. Teachers are generally assumed to be women, while Professors are men. Is it the career in academia rather than academics that elevates professors into something more prestigious than being called college teachers?

[Ralanr]

Yeah. Think of most gender neutral titles or job names and ask yourself which one seems masculine or feminine!

Dr.
Judge.
Prosecutor.
Attorney.
Nurse.
Secretary.
Mechanic.
Engineer.
Officer.
Scientist.
Pastor.
Priest.
Rabbi.
Ruler.
Conqueor.

Teacher.
Professor.

These last two are especially interesting to me. Teachers are generally assumed to be women, while Professors are men. Is it the career in academia rather than academics that elevates professors into something more prestigious than being called college teachers?

I'm sorry, but I've never heard the term "teacher" used on my campus. Everyone who teaches is either a professor or a doctor.
I assumed that was because a professor is considered the head of their local department on a campus.

[SpectralDerp]

it would have had no effect on her status as a person, though it probably would have come across as gratuitous - However, visual media can easily portray body shape and animation(including breasts) without drawing undue attention to them in a way books cannot.

Personhood of a character is something to keep in mind when writing said character, asking "Why is she acting the way she is? What is her motivation?" 'Fanservice' has absolutely nothing to do with those.

I'm talking about the status of the character as a person in the authors mind. When a character is used for sexual fanservice, that character is not thought of as a person and instead of "member of sex audience finds attractive".

[Ralanr]

I'm talking about the status of the character as a person in the authors mind. When a character is used for sexual fanservice, that character is not thought of as a person and instead of "member of sex audience finds attractive".

What the author sees and what the reader sees is rarely 100% the same.

[SpectralDerp]

What the author sees and what the reader sees is rarely 100% the same.

You might just be a brain in a vat.

[Ralanr]

You might just be a brain in a vat.

Or I might be a robot. Beep boop.

Though in all seriousness I'm not really wrong. An author can only describe what they imagine, and while people may follow the directions, they won't see it 100% the same way.

I once read a poem set in Ireland and I kept imagining Victorian London.

I could describe a forest and people will picture the closest thing that comes to mind. That's one of the beauties about reading, we fill in the blanks. No story is seen 100% the same way from multiple people.

I envy artists in that they can show it, but it takes so long to set it up.

Makes me glad I enjoy writing. I don't have te patience for drawing (and I don't have much patience to begin with XD).

[SpectralDerp]

Though in all seriousness I'm not really wrong.

Unless of course you really are just a brain in a vat, in which case there are no authors and you'd be wrong. See, we can both present stupid non-arguments.

[Ralanr]

Unless of course you really are just a brain in a vat, in which case there are no authors and you'd be wrong. See, we can both present stupid non-arguments.

Well, that was a bit hostile.

[Broken Twin]

Yeah, the English language's lack of clear gender neutral adjectives can be a pain. They/their technically works, but it feels clumsy, and replaces one problem (male/female?) with another (singular/plural?). It could be worse though. At least we don't gender random objects, like some other languages do (I can never remember if potatoes are feminine or masculine).

As to the original topic... the most resilient gender convention I see in my games are that NPCs are assumed male, which I'm assuming is just a reflection of the 'men are expendable/women are special' coin. I've been working on it in the games I GM, but I'm not in that chair much lately, so I don't get to practice often. I personally have reservations about playing a woman (due to wanting to avoid the stigma of "doing it wrong/being sexist), but considering most of my main group have played characters opposite their genders without issue on more than one occasion, a lot of it is probably due to me consciously avoiding the "he's gay, so of course he's playing a girl" stereotype. Which is unrelated to the tabletop.

Other than that, the games I have experienced have been fairly egalitarian. Male PCs slept around in about equal measure to female PCs (very few on either side), and both masculine women and feminine men were met with acceptance. Captives to be rescued were men, women, and children, and the moments of "he/she can't do that, they're a guy/girl!" were within the bounds of the culture that our characters were interacting with (which was frequently not their own), and were usually used as a springboard for the characters to go "Screw you, I'm doing it anyway!".

[Hawkstar]

I'm talking about the status of the character as a person in the authors mind. When a character is used for sexual fanservice, that character is not thought of as a person and instead of "member of sex audience finds attractive".
Actually, a person can be used for sexual fanservice while still being a person in their own right. A person of the sex that an audience finds attractive is still a person (Or at least a representation of a person, in media).


Unless of course you really are just a brain in a vat, in which case there are no authors and you'd be wrong. See, we can both present stupid non-arguments.

The status of Ralnar being a brain in a vat or not has no bearing on the existence of authors.

[Broken Twin]

As to the teacher / professor thing, I think Steampunkette was more referring to the cultural idea that men are professors (instructing adults), and women are teachers (instructing children). Would I be right on that, Steam?

Also, my first thought when I read Judge was Judge Judy. Not sure if that says anything, I just found it interesting.

[noob]

Great ancients are asexual?

[Steampunkette]

Fahrenheit 451.

Dystopic censorship riddled future with book burnings marked by the temperature required to ignite paper, or lamentation of the rise of television and it's shallow teaching of factoids rather than fact? Author intent and reader understanding don't always line up. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was essentially an MRA allegory, set against the backdrop of the dismal state of mental health when antipsychotic drugs were being invented and used without care or understanding.

Exactly right, Broken Twin.

[Steampunkette]

Great ancients are asexual?

Agender? Maybes in theory. But C'thulhu, Yog-Sothoth, and most others are referred to as male, even when such things don't really apply.

[Segev]

It's weird that "teacher" being "femanine" is somehow considered degrading to women. It was not a profession women performed with regularity prior to the 1800s or so. Before then, men were teachers almost exclusively, as they ran the school-houses (which were basically "college for kids"), they were the private tutors for the wealthy, and they were the clergy. Even nuns didn't do a lot of teaching until recent centuries.

The "schoolmarm" was the origin of the "teachers are girls" notion. I do not honestly know why women were the ones who took on that role most often, but I suspect it had something to do with it being something an unmarried woman could do in a farming community that was useful enough to earn a living while not putting her out in the fields. But even that I'm not sure of. I know villages were excited when a school teacher moved into town; education for their children was important to them, and teachers were VERY well educated for the era.

Some of those titles aren't really titles at all, and don't conjure a specific image. "Scientist," for instance, really doesn't. (The fact that I pictured Agatha Heterodyne first upon reading it doesn't help the case, either. I know, she's not technically a scientist but rather a technologist, but still.)

[Segev]

Agender? Maybes in theory. But C'thulhu, Yog-Sothoth, and most others are referred to as male, even when such things don't really apply.

Really, only Shub Niggurath is presented as female, and that's because she's the Goat With A Thousand Young. I.e. a mother figure.

[Steampunkette]

Being a teacher isn't degrading, Segev. Being a Professor is considered more prestigious. And also by default masculine compared to feminine teachers.

Teaching isn't being degraded. Professing is elevated in relative importance. Even though Professors don't need the same level of education in education a teacher does.

[Segev]

Being a teacher isn't degrading, Segev. Being a Professor is considered more prestigious. And also by default masculine compared to feminine teachers.

Teaching isn't being degraded. Professing is elevated in relative importance. Even though Professors don't need the same level of degrees a teacher does.

Well...

I would disagree, actually, with your last statement. Professors need doctorates. I'm not joking; they don't let you call yourself "professor" in universities without them. I've had students call me that when I was a graduate TA (had a Masters), but they were technically incorrect (and most GTAs go out of their way to have their students call them by first name, or at MOST call them "Mr. So-And-So"). My last name is painfully generic, so I prefer to be called by my first.

As for the elevation of Professors in Academia...

... no, I think I'll avoid this subject. It is its own very long rant and very off-topic. Suffice it to say that academia is, at this point in time, a glorified and overpaid propaganda mill more in the pocket of a political agenda than actually interested in teaching.

And I say that as somebody who teaches classes at a local university two nights a week, and has a Ph.D. and spent 11 years earning it and two M.S.s.

[Ralanr]

Being a teacher isn't degrading, Segev. Being a Professor is considered more prestigious. And also by default masculine compared to feminine teachers.

Teaching isn't being degraded. Professing is elevated in relative importance. Even though Professors don't need the same level of education in education a teacher does.

Don't professors need more? Aren't they also specialized while teachers are generalists (which isn't a bad thing).

[Red Fel]

Really, only Shub Niggurath is presented as female, and that's because she's the Goat With A Thousand Young. I.e. a mother figure.

Questionable. The Great Old Ones don't do anything in the conventional sense; why should biology be any different? I mean, do you think Shub Niggurath is a literal goat? Does Nyarlathotep actually crawl?

http://nisamerica.com/anime/nyaruko/tit_banner.jpg

... Other than that Nyarlathotep, I mean.

There's no reason to assume that Shub Niggurath's title is remotely literal, or denotes anything resembling a maternal nature.

And out of all of those titles you've mentioned, Steampunkette, the only ones that strike me as inherently masculine are Rabbi and Priest, as those roles have been historically gender-locked, and to a large extent remain so. I will add, though, that one title that has always struck me as male has been Doctor.

http://www.trbimg.com/img-1385394441/turbine/redeye-doctor-who-photos-11-doctors-20131122-015/480

At least until...

http://redrocketrising.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Joanna-Lumley-as-the-Doctor.jpg

[Steampunkette]

For those who don't know, Teachers have to take a Bachelor of Sciences with a focus on Education to be able to teach High School Level children, Associates for Middle School and lower. And they'll need individual degrees for different subjects they teach, with continuing education to maintain their accreditation. My Husband was accredited for Social Studies and Literature/English. Though he'd have to go back to College for continuing education to get re-licensed since there's a government mandate on teachers doing so.

Meanwhile there are no requirements to be a Professor. Most colleges require a Masters or Doctorate in a research-based Field, but there's no government mandate for it and no requirement to continue their education as the field progresses (though until you get Tenure you'd better at least try!). There are a lot of Professors with no teaching credentials teaching based on being good in their field.

But there are also Lawyers and Doctors who aren't even Research-Focused who teach courses. And most colleges will allow someone with only a Master of the Arts teach their Fine Arts courses.

[Ralanr]

For those who don't know, Teachers have to take a Bachelor of Sciences with a focus on Education to be able to teach High School Level children, Associates for Middle School and lower. And they'll need individual degrees for different subjects they teach, with continuing education to maintain their accreditation. My Husband was accredited for Social Studies and Literature/English. Though he'd have to go back to College for continuing education to get re-licensed since there's a government mandate on teachers doing so.

Meanwhile there are no requirements to be a Professor. Most colleges require a Masters or Doctorate in a research-based Field, but there's no government mandate for it and no requirement to continue their education as the field progresses (though until you get Tenure you'd better at least try!). There are a lot of Professors with no teaching credentials teaching based on being good in their field.

But there are also Lawyers and Doctors who aren't even Research-Focused who teach courses. And most colleges will allow someone with only a Master of the Arts teach their Fine Arts courses.

So you don't need such to teach from kindergarten through middle school?

We should probably move off the academia topic unless we can relate it back to RPGs

[Segev]

For those who don't know, Teachers have to take a Bachelor of Sciences with a focus on Education to be able to teach High School Level children, Associates for Middle School and lower. And they'll need individual degrees for different subjects they teach, with continuing education to maintain their accreditation. My Husband was accredited for Social Studies and Literature/English. Though he'd have to go back to College for continuing education to get re-licensed since there's a government mandate on teachers doing so.

Meanwhile there are no requirements to be a Professor. Most colleges require a Masters or Doctorate in a research-based Field, but there's no government mandate for it and no requirement to continue their education as the field progresses (though until you get Tenure you'd better at least try!). There are a lot of Professors with no teaching credentials teaching based on being good in their field.

But there are also Lawyers and Doctors who aren't even Research-Focused who teach courses. And most colleges will allow someone with only a Master of the Arts teach their Fine Arts courses.

Frankly - and this is not a knock against any particular teacher - the government's requirements for who can be a teacher have nothing to do with actually guaranteeing quality education, and everything to do with empowering the teachers' unions to force membership and keep cycling teachers' salaries into political candidates' coffers. It's about keeping competition thin rather than about anything relating to good education.

Also, half the things teachers are required to learn for their credentials have little to do with actually providing education to the kids and more to do with ... well, keeping professors employed without having to do much real work. Private schools would exist that are much cheaper than they currently are if teaching were not so hard to be certified to legally perform, and that would create competition for the public schools. Colleges/Universities are far fewer in number and have their own gendleman's agreements about who to hire and how and why, and reserve the highest salaries for tenured professors. Honestly, it's a pretty cushy life if you can get to it; most professors I've had work shockingly little and make in the low six figures. But they ARE gentlemen's (and ladies') clubs in that you must meet their stringent membership requirements before you can get hired.

In short, it doesn't matter that the law doesn't require certain certifications before you can be a professor in a university; the universities themselves enforce it.

I'm not saying it's justified that a "professor" would be more prestigious than a "teacher." Frankly, I don't think I'm more prestigious than a high school teacher, in terms of what I do as a professor. (Technically an "adjunct professor.") But it's untrue to say that the requirements are more stringent to be a teacher than a professor, unless you ONLY consider legal requirements. Which means, therefore, requirements are also more stringent to be a teacher than an engineer or President of the United States. Which is patently nonsense; the requirements for the former are just set by industry and for the latter by the very demanding opinions of 350,000,000 people (as well as being a certain age and born a citizen of the USA). But neither requires as much certification as being a teacher under Federal law.

[Steampunkette]

So you don't need such to teach from kindergarten through middle school?

We should probably move off the academia topic unless we can relate it back to RPGs

"Middle School and Lower" is Associates. Though I could be wrong and the lowest grades require a Masters. But hubby is asleep and I'm heading that way, now, so I can't ask him to be sure.

Though the whole Professor/Teacher thing also applies to RPGs. Whether Victorian, Modern, Cyberpunk, or even Spacefaring Sci-Fi. Tuvok and O'Brien were both professors. Keiko was a teacher. Though Leah Brahms (the one Q took to the Gamma Quadrant) was also a 'Professor' of the Daystrom Institute in her case it meant "Thief with Credentials"

[Ralanr]

"Middle School and Lower" is Associates. Though I could be wrong and the lowest grades require a Masters. But hubby is asleep and I'm heading that way, now, so I can't ask him to be sure.

Though the whole Professor/Teacher thing also applies to RPGs. Whether Victorian, Modern, Cyberpunk, or even Spacefaring Sci-Fi. Tuvok and O'Brien were both professors. Keiko was a teacher. Though Leah Brahms (the one Q took to the Gamma Quadrant) was also a 'Professor' of the Daystrom Institute in her case it meant "Thief with Credentials"

You've lost me.

[Segev]

Of course, there's also Professor River Song.

[Alent]

You've lost me.

She's referencing Star Trek TNG/Voyager characters who hold, held, or are qualified for teaching positions. I don't think it a good example as some of those characters were poorly handled when it comes to consistency. I'm not a hardcore trekkie, but Chief O'Brien in particular was a victim of random credentials and rank- he kept going back and forth between Enlisted and Officer ranks because the scriptwriters couldn't remember which he was when his education credentials should make him a... my navy ranks fail me, Lieutenant Commander?


See also, wearing women's clothes as compared to wearing men's clothes, or wearing makeup, bor generally being a man in a profession thought to be dominated by women. The feminine is derided when adopted by men. But a woman wears a pair of jeans or a pin stripe suit and no one thinks anything of it, or even cheers for it.

Masculinity is to be embraced, while femininity is to be shunned, even in name only.

I'd like to reinforce this with an exception trope list: Japanese console RPGs frequently have Herbivore males in them at some level or fashion, and have since at least the 90's. Also, there's a few variations of the crossdressing infiltration scene that are pretty much classic gold standards for fiction, like the girl in the group dresses up as male soldier and inevitably has to speak to someone with a high pitched voice, or the guys having to dress up like the girls to sneak in somewhere with the token girl being amused to no end. (Bonus trope points if it's for something creepy.)

There's a villainous corollary to this in that if the male villain does it, it's usually easily mistaken for attractive until the reveal. (Which in fantasy is usually magical in nature, but in more modern fiction you typically end up with odd things like Murdoc standing there in a pink floral pattern dress with a flamethrower yelling "Die MacGyver!")

[The Insanity]

The most resilient gender convention in my games is that females give birth.

[Yukitsu]

The most resilient gender convention in my games is that females give birth.

Strangely, the only PC in my group that has ever given birth was male. (and for added points, the father was a woman.)

[goto124]

Gotta love fantasy.

Also, let's use (formerly masculine) terms like 'gods' so much that they become gender-neutral!

[Diamondeye]

For those who don't know, Teachers have to take a Bachelor of Sciences with a focus on Education to be able to teach High School Level children, Associates for Middle School and lower. And they'll need individual degrees for different subjects they teach, with continuing education to maintain their accreditation. My Husband was accredited for Social Studies and Literature/English. Though he'd have to go back to College for continuing education to get re-licensed since there's a government mandate on teachers doing so.

Meanwhile there are no requirements to be a Professor. Most colleges require a Masters or Doctorate in a research-based Field, but there's no government mandate for it and no requirement to continue their education as the field progresses (though until you get Tenure you'd better at least try!). There are a lot of Professors with no teaching credentials teaching based on being good in their field.

This is because Education degrees are focused on the needs of teaching children and adolescents and how to convey information and thinking skills to people who are not fully developed physically, psychologically, or socially and who have, especially in younger children, very incomplete internal libraries of other information and skills to use in comprehending whatever they're being taught.

Professors, on the other hand, are teaching adults who are presumed to have a full range of core skills and the emotional, mental, and physical (by which I mean the physical structure of the brain) to learn and process material without special assistance.

Not only that, but all of this presumes that the education in education given to teachers is actually helpful in the first place. This is, at least in some respects, questionable - standards for what an educator needs to be an educator are largely set by "educators" and there is real risk of groupthink and blindspots.


But it's untrue to say that the requirements are more stringent to be a teacher than a professor, unless you ONLY consider legal requirements. Which means, therefore, requirements are also more stringent to be a teacher than an engineer or President of the United States. Which is patently nonsense; the requirements for the former are just set by industry and for the latter by the very demanding opinions of 350,000,000 people (as well as being a certain age and born a citizen of the USA). But neither requires as much certification as being a teacher under Federal law.

Legally, even this is tacitly acknowledged. An engineer can, in a pinch be a substitute math teacher, even a long-term substitute; most jurisdictions will permit this. No one in their right mind would let a math teacher substitute for an engineer in designing a bridge, skyscraper, airplane, reactor, missile, or much of anything else.

[Ralanr]

Gotta love fantasy.

Also, let's use (formerly masculine) terms like 'gods' so much that they become gender-neutral!


Yes! Let us start a grammar revolution!

[goto124]

Sometimes, words like 'chairmen' are used gender-neutrally because the speaker finds 'chair' and 'chairperson' to be awkward. Other people do use 'chairperson'.

Even more so in the cases of 'gods' and 'actors'.

[Sith_Happens]

Sadly, I can't see the "parody." It's coming as a broken image link over my network, for some reason. What's different about their expressions?

I assume you mean the second image was the one not loading for you? It's another actual comic book cover, featuring Sonja trying to look imposing while in a bog-standard "boob-and-butt" pose.


Eh, the only time I followed that advice to a letter, I ended up unable to tell what sex or gender that character was. I asked people to vote for it, but the vote came up even, so I decided to never refer to the character in a gender-specific way. Some other players did, with at least two deadset on the character being a woman. Most remained as uncertain as me.

That actually sounds like an extremely fun gimmick (with the potential to be used as more than just a gimmick).


1b) If romance is involved, flip a coin. If heads, gender-flip your character's love interests. If tails, keep the genders of said love interests (turns heterosexual relationships into homosexual ones, and vice versa).

I'm pretty sure that should be d10.:smalltongue:


Masculinity is to be embraced, while femininity is to be shunned, even in name only.

What's really sinister about this is that it not only cuts equally both ways, but goes and invents a half dozen new ways to cut on top of that.


I assure you, I'd love to embrace a female. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for time and eternity... ...and I certainly wouldn't want to do so with a male.

*rimshot*


Ruler.
Conqueor.

So this bit was weird for me, in that "ruler" tripped my "probably male" wire but "conqueror" didn't. Maybe it's because I spent at least half an hour scrolling through Red Sonja pics on Google Images last night and even in the more blatantly fanservicey of such she still looked pretty darn conqueror-ish about half the time.

[goto124]

I assume you mean the second image was the one not loading for you? It's another actual comic book cover, featuring Sonja trying to look imposing while in a bog-standard "boob-and-butt" pose.

Is sh


That actually sounds like an extremely fun gimmick (with the potential to be used as more than just a gimmick).

With the English language, you have to use a gender-neutral pronoun such as 'they' (probably the least 'weird' and easiest to pronounce) to do this on a long-term basis.


I'm pretty sure that should be d10.:smalltongue:

Hmm, why? Are there 10 possibilities? Or just because 'dice'?

Incidentally, a coin is a d2.


Masculinity is to be embraced, while femininity is to be shunned, even in name only.

There was a time when females could not embrace masculinity either. When feminists came along and (woohoo!) changed this, the 'males should not be feminine' bit was left unaffected. I won't say the feminists were entirely wrong for not bothering with the 'males should not be feminine' standard, to concentrate on changing 'females should not be masculine'. Especially considering the sexism and misgyny in those times.


I assure you, I'd love to embrace a female. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for time and eternity... ...and I certainly wouldn't want to do so with a male.


Ruler.
Conqueor.

Female examples of Conqueors please...?

http://lightningsoul.com/media/img/fun/lorde_let_me_be_your_ruler.jpg

[Steampunkette]

Do you need female examples for a word with no inherent gender to be agender?

And, actually, in the Early Second Wave, Feminists were joined by Masculinists who wanted to help dissolve a lot of the terrible gender standards. They weren't opposed to feminism and actually used their (more respected as male) voices to make sure feminist ideas were brought to the forefront, politically speaking.

Masculinists attempted to undo various stereotypes and bindings on men, they just didn't succeed (and were eventually taken over by MRA type folks who attacked feminist ideals). Society was closer to accepting of women elevating themselves (a little bit) and wearing men's clothes, but the backlash against men not being Manly Manly Mans with Mustaches and Manliness at 100% of all the times was just too strong.

Though part of that may have been WW2's aftermath of women not going home from work and raising babies to the exclusion of all else, with lots still working in factories where dresses were unacceptably dangerous and overalls, pants, and shirts became the rule of law for work clothes, regardless of gender. There weren't many men signing up to do work that required skirts.

[Sith_Happens]

Is sh

No id

(:smalltongue:)


Hmm, why? Are there 10 possibilities? Or just because 'dice'?

Because weighted probabilities.

[Frozen_Feet]

With the English language, you have to use a gender-neutral pronoun such as 'they' (probably the least 'weird' and easiest to pronounce) to do this on a long-term basis.


Wrong. You can write of a character without use of such pronouns by always referring to the character with a name or a title.

It required me to change my way of writing and thinking, but once I got the hang of it, I did it for years with grand total of two slip-ups.

[Steampunkette]

D10? The ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Ace, grey ace, bi, pan, demi, gyno, andro, hetero, homo, and my favorite Skoliosexual.

Skoliosexual individuals are attracted to agender or gender nonconforming individuals.

So that's 10 off the top of my head... for weighting a d100 would make more sense. But you'd also need a separate d100 for gender...

Though there is a significant issue with weighting rolls on this subject. No one knows with any certainty what percentage of the population is what gender or sexuality. We have estimates and have done surveys but the extreme backlash against these marginalized groups makes lying about not being part of one super attractive, while coming out is often deadly.

[goto124]

No one knows with any certainty what percentage of the population is what gender or sexuality.

Does that matter? :smalltongue:

Rolling for so many sexualities seems a bit much, especially when the writing exercise I just made up is for males who have trouble writing female characters, and females writing male chars.

[SpectralDerp]

Taking it a step further, a group of men and women will be referred to as You Guys rather than You Girls. Simply because it is more socially acceptable to refer to women with masculine words than to refer to guys with feminine ones.

See also, wearing women's clothes as compared to wearing men's clothes, or wearing makeup, bor generally being a man in a profession thought to be dominated by women. The feminine is derided when adopted by men. But a woman wears a pair of jeans or a pin stripe suit and no one thinks anything of it, or even cheers for it.

Masculinity is to be embraced, while femininity is to be shunned, even in name only.

This simply isn't correct. "Masculine words" that are acceptable to apply to women stop being "masculine", they effectively become neutral. Wearing jeans is neutral, not masculine. And if enough men would wear dresses, that would also be a neutral thing.

[Segev]

And if enough men would wear dresses, that would also be a neutral thing.

Ach, it's called a "kilt," lass! </bad scottish/dwarven accent>

[Ralanr]

This simply isn't correct. "Masculine words" that are acceptable to apply to women stop being "masculine", they effectively become neutral. Wearing jeans is neutral, not masculine. And if enough men would wear dresses, that would also be a neutral thing.


Ach, it's called a "kilt," lass! </bad scottish/dwarven accent>

This reminds me of the origins of heels.

[Frozen_Feet]

High heels and how they've come to be seen as a feminine thing is an example of the reverse. Though I'll note that when examined closely, wearing jeans is not gender-neutral. There are several lines of fashion, some of which are distinctly masculine, some which are feminine, and will attach relevant connotations to the wearer. Ditto for T-shirts and several other articles of clothing.

[Red Fel]

Let's face it... You've gotta be a man to wear tights!

http://37.media.tumblr.com/ecca1c768942e83a2fbc3cddf919ad37/tumblr_mwpr8sQ5gB1qc8x7eo7_r1_250.gif

[Frozen_Feet]

Real men also wear pink. Preferably with the text "Bad Man" applied over it by their wives.

[Ralanr]

Oh the "manly" classification.

More or less the main reason I read The Punchline Is Machismo. It's just about being a decent person who doesn't let others bother them too much.

We need to find a gender neutral word to replace, "manly".

[Red Fel]

We need to find a gender neutral word to replace, "manly".

"Badass?"

"Awesome?"

"Mustachioed?"

"Armstrong?"

http://i.imgur.com/83Ka5nE.jpg

[Segev]

Let's face it... You've gotta be a man to wear tights!

http://37.media.tumblr.com/ecca1c768942e83a2fbc3cddf919ad37/tumblr_mwpr8sQ5gB1qc8x7eo7_r1_250.gifAs Megamind demonstrates!



We need to find a gender neutral word to replace, "manly".

...why? What do you believe it connotes or denotes that needs to be applicable to both genders? To try to make a gender-neutral equivalent is meaningless to the point of undermining language, as far as I can see. I could be missing something, though: to what uses do you wish to put this word that you cannot due to it being man-associated?

[Frozen_Feet]

That would be an utter waste of time. Besides, there already are invidual terms for all traits associated with being manly; manly is just a way to refer to many of them at once or a qualifier to indicate which of those traits are considered manly.

Like I pointed out earlier about words "transsexual", "homosexual", "psychopath" etc., value judgements made by people affect how words are used more than the words used affect the value judgement. Either your new term would inherit all connotations of manly, or a new euphenism would arise for that use.

[Red Fel]

...why? What do you believe it connotes or denotes that needs to be applicable to both genders? To try to make a gender-neutral equivalent is meaningless to the point of undermining language, as far as I can see. I could be missing something, though: to what uses do you wish to put this word that you cannot due to it being man-associated?

It's this gender-specific image of awesomeness. That somehow being "manly" is the pinnacle of excellence, physical prowess and bravery.

As this guy will tell you.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/7b3a21794cbd4572a663ae1f0fe2cfe6/tumblr_mfg1ckCNNt1rbzd35o1_500.gif

Whereas this guy will explain that manliness transcends gender, sex, age, and all other demographics; it is the essence of personal perfection.

http://media.giphy.com/media/FEi2qp7PfizKg/giphy.gif

It is also a technique that has been passed down the Armstrong line for generations!

[Ralanr]

"Badass?"

"Awesome?"

"Mustachioed?"

"Armstrong?"

http://i.imgur.com/83Ka5nE.jpg

Armstrong.

As for why (it's probably a waste of time) it's because it's open to abuse on multiple sides.
"Be a man!" Implies that not being manly is somehow derogatory, where the implied definition of the term (in my opinion) doesn't have anything to do with gender but instead resolve and determination.
And being awesome. But the word awesome seems to be used to much.

[Hawkstar]

... then again, "Man" often is used to refer to 'humans in general'.

Of course, classic Manliness really is a pretty desireable trait in a guy. Unless they miss a memo, and go stupid about it instead.

[Iruka]

Examples of female power fantasies have already been given. They are attractive, yes, but the main focus is on their power, toughness, and abilities. Similarly, there are female sexual fantasies, Magid Mike fashion. If I'm not wrong, male superheros in movies double as male power fantasies and female sexual fantasies (if only because catering to females = more $$$).


'Magic Mike XXL' might be an example where the well muscled, barely clothed men are predominantly intended as a sexual fantasy for women.


Yeah, the English language's lack of clear gender neutral adjectives can be a pain. They/their technically works, but it feels clumsy, and replaces one problem (male/female?) with another (singular/plural?). It could be worse though. At least we don't gender random objects, like some other languages do (I can never remember if potatoes are feminine or masculine).


Feminine of course, in contrast to the manly spinach. :smalltongue:


Assuming german genders.

[Red Fel]

Feminine of course, in contrast to the manly spinach. :smalltongue:

Of course spinach is masculine.

http://sweetpotatosoul.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/popeye-spinach-GIF.gif

[Ralanr]

... then again, "Man" often is used to refer to 'humans in general'.

Of course, classic Manliness really is a pretty desireable trait in a guy. Unless they miss a memo, and go stupid about it instead.

I'm not even sure what classic manliness even is.

[Red Fel]

I'm not even sure what classic manliness even is.

I... I thought we covered that. Do I have to get another one? Ugh, fine, but this is the last one.

This is classic manliness.

http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwy0i1rJWC1qj0krzo1_500.gif

And this is neoclassic manliness.

http://www.out.com/sites/out.com/files/styles/teaser_custom_user_desktop_1x/public/NeilPatrickHarris-moustache-cr.jpeg

Note the obligatory mustache, common to both.

Questions?

[Frozen_Feet]

Classic manliness is strength in both mental and physical sense. It is aggression, self-confidence, determination, willpower, courage. It is interest in improving yourself and exerting your will on the world by breaking, fighting and building, the bigger the better. It is control over yourself and others.

Hence, when someone is slapped and told to "be a man!", it's usually a reaction to them having lost their will, their resolve, their control of their situation. Implying they very much ought to be in control.

Interestingly, monsters both human and not tend to display large amounts of male virtues... sans self-control.

[Segev]

Interestingly, monsters both human and not tend to display large amounts of male virtues... sans self-control.

A man is a beast who tames himself.

[Steampunkette]

Clearly, manliness involves comparing yourself to natural elements during a training montage.

[Ralanr]

Clearly, manliness involves comparing yourself to natural elements during a training montage.

We must be swift as a coursing river

[noob]

Why do this tread have never been on its rails more than ten posts in a row?

[Sith_Happens]

D10? The ones I can think of off the top of my head.

[Snip]

I might have been making some simplifications.:smalltongue:


High heels and how they've come to be seen as a feminine thing is an example of the reverse.

*looks up high heels on Wikipedia*

*turns out they evolved from riding boots*

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/uncyclopedia/images/7/7c/Themoreyouknow.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20081023004830


It's this gender-specific image of awesomeness. That somehow being "manly" is the pinnacle of excellence, physical prowess and bravery.

As this guy will tell you.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/7b3a21794cbd4572a663ae1f0fe2cfe6/tumblr_mfg1ckCNNt1rbzd35o1_500.gif

This guy, on the other hand...

http://33.media.tumblr.com/2cad277f44784ef646eb973039b4ca58/tumblr_mxvlo2UERG1rbf60bo6_500.gif


Whereas this guy will explain that manliness transcends gender, sex, age, and all other demographics; it is the essence of personal perfection.

http://media.giphy.com/media/FEi2qp7PfizKg/giphy.gif

It is also a technique that has been passed down the Armstrong line for generations!

Interestingly given previous discussion, Major Armstrong will also demonstrate that manliness is the essence of sexiness... for certain preferences of course (i.e.- those of Hiromu Arakawa).


Why do this tread have never been on its rails more than ten posts in a row?

Because Internet forums are mysterious as the dark side of the moon.:smalltongue:

[Segev]

We must be swift as a coursing river

With all the force of a great typhoon

[Lord Raziere]

Hence, when someone is slapped and told to "be a man!", it's usually a reaction to them having lost their will, their resolve, their control of their situation. Implying they very much ought to be in control.


oh don't even get me started. I hate that phrase. Its unhelpful and I'd rather get actual advice than get that shouted at me again.

[Alent]

All these gifs of Major Alex Armstrong and not one gif of Major GENERAL Olivia Armstrong. Tsk Tsk. :smallamused: If you want to use Armstrong as a word to make manliness transcend gender, you need the ice queen of fort briggs. :smallyuk:

Also, chalk me up as another person who dislikes "Be a man!" as anything but a joke. (and even then it's usually inappropriate.)

[Sith_Happens]

All these gifs of Major Alex Armstrong and not one gif of Major GENERAL Olivia Armstrong. Tsk Tsk. :smallamused: If you want to use Armstrong as a word to make manliness transcend gender, you need the ice queen of fort briggs. :smallyuk:

We've just been talking about regular manliness so far, not full-on GAR.:smallwink::smalltongue:

[SpectralDerp]

Though I'll note that when examined closely, wearing jeans is not gender-neutral. There are several lines of fashion, some of which are distinctly masculine, some which are feminine, and will attach relevant connotations to the wearer. Ditto for T-shirts and several other articles of clothing.

That would only imply that there are ways to wear jeans that are considered masculine and that there are ways that are considered feminine, not that "wearing jeans" itself points to either masculinity or femininity.

[Daedroth]

We've just been talking about regular manliness so far, not full-on GAR.:smallwink::smalltongue:


https://scontent-mad1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/11257132_405307746337226_1160336284740158297_n.jpg ?oh=9567c65c263bba3a47b5bc6bf6148df9&oe=56477441

Anyone said GAR?

[goto124]

Hence, when someone is slapped and told to "be a man!", it's usually a reaction to them having lost their will, their resolve, their control of their situation. Implying they very much ought to be in control.

Many times I've wanted to do this to plenty of whiny female characters. I suppose the gender-neutral version of the phrase is 'Get a hold on yourself'.

[Frozen_Feet]

That would only imply that there are ways to wear jeans that are considered masculine and that there are ways that are considered feminine, not that "wearing jeans" itself points to either masculinity or femininity.

No article of clothing points to either masculinity by femininity by itself. But just try finding a truly unisex design for jeans and you'll see what I mean. The presence and marketing of ladyfit jeans means that the supposedly-unisex designs are actually worn mostly by males, which in turn causes a girl wearing them to be seen as tomboyish or less feminine.

Compare with aforementioned high heels. There are some heels specifically targeted for men, but you pretty much can always tell from the look when that's the case. There are no real neutral heels, because wearing them is much more common for women - anything not overtly masculine or out-of-the-norm will hence be seen as feminine.


Many times I've wanted to do this to plenty of whiny female characters. I suppose the gender-neutral version of the phrase is 'Get a hold on yourself'.

That is a version of it, yes. Curiously, I've also seen "be a woman!" used in similar context, but the connotations seem a bit different. Roughly, men are expected to do something about the situation, where as women are just expected to endure it. "Stop whining and do something!" versus "Stop whining!"

[Red Fel]

All these gifs of Major Alex Armstrong and not one gif of Major GENERAL Olivia Armstrong. Tsk Tsk. :smallamused: If you want to use Armstrong as a word to make manliness transcend gender, you need the ice queen of fort briggs. :smallyuk:

There used to be a street called Olivier Armstrong Boulevard. They changed the name because nobody crosses Olivier Armstrong and lives.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/f1a782ff22a64e2905f1be4702eb6a33/tumblr_mhvi4xd67k1qflb4co1_500.gif

My big issue with her, honestly, is the big pouty lips. They seem otherwise unnecessary on such an awesome character, and in my mind detract from her.


Also, chalk me up as another person who dislikes "Be a man!" as anything but a joke. (and even then it's usually inappropriate.)

I enjoy it as a subversion. The female character pulls a saber out from her petticoat, saves the big macho guy who got ambushed, and bellows "Be a man!" before charging into combat. The scrawny kobold darts between his enemies' legs, slashing and stabbing at vulnerable spots, barking at the mighty beeftank, "Be a man!"

It's still a rude thing to say, and an irritating gender stereotype. But as a subversion, it's worth a wry chuckle.

[Steampunkette]

I actually dislike women saying stuff like man up or grow some balls. Same thing when a powerful female character derides femininity, like the soldier from Wreck it Ralph.

That's why I loved it when Gogo Tomago said "Stop Whining, Woman Up!" to a male character. It's a much better subversion of the phrase because it doesn't place value on manliness, but on womanhood.

[SpectralDerp]

No article of clothing points to either masculinity by femininity by itself. But just try finding a truly unisex design for jeans and you'll see what I mean. The presence and marketing of ladyfit jeans means that the supposedly-unisex designs are actually worn mostly by males, which in turn causes a girl wearing them to be seen as tomboyish or less feminine.

Compare with aforementioned high heels. There are some heels specifically targeted for men, but you pretty much can always tell from the look when that's the case. There are no real neutral heels, because wearing them is much more common for women - anything not overtly masculine or out-of-the-norm will hence be seen as feminine.

You are missing the point. "Wearing jeans" itself used to be associated with men, it's now neutral. "Wearing high heels" is currently associated with women, it would become neutral if more men would do it. There are currently designs for jeans not considered unisex, they would be considered unisex if enough people of either sex would start wearing them.

[goto124]

Roughly, men are expected to do something about the situation, where as women are just expected to endure it. "Stop whining and do something!" versus "Stop whining!"

Sometimes you really should do something about the situation, other times you've already done all you can (which can be 'nothing' or 'not much) and you should just wait a bit.

Am I missing the point? I haven't seen a situation where an woman was told to do nothing when the men was told to do something.

Toughness being associated with maleness is something that's slowly being subverted.

[Steampunkette]

Number of times someone should have slapped Luke Skywalker and shouted "Stop whining!": All of the times.
Number of times someone slapped Luke Skywalker and shouted "Stop whining!": None of the times.

[goto124]

Was Luke totally unjustified in his 'whining' in those cases?

[Amphetryon]

"I am a Jedi, like my father before me."

*SLAP* Stop whining!

[Lord Raziere]

......Luke whined about things? I don't remember anything like that. He seemed one calm, cool dude to me.

really, I've noticed a trend in internet depictions of characters, that if a character is male, has an internal problem and it isn't treated as some way to show how badass and strong-willed they are, the internet will flanderize the character being completely whiny and wimpy for no reason. as if male characters aren't allowed to express their emotions in some way that doesn't exude "COMPLETE BADASS" or whatever, its annoying, cause either they have to be so stoic that nothing seems to bother them or so over-the-top that they mix in anger with their grief or something. and it denies the true emotional range that characters are allowed to express. just.....holding them to really high standards as to what they should be, emotionally speaking.

[Haruki-kun]

The Winged Mod: This thread has veered far off-topic, and I don't see it getting back on it. Thread is now closed.