How much, if any, of Appendix N passes the Bechdel Test?

[Kalashak]

I really wish it was surprising that when confronted with EGG's bigotry people rush to defend him by saying it's actually proof he was trying to be inclusive, pretending we can't even say he's wrong, or rationalizing it as just him making a conclusion based on the social conditions of being a nerd in the 70s and 80s.
I wonder if having people willing to defend and overlook views like that were part of the "social conditions" that made women harder to find in nerd hobbies? But I suppose without a mountain of peer reviewed research, we'll never know

[Vahnavoi]

Sarcasm doesn't actually dodge burden of proof for positive claims. Your punchline would've had more teeth if you'd actually linked to some peer-reviewed study showing a reason to believe the relevant claim.

[icefractal]

I mean, it's sarcasm but that's actually the point - we voice all kinds of theories, opinions, and assertions in this forum, with literally nobody claiming that you need a peer reviewed study to say that the 3e multiclassing penalty is bad design. But on this topic, it's apparently a requirement?

For that matter, "it pushed some women away from the game" is an assertion, but so is "nobody minded it". You can reasonably say "it's unknown without proof", but that's not the same as the latter.

[Liquor Box]

I really wish it was surprising that when confronted with EGG's bigotry people rush to defend him by saying it's actually proof he was trying to be inclusive, pretending we can't even say he's wrong, or rationalizing it as just him making a conclusion based on the social conditions of being a nerd in the 70s and 80s.
I wonder if having people willing to defend and overlook views like that were part of the "social conditions" that made women harder to find in nerd hobbies? But I suppose without a mountain of peer reviewed research, we'll never know

Personally I am relieved that people do not unquestionably accept accusations of bigotry (or anything else really) without critically looking at what he actually said. Being a bigot is a nasty accusation to make, and it should not be thrown around without good reason. Doing so is the equivalent of hearing someone say they love watching children play and accusing them of being a paedophile. Unfortunately it is unsurprising to see that a couple of people in this thread who appear to suggest we should just accept accusations of bigotry without looking critically at the reasons for the accusation, but it is heartening to see that those people appear in the minority.

I mean, it's sarcasm but that's actually the point - we voice all kinds of theories, opinions, and assertions in this forum, with literally nobody claiming that you need a peer reviewed study to say that the 3e multiclassing penalty is bad design. But on this topic, it's apparently a requirement?

For that matter, "it pushed some women away from the game" is an assertion, but so is "nobody minded it". You can reasonably say "it's unknown without proof", but that's not the same as the latter.

Noone has asked for peer review on this topic either. THat was just hyperbole so the comment could be framed as sarcasm to avoid meeting the lack of evidence head on.

In my experience on this forum members are constantly questioning statements (both opinions and assertions of fact) by other posters, including frequently asking for sources, on a wide range of topics. Nothing that has been said about this topic in this thread makes it any different to most other discussions on this forum in terms of the degree of rigor being applied to it. The difference seems to me that some people seem to be offended by anyone daring to question the accuracy of statements such as these.

[icefractal]

Who's being called a bigot though? It doesn't seem to be anyone here. Possibly Gygax, if you read it as harshly as possible?

But for one, he's beyond caring about such things (being dead and all), and for another, anything he's accused of here is small potatoes next to already-known stuff like "nits make lice".

[Liquor Box]

Who's being called a bigot though? It doesn't seem to be anyone here. Possibly Gygax, if you read it as harshly as possible?

But for one, he's beyond caring about such things (being dead and all), and for another, anything he's accused of here is small potatoes next to already-known stuff like "nits make lice".

I was referring to the post with the blue text (which you referred back to) which had the comment "when confronted with EGG's bigotry". That seems to me to be a pretty clear statement on the point.

That he is dead does not render the allegation immune from critique. If someone makes a claim (positive or negative) about another person (living, dead, or made up character), there is nothing wrong with other's questioning the truth of that claim, or pointing out where the evidence does not support it.

[gbaji]

I really wish it was surprising that when confronted with EGG's bigotry people rush to defend him by saying it's actually proof he was trying to be inclusive, pretending we can't even say he's wrong, or rationalizing it as just him making a conclusion based on the social conditions of being a nerd in the 70s and 80s.

Who's being called a bigot though? It doesn't seem to be anyone here. Possibly Gygax, if you read it as harshly as possible?

But for one, he's beyond caring about such things (being dead and all), and for another, anything he's accused of here is small potatoes next to already-known stuff like "nits make lice".

It's also the extension of criticism to "people rush to defend him" which is problematic. I'm also not a fan of "any disagreement with my position and/or labeling of people is 'pretending we can't even say he's wrong'" forms of argument. There's a whole range of possible realities between "person A's statement right here is wrong based on current understanding of <whatever>", and "person A is a bigot", or even "person A's statement is an example of bigotry". Someone simply pointing that out isn't preventing you from expressing your opinion.

It's also entirely possible (correct even) for me to point out that the method being used to judge someone's statement/position/opinion is itself flawed without actually specifically defending the individual person who may or may not be currently the target of said method.

If someone posted that "{scrubbed} was a terrible person because he had a moustache, and people who have moustaches are clearly evil", I could (and perhaps *should*) correctly point out that his moustache probably had little to do with his evil nature, and that the degree to which someone has a moustache is not an accurate measurement of "evil". That's not me defending the person. I'm questioning the methodology being used.

Same deal here. There's some value to examining different metrics we might use to measure certain social issues, representation, etc, but we should be extremely cautious of moving to the next step of condemning/labeling people (especially historical people) on the basis of that measurement. You run the risk of transferring the determination from "is this a good measurement/metric" to "do we like or dislike this person", with your position on the metric being tied to an assessment of the person. And then followed by "you're defending <insert person here>" if someone disagrees. Which I personally believe is not a great way to go about doing things. A position on identity representation in RPGs should be the exact same regardless of which person we're looking at. And often, when the same methodology is applied to people we do like and respect in a given field/genre, we find that they fail as well. Which leads us to erratic and inconsistent discussions on the issue as a whole.

[Dr.Samurai]

Where exactly does the bigotry enter that "small sampling"?

Is it the fact that there are sex differences between male and female brains?

Is it his experiences with women playing in TTRPGs?

Is it his opinion that those experiences might be based on those factual differences?

Where exactly is this an example of evil bad no no behavior?

The ironic thing is that you can be sure as sugar that the people calling everyone out in current times will be judged harshly by the future as well, as they should be.

[gbaji]

The ironic thing is that you can be sure as sugar that the people calling everyone out in current times will be judged harshly by the future as well, as they should be.

Yeah. There's definitely a "stones and glass houses" aspect to this. We can't possibly know what social standards we may be subjected to by future generations, so maybe cut past generations a bit of slack as well.

Also, whether we think Gygax's statements themselves measure up as bigotry is not really the issue. He was making a decision with the game based on social standards/rules of the day. I don't think most (younger?) posters really understand what sort of advertising was broadly used back in the 70s to "target things to girls vs boys". Gygax's Lionel Train example (in the link) is a pretty mild one, in fact. So the irony is that Gygax, regardless of whether we like his reasoning, choose to just stick with the game he liked, presented it how he liked, and made a point of not trying to market it to girls, which actually resulted in something that fits better with today's concept of gender equity and is far far far less offensive than anything that would have resulted with a marketing attempt to "get girls into RPGs" back then.

If he'd marketed it to girls/women back then, it would be a series of stereotypes that most of us would shudder in horror over today. Instead, what happened was that the gender stereotypes themselves began to be challenged (a good thing). Girls/women realized that they did like playing this game that was supposed to be "for boys/men". And they put their own input into it merely by participating in it. And gamemasters created their own worlds, which changed over time based on their players. And the player base changed. Naturally. Without someone needing to make it happen. Because the very methodology of RPGs allows for this naturally. Doesn't matter what Gygax thought, or how he ran his table in the long run.

I think we all need to step back sometimes and realize that we live in a less than perfect world, filled with less than perfect people (ourselves included). Focusing all our efforts on targeting and demonizing specific people for their slightly greater amount of less than perfectness is less useful than we might think. Working trends over time into (hopefully) positive directions is much better. It doesn't get the big headlines and attention, and maybe isn't as satisfying on some levels, but it actually does get more stuff done. This process definitely seemed to work better for the RPG (especially TTRPG) genre than any forced application of social rules of the day would have done.

[Witty Username]

How was this not answered by the second paragraph of my post?

The fact that you even need to ask that suggests that you think any degree of reference physical realities of being female counts as social commentary.

Ah, I think my mind got stuck in gear, gender as social construct rather than gender as physical characteristics. I agree that that broadens the range significantly.

---
On the Gygax stuff, I am definitely in the camp of I don't much care and think our time would be better spent working on systemic issues in our gaming communities. That being said, I don't think I am qualified on evaluating Gygax on the subject anyway, my familiarity is primarily bits and pieces of work on d&d and very little personal conduct. If I recall correctly women had a -1 str in first edition, which was unnecessary, but I am not sure how much can be gleaned from that.

[JadedDM]

If someone posted that "{scrubbed} was a terrible person because he had a moustache, and people who have moustaches are clearly evil", I could (and perhaps *should*) correctly point out that his moustache probably had little to do with his evil nature, and that the degree to which someone has a moustache is not an accurate measurement of "evil". That's not me defending the person. I'm questioning the methodology being used.

I dunno, I think there's a pretty stark difference between someone claiming Gygax was bigoted because he had a mustache (something that has not happened at all, from what I've seen on this thread) and someone claiming Gygax was bigoted because he said bigoted things.

Contrary to what some of the posters on this thread seem to think, no, we do not need to form a committee and sub-committees to investigate whether Gygax held bigoted beliefs or not. People can think whatever they want about him. I am not required to prove my opinion of him in a court of law, any more than you are required to prove your own.

[Liquor Box]

I dunno, I think there's a pretty stark difference between someone claiming Gygax was bigoted because he had a mustache (something that has not happened at all, from what I've seen on this thread) and someone claiming Gygax was bigoted because he said bigoted things.

Of course that's true, but the reason the example stands is that noone has pointed to any bigoted things he said.

Contrary to what some of the posters on this thread seem to think, no, we do not need to form a committee and sub-committees to investigate whether Gygax held bigoted beliefs or not. People can think whatever they want about him. I am not required to prove my opinion of him in a court of law, any more than you are required to prove your own.

Again, this is of course true. You can assert your belief. Others can point out that your conclusion doesn't seem to follow from the evidence you linked. And, if you have further evidence or a counter point, you are able to post it or not as you choose. All those things happened above. I don't think anyone was suggesting that you were required to prove anything. Although I expect some people may assume that because you didn't provide any evidence or reasons, that you have none.

[Vahnavoi]

I mean, it's sarcasm but that's actually the point - we voice all kinds of theories, opinions, and assertions in this forum, with literally nobody claiming that you need a peer reviewed study to say that the 3e multiclassing penalty is bad design. But on this topic, it's apparently a requirement?

The verbal irony that serves as punchline of that post only works if there is, indeed, "a mountain of peer reviewed research" or some comparable evidence showing that overlooking or defending views like Gygax's keeps women from the hobby. Without that being the case, the sarcasm falls flat. Embedding a hyperlink in the text to demonstrate the point is a low a bar.

For that matter, "it pushed some women away from the game" is an assertion, but so is "nobody minded it". You can reasonably say "it's unknown without proof", but that's not the same as the latter.

The actual assertion made by Gygax is that women don't find a particular format of gaming enjoyable due to their sex, the null hypothesis to that would be that there are no relevant sex-based differences.

It should be obvious that the assertions you outline are a separate pair of hypotheses that don't directly say anything about the first pair. As said earlier: social acceptance of a thing is distinct from enjoyment of a thing.

And I can substantiate this by looking at sex differences in other forms of play. Let me quote:

To be sure, there is a relationship between parental attitudes, stereotypes, and prejudices and those of their children, in keeping with a social influence on children’s beliefs and attitudes. The associated meta-analysis by Tenenbaum and Leaper (2002) focused specifically on sex-related stereotypes and included results from 43 studies and more than 10,000 people. They found a modest relation between parent’s stereotyped beliefs and their own children’s stereotyped beliefs about men and women and boys and girls.

The results were primarily for attitudes and did not extend to sex-typed interests and behaviors. The latter includes toy preferences, and here “parents’ gender schemas had a negligible association with children’s gender-related interests” (Tenenbaum & Leaper, 2002, p. 626). In other words, parents have an influence (though still modest) on what children think about what’s “appropriate” for girls and boys, and not as much of an influence on how they actually play or engage with their friends.

Underlines for emphasis.

The two conversations aren't the same and shouldn't be confused for one another.

[Dr.Samurai]

I dunno, I think there's a pretty stark difference between someone claiming Gygax was bigoted because he had a mustache (something that has not happened at all, from what I've seen on this thread) and someone claiming Gygax was bigoted because he said bigoted things.

Neither of these has occurred though, so that's the issue.

Contrary to what some of the posters on this thread seem to think, no, we do not need to form a committee and sub-committees to investigate whether Gygax held bigoted beliefs or not. People can think whatever they want about him. I am not required to prove my opinion of him in a court of law, any more than you are required to prove your own.

Sure. But if you say he did bigoted things, and then provide evidence that doesn't substantiate that, people will point it out.


Anyways, to the OP, this might not be quite what you're looking for, as it isn't Appendix N, but it does list D&D novels and comments whether they pass the Bechdel Test or not. I don't know who put it together so I can't comment on how accurate it is but maybe it will be helpful to those that need it.

[Psyren]

No, 2004 would have been a bad time for that. The failure of Barbie Benetton was still fresh enough in everyone's mind and people didn't believe that diversity themes would move product. Now is a better time to play this card if you want to sell books.

The failure of what? Never heard of that.

I get that you don't see Bechdel Test as a complete answer to whether a show adequately represents women - but I don't think it's supposed to be that.

I never said it was?

Really? In all the discussions, many involving you, of traditional DnD portrayals I don't think any one has linked anyone saying those portrayals have harmed them. Can you post links?

You know full well I can't, not on this forum. Or if you didn't know, now you do.

Or are we doing that because we want to see character portrayals in the art that more closely align with "us" (the readers/viewers/players)? In which case, we loop right back to the assumption that a work (stories in this case) is less enjoyable for the audience unless there are characters that align with their own identity in some way. An assumption which was previously rejected when I mentioned it.

I didn't actually reject this assertion, but back then you used the qualifier "primarily" which you have now omitted here. That's what I was objecting to, because we have no way of measuring primary enjoyment. Now here you're simply saying it's a factor, which I actually agree with.

Again though, that's a criticism of the publication. I'm looking at how the publication is received, and perhaps how the readers of that publication act in response to it. Yes. Some people complain about the portrayals of race, sex, gender, orientation, etc in the publications themselves. But how does that reflect itself at a gaming table?

I think the actions of the only group to possibly be in the position of having a useful/representative sample of gaming tables is telling.

[deadman1204]

Wouldn't this require 5e to have well written story and not just be phoned in?

[gbaji]

I dunno, I think there's a pretty stark difference between someone claiming Gygax was bigoted because he had a mustache (something that has not happened at all, from what I've seen on this thread) and someone claiming Gygax was bigoted because he said bigoted things.

You completely missed the point of the analogy. It was about mistaking defense of something someone did or created with defense of the person. I've been trying in like the last 3-4 posts to make the point that if we set aside Gygax as a person, and stop obsessing over what we may or may not label him, and just look at the impact that he had on RPGs, and the impact RPGs had on society, it's been overwhelmingly a positive one.

I was specifically responding to a couple of posts which seemed to respond to my statement about the social impact of the game itself, and the degree to which RPG gamers were ahead of most of society in terms the very aspects the Bechdel test touches on, with broad "it's wrong to defend Gygax cause he was a bigot".

Um. If a bigot tells you to invest money instead of lighting it on fire, do you ignore that person because "OMG! He's a bigot, I can't listen to him!" and get out the kitchen lighter? Or do you accept that even "bad people" can have some good ideas and do some things that may *gasp* have positive effects on the world. No one is all bad.

Contrary to what some of the posters on this thread seem to think, no, we do not need to form a committee and sub-committees to investigate whether Gygax held bigoted beliefs or not. People can think whatever they want about him. I am not required to prove my opinion of him in a court of law, any more than you are required to prove your own.

And again, you're missing the point. My question to you is:

Ok. And?

Are you making any point at all other than just applying a label? If not then why say it in the first place? Is there any statement you are making past "He's a bigot"? Again.... And what? What does that claim mean to you? Why should it matter to us then? Make a complete argument of the form "I believe that X is true, therefore Y is true as well". You're missing the "therefore" part. There's no conclusion to your statement, so it's somewhat meaningless.

Let me give an example "I believe that Gygax was a bigot. Therefore, anything he did was bad. Therefore, the game of D&D is bad. The people who play it are bad. And no positive social outcomes could ever come of it". The stuff before the "therefore" is your assumptions. The stuff after are you conclusions. I put an obviously absurd set in there, but which ones do you think are valid (if any)? What is the extent of the impact on D&D and RPGs as a whole does Gygax's alleged bigotry impact? That's the part you are missing.

I didn't actually reject this assertion, but back then you used the qualifier "primarily" which you have now omitted here. That's what I was objecting to, because we have no way of measuring primary enjoyment. Now here you're simply saying it's a factor, which I actually agree with.

Fair point. Although I'd counter that the "primary" statement I made was in direct response to your statement that
' "antiquated portrayals of men" still allow them to be power fantasies for an assumed male audience'.

Just seemed strange to me that you personally defined the subject in the context of audience enjoyment, and have spent the following several posts since arguing that it's wrong to focus just on the audience enjoyment angle. Yes. We went down the road of publishers and whatnot, which lead to me acknowledging that was also a factor, but within the context of "assumed male audience" there's either the publisher or the reader, which you are assuming should be male to want to buy/publish/read the work.

You set the conditions. I just responded.

[JadedDM]

Are you making any point at all other than just applying a label? If not then why say it in the first place? Is there any statement you are making past "He's a bigot"? Again.... And what? What does that claim mean to you? Why should it matter to us then? Make a complete argument of the form "I believe that X is true, therefore Y is true as well". You're missing the "therefore" part. There's no conclusion to your statement, so it's somewhat meaningless.

Let me give an example "I believe that Gygax was a bigot. Therefore, anything he did was bad. Therefore, the game of D&D is bad. The people who play it are bad. And no positive social outcomes could ever come of it". The stuff before the "therefore" is your assumptions. The stuff after are you conclusions. I put an obviously absurd set in there, but which ones do you think are valid (if any)? What is the extent of the impact on D&D and RPGs as a whole does Gygax's alleged bigotry impact? That's the part you are missing.

What? It wasn't an if/than statement. Satinavian said:

But does the fact that women are kinda less impressive in Appendix N say anything about Gygax' personal tastes ? No. He might have listed as many good books with female protagonists, had they been available in this genre. We do know that he didn't like nonhuman protagonists all that much or settings that were not human centric. But i am not aware of any preferrence against women.

And I replied:

Well, you could always go straight to the horse's mouth for that.

So I was answering a question. I never said, "Gygax was a sexist, so therefore..." or drawing any conclusions from it, just quoting Gygax's own words about his own views on things.

[Psyren]

Fair point. Although I'd counter that the "primary" statement I made was in direct response to your statement that
' "antiquated portrayals of men" still allow them to be power fantasies for an assumed male audience'.

Just seemed strange to me that you personally defined the subject in the context of audience enjoyment, and have spent the following several posts since arguing that it's wrong to focus just on the audience enjoyment angle. Yes. We went down the road of publishers and whatnot, which lead to me acknowledging that was also a factor, but within the context of "assumed male audience" there's either the publisher or the reader, which you are assuming should be male to want to buy/publish/read the work.

You set the conditions. I just responded.

Business executives (including major publishers, marketers, and their respective overlords) ARE themselves overwhelmingly male. I didn't think that would be a controversial revelation.

[gbaji]

What? It wasn't an if/than statement. Satinavian said:



And I replied:



So I was answering a question. I never said, "Gygax was a sexist, so therefore..." or drawing any conclusions from it, just quoting Gygax's own words about his own views on things.

Yes. And then the conversation moved from that response and into whether someone (like myself) pointing out that Gygax's alleged bigotry didn't really seem to actually impact the ability for women to appreciate and enjoy D&D and other RPGs as a whole being characterized as "defending his bigotry". My moustache counter was intended to point out that just because someone has a given feature doesn't mean that what they did is "bad". Having a moustache doesn't make you an evil person. And having made or held bigoted statements/positions doesn't make the game you created "bad" or even "bad for women".

You then responded with essentially: "But he was a bigot, so therefore he was a bigot'. That's totally not the point I was making and to which you replied. I was saying that his bigotry didn't actually have much if any effect on the ability of women to enjoy the game he created. I even made an argument that had he attempted to "include girls/women" in his game, given the social thinking of the time, it would have been far more comically (if such a word can be applied) inappropriate and cringeworthy by modern social standards.

I'm talking about your response to *me*. In which you should have said "Gygax was a bigot, therefore...". But you didn't. You just repeated the assertion that he was. Which is somewhat useless in response to what I had actually said.

I'm talking about the results. Not necessarily the process used to get there. Sometimes you have to step back and look at the forest and not worry about each individual tree.

[Thane of Fife]

So, to go back to the OP a bit, I went through the Conan stories to see how many of them pass the test. I mostly just skimmed through them quickly looking for dialogue, but I've read them all before, so I had some idea what I expected to find.

As a rule, I only counted conversation if it was actual dialogue (I.e. it can't just say that two people were talking, they need to have lines) and I required it to have at least three or four lines and some degree of back-and-forth.

I counted four metrics. First, does it pass the Bechdel test. Second, does it pass the reverse Bechdel test. Third, would it have passed the Bechdel test if Conan was a woman. Fourth, would it have passed the Reverse Bechdel test if I excluded conversations involving Conan. Earlier in the thread, people were saying that the metrics would be skewed because Conan is the strong viewpoint character, so the latter two are basically to see how much Conan himself warps the distributions.

Out of the 21 stories, 4 of them pass the Bechdel test (Black Colossus, A Witch Shall Be Born, The Black Stranger, and Red Nails). Xuthal of the Dusk has two women talk, but they're talking about Conan. Most of the stories only have one female character; The People of the Black Circle and The Hour of the Dragon are the only stories that have multiple female characters who never talk to each other.

18 of the stories pass the Reverse Bechdel test. The Frost Giant's Daughter, The Vale of Lost Women, and The Servants of Bit-Yakin are the ones that fail. Bit-Yakin has parts where a man talks to another, but I did not see any reciprocation. The Frost Giant's Daughter has men talking, but the bit at the beginning was not enough for me to count it as a conversation, and the bit at the end is talking about a woman.

15 of the stories would pass the Bechdel test if Conan was a woman. There are four stories (Phoenix on the Sword, The God in the Bowl, The Tower of the Elephant, and The Scarlet Citadel) with no female characters at all. Rogues in the House has a woman with no dialogue. The sixth (Beyond the Black River) has some female settlers whom Conan never talks to (but Balthus does).

Finally, 10 of the stories pass the Reverse Bechdel test even if we ignore Conan. Possibly as many as 12 - there was a scene in Man-Eaters in Zamboula that fell just short of my threshold for conversation (three men each contribute a single line), and Black Colossus has a scene where several men are talking to Yasmela. I didn't count that one because they were talking to her and not really to each other.

[Liquor Box]

So, to go back to the OP a bit, I went through the Conan stories to see how many of them pass the test. I mostly just skimmed through them quickly looking for dialogue, but I've read them all before, so I had some idea what I expected to find.

As a rule, I only counted conversation if it was actual dialogue (I.e. it can't just say that two people were talking, they need to have lines) and I required it to have at least three or four lines and some degree of back-and-forth.

I counted four metrics. First, does it pass the Bechdel test. Second, does it pass the reverse Bechdel test. Third, would it have passed the Bechdel test if Conan was a woman. Fourth, would it have passed the Reverse Bechdel test if I excluded conversations involving Conan. Earlier in the thread, people were saying that the metrics would be skewed because Conan is the strong viewpoint character, so the latter two are basically to see how much Conan himself warps the distributions.

Out of the 21 stories, 4 of them pass the Bechdel test (Black Colossus, A Witch Shall Be Born, The Black Stranger, and Red Nails). Xuthal of the Dusk has two women talk, but they're talking about Conan. Most of the stories only have one female character; The People of the Black Circle and The Hour of the Dragon are the only stories that have multiple female characters who never talk to each other.

18 of the stories pass the Reverse Bechdel test. The Frost Giant's Daughter, The Vale of Lost Women, and The Servants of Bit-Yakin are the ones that fail. Bit-Yakin has parts where a man talks to another, but I did not see any reciprocation. The Frost Giant's Daughter has men talking, but the bit at the beginning was not enough for me to count it as a conversation, and the bit at the end is talking about a woman.

15 of the stories would pass the Bechdel test if Conan was a woman. There are four stories (Phoenix on the Sword, The God in the Bowl, The Tower of the Elephant, and The Scarlet Citadel) with no female characters at all. Rogues in the House has a woman with no dialogue. The sixth (Beyond the Black River) has some female settlers whom Conan never talks to (but Balthus does).

Finally, 10 of the stories pass the Reverse Bechdel test even if we ignore Conan. Possibly as many as 12 - there was a scene in Man-Eaters in Zamboula that fell just short of my threshold for conversation (three men each contribute a single line), and Black Colossus has a scene where several men are talking to Yasmela. I didn't count that one because they were talking to her and not really to each other.

It's an interesting observation that the number that passed the reverse bechdel test, and those that would have passed the bechdel test had conan been female are not so far removed. It suggests that the vast majority of the difference in representation between men and women in the series is simply down to the main character being male.

Minor point though - what you applied was not the bechdel test. The bechdel does not require three or four lines. It just needs to have two people talk to one another.

[Satinavian]

The failure of what? Never heard of that.

Barbie once paid a lot of money to use the trademark "United Colors of Benetton" to produce a range of very diverse dolls who not only looked like a wider variety of ethnicies but also had clothes relating to the fashion brand which were inspired by pretty international fashion. This was compounded by the "United colors of Benetton" fashion brand being itself presented in a similar inclusive way and also known for highlighting various social problems, often about minorities. The idea was obviously to appeal to various potential customer groups that did not buy the other white and blonde and standard western upperclass clothed dolls.
But the whole thing disappointed economically. And decision makers in the toy industry would have been aware of that in the early 2000s and wary of putting diversity themes in the centre of marketing campaigns.

The point though is that "antiquated portrayals of men" still allow them to be power fantasies for an assumed male audience, with agency and complex arcs that don't have to rely on reductive tropes. It's the difference between, say, a story about Theseus being a hero vs. a story about Ariadne being discarded when her usefulness to the male hero runs its course.

Regardless what the audience really looks like, i find it very questionable that "antiquated portrayals of men" and corresponding power fantasies are particularly enjoyable for contemporary men. Or that the tastes of men and women really differ much at all.

It is not only that decision makers of old times tried to cater to men. It is also that they did not know very well what men actually wanted and relied and relied on cultural assumptions/clichees about what (real) men suppossedly were meant to enjoy. The same was also true for fiction that tried to cater to women. People didn't really know their female audience either and stuck to clichees.
But market research has come a long way since then. Not less because so many works meant for men attracted a huge female fanbase and so many works for women attracted a huge male one. And people took notice.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Not less because so many works meant for men attracted a huge female fanbase and so many works for women attracted a huge male one. And people took notice.

Related: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Marketed and designed for little girls, noted for (also? Instead?) Being popular among men of various ages (aka bronies).

[Psyren]

Barbie once paid a lot of money to use the trademark "United Colors of Benetton" to produce a range of very diverse dolls who not only looked like a wider variety of ethnicies but also had clothes relating to the fashion brand which were inspired by pretty international fashion. This was compounded by the "United colors of Benetton" fashion brand being itself presented in a similar inclusive way and also known for highlighting various social problems, often about minorities. The idea was obviously to appeal to various potential customer groups that did not buy the other white and blonde and standard western upperclass clothed dolls.
But the whole thing disappointed economically. And decision makers in the toy industry would have been aware of that in the early 2000s and wary of putting diversity themes in the centre of marketing campaigns.

So - "Questionable toy line tried and failed to pander in the early 2000's, therefore every attempt at improving diversity portrayals in any other product would have been seen as pandering?" Sure, okay.

Regardless what the audience really looks like, i find it very questionable that "antiquated portrayals of men" and corresponding power fantasies are particularly enjoyable for contemporary men. Or that the tastes of men and women really differ much at all.

It is not only that decision makers of old times tried to cater to men. It is also that they did not know very well what men actually wanted and relied and relied on cultural assumptions/clichees about what (real) men suppossedly were meant to enjoy. The same was also true for fiction that tried to cater to women. People didn't really know their female audience either and stuck to clichees.
But market research has come a long way since then. Not less because so many works meant for men attracted a huge female fanbase and so many works for women attracted a huge male one. And people took notice.

As I mentioned earlier, so long as you acknowledge it was a factor (which you did again here in the bold) that's really all that matters to me, so I'm happy to move on.

[Morgaln]

So - "Questionable toy line tried and failed to pander in the early 2000's, therefore every attempt at improving diversity portrayals in any other product would have been seen as pandering?" Sure, okay.

It would have not been seen as pandering; it would have been seen as very risky due to a precedent of failure. Companies tend to be risk-averse since they don't like losing out on profit. So a failure like that could very well have repercussions on what companies were willing to try over several years.

[Psyren]

It would have not been seen as pandering; it would have been seen as very risky due to a precedent of failure. Companies tend to be risk-averse since they don't like losing out on profit. So a failure like that could very well have repercussions on what companies were willing to try over several years.

"Companies had sufficiently evolved in the early 00's to see the benefits of diversity, but they were simply held back by fear or repeating a high(?)-profile failure over at a children's toy line" is certainly not impossible, but it's also academic - we have no way to verify if that was the case now, nor does it ultimately matter.

Whether they're consciously doing it now more because the market has shifted enough to make it good business, or more because they've finally evolved - is ultimately irrelevant to me, so long as they do it. I get that that's not sufficiently cynical for some people but I don't care.

[Satinavian]

So - "Questionable toy line tried and failed to pander in the early 2000's, therefore every attempt at improving diversity portrayals in any other product would have been seen as pandering?" Sure, okay.

Yes, i would imagine that Hasbro, the toy company, does pay attention where toy lines succeed and fail.

As I mentioned earlier, so long as you acknowledge it was a factor (which you did again here in the bold) that's really all that matters to me, so I'm happy to move on.

Yeah, sure. Never claimed that this was wrong.

[gbaji]

Regardless what the audience really looks like, i find it very questionable that "antiquated portrayals of men" and corresponding power fantasies are particularly enjoyable for contemporary men. Or that the tastes of men and women really differ much at all.

It is not only that decision makers of old times tried to cater to men. It is also that they did not know very well what men actually wanted and relied and relied on cultural assumptions/clichees about what (real) men suppossedly were meant to enjoy. The same was also true for fiction that tried to cater to women. People didn't really know their female audience either and stuck to clichees.
But market research has come a long way since then. Not less because so many works meant for men attracted a huge female fanbase and so many works for women attracted a huge male one. And people took notice.

Yup. Pretty much the point I was making earlier in the thread. While we can certainly argue that it's a good idea to try to "be inclusive", the inherent problem is that what we think will be "inclusive" is itself based on whatever the current social biases are. What folks 40years thought would be inclusive towards different identity groups we find ridiculous and even offensive today. Are we really so arrogant to assume that what we think is going to be inclusive "today" wont be equally poorly viewed in the future?

Sometimes, it's just better to present something for what it is and just let the market come to it on their own. Make adjustments based on that and not try to adhere to "current thinking" on social rules.

[Anymage]

Yup. Pretty much the point I was making earlier in the thread. While we can certainly argue that it's a good idea to try to "be inclusive", the inherent problem is that what we think will be "inclusive" is itself based on whatever the current social biases are. What folks 40years thought would be inclusive towards different identity groups we find ridiculous and even offensive today. Are we really so arrogant to assume that what we think is going to be inclusive "today" wont be equally poorly viewed in the future?

Sometimes, it's just better to present something for what it is and just let the market come to it on their own. Make adjustments based on that and not try to adhere to "current thinking" on social rules.

We're going to make mistakes, especially when the target is being visibly and conspicuously inclusive. However we also have the chance to learn from past mistakes and see what does and doesn't go over well. Better representation in art/examples and avoiding major sore spots should be no-brainers for making the hobby more inclusive and welcoming.

Unfortunately while I'd be curious to try and tease out what's actually effective vs. what's just trendy nowadays, I have a feeling that any in-depth discussion would cleave closer to politics than I'm comfortable with.