Gender and Sexuality Representation in OOTS

[Raineh Daze]

The numbers say, more accurately, that 99.9% of women are weaker than 84% of men (if only 1/1,000 women surpassed the bottom 16% of men).

I have no clue where 97.7% came from.

[Zmeoaice]

He said 2 standard deviations under the mean. 84% is more like 1 SD

[lio45]

Is Roy being black at all "gratuitously weird"?

Not at all... in fact, the actual mix of the six main protagonists is FAR from weird: one black human, two fair humans, one brown dwarf, one fair elf, one fair halfling. That could easily mirror the typical team of six PCs. It's actually about as non-weird as can be.

Now, an all-black OotS is something that would not have been representative of your average roleplay party, so that would indeed have been a little extra touch of weirdness -- and you'll notice that Rich did not decide to make his six protagonists an all-black party, going instead squarely for what you call cultural inertia (i.e. a typically varied party with way more males than females).

Again, I'm not saying at all that the comic would have sucked if the PCs had all been black. It would still have been an excellent comic. I'm just saying I can totally understand why Rich chose to not make them all black. That's it, that's all.

[SowZ]

@SowZ; is there an equal amount of female cadets? And it's still a bit iffy to call a self-selecting sample a good representation of society.

(And that's without going onto different societal attitudes towards strength for both genders.)

Edit; We don't know anything about Thog's sexuality and the whole cooty thing just fits in with him being infantilized.

There were probably about 15,000 women and 60,000 men. Sure, that isn't a perfect comparison, but if not one out of 15,000 women was able to beat the average of 60,000 men, (and it seems less than 20 women were even within one standard deviation of the male average,) that is very strong data despite the differences in sample size.

It isn't a representation of society. In society, women are much likelier to be stronger then men because there are lots of women who work out and eat healthy and lots of men who don't. Not to mention there are lots of men who are particularly small or sickly. But in that case, it is the woman's habits or the mans sickness that makes the woman stronger. So it is a poor way to compare a genders strengths scientifically. Eliminating variables is the best way to go.

This is a representation of men and women who don't have any major disease or sickness that would inhibit strength and who are obligated to undergo fairly uniform exercise regimens and are expected to make relatively healthy life choices. These are also people with the discipline and interest in being officers in the army, so these are already women who were willing to forgo traditional gender roles as far as career choice. (It is not considered feminine to be in the military.)

So when the exercise is about the same among the men and women, not one women could equal the male average.

So you're basically saying 99.9% of the women were weaker than 97.7% of the men.

I'm just a messenger.

[oppyu]

Not at all... in fact, the actual mix of the six main protagonists is FAR from weird: one black human, two fair humans, one brown dwarf, one fair elf, one fair halfling. That could easily mirror the typical team of six PCs. It's actually about as non-weird as can be.

Now, an all-black OotS is something that would not have been representative of your average roleplay party, so that would indeed have been a little extra touch of weirdness -- and you'll notice that Rich did not decide to make his six protagonists an all-black party, going instead squarely for what you call cultural inertia (i.e. a typically varied party with way more males than females).

Again, I'm not saying at all that the comic would have sucked if the PCs had all been black. It would still have been an excellent comic. I'm just saying I can totally understand why Rich chose to not make them all black. That's it, that's all.

Just so you know, there are many communities where having six non-white PCs would be cultural inertia, and you described them as 'weird'. Nice cultural imperialism there

[Shadowknight12]

I'm just saying I can totally understand why Rich chose to not make them all black. That's it, that's all.

Can I ask you a personal favour? Like, just for me? Could you please stop making that argument? Please? Nobody is accusing the Giant of anything. At all. Nobody is condemning his choices or being angry at him for not fitting their personal standards of inclusion or representation. In fact, most of us are doing quite the opposite, celebrating the instances where he's been progressive and inclusive, and using them as positive examples for future authors.

So please, could you please stop assuming we're all ignorant of cultural inertia and accusing the Giant of not meeting our expectations? Because it makes this thread sound a lot more antagonistic than it actually is, and the last thing we want is people mistaking our intentions of neutral, unbiased analysis and instead take us for people who are attacking the Giant or trying to tell him what to do (as it almost happened at the beginning of the thread, though that was thankfully diffused by rational dialogue).

Nobody is blaming anybody. Nobody is accusing anyone of anything. We're just analysing, discussing and effecting literary critique.

Also this:

Just so you know, there are many communities where having six non-white PCs would be cultural inertia, and you described them as 'weird'. Nice cultural imperialism there

Excellent point.

[lio45]

To further this line of thought:

To say "men are stronger than women" may not be a completely invalid point, but it is an incomplete one.

Sure, which is why there's a less incomplete version of that point that has been stated already, namely that in a tribal group comprised of a large number of human individuals, chances are that the one single individual that will manage to raise himself/herself to Pack Leadership status through strength and aggressiveness is very likely to be male.

And yes, males are factually more expendable than females. One female can bear only one child at a time and is stuck doing so for ~9 months. Meanwhile, the alpha male who has the best gene set, on the other hand...

[lio45]

Just so you know, there are many communities where having six non-white PCs would be cultural inertia, and you described them as 'weird'. Nice cultural imperialism there

You must be kidding me...

Are you seriously not understanding the fact that what's weird and what's not weird is heavily cultural?

[SowZ]

This isn't a thesis or academic paper, this is a list compiled by a bored forum poster in their jammies. While I could try to include every single character in OOTS to present a completely accurate depiction of gender and sexuality representation, that would take an enormous amount of time and not be fun. So sure, I could dramatically adjust the standards of 'characters relevant enough to be on the list' merely to accept that ONE single gay character who appeared once that one time, once, announced their sexuality, and then left the strip forever, but I really don't want to.

Also, if any of the characters on the list are less relevant than the dirt farmers, that's not a sign to include the dirt farmers, it's a sign to get rid of anyone less relevant than them. I'm looking at you, eyepatched and knot-topped resistance leaders.

Sure, but without some standard to accept or reject a certain person, confirmation bias in who is and isn't included is all to easy, making it unfair to use that data to criticize the work, IMO.

[Shadowknight12]

Sure, which is why there's a less incomplete version of that point that has been stated already, namely that in a tribal group comprised of a large number of human individuals, chances are that the one single individual that will manage to raise himself/herself to Pack Leadership status through strength and aggressiveness is very likely to be male.

And yes, males are factually more expendable than females. One female can bear only one child at a time and is stuck doing so for ~9 months. Meanwhile, the alpha male who has the best gene set, on the other hand...

I will merely copypaste a PM I have literally just sent:

Not really, actually. There are many examples in history around the world ([REDACTED]) where suffering a significant loss of men had a significant effect in societal fertility, just as if it had lost a great deal of women.

Reproduction and fertility are not wholly biological. In fact, the biological aspects of reproduction are extremely minor, and it is mostly governed by culture and psychology. Just because something "makes sense" from a theoretical point of view, taking only biology in consideration, doesn't mean it has any sort of correspondence with the real world. And no, not even back then. For as long as there has been society, there has been culture, and for as long as there has been culture, it has influenced reproduction far more than biology.

The notion that men are more disposable than women is sexist, period. It's sexist towards both sexes, devaluing the potential of men to be more than their seed, while robbing women of their potential to be more than fragile child-bearing receptacles.

As for the rest, I have tackled that over and over in this thread. If you refuse to engage in actual debate, be my guest, but I will continue to point out that your points have been repeatedly refuted.

[lio45]

Can I ask you a personal favour? Like, just for me? Could you please stop making that argument? Please? Nobody is accusing the Giant of anything. At all. Nobody is condemning his choices or being angry at him for not fitting their personal standards of inclusion or representation. In fact, most of us are doing quite the opposite, celebrating the instances where he's been progressive and inclusive, and using them as positive examples for future authors.

So please, could you please stop assuming we're all ignorant of cultural inertia and accusing the Giant of not meeting our expectations? Because it makes this thread sound a lot more antagonistic than it actually is, and the last thing we want is people mistaking our intentions of neutral, unbiased analysis and instead take us for people who are attacking the Giant or trying to tell him what to do (as it almost happened at the beginning of the thread, though that was thankfully diffused by rational dialogue).

Nobody is blaming anybody. Nobody is accusing anyone of anything. We're just analysing, discussing and effecting literary critique.

OK, no problem, consider that favor granted!

To be honest, I still think you're walking a very fine line there, though; you frown upon cultural inertia in general, yet you insist that you do not want to be seen as frowning upon certain cases of cultural inertia. But I will not bring that up so specifically from now on in this thread.

[Shadowknight12]

OK, no problem, consider that favor granted!

To be honest, I still think you're walking a very fine line there, though; you frown upon cultural inertia in general, yet you do not want to be seen as frowning upon certain cases of cultural inertia. But I will not bring that up so specifically from now in this thread.

What. What are you even saying.

Of course I frown upon all (harmful) cases of cultural inertia. But that does not give me the right to demand that an author be held to my own standard, nor does it give me the right to tell them what to do with their own work.

I think it's quite obvious that, if it was up to me, the OotS would have had a great deal more inclusion and representation of marginalised groups, but I have the presence of mind necessary to realise that I am not the comic's creator, and therefore I have zero creative input.

What I object to is you painting us as some impolite fans who want to tell the Giant what to do. That is not frowning upon on a case of cultural inertia.

[lio45]

I will merely copypaste a PM I have literally just sent:



As for the rest, I have tackled that over and over in this thread. If you refuse to engage in actual debate, be my guest, but I will continue to point out that your points have been repeatedly refuted.

I'll be glad to engage in actual debate with you, but I consider that my points are far from having been successfully refuted.

You're absolutely right that nowadays, in most societies, reproduction doesn't work like it used to. (I never disagreed with that!)

The skill set you need to be successful in modern democracies is really far far far less gender dependent. So yes, the culturally inertial choice for a team of six modern university student protagonists would be a 50/50 gender balance with ~1 LGBTQ+ in there...

But, I'll have you notice that the discussion was about a genre of stories that isn't set in our modern world.

[Raineh Daze]

The discussion ties into D&D, which has literally perfect gender equality, with no mechanical advantages or disadvantages. So... in a D&D comic, 50/50 gender equality can make more sense than the modern world because, notably, the preexisting cultural bias needn't be there, being essentially baseless.

(Also, I'm not sure how you consider 'it's Fantasy, so it makes sense to be gender imbalanced!' works after reading arguments pointing out that it's fantasy, so there is no intrinsic reason why there should be gender differences)

[lio45]

What. What are you even saying.

Of course I frown upon all (harmful) cases of cultural inertia. But that does not give me the right to demand that an author be held to my own standard, nor does it give me the right to tell them what to do with their own work.

I think it's quite obvious that, if it was up to me, the OotS would have had a great deal more inclusion and representation of marginalised groups, but I have the presence of mind necessary to realise that I am not the comic's creator, and therefore I have zero creative input.

What I object to is you painting us as some impolite fans who want to tell the Giant what to do. That is not frowning upon on a case of cultural inertia.

I hope I didn't portray you as wanting to tell the Giant what to do, or demanding anything from him! I definitely did not mean that, if I ever so slightly hinted at it. So, my apologies there.

I said already at least a couple times that I personally believe that OotS gives us plenty of hints that Rich is likely not totally impervious to cultural inertia... sounds like we agree on that point. And we both love his work. Even though it's not always 100% perfect to 100% of us.

[oppyu]

You must be kidding me...

Are you seriously not understanding the fact that what's weird and what's not weird is heavily cultural?

Well yes, I was kidding. See the smiley? While asserting your culture is the normal one and the other ones are 'weird' is basically a dictionary definition of cultural imperialism, that was supposed to be a joke regarding what I considered to be a flaw in your wording.

Sure, but without some standard to accept or reject a certain person, confirmation bias in who is and isn't included is all to easy, making it unfair to use that data to criticize the work, IMO.

Sure there is; I'm not going out of my way to put all the single male characters in a list to make the Giant look bad. I'm going for characters who have a tangible on-panel impact to the plot, or importantish subplot, preferably with at least 10 appearances. If there are characters who I've failed to include out of confirmation bias (I admit, I did come into this thinking that women and gays were underrepresented, and that may have subconsciously affected my character selection) then for the love of God point it out before people draw false conclusions from the comic from my mistake.

[lio45]

(Also, I'm not sure how you consider 'it's Fantasy, so it makes sense to be gender imbalanced!' works after reading arguments pointing out that it's fantasy, so there is no intrinsic reason why there should be gender differences)

It's been explained in detail already, and by more forum members than merely myself... but I can recap it for you...

The fantasy genre isn't something that has appeared out of thin air; it has some of its basis in medieval western civilization, from which it draws plenty, and then it adds to that a number of elements that are not just any randomly-chosen unrealistic elements, but rather are almost always restricted to being from a certain select pool of "traditional" unrealistic elements (dragons, magic, etc.) or variations of them.

Someone who earns a living adventuring, sword in hand, bashing and attacking... that has traditionally not been a culturally gender-neutral occupation in our culture. Whether you like that or not. And there are good (biological) reasons behind that fact... it did not just happen randomly.

[Shadowknight12]

I'll be glad to engage in actual debate with you, but I consider that my points are far from having been successfully refuted.

You're absolutely right that nowadays, in most societies, reproduction doesn't work like it used to. (I never disagreed with that!)

It never worked the way you're saying it worked. Never. It was never pure biology. For as long as there has been culture, it has influenced reproduction significantly more than biology. Biology has played a part in it, sure, but if you want to go back enough to a point in evolution where it played a major role, you are no longer talking about humanity, but of one of our very distant ancestors.

If you are talking about humanity, you are talking about culture. And culture>>>>>>>>>biology.

The skill set you need to be successful in modern democracies is really far far far less gender dependent. So yes, the culturally inertial choice for a team of six modern university student protagonists would be a 50/50 gender balance with ~1 LGBTQ+ in there...

But, I'll have you notice that the discussion was about a genre of stories that isn't set in our modern world.

You keep switching the goal posts. First, you argue that fantasy must be based in tradition, and reference cultural inertia. Then, you argue it must necessarily appeal to modern sensibilities, and authors have to make a living. Then, you talk about historical cases and how the genre isn't set in our modern world.

Your arguments fall apart at the slightest prodding, so you have to keep moving around the field and shift the goalposts to avoid having to concede the point.

If the story has to appeal to modern sensibilities, then gender balance and racial and LGBTQ+ integration would be the norm. If the story is instead set in a fantasy world that is not like ours, then we can have even more racial/LGBTQ+ integration and an even greater gender balance, because we're not moored to current cultural inertia.

Also this:

The discussion ties into D&D, which has literally perfect gender equality, with no mechanical advantages or disadvantages. So... in a D&D comic, 50/50 gender equality can make more sense than the modern world because, notably, the preexisting cultural bias needn't be there, being essentially baseless.

Sums it up exceedingly well.

I hope I didn't portray you as wanting to tell the Giant what to do, or demanding anything from him! I definitely did not mean that, if I ever so slightly hinted at it. So, my apologies there.

I said already at least a couple times that I personally believe that OotS gives us plenty of hints that Rich is likely not totally impervious to cultural inertia... sounds like we agree on that point. And we both love his work. Even though it's not always 100% perfect to 100% of us.

When you say "I can totally understand why Rich chose to not make them all black" you are implying that the rest us don't. You are implying that the rest of us are ignorant of how the market is out there, and what society wants to see, and the problems marginalised groups have of gaining any foothold in the media. You are implying that the Giant needs defending from a perceived attack.

That's what I'm objecting to. There is no attack. We are not attacking his work. Critique is not an attack. And really, the last thing we need is to confuse newcomers to the thread into thinking we're all irrational people who are attacking the Giant because he doesn't conform to our expectations.

The reason I am belabouring this point so much is that I come from a forum where there is little to no tolerance for feminism or racial/LGBTQ+ advocacy, where the general attitude towards people who advocate for a greater representation of minorities in the media is that we're all hypersensitive, overreacting, irrational censors who want to destroy freedom, control the media and oppress the poor straight white men.

I really do not want to see that kind of attitude catching on in here too, so I want to do my best to prevent that from happening. We can have a rational, calm discussion about this without anyone getting defensive.

[lio45]

Well yes, I was kidding. See the smiley? While asserting your culture is the normal one and the other ones are 'weird' is basically a dictionary definition of cultural imperialism, that was supposed to be a joke regarding what I considered to be a flaw in your wording.

Right! Sorry for my trigger-happy overreaction. :)

As you're pointing out, my point (and I'm sure I'm wasting my time typing this...) can be corrected to a less imperialistic-sounding "this one characteristic, in the framework of reference of the one culture of the author and most of his readership, would feel weird, and this one would not".

[Raineh Daze]

It's been explained in detail already, and by more forum members than merely myself... but I can recap it for you...

The fantasy genre isn't something that has appeared out of thin air; it has some of its basis in medieval western civilization, from which it draws plenty, and then it adds to that a number of elements that are not just any randomly-chosen unrealistic elements, but rather are almost always restricted to being from a certain select pool of "traditional" unrealistic elements (dragons, magic, etc.) or variations of them.

Fantasy isn't exclusively a western construction.

Nor are the typical trappings of high fantasy in and of themselves the entire genre.

And just because some books have the same generic western medieval setting, doesn't mean they have to keep the cultural attitudes of that. It's not like other bits of the middle ages aren't disposed of at will (hygiene, health, practicality of carting about gold...)

Someone who earns a living adventuring, sword in hand, bashing and attacking... that has traditionally not been a culturally gender-neutral occupation in our culture. Whether you like that or not. And there are good (biological) reasons behind that fact... it did not just happen randomly.

Yay, biological determinism. We just finished this argument once. :/

[Shadowknight12]

Yay, biological determinism. We just finished this argument once. :/

Don't feel bad, it's an incredibly tenacious belief, but it doesn't hold water against people who actually know biology. So don't worry, any argument that can be put forward for biological determinism can be punched full of holes with actual biology.

[Raineh Daze]

Don't feel bad, it's an incredibly tenacious belief, but it doesn't hold water against people who actually know biology. So don't worry, any argument that can be put forward for biological determinism can be punched full of holes with actual biology.

It's just depressing to see it come up again in under a page. Reiteration of the same point won't make it valid.

[oppyu]

Interjecting with a question; is anyone actually questioning that gender and sexual underrepresention has negative sociological impacts and that it's prevalent through most works of media? Or is this all about describing why it happens?

[Shadowknight12]

It's just depressing to see it come up again in under a page. Reiteration of the same point won't make it valid.

Well, we could always just link to previous posts in an attempt to encourage people to read the whole thread.

Interjecting with a question; is anyone actually questioning that gender and sexual underrepresention has negative sociological impacts and that it's prevalent through most works of media? Or is this all about describing why it happens?

Yes, there have been a few people who have sort-of questioned that (I recall having to explain why to a poster a few pages back yesterday), but it hasn't been a very common concern. In other places I've been? Pops up almost constantly. I have preprepared responses and everything.

I'm actually glad that the majority of the people questioning are doing so on the why, since it implies a desire to be educated and learn more about marginalised people and our inclusion in the media.

[Raineh Daze]

Request, Shadow: please consistently stick to one grammatical person when referring to minorities. You keep moving between third and first.

[Carry2]

Also, it's not set in stone. Women can be just as strong as men, assuming different child-rearing habits. If we assume a fantasy world where monsters exist and warfare is so common, it's perfectly believable to imagine cultures raising their women just like they raise their men, and both ending up with comparable strengths...

Given that muscle development is closely tied to testosterone levels, which are biologically determined by the state of the endocrine system, which in turn, in the overwhelming majority of cases, is strongly influenced by whether or not you have a Y chromosome, I am extraordinarily skeptical that anything short of fairly radical genetic engineering policies could realise this prediction.

And yes, you could imagine a fantasy setting where the genders divide everything perfectly and have exactly the same physical/psychological aptitudes, which is largely the point of something like The Left Hand Of Darkness. But then you're not talking about humans anymore, which means you're not really making a meaningful commentary on human gender. (It's sort of the same problem I have with the idea that Battlestar Galactica 'explores the division between man and machine'. For all the series' virtues, it actually doesn't, because their robots are identical to people, and so there's nothing to explore.)

[lio45]

It never worked the way you're saying it worked. Never. It was never pure biology. For as long as there has been culture, it has influenced reproduction significantly more than biology.

Before I even read any further, I wanted to stop you right there and say that yes, there's been culture for a long time, but (roughly speaking) we've been genetically what we are now for much longer than that. All the traits we're currently talking about can be traced straight to back when biology was far from dwarfed by culture like it's been in more recent eras, and these traits have mostly been enduring since then (count the number of generations in a millenium, you'll see the gene pool isn't changing so quickly...)

Biology has played a part in it, sure, but if you want to go back enough to a point in evolution where it played a major role, you are no longer talking about humanity, but of one of our very distant ancestors.

You'd be surprised at how much of those "distant" ancestors there still is in the modern human... You think we've changed a lot genetically since we've become refined and civilized?

You keep switching the goal posts. First, you argue that fantasy must be based in tradition, and reference cultural inertia. Then, you argue it must necessarily appeal to modern sensibilities, and authors have to make a living. Then, you talk about historical cases and how the genre isn't set in our modern world.

Your arguments fall apart at the slightest prodding, so you have to keep moving around the field and shift the goalposts to avoid having to concede the point.

I hate to be accused of moving the goalposts, it's something I always strive to never do.

The three things you mentioned are pretty much the same idea, if you can read between the lines... (and no, I never did say fantasy *must* be based in anything, any fantasy author is free to do whatever he/she wants... I just pointed out there is a documented fantasy genre that tends to share certain characteristics.)

Here, just to settle this sub-point, looking no further than wikipedia; quoted are the first few sentences of the wiki article on fantasy.

"commonly uses magic", "predominantly of the medievalist form", "has also included wizards, sorcerers, witchcraft, etc." I did not invent this...

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary plot element, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common. Fantasy is generally distinguished from the genre of science fiction by the expectation that it steers clear of scientific themes, though there is a great deal of overlap between the two, both of which are subgenres of speculative fiction.

In popular culture, the fantasy genre is predominantly of the medievalist form, especially since the worldwide success of The Lord of the Rings and related books by J. R. R. Tolkien. Fantasy has also included wizards, sorcerers, witchcraft, etc., in events which avoid horror.

If the story has to appeal to modern sensibilities, then gender balance and racial and LGBTQ+ integration would be the norm. If the story is instead set in a fantasy world that is not like ours, then we can have even more racial/LGBTQ+ integration and an even greater gender balance, because we're not moored to current cultural inertia.

Merging that into a single coherent sentence so you won't accuse me of goalpost moving any more, "authors might want their stories to appeal to the readers' sensibilities, which are generally likely to be influenced by the cultural inertia of the fantasy genre, which in turn is like that because it was itself influenced by western medieval culture"

When you say "I can totally understand why Rich chose to not make them all black" you are implying that the rest us don't.

If you do... then do you think it's a good reason, or that it's a bad reason? If you'd rather not answer and let that point rest, no problem. I just felt like asking, because that's the kind of question your statement really seems to want to trigger...

[jere7my]

You must be kidding me...

Are you seriously not understanding the fact that what's weird and what's not weird is heavily cultural?

What's considered weird doesn't generally agree with reality. Yes, LGBT people are a minority, but even as a minority they are underrepresented in fantasy fiction. There are a lot of people who would find it "weird" to have a statistically appropriate minority of LGBT characters in a story (i.e., more than zero). Ditto whatever non-white culture you'd care to name.

This is why I disregard any argument that rests on "Some people would find it weird." I find it sad that a genre that's supposed to be about the new, the fantastical, the sense-of-wonder has gotten so hidebound that it can't handle even statistically appropriate representations of minorities.

[Raineh Daze]

And yes, you could imagine a fantasy setting where the genders divide everything perfectly and have exactly the same physical/psychological aptitudes

D&D. There, done.

Merging that into a single coherent sentence so you won't accuse me of goalpost moving any more, "authors might want their stories to appeal to the readers' sensibilities, which are generally likely to be influenced by the cultural inertia of the fantasy genre, which in turn is like that because it was itself influenced by western medieval culture"

As a tip, Harry Potter is fantasy. Discworld is fantasy, and that's hardly medieval. Wikipedia speaks in broad generalities and, honestly, that paragraph is pretty far from accurate. Surprised there's no criticism for lack of citations.

[Carry2]

D&D. There, done.

D&D, along with many, perhaps most, RPG systems, is indeed mechanically gender-blind, but it's not particularly tied to a single setting. In any case, I'm not sure how this addresses my underlying point, or do you feel D&D provides a meaningful commentary on real-world gender concerns?