Let the gender in games be moved here PLZ

[YossarianLives]

I concur. I've decided to give up on this thread before I get any angrier than I currently am.

[Brumagris]

I don´t understand the point to which this thread derivated (which by the way was discussed already).
As far as I can see, all the people trying to say "not enough women", "enough women", "not enough black/gay/whateverlabelyouwannaput" "too much black/gay/whateverlabelyouwannaput", should be the ones actually examining themselves, rather than negatively critizicing like that. Why so? It is simple, the more you label somebody, the more you are excluding that person. Regardless of how much of a protector of that person/group you are, the moment you put a label you are excluding somebody.

As explained before in many threads and said by The Giant as well, we can distil that: what does it matter the sexual preferences, race, sex etc in a character? (apart from V as a comical relief from time to time, and that is more because of his elfishness :P)
What makes a difference with a character is not how much representation does it get compared to real world, but how is the character´s behavior and insight. The black dragon mother is a perfect example, malack as well, Samantha, Miko, Lien, Tsukiko, Xykon, Redcloack... they all are part of a "minority", yet we did not see them as such before. Why starting now such a petty argument over whether it is being fair towards gay/women/whatever? How does that make a difference and why, all of you that preach "protection" for those "groups" are actually segregating them by saying "they need representation"?
Honestly, I can see that at the moment The Giant starts making comics with the lines "I am a lesbian and I need to justify because" or "hello I am a black hero and I need to explain why I am not dying on the first panels" the full coherence and quality of the story will go to hell. Because he will be actually clicheing, rather than if this facts are naturally accepted.
(In fact, I never took Roy being black as something strange until I saw this thread).

As for the on-topic and the stats modifications because of gender, we need to think that RPG give the flexibility of being whatever we want however we want... and in the fantasy novels we can see, for example, one of the best warriors of AD&D, Kitiara Uth Matar, who is female, and one of the phisically weakest creatures, Raistlin Majere, to be male.
And let´s not get started with historical references because the list would be endless XD

[Prospekt]

Oppressed groups gain recognition, community, pride, and the tools with which to fight said oppression with being able to say, "I am ___" and talking about that. Saying otherwise comes from privilege and ignorance. Wanting to get rid of labels is wanting to get rid of adjectives. We need those. How about stop applying inferiority to certain labels?

[SaintRidley]

Oppressed groups gain recognition, community, pride, and the tools with which to fight said oppression with being able to say, "I am ___" and talking about that. Saying otherwise comes from privilege and ignorance. Wanting to get rid of labels is wanting to get rid of adjectives. We need those. How about stop applying inferiority to certain labels?

Aye. It's easy to be colorblind, or genderblind, etc. if you're on the privileged end of the spectrum. It's a lot harder if your life is actually negatively impacted in meaningful ways by being a woman or a person of color or disabled (and so on - seriously, pick your poison. To paraphrase, make board safe, and expand Paul Money's brilliant quote into applicability across all spectra of privilege: everybody wants to be underprivileged, but nobody wants to be underprivileged.

[Brumagris]

Oppressed groups gain recognition, community, pride, and the tools with which to fight said oppression with being able to say, "I am ___" and talking about that. Saying otherwise comes from privilege and ignorance. Wanting to get rid of labels is wanting to get rid of adjectives. We need those. How about stop applying inferiority to certain labels?

Right now you are labelling me as "ignorant and privileged", without not knowing any fact, so my point applies. It is not the labels, it is the actual person who makes the difference.

In fact I belong to a couple of the "opressed groups" myself and never had problem gaining recognition, community, pride... hence I never needed a tool for fighting an oppression that was not there most of the time.
Labels do not equal adjectives. Labels are imposed by people, willing to segregate for whichever reason. and even in order to "protect", if you keep labelling, you keep victimizing these "labels", because you are, de facto, telling the labelled people they are different and they need protection from you. If you want equality for everybody, you can start by giving everybody the same credit regardless of any "adjective".

Back to the point, adjective is by definition "a member of a class of words that describes nouns", therefore a neutral word, Label comes as a negative word, so no, getting rid of labels is not getting rid of adjectives.
Saying that Roy is black as an adjective is completely different from saying that Roy is black as a label. The moment you acn see that difference, you will understand what true equality is.

[factotum]

Peter Jackson expanded the role of women in "The Hobbit" because the total lack of female characters in the story would be extremely jarring to a contemporary audience.

That's something I personally don't agree with, though. It's OK for the author of a work to change it, if they believe it needs updating for newer sensibilities*; I don't think anyone else should take that right for themselves. I'd also point out that there are many, many people who read the Hobbit and LOTR every year, and they don't all seem to have been so jarred by the experience that they swore off reading fantasy ever again?

* And yes, this does mean I acknowledge George Lucas had the right to create the Star Wars Special Editions, even if I disagree with some of the changes he made.

[Astrella]

Right now you are labelling me as "ignorant and privileged", without not knowing any fact, so my point applies. It is not the labels, it is the actual person who makes the difference.

In fact I belong to a couple of the "opressed groups" myself and never had problem gaining recognition, community, pride... hence I never needed a tool for fighting an oppression that was not there most of the time.
Labels do not equal adjectives. Labels are imposed by people, willing to segregate for whichever reason. and even in order to "protect", if you keep labelling, you keep victimizing these "labels", because you are, de facto, telling the labelled people they are different and they need protection from you. If you want equality for everybody, you can start by giving everybody the same credit regardless of any "adjective".

Back to the point, adjective is by definition "a member of a class of words that describes nouns", therefore a neutral word, Label comes as a negative word, so no, getting rid of labels is not getting rid of adjectives.
Saying that Roy is black as an adjective is completely different from saying that Roy is black as a label. The moment you acn see that difference, you will understand what true equality is.

Labels being imposed by others is a huge difference from labels being self-applied. And the world isn't equal. It isn't. Pretending it is is not a good step towards equality, acknowledging differences and oppression is. People AREN'T the same. I'm not the same from you, but that doesn't mean I deserve hurt or discrimination, but we aren't the same. I see no value in erasing the diversity of humanity and pretending we're all the same.

[ufo]

{scrubbed}

[ahdok]

This is an extremely bad representation of my points

Actually, it's an extremely bad representation of a rock song.

[ahdok]

Since the thing that sparked this off is in a different thread and has been lost in the noise, my original problem and point I've been arguing against were statements in a number of posts that suggested that:

1) It'd be unrealistic, or weird or unnatural to have equal representation of women in adventuring parties (the idea that women might make up more than half of an adventuring party was so unthinkable that it didn't even come up.)

2) That having one woman in a group of six characters was "extremely inclusive" - The very idea that one out of six was an 'extreme' as a level of inclusion is frankly galling to me.

When saying this, I'm not "imposing quotas" I'm not demanding that anyone change anything or cater to my whims, and in this specific case, I'm not even complaining about Rich's work. What I am saying is that if you're going to make arguments about representation and inclusion, it's rather silly to start with the assertion that one out of six is somehow a superlative at the top end of a reasonable scale.

3) That if writers don't conform to the expectations of their audiences, that they need explain it. Rich did the best job I could possibly imagine of explaining this one, and his point about providing explanations normalising those expectations, but not providing explanations normalising the content of the media under scrutiny is a very important one.

--
--

As a minor note: the argument "Well I never had a problem with this" is quite a common tool used to trivialize and marginalize the problems and worries of people who have had a problem with it. This probably isn't your intention, but it's always worth thinking about before making such statements. I'm pretty sure if I wandered up to a homicide victim and said "well I never had a problem with being murdered, there's clearly no issue here." they wouldn't exactly agree with my point.

--
--

{scrubbed}

{scrubbed}

I absolutely love the idea that by making a bunch of arguments that are essentially paraphrases of the Giant's own arguments on this matter, and agreeing with everything he's said about it, that I'm apparently the one who's trying to strongarm the creator into pandering to my views.

[Rakoa]

I'm pretty sure if I wandered up to a homicide victim and said "well I never had a problem with being murdered, there's clearly no issue here." they wouldn't exactly agree with my point.

That is probably because they would be dead.

[Zyzzyva]

That's something I personally don't agree with, though. It's OK for the author of a work to change it, if they believe it needs updating for newer sensibilities*; I don't think anyone else should take that right for themselves. I'd also point out that there are many, many people who read the Hobbit and LOTR every year, and they don't all seem to have been so jarred by the experience that they swore off reading fantasy ever again?

* And yes, this does mean I acknowledge George Lucas had the right to create the Star Wars Special Editions, even if I disagree with some of the changes he made.

But Peter Jackson was the one making the movie. Tolkien's dead, does that mean LotR is now set in stone? Shakespeare's been dead for even longer, does that mean The Lion King is an abomination that should not be?

Also, fun project: reread the Hobbit (it's a kids' book, it's a quick read) and replace every pronoun referring to Bilbo with a female pronoun. It's amazing what that does to the feel of the book. (Side note: as a different individual from Tolkein, do I have the right to do that? )

{scrubbed}

That was such a great short. "But I'm a nice guy."

[happycrow]

To be entirely fair, I've used the term "feminazis" myself, having written something which ran afoul of that hideous version of feminism (but which exists in any ideology) which says "if you don't express agreement with every postulate and toe the line on every position, you are an enemy worthy of vituperation, scorn, 4000 hits in one day on your utterly insignificant blog, a half-dozen totally bizarre essays about you, and a thread with truly vile things said about you, your writing, and your grandmother on Reddit." Because there *is* a strand of people who say "toe every line or be Other." And they mean it, and are willing to attempt to destroy you personally in the process, because they've forgotten that their lens is not the only legitimate lens through which to view reality, and that there's a reality bigger than they are.

Been there. Not much fun. Not much fun to get your ass beat either literally or figuratively for being (x). But I think so long as we refuse to Other people simply because they disagree with us (no matter which angle one is coming from, and remember these discussions are about angles, not sides - because there are a lot more than just two of them), and we remember to start from an assumption of good motives, that this sort of thing can be discussed happily and humanely and well.

[ahdok]

Also... I'm a creator as well. Not as famous or well known as Rich, but hey, I had 20,000 pageviews and 2000 tumblr reblogs yesterday... so my figures aren't completely irrelevant. I draw comics about random things, but a lot of those random things are DnD jokes, or use characters from DnD games I play in.

Now I admit I didn't exactly think this bit through, but the characters I use for my jokes tend to be the characters from the game that spawned that joke in the first place. My comic currently uses five distinct adventuring parties to tell jokes set in three different DnD worlds. It's pretty confusing because I haven't actually explained what's going on anywhere, or that these are set in distinct stories. That's a bad thing and could confuse my readers.

However... of the characters I've used in DnD strips in the comic so far, the male to female balance of the characters that have appeared in my comics is 7 males and 20 females. I never counted until today. None of my readers are clamouring for any explanation or justification of this. Nobody is telling me it's an anomaly. Nobody reading my comic needs a reason why so many of my characters can be female, and I'm pretty sure I never lost a reader because my comic has lots of women in it. If this doesn't align with your expectations, to the level where it actually causes issues for you reading the strip, it's still not my 'duty' to justify to you why I think that women are people. Women having agency and relevance is normal to me... You can go work it out yourself.

[johnbragg]

Well, back in 1e there were racial strength limits as well, but yes, it's a ridiculous argument. And it's not like adventurers aren't all crazy statistical outliers anyways.

"My male Human Fighter, whose 18 Strength is 4 standard deviations above the mean, is totally plausible and believable. Your female human Fighter, whose 18 Strength is 5 standard deviations above the mean, is totally unrealistic!"

(Numbers made up for humor value. Not interested in debating the merits of human male vs female upper body strength as applied to fantasy elf-and-dragon games.)

[factotum]

But Peter Jackson was the one making the movie. Tolkien's dead, does that mean LotR is now set in stone? Shakespeare's been dead for even longer, does that mean The Lion King is an abomination that should not be?

If Peter Jackson wanted to make a story *based* on the Hobbit, but not called that and not directly associated with it--as The Lion King is loosely based on Hamlet--then sure, he can do what he likes with it. When he is producing an adaptation of someone else's work then he should cleave a bit closer to the original, so we don't end up with Boromir taking half an hour to die, Deus Ex Ghosts clearing up the Minas Tirith battle or the character assassination of Faramir! And yes, as far as I'm concerned LOTR *is* set in stone, and the publishers must presumably agree given the published text today is still pretty much the same as it was after Tolkien's revisions in the 60s.

Let me put your question another way: if someone were to take LOTR and rewrite it so Sauron is the good guy and the hobbits are evil thieves trying to depose him from his rightful throne, should that still be called LOTR? I think not. (Although I'd be fascinated to read such a thing in its own right ).

[Spiryt]

The way I see it, Hobbit by PJ, or at least two last parts,sadly is an abomination that should not be.

However, some random female character just put there is likely easily the smallest problem, if problem at all, so I can't see how it's very relevant.

[Zyzzyva]

If Peter Jackson wanted to make a story *based* on the Hobbit, but not called that and not directly associated with it--as The Lion King is loosely based on Hamlet--then sure, he can do what he likes with it. When he is producing an adaptation of someone else's work then he should cleave a bit closer to the original, so we don't end up with Boromir taking half an hour to die, Deus Ex Ghosts clearing up the Minas Tirith battle or the character assassination of Faramir! And yes, as far as I'm concerned LOTR *is* set in stone, and the publishers must presumably agree given the published text today is still pretty much the same as it was after Tolkien's revisions in the 60s.

But... exactly! It's not like Jackson went out and pulped every extant copy of the Hobbit. If his version of the Hobbit has an elf lady show up and barrel-riding action scenes and some weird junk with a giant gold dwarf (), that's his right as an adaptor.

Let me put your question another way: if someone were to take LOTR and rewrite it so Sauron is the good guy and the hobbits are evil thieves trying to depose him from his rightful throne, should that still be called LOTR? I think not. (Although I'd be fascinated to read such a thing in its own right ).

If it was a book? No, it probably should be named something different, just because it's a different work written by someone else. If it was a movie? Well, that's not really the same thing. It's an adaptation, and adaptations have an enormous amount of latitude.

Slightly more direct comparison than Lion King: the '96 Romeo and Juliet is, in fact, a direct adaptation of the play. It also moves some lines around to suggest Romeo and Mercutio are trippin' balls at the party at the end of Act I, and has Juliet wake up while Romeo is still barely alive because cruelty to the characters. Is that enough to push it over the line? Is this movie terrible?

Case study two: I haven't seen many Merchant of Venice adaptations, but I am told that Shylock generally isn't presented as a loathsome, grotesque villain much these days. (Well, antagonist sure, but not evil because !EVIL JEWISH GUY!.) That's against both the letter and the spirit of the original text; do these versions no longer deserve to be called Merchant of Venice?

[happycrow]

The way I see it, Hobbit by PJ, or at least two last parts,sadly is an abomination that should not be.

However, some random female character just put there is likely easily the smallest problem, if problem at all, so I can't see how it's very relevant.

While I'm usually pretty fanatical about this one (I can be reduced to spluttering nerdrage over what he did to Faramir and the Ents), I'm totally okay with how he did the Hobbit's characterization (the combat got turgid), because it let them do some shout-outs to some very rare and somewhat high-speed/low-drag Tolkien geekery. So I've headcanon'd everything Jackson did as "fanfic on film" and learned to love my decaf. (Not that Jackson gives a rat's butt for my opinion anyway, heh).

[Porthos]

Case study two: I haven't seen many Merchant of Venice adaptations, but I am told that Shylock generally isn't presented as a loathsome, grotesque villain much these days. (Well, antagonist sure, but not evil because !EVIL JEWISH GUY!.) That's against both the letter and the spirit of the original text; do these versions no longer deserve to be called Merchant of Venice?

For some reason that I only partially understand, people think it is far more acceptable to make changes to a play (sometimes radical changes) than to make changes to a book. Either when adapting to another medium or even redoing it in the same medium.

The only reason I can think that this is really seen as acceptable is.... it's been done for centuries (or millennia if one prefers) and getting angry about it now is kinda self-defeating.

Doesn't stop some from even getting angry when changes to plays are made, mind. But there's always someone out there.

[Zyzzyva]

For some reason that I only partially understand, people think it is far more acceptable to make changes to a play (sometimes radical changes) than to make changes to a book. Either when adapting to another medium or even redoing it in the same medium.

The only reason I can think that this is really seen as acceptable is.... it's been done for centuries (or millennia if one prefers) and getting angry about it now is kinda self-defeating.

Doesn't stop some from even getting angry when changes to plays are made, mind. But there's always someone out there.

Yeah, but fortunately for me factotum seems to be taking the hardliner "only the original creator can change a work" stance, so it's on them to explain the distinction.

[johnbragg]

For some reason that I only partially understand, people think it is far more acceptable to make changes to a play (sometimes radical changes) than to make changes to a book. Either when adapting to another medium or even redoing it in the same medium.

The only reason I can think that this is really seen as acceptable is.... it's been done for centuries (or millennia if one prefers) and getting angry about it now is kinda self-defeating.

Doesn't stop some from even getting angry when changes to plays are made, mind. But there's always someone out there.

I think it's more about the passage of time from the original, and the scope of the changes. Shakespeare's plays have been done and adapted in different ways for hundreds of years, so nobody minds much. STar Wars Special Editions, 20-25 years later? #hanshotfirst.

Or maybe nerdrage is just more amplified now. Plenty of changes from Frank S Baum's Wizard of Oz to Judy Garland's, but either people dealt with it (maybe changing features of a story from a book to a movie was less tragic when Hitler and the Great Depression were major topics of interest) or we've forgotten.

[brian 333]

Since the thing that sparked this off is in a different thread and has been lost in the noise, my original problem and point I've been arguing against were statements in a number of posts that suggested that:

1) It'd be unrealistic, or weird or unnatural to have equal representation of women in adventuring parties (the idea that women might make up more than half of an adventuring party was so unthinkable that it didn't even come up.)

This is not an argument I have ever made, and yet it is continually thrust in my face as if I had, (and in fact, I did make a point about a book with an all-female starship crew.) This is an unfair debating technique called the straw man. It is impossible to debate when one imposes views the other does not espouse, (or even agree with,) then devotes the rest of his argument to that, completely ignoring the point the other did actually try to make.

2) That having one woman in a group of six characters was "extremely inclusive" - The very idea that one out of six was an 'extreme' as a level of inclusion is frankly galling to me.

I invite you to any construction site in America where you may count the number of women. The number zero is most common, although on large sites where major firms with huge recruiting budgets operate, the number of women appearing is increasing. This has been, in my experience, a good thing. However, even one female on a construction site is still a rare occurrence worthy of note. Why would adventurers be any different?

Facts are not galling if faced with honesty. It is not an insult to women to say they are underrepresented in a particular field. If one simply blames 'the old boys network' without attempting to understand why the situation is what it is, one risks never solving the problem. If you have a bad starter, changing the battery won't start your car.

I concede that in times past male personnel directors discouraged the hiring of females for many positions. This is a fact. But for most of my career companies have actively pursued women, (mostly for compliance with EEOC, I am sure,) and women are still a rarity in my field. Something is keeping them out, and it's not the big bad man.

I believe I have explained why this is the case: women typically choose careers which allow them to remain close to their families, and careers which have much lower chances of death, dismemberment, and debilitating injuries. Adventuring is a career which leads one away from families for extended periods of time with a very high chance of death, dismemberment, and debilitating injuries. My observations show that few women would choose such a career.

When saying this, I'm not "imposing quotas" I'm not demanding that anyone change anything or cater to my whims, and in this specific case, I'm not even complaining about Rich's work. What I am saying is that if you're going to make arguments about representation and inclusion, it's rather silly to start with the assertion that one out of six is somehow a superlative at the top end of a reasonable scale.

I would love to see a one out of six ratio in construction workers. It would be far higher than the existing ratio, which I am guessing is lower than 1 in 10. Fact checked myself: According to an OSHA report, 9% of American construction workers in 2010 were female.

...over 800,000 women workers employed in construction (i.e., managerial, professional, administrative, and production employees) in 2010. Of those, approximately 200,000 were employed in production occupations, such as laborers, electricians, plumbers, etc.

It did not separate construction by Industrial and Commercial categories, so I can only anecdotally assert that in Industrial Construction the numbers are much lower. But even overall, the percentages of construction hands, (as opposed to clerical workers,) is a little better than 2% of the work force.

Again, factual observation is not insult. While you personally may not be one of those clamoring for 50:50 representation, (it was to those I addressed my arguments in the first place,) the fact remains that 1:6 is 8 times higher than any expectation based on what we know, (as opposed to what we might want.) Now I have no idea how that translates into misogyny of any kind.

In fact, had Rich written his story with a 100% female cast I'd have read it. Sure, some of the jokes wouldn't be as funny, but I'm sure other funny jokes could have replaced them. I do not oppose more females in comics, stories, movies, or in the workplace. I think when the day arrives in which a person is judged by the content of his character rather than the content of his underwear it will be a better world.

3) That if writers don't conform to the expectations of their audiences, that they need explain it. Rich did the best job I could possibly imagine of explaining this one, and his point about providing explanations normalising those expectations, but not providing explanations normalising the content of the media under scrutiny is a very important one.

And I explained how he did a marvelous job providing context for the audience. I have yet to find a case of 'water flowing uphill' in Rich's work.

As a minor note: the argument "Well I never had a problem with this" is quite a common tool used to trivialize and marginalize the problems and worries of people who have had a problem with it. This probably isn't your intention, but it's always worth thinking about before making such statements. I'm pretty sure if I wandered up to a homicide victim and said "well I never had a problem with being murdered, there's clearly no issue here." they wouldn't exactly agree with my point.

A valid point, but it is not something I have ever asserted. Women do deal with gender bias in our world. LGBT persons do face discrimination in our culture. The very real hurt caused by this should be a source of shame for all who cannot see the person under the label. And so long as we continue to impose the label first, "This is my gay friend Al," as opposed to, "This is my friend Al," we reduce the person to something less than human. It's time to lose the label and see the person first.

I read the comic, and it is interesting, to say the least. My favorites are the story segments, but then I prefer a story style comic to the joke-a-day style. Give it a try, it may be your cup of tea.

I absolutely love the idea that by making a bunch of arguments that are essentially paraphrases of the Giant's own arguments on this matter, and agreeing with everything he's said about it, that I'm apparently the one who's trying to strongarm the creator into pandering to my views.

I didn't say you were the culprit. The ones I have directed my arguments to, exclusively and from the start, were the ones who said less than 50:50 representation was biased and unfair. I have continued the argument with you because you have either misunderstood my points or have twisted them for dramatic effect.

It's apparent I'm not as good a writer as The Giant, because to have been so consistently misunderstood and taken out of context, I must have said it wrong. However, from the outset, my point has been that those who claim 50:50 representation is the only fair ratio of representation do not base their argument on reality, but on their own desires and their own agenda. Reality indicates a much lower number is far more likely. The author, of course, has the right to decide what goes into his work and why.

(And I have still not received any answer as to why 50:50 is the only fair ratio other than, "I want it to be that way.")

[ahdok]

The "straw man" in these cases are actual real people on these forums. Allenw below this makes a good point, so for clarity I've dug out the specific other comments I had in mind (although in many cases these specific quotes are just the first ones I found for arguments made by multiple individuals:)

I agree that more individual female charecters would be good but in universe even with magic raising standard of living would it really be realistically viable to have an equal number of female to male adventurers? This is an actual question.

In fact I belong to a couple of the "opressed groups" myself and never had problem gaining recognition, community, pride... hence I never needed a tool for fighting an oppression that was not there most of the time.

The only comment of Brian333 that I was referring tois the continued insistence that one in six females is some kind of "extreme inclusion" because you don't see women on American construction sites, of all things... because I can think of nothing that better compares to fighting giant fire-breathing space-lizards with raw psionic power than carrying bricks around in a wheelbarrow...

When you're happy to accept that Minotaurs and Halflings are equally valid options to go adventuring, despite their massive physical differences, the idea that men and women aren't equally valid choices in an adventuring party, due to some real-world sociological hang-up to do with operating a crane seems crazy. It seems crazier the more paragraphs you write insisting it matters. It seems crazier the more you demand that writers have a "duty" to justify its existence, and it seems completely crazy at the point when you start comparing people arguing against it to feminazis.

[allenw]

If this thread is to continue, I as an interested reader would find it helpful if ahdok and brian were to provide cites to the arguments they intend to dispute.

[brian 333]

You keep assuming all my comments are directed at you, but several of them are for other people, the "straw man" in these cases are actual real people on these forums.

My apologies, I may have overpersonalized things.

[Corneel]

<snip>

It was never my argument that physical differences played any part in the selection of females as adventurers. I cited them to support the idea that males are physically more robust because they are the ones sent to deal with the lions, and only the survivors get to breed. By nature and by nurture, females are less likely to be violent, (see crimes reports section of your local newspaper and compare the number of males to females involved in violence,) and adventuring is a game of violence.

If you were to honestly assess the argument, you would realize that choice of the character is the paramount issue, and not quotas imposed by me. Statistically fewer women choose dangerous occupations even though they may be as capable or more so than men in the same occupation. Why would women, who refuse to take industrial construction jobs with a very low, but potential, risk of death, dismemberment, or debilitating injury, choose to accept jobs as adventurers with an extremely high risk of these same results?

{scrubbed}

If women are given a chance to shine, they will (Joan of Arc), even if, while capable military leaders, they might turn out be just as cruel and power hungry as men (Marguerite d'Anjou), and what is fantasy if not giving a chance, giving a real chance to the less probable, the improbable or even the impossible.

(*) The women soldiers were rigorously trained, given uniforms, and equipped with Danish guns (obtained via the slave trade). By the mid-19th century, they numbered between 1,000 and 6,000 women, about a third of the entire Dahomey army, according to reports written by visitors. The reports also noted variously that the women soldiers suffered several defeats, but that the women soldiers were consistently judged to be superior to the male soldiers in effectiveness and bravery.

[brian 333]

{scrubbed}

If women are given a chance to shine, they will (Joan of Arc), even if, while capable military leaders, they might turn out be just as cruel and power hungry as men (Marguerite d'Anjou), and what is fantasy if not giving a chance, giving a real chance to the less probable, the improbable or even the impossible.

(*) The women soldiers were rigorously trained, given uniforms, and equipped with Danish guns (obtained via the slave trade). By the mid-19th century, they numbered between 1,000 and 6,000 women, about a third of the entire Dahomey army, according to reports written by visitors. The reports also noted variously that the women soldiers suffered several defeats, but that the women soldiers were consistently judged to be superior to the male soldiers in effectiveness and bravery.

How does this in any way conflict with what I have written?

Women do shine in traditionally male fields when they have the opportunity. Many dangerous careers are not chosen by women for the reasons I cited.

Asserting that I have no understanding may make you feel better, but it does not invalidate my arguments.

Edit: please demonstrate which cultural values I share with the colonialists of the 1800's. I am now curious.

[rafet]

Oh, and in the future: Please don't tell other posters on which thread to discuss a particular topic. If you want to talk about the strip in the Discussion thread, then just go ahead and do so. Don't tell other people to stop talking about other topics. If you think other posters are dangerously far off topic and would like them to stop, issue a report to the moderating staff and someone will come take a look.

Noted, sorry Rich

[happycrow]

Brian333,

FYI, since my wildly misspent you was spent as an actual researching-and-publishing medieval-warfare specialist, real-world female combatants in premodern settings has always hovered around 20%. That's big-brush, obviously, and the percentages change here and there (notably higher among the Taborites in medieval central europe, and in several instances during the Albigensian Crusades).

I could give a rat's about 50:50. But I think there's a valid argument in favor of starting with that as a benchmark if one is thinking about representation issues when one starts designing protagonists, and that's to appeal to the widest possible variety of readers by presenting a good diversity of characters of various sexes and types. And as a writer (albeit a hobbyist - I've written a grand total of one novel, mostly just for fun), the reason I would most be inclined to do that are:

1) Commercial success if I am aiming to do something beyond "just on a lark," by appealing to the widest net I can catch. (pragmatic)
2) Personal quality of writing to ensure that I don't fall into accidentally writing up somebody as a trope without also lampshading it for lulz.*

*Rich is really good at this - the "Haley does gymnastics looking for traps while dressed like Tomb Raider" may offend absolutists like Liliet (Liliet, correct me if I'm wrong and I will bow to the lash), but the joke itself actually mocks the males in the strip for acting like adolescent dorks (note that Roy, the voice of reason, immediately reasserts adult behavior). c.f. strips 35 and 102. Similar for Haley in 88.