Gender Based vs. Gender Biased

[M. J. Young]

In my current group of players, which numbers as few as 3 and as large as 6, depending upon circumstances, we have three women. Each of them has, at different times, indicated that they feel stifled in a neuter game in which the benefits of being a woman are not represented by the system. I simply thought that adding mechanics that would allow people to make better use of the gender-based strengths they know and use in real life would be of benefit to them, and thought that this would be a good place to start looking for ideas on how to handle it.

So let's go from that. How do you add gender-based strengths (regardless of where they come from, society, biology, entemology, whatever) into a game fairly? In fact, let's even take the "fairly" out. Let's be as unfair as needed to get the point across; what things should women be incredibly good at in a game? What things should men be incredibly good at in a game? How would you make the rules and the setting reflect on those strengths? At the same time, what should they be really bad at? What can men do that women can't do? What can women do (other than the obvious and game-unrelated "Give birth") that men can't do?

I'm going to point to Multiverser as an example of a game without any gender modifiers that I think can and does bring out gender-based strengths of player characters. In essence, it asks the player to define who the character is and what the character can do, without any restrictions or limitations beyond what is reasonable for the character concept. If the player thinks that the character can predict the future, we'll give the character precognitive abilities that fit the nature of such predictions. If the player thinks that the character can fight powerfully with feet, we'll devise a set of body-based combat attacks that powerfully use the feet. Crafting the individual character to be exactly what the player envisions is one of the strengths of the game.

On the other hand, if what is meant is that such gender differences are not adequately represented within the society of the world generally, that's an entirely different problem, and one which very few games even attempt to address. Sure, D&D says that elven females are weaker than elven males; but when you roll up a community of three hundred elves, do those mods even make it to the page? (Probably they do if they are represented through hit points, and not if they are mods to attributes.)

If your players are bothered by the notion that their characters are not getting the benefits of being female, individually, that they perceive as benefits associated with being female, whether these are genetic or cultural, providing the ability for players to customize character strengths in whatever way suits those perceptions and making those choices meaningful in play is not that difficult to accomplish. If what the players mean is that the world is not so constituted that female characters are universally distinct from males in both strengths and weaknesses, you may have to let them tell you how the world should be designed.

Also, I don't know that there is anything one gender can do that the other absolutely cannot. Even pregnancy is within the realm of possibility for the male, and nursing, given the use of advanced medical/surgical techniques (none of which are approved for use, as far as I'm aware). What you're really asking is what can one gender do more easily than the other as a generalization. I know that there are some, and that all generalizations are false (including this one). Men tend to excel at space relations and abstract reasoning; women tend to excel at multitasking and linguistic tasks. There are a lot of other trends, but trends by definition mean that there are exceptions. There are a lot of men in the world stronger than the strongest woman, but there are a lot more women in the world stronger than me, and I'm stronger than my wife, who has no trouble picking up a fifty pound bag of horse feed and carrying it from the car to the barn when she wants to, or shifting a three hundred pound patient sufficiently to change the sheets on the bed beneath him and give him a sponge bath. How much impact does that really have on the nature of your game world? Most likely, it means that the majority of non-player character "extras" will fall into stereotypical roles, and the exceptional characters will break them.

As has been said, unless you know what it is your players actually perceive as the advantages of being female, you can't really address them very effectively. Without knowing those things, you can set up systems that allow individualization of characters across the board, which then can be used by those who believe in gender differences to create characters they perceive as consistent with their personal gender expectations--or not.

1) Accentuate the positive:
One possible easy fix is to only give positive modifiers for each gender, without counterbalancing negatives.

If you were to give males a +1 strength and females -1, their really two points apart on average. In a small range of possible stats, like in old D&D, that's fairly large. If, instead, you give males a +1 but simply fail to modify that stat for females, you have a lesser difference in range. The same then holds true for whatever stat or stats you give bonuses to females for.

This will work for the inattentive; a moment's reflection will show the problem.

Let us suppose that we have a system in which all scores are non-negatively modified. We'll make it easy, and say that for every score you roll 3d6 and then add a number from 0 to 5. Those numbers are derived from gender, race, and class.

Now let's say that for strength, dwarfs get +1, fighters get +2, and males get +2; so a male dwarf fighter gets +5, a scale of 8 to 23. Let's suppose that females get +1; a female dwarf fighter gets +4, 7 to 22. Now, you didn't give a female a -1 penalty; you gave the female a bonus--but because of the system, this is a penalty. By providing a bonus to one character type that is not available to another, you have penalized that other type.

Years ago I was invited to play in a D&D game that had some modifications. It was the first time I would be a player (I had been a Dungeon Master for a decade and played characters in other role playing games, but never had the opportunity to take a character in a D&D game). I chose to be a kensai. I chose the kensai in part because I wanted to be a Winged Folk, and so armor was a disadvantage. The kensai could not wear armor, but made up for it with such strong skill in combat that he improved his own armor class slowly, increased his innate chance to hit above that of most other classes, and otherwise became the most effective melee combatant in play with ordinary weapons. There were other disadvantages to this, including that he could not use magic weapons, and that he had to stand against challenges by other great fighters in order to establish himself at each level.

After the game had started, it was made known to me that one of the modifications to the game was hyperspecialization in melee weapons. Ordinary fighters could spend up to ten slots in a single weapon, and in doing so could pick up almost every weapon ability the kensai had plus several the kensai did not have. They could also wear armor and use magic weapons, further advancing their abilities, and never had to prove themselves. This had been done in an effort to strengthen the abilities of the fighter against the magic-using classes at higher levels. It had effectively eviscerated my character's abilities--every advantage he had was taken away from him, not by penalties to him but by bonuses to another character class.

Every bonus you give to any character type in the game is a de facto penalty to any character that does not qualify for that bonus. If game balance is an issue (as it is in D&D), this requires very careful crafting of bonuses so that no type is underpowered.

Even where game balance is not an issue, it should be clear that giving a bonus to one gender will be perceived as giving a penalty to the other, and in mechanical terms that perception is correct.

--M. J. Young

[contracycle]

There may be abnother angle to exploit though.  Taking the lower body strength claim for example, you could set up something like:
+1 Strength to men when using upper body musculature
+1 Strength to women when using lower body musculature
Base strength used for any combined or other circumstances

That would allow differentiation without establishing one sex as a baseline from which the other 'deviates'.  Also, this allows greater definition than blanket penalties and bonusses.


Slurpeemoney wrote:

Sexuality: In western culture, at least, women dominate sexuality in culture. If ad companies want to sell something to men, the put hot chicks in the comercial. If they want to sell something to women, they have hot chicks use their product in the comercial. This isn't always true of every culture; there are, I'm sure, cultures in which men are the objects of lust and attraction. I've no experience with those cultures, though, and so I stick to what I know. Women should be sexier than men. That's their thought. What's yours?

I think this confuses cause with effect.  I do not think women dominate sexuality - men dominate it.  Men can and do exercise effective demand, and so what we are seeing is male interest in looking at women answered by advertising (and sundry 'lifestyle' products).  Why then do adverts to women show attractive women too?  Because its aspirational advertising in a culture in which womens value is largely determined by their attractiveness to men.  So, this is not one that I would endorse, as it appears to reinforce a pernicious stereotype; I donlt think there is anything inherent in feminity or masculinity that gives one a superior quantity of attractiveness.

Pain Tolerance: I read somewhere (more than likely a very unreliable source; you guys know everything, you can tell me whether or not it's true), that the amount of pain that a woman endures during childbirth would be more than enough to cause a man to go into severe shock, or even kill him.

Hmm, I'd be surprised by that myself.  Again, the questions is twofold: does the phenomenon actually exist or is it urban myth; and second, even if it exists, does it exist to a degree of significance that is worth representing systematically?  I remember reading many years ago that blue-eyed people have lower pain thresholds than brown-eyed people.  I have no idea, really, so I'd not be confident embedding this systematically myself.

Pregnancy and Children: Quite a few of my players' characters have gotten pregnant and had children. I know that there is a netbook on the topic already, but it is really quite a bit more difficult than the Book of Unlawful Carnal Knowledge makes it out. How does one continue to adventure with children?

Good question.  However, surely this is the same topic as the RW argument for universal childcare.  IMO, the only solution is a non-'adventuring' mode of play which is geographically local and generational.  On that note, I think this presents great opportunities, becuase the default mode of RPG is largely detached from concepts of community, society and politics.  One of the major drivers in these concerns is exactly 'what will we leave to our children', and IMO RPG is robbed of much significance and import by leaving these concerns off stage.  But, I don't have an off-the-rack solution either.

[jrs]

Kris (aka SlurpeeMoney),

I am restricting my comments to your last post where you describe the interests of your gaming group.  

The Good

Kudos to you for engaging your players based on their interests and goals for their characters.  I am not surprised that your group is more interested in game play that revolves around meaningful relationships.  I cannot say that is a gender specific issue, but it certainly reflects my gaming interests.  I am not familiar with The Wheel of Time or D20 so I cannot speak to this particular system or setting and how it may contribute to this type of game play.  If you are interested in looking at other systems, you may want to check out HeroQuest and its use of relationships to augment skill rolls, or the use of spiritual attributes in The Riddle of Steel.  Also, Ron mentioned, back on page 1 of this topic, his Sorcerer supplement Sex & Sorcery, in which he describes distinct male and female stories.  A synopsis is at http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=3969>[Sex & Sorcery] Male and female story types

The Bad

Based solely on the description in your recent post, it seems to me that "gender" is being used by your players as a superficial excuse to be more effective in the game.  The specific female strengths that you mention--lower body strength, socialization, intuition, reflexes, pain toleration--are all debatable and as has been pointed out multiple times creating attribute modifiers based on assumptions in these areas will not necessarily generate a fairer gender differentiated system.  A blanket, my character is automatically better at this because she/he is female/male, is bogus.  I suggest the application of class and gender to skill sets, rather than physical and mental attributes.  If a player wants a character to be effective using lower body strength, have them take a skill in leg sweeps and throws.  If you must, have gender define the experience and opportunity to learn and advance in such a skill.  I also want to add that I particularly appreciate M. J. Young's recent comments about this issue.

And, a bonus for PMS?  What--the gamers claim that this makes them more ferocious in combat?  Please.  I call bull-shit on that.  If a group insists on including it in play; I would make certain that bear, shark, vampire, and Audrey attacks target the menstruating character.  Jeez, that is one element of real life that I have absolutely no interest in modeling in a game system.  

The Ugly

Sexuality: In western culture, at least, women dominate sexuality in culture. If ad companies want to sell something to men, the put hot chicks in the comercial. If they want to sell something to women, they have hot chicks use their product in the comercial. This isn't always true of every culture; there are, I'm sure, cultures in which men are the objects of lust and attraction. I've no experience with those cultures, though, and so I stick to what I know. Women should be sexier than men. That's their thought. What's yours?

Ummm.  I have serious doubts about the above statement and how it might be applied in a game.  This is objectification, and the depiction of women as sexual objects in itself does not engender greater sexuality in women per se.  Maybe your gaming group is more interested in defining women as having the ability to manipulate men through sex.  Or, an interest in more sexualized interactions between women and men.  It is impossible for me to say.  I can imagine game play in a setting where women garner power through the sexual manipulation of men and that men are so easily led, with all the corresponding elements of competition, distrust, and resentment.  I would tread lightly here and make certain that this avenue of play is of interest to the entire gaming group.  

I disagree with your claim that it is possible to create a generic gender differentiated system that can be applied to any game or gaming group.  I think it is important to recognize that this issue will be perceived and embraced in disparate measures by different groups.  I encourage you to work with your own group to define how to incorporate gender differences in play.  My comments above represent my own preferences, nonetheless, I hope they are of some use to you.

Julie

[KingstonC]

Kris,
Two suggestions:

1) Switch from a skill and stat based system like D20, which makes the players fit their character concepts to the game mechanics, to a trait based system in which the players themselves define their characters abilites, such as HeroQuest, or Over the Edge. That way, instead of you, the GM, defining what feminine advantage means to the player, the player defines what it means to themselves. Also, because bolth of those systems have a fixed number of points to be alloted to traits, you won't be shortchanging male players by giving all sorts of special female centered powers to the female players.

2) Read the GNS essays over in the articles section. It sounds as though the addition of female players may have created Creative Agenda conflicts that you are merely perceving as gender based. Are your female players Naritivists trying to get their agendas met in a Gamist/Simulationist game, and you are merely perceving this as a gender/sex issue?

[Ben O'Neal]

I second most of what Julie said concerning your post.

I disagree with Gareth's (contracycle's) points about men dominating sexuality. The "market" is mostly women. Consider playboy. Until fairly recently, playboy marketed solely to men, because that's where they thought the market was. Then the internet came along, and sales plummeted. But now they are on a (slow) comeback, for one reason: they began marketing to girls. The playboy "bunny" symbol now appears on a huge range of female products, from bumper stickers, to underwear and everyday casual clothing. It is now "cool" to be a playboy bunny. Additionally, women's magazines, which are arguably targeted solely at women, have on their covers pictures of women. One magazine (Cleo I think), once ran an issue with Brad Pitt on the cover, and it was one of their poorest selling issues that year (they've tried men on covers before, with the same results). These magazines are run by companies which are run and edited by women. In short, advertising "objectifies" women, because it sells to women. Men are now a fairly small slice in most consumer goods markets, and advertisers know that the best way to sell to either gender, is through females.

And that pain thing is urban myth, I've had this discussion before, but I couldn't be bothered diggin up anything right now. In short, pain experience is entirely incomparable and socially mediated, making any objective analysis meaningless.



I'm not a big fan of trait based games. It just seems odd to me that two players can be playing the same game where one's character sheet looks entirely different to the others'. Like that age old "who would win: superman or batman?", where the question is meaningless because they are really incomparable (the answer is both kriptonite and superman).

So here's my alternative suggestion, which may work for all groups. Get each of your players to write down all the bonuses they want their gender to have, and then all the bonuses they think the other gender should get. Then get all these things together and either a) keep only the bonuses that are duplicated between players, or b) average them all out, then tweak to make sure that neither gender is overall more mechanically advantaged over the other. Get everyone's agreement, then proceed to play. I guess it should take about 10 minutes before your first session.

If they try to do anything stupid, like giving ridiculously high bonuses (like +10 in a d20 system) to pull up the average, then reduce it to the lowest possible bonus (+1 in d20) before averaging it all.

At least in this way, I think, there should be no problems with any member of the group feeling "cheated", regardless of gender.

One more thing, if your female (or male?) players want a way to "use their sexual prowess" or whatever, and perhaps feel frustrated that few systems out there accomodate the plethora of social interactions between people, then may I point you to a module that I made a little while ago for a game I've since scrapped. It is pretty much entirely self contained, and I have a version that has been scaled to work perfectly with d20 systems (and has also been re-written to be easier to follow). If you'd like, I can email you the .pdf and you can incorporate it into your games, thus allowing your PCs to actually have mechanical input into non-combat that isn't a crude brushtroke. Once you are familiar with it, it shouldn't take long to work out aspects that can be "genderised", like bonuses to the skills Charm and Coerce for girls and bonuses to Affront and Discipline for guys (or, to be more interesting, allowing more than one attribute to contribute, like letting strength and intelligence boost Affront for guys, and intelligence and charisma boost Charm for girls). I've found that in my play-tests my players loved waging social war with each other perhaps a bit too much, because they often spent long periods of time trying to manipulate, insult, and charm each other to the detriment of pursuing the adventure, but as a GM, it's pretty easy to stop that (I just let it go to see how it worked, being that I was testing it and all).



-Ben

[Doctor Xero]

Doctor Xero wrote this over in that topic John linked to:

By focusing on social more than physical, it also neatly bypasses essentialist-vs-constructivist arguments over the origins of gender roles.

See what I mean? Apparently, the whole argument can be avoided by just agreeing with the constructivist side! It's so easy and clear now! [/sarcasm]

Actually, you take my comment out of context and thereby misrepresent it.

Understood within the context of the discussion from which you snipped my words, it becomes obvious that I was suggesting that if we focus more on the extant differences between conventionally-socialized American men and American women, we neatly bypass arguments over whether those differences have their origin strictly in nature (essentialist arguments), strictly in nurture (constructivist arguments), or somewhere in-between.

By quoting me out of context, you are able to misconstrue my words as advocating a totalitarianism of thought in favor of constructivism.

Whilst a PhD does not an expert make, I would agree that Doctor Xero has expertise in the constructionist side of the gender debate, and it really is a shame that he chooses not to benefit us with his knowledge.

Since I cite a number of researchers in that thread (and was blasted by a few Forge posters for it), I assume this was also sarcasm?

So far I haven't seen any of it as far as it has to do with game design.

In games which attempt to replicate certain genres, a number of commercial works specifically address the depiction of women and men (and occasionally the depiction of non-heterosexuals, ethnic or religious minorities, etc.) within that genre.

For example, the old Justice Incorporated noted that women in pulps often had more freedom than did women in real life of the time.  Campaign supplements for campaigns in Arthurian settings and Viking settings often give options both for replicating historical gender roles and for ignoring said gender roles.

In those cases, the game is not taking a stance over the degree to which constructivism or essentialism explain gender differences but merely taking a stance on how differences between men and women have been depicted within the specified genre.

Doctor Xero

[Doctor Xero]

I've never met a single person who denied the effect of society on development

I have met many and read even more who do just that.

Take a look at some of the angrier writings of essentialist feminists.

Also, look at some of the writings of later acolytes of John Gray's interpretations of gender differences.

Take a look at gender as understood within the field of sociobiology.

Read some of the anti-feminist conservative evangelical fundamentalist Christian writings in which various writers declare that gender roles were ordained by God and are hardwired into the soul.

Doctor Xero

[Doctor Xero]

Several people have stated their real-world opinion, but the question I want to ask is, what position will we take for the purpose of designing a game? (Note that `My real-world stance, of course' is a perfectly valid answer, I just think it should be explicit.)

Well, I suspect that if a designer does not actively think about gender within his/her game, since gender roles are so strongly encouraged in this society, he or she will work off his/her default essentialist/constructivist opinion.

It seems to me that designers who wish to challenge prevailing gender roles are more likely to focus on the nurture perspective because of U.S. assumptions that socialization is easier to reverse than "genetic destiny".

It seems to me that designers who wish to reinforce prevailing gender roles are more likely to focus on the nature perspective since, in this country at least, the default assumption is that biology mandates whereas society suggests.

I assume this because such is the pattern found in sociopolitical arguments which invoke gender.

Thus, if I want to reinforce the idea that men are genetically predetermined to be ill-suited for raising children (an actual argument put forth by some essentialist feminists in their arguments involving child custody cases), I would design a game in which only female characters may purchase childcare skills.

If I want to challenge the idea that women are incapable of matching men in terms of strength, I would design a game in which male and female characters roll the same dice to determine strength value.  (Compare Villains & Vigilantes in which women have fewer dice to roll up for a certain attribute which controls muscular prowess with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in which male and female fighters both used three six-sided dice for rolling up the Strength attribute).

If memory serves, I believe GURPS suggested that women and both male and female ethnic minorities take Social Disadvantage to represent their historical oppression in campaigns which attempt a veneer of historical accuracy (for example, during U.S. slavery it was illegal to teach a Black man or woman how to read, and in the 1600s in England it was illegal to allow a woman to manage property).

Doctor Xero

[Doctor Xero]

In my current group of players, which numbers as few as 3 and as large as 6, depending upon circumstances, we have three women. Each of them has, at different times, indicated that they feel stifled in a neuter game in which the benefits of being a woman are not represented by the system.

Years ago, I had to deal with a new player, a woman who was an essentialist feminist, who insisted that it was impossible for her to suspend disbelief in my campaign if women were not represented with their "natural superiority" to men (although she expressed it more colorfully than that).  Aside from my own constructivist leanings, I was appalled by her self-righteous female chauvenism.  I hadn't entered a doctoral program yet, so I didn't have the background necessary to intellectually dispute her, and the issue was more emotional than intellectual for her anyway so hearing what facts I did have at hand only irritated her.  In the end, I had to accept that she and I would never game together.  She reminded me all-too-clearly of a player who once demanded that I stop having Black NPCs simply because he disliked Blacks.

However, I have also had two female players ask me to run a fantasy campaign in which women were indeed oppressed so that they could play female characters in active rebellion against a sexist society.  After I made certain they understood how nasty this would be if I honestly replicated it, I ran it, and they had a wonderful time risking life and liberty by violating social norms.

To be candid, the situation you describe is one of the reasons why I prefer genre-based campaigns to campaigns which allege to depict real life.  I have found that many people find rational arguments about their gender role beliefs annoying, but I've never yet had anyone dispute the gender roles found in certain genres.  For example, I recall one light-hearted pulp campaign in which female characters had access to "purses of holding" since so many pulp movies depict women who always have whatever is needed in their voluminous purses -- they also convinced me to allow them to use bobby pins as surrogate masterworks lock picks.

Doctor Xero

[Doctor Xero]

( editted out computer hiccough )

[Doctor Xero]

( editted out computer hiccough )

[Doctor Xero]

Sexuality: In western culture, at least, women dominate sexuality in culture. If ad companies want to sell something to men, the put hot chicks in the comercial. If they want to sell something to women, they have hot chicks use their product in the comercial. This isn't always true of every culture; there are, I'm sure, cultures in which men are the objects of lust and attraction. I've no experience with those cultures, though, and so I stick to what I know. Women should be sexier than men. That's their thought. What's yours?

I completely and wholeheartedly disagree with the notion that this is still true.

I can sum it up in one currently popular word : metrosexual.

Or Brad Pitt, Keanu Reeves, Denzel Washington, etc., if you want examples of male objects of lust whom heterosexual men fantasize about emulating.

Right now, I'm reading a marvelous scholarly study about male vanity.
(And you're completing ignoring gay culture for that matter.)

Strength: Again, this goes down more to perception than to actual scientific fact, but the girls think that they should benefit from leg strength in combat.

There are a number of studies which suggest that women who have been raised identically to men have identical levels of strength.

The problem, of course, is that there are so few women that appear to have been raised identically to men that it's impossible to tell how far one dares generalize from these findings -- it could be completely statistically irrelevant.

Socialization: Women tend to be more outwardly social than men. Perhaps this is some throwback to our caveman days
---snip!--
Intuition: Women rely much more heavilly on their intuition and their gut than men do. Men like to reason things out

These both involve a horrible stereotype which is responsible for a tremendous amount of male and female suffering in our nation.

Studies by Dindia, Ares, Wood, and others have shown that the percentage of intuitive/holistic individuals versus logical/sequential individuals is virtually identical for men and for women.

What the studies have shown, however, is that men are shamed for being intuitive (e.g. called "sissies" or "effeminate") just as women are shamed for being logical (e.g. called "frigid" or told by Barbie dolls that "math is hard") and therefore self-describe themselves as fitting the gender stereotypes even when ability tests determine that they do not fit said stereotypes.

Because of the prevalence of this stereotype, many men who have a natural flair for poetry or language or socializing are mocked and otherwise harrassed as perverse (e.g. "band f**" as a nasty epithet for musically inclined men), just as many women who have a natural flair for computer programming or science are even today dismissed as "unnatural".

Those of us who are male who dared to prefer language and literature to mathematics, who are intuitively gifted rather than restricted to analytic logic, and who are skilled at interpersonal reaction are made to feel deviant throughout public schooling by teachers, peers, and sometimes even our parents.

I still recall one woman who told me I must be either a freak or perverse (although she used a homophobic epithet) because I had asked for directions.

Reflexes: Again, no scientific proof whatsoever, but the girls are quite keen on the idea that, while men react more quickly to a given situation, women are more likely to react with precision equal to what they would have normally.

So far it sounds as though they object to your  game for its failure to enforce upon both male and female players their particular gender stereotypes.

The Menstrual Cycle

I have read some marvelous nutritionist/bio-chemist papers proving that PMS is a purely social entity which results entirely from the nutritionally messed-up modern urban diet.

I know this sounds rather sexist, but I have noticed that the girls in my group game differently from the guys in my group.

In one of my Referee, Protagonist, Antagonist posts, I recounted a situation in which roleplaying males were lambasted as "immasculine" and "effeminate" for doing the very things you ascribe to female players.

About a decade-and-a-half ago, the gaming community was wracked by a "roleplayer vs. power gamer" dichotomy which was actually more of a battle between those who wished RPGs to be more theatrical and those who wished RPGs to return more to their wargaming roots.  At the time, RPGing  was still almost an exclusively male passtime.

The argument was frequently framed in terms of gender role allegiance : the "power gamers" would claim that "roleplayers" lacked proper masculinity and were ruining gaming by "womanizing" it while the "roleplayers" would respond by claiming that "power gamers" were sexist primitives with no respect for art, culture, or women.

It seems to me that echoes of this argument remain in the generalization.  I have found that one of the first things I have to do when helping a new male player understand roleplaying is to convince him that there is nothing perverse or unnatural or effeminate about his doing so.

Men do not "naturally" automatically play as you describe -- but men are pressured to conform to that style regardless of personal preference.

To them, a neuter system denotes "male" more often than female in the spirit of the rules.

the lack of distinctive femininity, to them and to myself, seems prevailent.

I will be candid : as soon as I read the above, I cringed.  It hies back to Cixous and Irigaray's inheritors who claim that syntax is inherently masculine and therefore women must develop alternative linguistic forms or be forever subjected to oppression.  It also begs the question of what the definition of "femininity" might be.

It seems to me that the primary purpose of gendering human behavior -- of categorizing certain activities as "feminine" and certain as "masculine" -- is to deny people access to certain activities if they possess the "wrong" genitalia.  To insist that certain behaviors are "feminine" is to imply something deviant about a male who engages in said behaviors.

One of the primary motives I had for pursuing gender studies as one of my  Ph.D. fields is my desire to acquire the understanding necessary to defend women scientists, men who caretake children, women who can get angry, men who can cry, logical women, intuitive men, etc. from the vilification, condemnation, and social dismissal inherent in strict gender norming.

I found serendipitously that pursuing folklore studies as one of my Ph.D. fields reinforced my gender scholarship in that it enabled me to more accurately recognize the pernicious urban legends and tales which reinforce gender stereotypes and promote them as the "natural" way of things.

I honestly think you would be better off running these women in games which challenge their reification of gender roles rather than in games which humor them.  Either that, or accept the idea that you will be running games which marginalize and dismiss men who are intuitive, socially adroit, and otherwise tread upon the territory these women would set aside for women only.

Doctor Xero

[Doctor Xero]

I've yet to see a modern RPG that included modifiers based on these kinds of ethnic or demographic trends becaue frankly even if these are true, who cares? It doesn't make any difference to the fact that if a random assortment of people from around the world get stuck in an adventuresome situation it's quite possible tha the strongest person tere will happen to be Chinese, or an Accountant from London because we're only actualy interested in these people in this situation. Given that, do we want to penalise the player of the Accountant Londoner? If so, why? What aspect of the game designer's creative agenda is being challenged?

Well, I do recall different dice-rolling methods in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in which fighters would almost always come out as stronger than magic-users.  It reinforces class archetypes.  Whether that is a good thing or not would depend upon the designer's intentions and the genre, I imagine.

Doctor Xero

[Doctor Xero]

Also, I don't know that there is anything one gender can do that the other absolutely cannot.

In gender scholarship, this is known as the argument of
Difference of Degree
vs.
Difference of Kind

Doctor Xero

[SlurpeeMoney]

Holy wow. Doctor Xero has been busy on a post I had thought of as long dead. And now he has so much information down I feel rather intimidated even trying to reply to his points.

And so, instead, I'll simply thank him for his insight and his deep look at social gender issues. I think he's covered, rather fully, any of the issues I would have liked to have brought up.

Kris
"Holy wow."