Gender and other Norms in Keywords

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Just to say I'm still reading, just not saying much here currently.  Am reorienting. (Or to go back to Mike's analogy, experimenting with wriggling toes in grainy white stuff.) :-)

What do you do if your mother now acts like a man, or your father like a woman?  If your one time shield brother is now a frankly attractive woman?  If the little sister you protected now is not quite female, but not taking on a man's role either--what is your role as protector now?

Wow.  Great stuff.  

Of course, there are other, possibly deeper, changes involved in becoming a shaman which may tend to swamp the gender issues.

A shaman might say that they aren't "other" changes because all things are related.  Of course in a game you'd be free to emphasise whatever issue you were interested in at the time...

[Mike Holmes]

Well, I think the interesting thing with these gender benders is then looking again at the norms. That is, I'm sure that when a Hsunchen shaman returns home that there's a norm about how you're supposed to deal with them. It might be to ignore the gender change, or to accept it, or even to shun the shaman - creating an "untouchable" class in so doing.

As always, the question then becomes given the change, and the norm, how does my character react? If shunning is the norm does my character participate, or do they break the line to care for their old friend? If you're supposed to ignore it, does the character do so, or is it just so weird to him that he has to say something? If they're supposed to support the change, does he do so, or just see it as too unnatural, and reject his friend?

All good stuff.

Cool notes on Heler, and the Hsunchen, Bryan. I think it's an interesting observation about the transexual nature of the Hsunchen and it being potentially there to prevent powergaming. Because an actual true powergamer wouldn't worry about their character's sex, unless there was some problem in empowerment being female. I don't see this as inherent in the shaman thing, so it sounds like the sexism tradition at work again. :-)

Mike

[Bryan_T]

I think it's an interesting observation about the transexual nature of the Hsunchen and it being potentially there to prevent powergaming. Because an actual true powergamer wouldn't worry about their character's sex, unless there was some problem in empowerment being female. I don't see this as inherent in the shaman thing, so it sounds like the sexism tradition at work again. :-)

Actually I don't think that is at all _why_ it is there.  For starters when these cultures were first explored in Runequest, being a shaman was not something you just did, you had to qualify for it, so you couldn't just choose the extra power.  Secondly, Greg Stafford, the Gloranthan creator, is a practicing shaman from what I understand, so I think that this note was far more likely to do with his exploration of what being a shaman could mean in different cultures (there are many animist cultures in Glorantha, this gender change issue is particular to one of them).

It was just my own observation taht the stereotypical power gaming young man would not want his character femininized in any way.  Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I think there is enough sexism in many groups that it would be a dis-incentive.

--Bryan

[Donald]

Excellent way to put it Donald, it's a social transformation. Not physical (didn't mean to imply that, if I did), but that the culture considers their gender to be changed in terms of how they deal with such people.

I didn't read what you wrote that way, I was more emphasising that it's not primarily sexual either.
Which is why I used Nandan/Vinga rather than Heller as the example.

IOW, they are accepted into the new role. As opposed to role-reversal where the character acts in a role that normally isn't allowed for that gender. So a Vingan warrior is socially a man acting as a warrior. Whereas a woman not in the Vinga cult who is a warrior is a woman acting in a role normally reserved for men.

And the latter is outside Heortling society (unless they join one of the other women warrior cults), so before you start you've loads of story - who taught them to fight? how are they treated by the other members of the clan? why are they allowed to stay at all since they aren't acting as part of the clan?

Of course other Gloranthan societies have different rules so the meeting of people from different societies brings more story.