Leading plot lines.

[John]

I'm not sure if you're calling me a sexist here, but I most certainly am not

I DEFINITELY wasn't calling you sexist, I doubt anyone here is sexist (everyone from their posts seems like great people). My "it might be common sense for someone else" comment was to try to avoid someone saying "sexism is natural due to men's superior strength. Otherwise we wouldn't have been sexist for all those centuries". This is a very touchy subject for me, which is why I didn't say a word in my first reply to gfair. I knew he wasn't sexist, but I was still offended by his post and didn't trust myself not to sound mean (and he didn't deserve to be abused cause he didn't say anything wrong). So sorry for giving you the impression I thought you were sexist.

Yes, humans on Zalanthas have adapted to the environment - but they're still humans, and they were certainly created from the standard we have of humans today or in the past.

This is a purely academic issue and I'd been thinking about it the other day in fact so I'll post up my thoughts. I use to assume that there had been a homosapien that all humanoids evolved from. But perhaps there wasn't. Perhaps one of the existing races were the only humanoids and something happened during the Dragon's reign to cause mutations. The reason there aren't any archaelogical evidence is because Tek and Muk Utep went about purposefully tampering and destroying the evidence for some reason. Whatever the case is I don't know.

Have you ever used a skilled and armed character to fight an unskilled, unarmed and unarmored one? A subdued one? It usually only takes one to three hits to kill, in most cases.

This seems to me to be another issue altogether and I agree it might be a bit out of whack. Although it is possible to kill people barehanded, if not as fast as it tends to happen in the game. Perhaps it could be tweaked, but I don't think it's pressing.

[creeper386]

Well, I'm out to just attack everyone! Gahh! Boo! Rah! And personally, just because I'm male, I throw the whole balance way in favor of guys, but it's just because of me, and my superiority to EVERYONE.  :twisted: Mwahahahaha.

Well... I don't see sexism as being prevelant... Or even existance... Does that mean people don't insult, or think themselves better then people of the opposite sex, no, but it does mean there is a GOOD chance it isn't going to be you hate them JUST because they are a female or a male, it's going to be more a case by case thing. A petite female out with normal commoner people probably would get alot of crap, but a scrawny little bastard of some low ranking noble, would also be getting alot of crap.

I think acctually appearence would be more important then gender, specially considering alot of female look alot like males. And I think groups of similar people putting down other people because they look different would probably be more rampart and more severe then any sexism.

But then again, I'm sure there are some places where certain people are made to think they are inferiorer and everyone else things that. Like the noble-commoner aspect. Perhaps in some societies women could be in that setting, but it wouldn't be wide spread or even common, and could cause you more trouble in the civilized places.


Creeper who has no clue on the whole idea, and thinks he's completely wrong, don't listen to him.

[John]

A petite female out with normal commoner people probably would get alot of crap

Now who'd get the crap? The female or the male?

I say fat = wealth and comfort so therefore fat = attractive.

Fat people are also rare so they'd be considered exotic. Freaks could also be considered exotics instead of.....well freaks

John, whose being dead serious despite the tongue in cheek nature of this post.

[creeper386]

I'm saying, both would be getting crap. That being female or male would less matter as to how the person works and the persons reputation... Now if that same scrawny bastard of some lowly noble, commonly makes enemies, and those enemies tend to come up hanging from the doorways of popular taverns without anyone "seeing" what happened, most likely he wouldnt' get the crap except from people who don't know him.

And same with that petite little female. Maybe she's infamous for her skill with the blades strapped to her inner thighs. Maybe she's one of the 'rinthi's best thief, and the head of a well run organization who would certainly hear and do something about someone screwy with their founder if she didn't deal with it herself.

Sex of the person is less important then what they look like, who their friends are, and their personal reputation. SHRUG... Thats just how I see it. Just the same that everyone is a potential friend, ally, or enemy, and friends are more likely enemies, while trust is more likely to be giving to paid allies... SHRUG AGAIN.

Creeper

[John]

I'm saying, both would be getting crap.

Oh okay, I thought you were saying the male would get crap. Why would the male get crap? Well for being seen with such a weak and useless person. I imagine the petite one would often have to prove herself. Mainly cause she's small and weak (assuming petite means small and weak of course), but also because small and skinniness would be signs of undernourishment. Undernourishment is a sign of being poor and the 'rinth.

Now of course if the petite one was working for Lord Fancypants or Merchant Kadius then that's another story.

[Kronus]

realistically, I do see this sort of thing being prevailant on Zalanthas. In more primitive times - say, anywhere from the beginning of documented history to sixty or seventy years ago - "common sense" would likely be that women were the inferior sex. Fortunately, we know these days that this was basically just based around the thoughtless logic of, "We're stronger and pushier, so we're better", which is absolutely ludicrous.

Here's the thing, though...
On Zalanthas, for as long as anyone can remember, anyway, women have been just as pushy and just as strong as men. That means that the kind of superiority ideals that you're describing wouldn't come up. Males can't go telling themselves they're better because they're stronger if it's plainly obvious to everyone that women are just as strong.

As has been said before in this thread (when all I wanted was some tips on how to motivate some slugs in my clans :twisted: ), you have to be careful not to let real world sensibilities leak into your view of Zalanthas. On Zalanthas, women can hunt perfectly well on their own, thanks. They can run just as fast as men, they can wear the same heavy armor and kill people with the same heavy swords. Outside of having the equipment to make babies in (which, in a lot of ways, would ultimately give them the power, once all else is made equal), Zalanthian women are in all ways equal to Zalanthian men, with all the same strengths and weakness and more importantly, potential strengths and weakness.

As the basic gist, if Zalanthas had Olympics like we have on Earth, there wouldn't be a men's and a women's mile run. There would just be a mile run, with men and women competing equally in that single event.
On Earth, men and women are not equal, physically. The world's strongest man could crush the world's strongest woman quite easily, and the world's fastest man will leave the world's fastest woman in the dust. This basic fact is what led to thousands and thousands of years of male dominance in everything, from family to business to society.
On Zalanthas, given that women have a great deal more potential (than they do on Earth) to be physically superior to their mates, it seems quite likely that just as often the men are the ones who get left home with the babies while the women go out and bring home food.
Without the same kind of nearly universal "Men hunt, women cook" situations at home, those kinds of attitudes would not make it far through society as a whole.

And since gender roles has been brought up, I have to confess that I'm a little curious about the Zalanthian views on sexuality.
We've all seen the catamite flitting around the bazaar, so clearly someone out there is engaging in a little buggery. But I'm curious if the existence of catamites are seen merely as a form of sexual gratification for the occasional decadent noble, or if homosexual relationships actually do exist.
Moreover, what's the views of the general population on this? Clearly, to one extent, two women bedding down together means two fewer women who could be bearing children, which could be seen by some as a threat to the continuance of the species, but on the other hand, there are already so many people with regards to available resources, that it seems possible that there wouldn't be quite the same emphasis on procreation on Zalanthas that we have on Earth. If that was the case, then homosexual relationships would be accepted for everyone, not just Lord Kinkypants.

Thoughts?

[Meep]

You're using the wrong terminology here.  The fact that women are disadvantaged in most societies has nothing to do with them being a minority - minority refers to a population, not being the subject of systematic bias.

Actually, I'm not. Here's a couple definitions:

Minority group - any group who is singled out in society based on physical or cultural characteristics and is treated differentially and unequally.  A minority group may or may not be a numerical majority, but the defining features are a lack of social, political, and economic power, which is determined by the dominant, majority group.

Majority group - any group that holds the social, economic, and political power to influence and determine who will have access to the benefits, privileges, and opportunities of the society.

There is no one definition for minority, but the above states what is a sociological definition of minority. And according to the above definition, women are, indeed, a minority group.

Your data is extremely out of date - the gap in many market segments has narrowed considerably.  As for education, what you claim is almost entirely wrong - women consistently show lower populations in technical and scientific disciplines, but that has not been proven to be systematic bias - there is some consideration given to whether or not they WANT to be there, so the evidence may be showing other correlations, and not strictly pointing to any disadvantage.

Unless data from the year 2000 is out of date, then I'm not. Here's just one site I found discussing the wage gap, which is still at 73% (or 73 cents to the male dollar): http://www.feminist.com/fairpay/f_change.htm although it has narrowed considerably... from 59 cents to the dollar in 1963 to the above.

This is almost certainly wrong - $40/hour is grossly excessive and would incite a riot, not just be a grievance.

It's not incorrect, and these numbers weren't taken off the top of my head. I'll need to find the study that was done on this, but right now, I need to go eat.

There are all sorts of individual horror stories that do happen.  However, unless your friend won millions of dollars in a lawsuit, I would think your effort would be much better off being put towards finding a good lawyer, rather than chatting about the incident in a video game forum.  There is probably a pretty good parallel between advancing womens' rights, and the number of stories like this that actually went to court.

This is an anecdote. Unfortunately, this kind of behavior is more widespread than you would think and going to court costs money. A lot of times these kinds of accusations often boil down to one person's word against another's. A woman risks losing her job if she takes it to court and makes a big stink about it. Since one of the people who harassed my friend was one of her direct managers, this made it doubly uncomfortable and she decided to let it drop instead of causing a ruckus. See above on what people are willing to tolerate because it means keeping a source of income. Especially now in the job slump.

Sorry, I don't buy this logic.  I asked about sexism because I want to find out how much sexism there is in Arm - is there any, or are we to specifically ensure we omit any sexist comments due to the game policy set by the IMMs?  If Arm were real, there would be rampant sexism - there is no threshold for prejudice and bias, it is usually done wherever a visible boundary between peoples exist.  And there is sexism in Arm, but what I want to know is how prevalent it is - I'm not looking for any justification for why we should all OOC force our characters to ignore the IC reality of Arm.

Is there sexism on Arm in the game world? According to what I've seen NPC-wise in a few clans and documentation... no. I've seen PLENTY of women in leadership positions in clans npc-wise. However, there is distinct sexism brought in from OOC influences. However, since the pc population only makes up a fraction of Zalanthan population, I would say that there is very little sexism overall.

[Supreme Allah]

Not to be rude, Kronus, but please refer to my first posting in this thread rather than the last. My -last- post was in response to someone in particular, and thus, lacked my initial reasoning.

Thanks, and again, no offense is meant.

[EDIT] I've decided to post it here, for easy reference.

How are women as strong as men?

Biologically, I mean. It's hard for me to just accept that women are as strong as men - there has to be a legitimate reason behind it. The only one I can think of is testosterone and their relative hormones, which are precisely what makes men stronger than women, but carry a lot of seemingly unpleasant weight. Women might typically have beards or chest hair!

I'll take this a step further. Is abuse of one's partner (see: real-world spousal abuse) as interchangable with each sex, too? How about rape? If women are the same as men, they rape, raid, and pillage every bit as much as we do. Not to attack anyone, but petite, curvaceous little sweethearts would be extremely, EXTREMELY rare, if this is the case.

Simply put, I don't think this equivalency of the sexes completely adds up. If we're trying to be "PC", then I'll just say that I think that's rather silly in a game as strongly based around realism as this, as well as one that contains such powerful class distinctions, slavery, and whatever else I can't think of at the moment.

Also, please keep in mind that I'm not trying to attack this game or its creators, AT ALL. I have no problem with, code-wise, keeping women as strong as men. But the world as a whole, I think, -would- have sexism and in general, I believe men -would- be physically stronger than women. That, or women should need to start shaving their faces as much as their legs.

I'd be much more interested in seeing a good response to that.

[John]

And since gender roles has been brought up, I have to confess that I'm a little curious about the Zalanthian views on sexuality.

Sanvean in particular has encouraged people A LOT to be as strange (not that homosexuality is strange.....oh you know what I mean!) as possible when it comes to sex and marriage. If you want I can go link to the discussion it happened

She's said that she doesn't think that there would be any of the following:
* homosexuality as a minority
* bisexuality as a minority
* monogomy as a majority
* marriage as a majority
* marriage to one person as a majority

So yeah. The answer would be "there's no widespread discrimination against any of the above issues"

As for the whole women = child bearing. I think y'all a bit too obsessed with this idea I'll just say one thing. If there WAS such a high emphasis on childbearing, mulmix would be outlawed.

[Kronus]

How are women as strong as men?

Biologically, I mean. It's hard for me to just accept that women are as strong as men - there has to be a legitimate reason behind it. The only one I can think of is testosterone and their relative hormones, which are precisely what makes men stronger than women, but carry a lot of seemingly unpleasant weight. Women might typically have beards or chest hair!

Women are just as strong as men on Zalanthas, biologically, for all the same reasons that short elves are biologically capable of running farther than tall humans. Or that dwarves have no body hair (I remember a thread a while ago where me and AC discussed the risks of dry and chapped skin if someone had NO hair). It falls under the same principle that allows you to smack someone wearing a breastplate made from some mekkilot's shoulderblade with a shard of obsidian (a brittle stone, irl) not more than one inch thick and not have it break. Or the thing where you get run through by one of these magic obsidian swords five or six times, and then sit down and take the morning off to heal the wounds up.
At some point, you have to set absolute adherence to realism aside and just accept that its a game. Women are just as strong as men on Zalanthas because women are just as strong as men on Zalanthas. There doesn't really need to be a reason for it, except for those people who don't want it to be that way

I'll take this a step further. Is abuse of one's partner (see: real-world spousal abuse) as interchangable with each sex, too? How about rape? If women are the same as men, they rape, raid, and pillage every bit as much as we do. Not to attack anyone, but petite, curvaceous little sweethearts would be extremely, EXTREMELY rare, if this is the case.

No more or less rare than the youthful, pretty-boy catamite-potentiates who work as Tor advisors. Armageddon is neat because its social structures allow for both the beer-swilling belching types, and the petite, curvaceous little sweethearts.
EDIT: To answer the main point of this quote, yes, I think that women abusing their husbands probably happens on Zalanthas as often as the other way around. Rape is a trickier thing only in that you can't really force a man to get an erection, but it's pretty easy, so I suspect that, yes, women on Zalanthas are raping men (and other women).

But the world as a whole, I think, -would- have sexism and in general, I believe men -would- be physically stronger than women. That, or women should need to start shaving their faces as much as their legs.

Your welcome to your beliefs and opinions, and they even do have some merit. Seriously
However, everything that's been put down by the creators and maintainers of this game has pointed to there being an absence of sexism on the whole.
You're not required to agree, but for as long as you're going to be playing in their world, you have to play by their version of it. That applies to everything, from thoughts about sexism to arrows not killing people in one shot like they do in real life.

[Supreme Allah]

I've read the documentation just as thoroughly as the next guy - you don't need to tell me to play by the rules. I already do.

Regardless, my "beliefs and opinions" lie with what little knowledge I have of biology, genetics, and human history - at this point of which there simply doesn't seem to be a valid arguement against. That, I guess, is was what I was really looking for. An explanation for what seems a deviation from realism that simply doesn't add up.

I'll again reference an above post, where I said the one arguing against me was correct - realism needed to be sacrificed for the comfortability of the player base.

The arguement, however, that "you're wrong because a document says so!" holds little ground with me. Perhaps this explains why I'm an atheist as well, eh? I was just trying to find the reasoning behind it.

[creeper386]

Well SA, How about the idea that, Your wrong, not because the documents say so, but your wrong because it is a fact that Zalanthan women are just as physically and mentally strong, as well as morally weak as any guy.

The only problem is... Some people may not like women because they are WOMEN. Because they have no penis or testicles between there legs... Just because they are just as strong as men doesn't mean their isn't any sexism, it just mean that sexism flows both ways, and for the most part there isn't a "weaker sex" asides from any dislikes of the potential viewer.

I'm going to have to say, that there probably still would be sexism, but it wouldnt' be because women/men are weaker then the other, stupider, or more emotional or what have you, it'll be JUST because one is a man or one is a women. And although I don't really think I'd ever have a character that would dislike the opposite sex, I think it could quite well happen. BUT it isn't a wide spread common theory, it's more of a rare thing.

Like if someone gets overly abused as a child, they may hate the sex that did it, they might be a female that hates all other females JUST because they are female(Which to me is poorly the basis of any sexism, it doesn't have to deal with one being inferior or not even though it's commonly seen that way) or maybe it was a boy who was raised in a house full of females and being outnumbered he was forced to do everything or something... He might grow up to hate females just because they are females(And like the last little paranthesis thing, if this isn't sexism I don't see really how you can say anything else is)


Creeper

[Kronus]

The arguement, however, that "you're wrong because a document says so!" holds no ground with me.

That really wasn't my argument, though. Your argument basically read, "On Earth, men are stronger than women and there's sexism, so there should be sexism on Zalanthas too, because men are stronger than women."
My counter arguement was, "Men aren't stronger than women on Zalanthas."

Quite correctly, you asked why this was. I don't really have an answer for this, not while there's an assumption that Zalanthas humans are the same as Earth humans, just in better shape. There's no reason why Zalanthian women are just as strong as their male counterparts, just as there's no reason why we on Earth have five fingers instead of four, or six. It's just the way evolution on this particular planet happened to turn out.
In fact, there's no reason to assume that humans on Zalanthas don't have six fingers on each hand, except that it makes it easier to RP our characters if their gross anatomical qualities are at least approximately similar to our own. Everything that we OOC'ly know about our real world, be it physics or cultural or economics or genetics... it has to get thrown right out the window as soon as something on Zalanthas (as stated in the docs, yes) contradicts it. Why? Because Zalanthas isn't Earth. It might approximate Earth in a lot of ways, but it's not Earth.
For all we know, the color Zalanthians consider 'yellow' is what we'd call 'red' on Earth. "Why do they call it yellow, then? It's clearly red and humans on Earth have always called it red." That's fallacious logic. They call it yellow because to them, it's yellow.

Zalanthian women are just as strong as Zalanthian men for no reason other than that they are. Zalanthas is not Earth. That's my argument. Being that I don't live there, I draw my information from the documentation, yes. Maybe Zalanthian humans have more teeth than we do too, or maybe their hair isn't what we'd consider hair, but flexible quills.  Whatever their differences and similarities, they are not Earth humans, nor are they bound by the same laws of genetics and biology that we are.
Sirihish isn't english either, agreed? Yet it looks a lot like english when it rolls across our screens, even to the point of mimicing english sentence structure and grammatical rules. No one has ever asked what "real" sirihish sounds like, but it quite possibly is a language like nothing that exists on Earth.
Could you ask, "Why does sirihish never use a proper subject noun when the sentence is a question?"? You could, but the answer would be, "It just doesn't. Language develops differently in different areas, so imagine how it develops on different planets."

So, again, why are women just as strong as men on Zalanthas?
ICly? Because they are. That's the way the chips fell in the course of that planet's development, which was completely different in some ways and completely identical in others to Earth's own development.
OOCly? Because people felt it would be better for players who wanted to play female characters to not get screwed over by virtue of their gender, much like how magical armor in D&D resizes itself so that the halfling doesn't get shafted out of every chainmail +1 the party comes across just because it's too big for him.

Hopefully that answer will suffice, because I'm running out of arguements.

[Angela Christine]

I've read the documentation just as thoroughly as the next guy - you don't need to tell me to play by the rules. I already do.

Regardless, my "beliefs and opinions" lie with what little knowledge I have of biology, genetics, and human history - at this point of which there simply doesn't seem to be a valid arguement against. That, I guess, is was what I was really looking for.

One easy explanation is that during the chaos of the time of the Dragon and afterwords, all the weak people (male or female) died.  You couldn't have even the tiniest village then, because and stable concentration of people was seen as a potential power base and destroyed by the Dragon's servants.  From the Ptarken Village helpfile "Especially in the latter days of the Dragon's reign, all societies were highly nomadic, for to stay in one place very long could be interpreted as a base of power, which would in turn draw the attention of one of the Dragon's dread servants."   That kind of living doesn't have any room for the sick or the weak.  The women that survived were mostly bitchy Amazon types.

Another explanation that goes a little farther back, is that human evolution/creation on Zalanthas was a little different than it was here on Earth, and whatever caused the secondary sex characteristics to devolp in Earth humans didn't occur in Zalanthas.  On Earth, in all primates the males are larger and stronger than the females.  In Zalanthas the situation is quite different, as all the known primates are intelligent, sentient beings, there seem to be no animal primates (no monkeys, apes, chimpanzees).  What does it mean?  I have no idea, but it looks like humanoids developed differently there.  In many speicies it is difficult for us to tell the difference between males and females at a glance, presumably the animals themselves have someway to tell.   :wink:  In some other species, the females are larger and stronger than the males.  My point being that it isn't universal for the male to be larger and stronger than the female in all species, despite the fact that it is that way for all Earth primates.  It is possible for a species to evolve where the males and females are physically equal and possibly indistinguishable except during the breeding season, where the males are larger and stronger, and where females are larger and stronger.  Earth humans and earth primates took one path, but a small difference 10000+ years ago might have lead to different development.

Are Earth Humans equivilent to Zalanthas Humans?  I doubt it.  Elves and humans are able to mate and produce offspring that are fertile, fertile elves, humans or other half-elves.  That indicates that in Zalanthas Elves and Humans are in fact the same spiecies, just different varieties, breeds, or races within that species; like Lasso Apsos and pit bulls are both dogs.  Obviously Zalanthas Elves are not equivilent to Earth Humans, so I doubt Zalanthas Humans are equivlent to Earth Humans either.  They are similar, sure, but not the same -- like some low-budget science fiction where the "aliens" look like humans with forehead ridges, green skin or pointy ears rather than beinging really alien looking.  :mrgreen:

An explanation for what seems a deviation from realism that simply doesn't add up.

Even discounting magick, Zalanthas is obviously biologically distinct from Earth.  Earth doesn't have any 800 pound insects, and my highschool science indicated that insects that large would be impossible on Earth; but they exist quite successfully on Zalanthas.  There are both mammals and snakes with feathers on Zalanthas, last I checked, Earth mammals didn't have feathers.  I admit I've never taken a real close look at Mekillots or Bahamets, I usually find it prudent to run the other way as soon as I see them in the distance, but my impression is that they are considerably larger than elephants, which are currently the largest land animals on Earth.  On Earth, most severe mutations cause miscarriage or early death, while on Zalanthas severe mutations are survivable.  Something like blue or green skin may not seem like a huge difference, but it is, because you'd need very different body chemistry to get naturally green skin.  There are many paralels between the two worlds, but also many differances in biology, genetics, history and perhaps even physics.

I'll again reference an above post, where I said the one arguing against me was correct - realism needed to be sacrificed for the comfortability of the player base.

I really doubt it is merely for comfort.  Part of the premise of a game is that you need play balance, so if you make females less strong you would have to give them something to compensate.  Personally I think females having slightly lower strength with slightly higher endurance or wisdom would be easier to justify than equal strength, but nobody asked me.  Many DIKU games have an all female "dryad" race that has poor strenth but more than makes up for it in the other attributes, and they are a popular race.  Giving female humans dryad characteristics would probably be popular and comfortable for many players.  I doubt any of the staff from the birth of the mud are still around, so we may never no what reason they had for setting things up the way they did.  There are plenty of plausible reasons, but no way to tell which is the "right" explanation.

In summary:  In Zalanthas men and women have exactly the same physical and mental potential, regardless of if they are PCs or not.  Because of this physical and mental equality, the socio-cultural history of Zalanthas is different, and universal institutional sexism never developed.

Angela Christine

[Supreme Allah]

Well SA, How about the idea that, Your wrong, not because the documents say so, but your wrong because it is a fact that Zalanthan women are just as physically and mentally strong, as well as morally weak as any guy.

I was never arguing this, Creeper. The documentation states that women are as strong as men, so they are. I was not fighting the documentation. I was asking why.

Back to the point, and your response, Kronus...

The question was, "How are women as strong as men?" Testosterone/hormonal differences are the only answers I could come up with, but they didn't fall in line very correctly, due to the fact that a great many women on Zalanthas, physically, appear every much the same as humans you see walking around on Earth today.

Women are just as strong as men on Zalanthas because women are just as strong as men on Zalanthas.

All I was saying was that that wasn't much of an answer to what I was asking. Your last post certainly summed it up better, and I appreciate your taking the time in doing that.

Conclusion? The true answer simply doesn't exist or cannot be determined due to the aforementioned difference that Zalanthas is not Earth, so I've stopped looking for one. Obviously scientific studies cannot be performed on Zalanthas or its people by Earth's scientists.

So what do we have to work with? The end result (women are as strong as men), if not the reasoning behind it, and speculation. My speculation's that, given what I've seen of trends with PCs and NPCs, though admittedly not VNPCs (an impossibility of sorts), much of what holds true on Earth regarding feminine women and masculine men holds true on Zalanthas. Based on this, I think sexism would exist. It doesn't, and that cannot be argued, as this is not my game to place it in, but I think it would.

But, of course, there is a definite X factor: we players are here on Earth, and it may be hard for us to picture or play out a world where women are physically as strong as men (or sexism exists). My problem is that I cannot see women as strong as men when they, for the most part, still look exactly the same - except, in most cases, with darker skin.

[EDIT]
This is a conclusion I came to just now. I was not, and am not, trying to attack anyone's PC, roleplay, or anything else.

Also, great post, AC. I'd write out a reply just to you, but I think I covered most of my points to their fullest extent here. I'm already getting somewhat redundant.

[Meep]

I don't know about that, I've seen a few feminine men (not as many as I'd like to see) and quite a few masculinized (that is, bearing "masculine" traits of aggressiveness and raw strength) about.

[Kronus]

My problem is that I cannot see women as strong as men when they, for the most part, still look exactly the same - except, in most cases, with darker skin.

This is another very good point. All I can offer in explanation is that we, as players, as far as I know, aren't required to maintain a solid cross-section of what the Zalanthasian populace looks like as whole.
What I mean by that is, no one's sitting there going "Oh no no no, we have way too many silken-haired women right now. We need more with dreadlocks and short hair, because more women on Zalanthas have those kinds of hair."
I guess what it boils down to is that PCs are allowed to be as much the stereotype or as much the exception as they want to be, so long as they recognize that they are either the stereotype or the exception. Lots of PC women, yes, are slight of frame and graceful in bearing and beautiful in mien. Lots aren't, and plenty fall somewhere in the middle too.
That doesn't make any of them representative of Zalanthas as a whole. You're right, it is very hard for us to gauge what the VNPC population looks like. It mostly has to be inferred and extrapolated from the NPCs wandering around, as well as information written in the docs, as well as a healthy dose of (yes, I realize the contradiction here) common sense of what it would be like were it Earth.

[John]

Testosterone/hormonal differences are the only answers I could come up with, but they didn't fall in line very correctly, due to the fact that a great many women on Zalanthas, physically, appear every much the same as humans you see walking around on Earth today.

Okay, but here's a possibility. Who says that the internal functionings is exactly like us humans? A theory to explain why men and women are equally strong is that chemicals don't work exactly the same. Our bodies react to testosterone by growing facial hair. AFAIK (which is nothing ) this is because of how the testosterone chemicals react a certain way to our body. It's quite possible that in our bodies that causes testosterone to make people strong and (temporary memory blank) the female version causes them to be weaker doesn't happen in Zalanthan bodies. It's impossible for us to know which part of our DNA is that does this (with our current technology) however it's quite possible that that one bit of DNA could be changed to produce the same effect in females and them still look much like us humans. Impossible to prove but fun to think about.

It doesn't, and that cannot be argued, as this is not my game to place it in, but I think it would.

I didn't get the impression you were, I got the impression you were seeking an IC answer. I had assumed you knew the OOC one (otherwise I would have said it in my first reply), and there's nothing wrong for looking for an IC answer with this type of thing. (I think some people (me included) got a bit worked up over an academic debate. It was just a theoretical debate IMO).

[Angela Christine]

The question was, "How are women as strong as men?" Testosterone/hormonal differences are the only answers I could come up with, but they didn't fall in line very correctly, due to the fact that a great many women on Zalanthas, physically, appear every much the same as humans you see walking around on Earth today.

That is easier to explain:  Not many people want to play big ol' clunky-looking amazon women.  Once you set their physical stats to be equal, sure, they should be about the same size, similar fat percentage and similar in build as well.  But roleplaying has an element of wish fulfillment, like dressing up for halloween.  Last halloween a local tv station did a human interest story from a costume shop, at this costume shop there was a strong tendancy for men to want Superhero costumes, while women choose "sexy" costumes.  Both are ways of creating a powerful persona, and wish fulfillment.

There is nothing that forces men to choose taller and heavier characters while forcing women to take shorter and lighter characters.  You can have 6 foot tall women that weigh 9 ten-stones, but most female characters are smaller than that.  There is nothing that prevents males from being 6 or 7 ten-stone, but few choose to be that light.  But if you create a character that is 7 or 8 ten-stone and then assess -v everyone you see, most women will be lighter than you and most men will be heavier than you.  Not because that is necessarily what is most normal in Zalanthas, but because that is what Terran players are most comfortable with.

Sex doesn't affect stats, but I think size does.  It may have just been coincidence, but I've found that most of my short and light characters have better agility and lower strength and endurance than my tall and heavy characters.  If so, then those who choose the smallest or largest sizes may be introducing a sex-biased difference, if most tiny characters are female and most huge characters are male.  Meanwhile, that 6', 9 ten-stone female will be (on average) as brawny as her 6', 9 ten-stone brothers.

AC

[John]

That is easier to explain

But the easy explanation is never as fun!

But roleplaying has an element of wish fulfillment

*thinks about all his char's* DEAR GOD I hope not! Or else I'm REALLY screwed up.

Not because that is necessarily what is most normal in Zalanthas, but because that is what Terran players are most comfortable with.

Okay, I have a serious question. Where on earth did this term "terran" come from? It's used in a TON of sci fi, but I have no idea where it's come from.

[Kronus]

Okay, I have a serious question. Where on earth did this term "terran" come from? It's used in a TON of sci fi, but I have no idea where it's come from.

While we like to call Earth 'Earth', its more proper name is Terra (I think!). Kinda like how we call the sun 'The Sun', but it's really been titled as Sol. So, it was assumed some 40 years ago among sci-fi writers that aliens would either call us 'Earthlings' or 'Terrans'. Terrans has been gaining more and more popularity lately, since Earthlings sounds so... well, 1950's.

[John]

I will forever be an Earthling (I think it's cooler).

Wow, thanks for that. I never knew that about the sun or even our planet. I just assumed the Sun was officially called the Sun. Sure it might be confusing for aliens when trying to learn our language, but I didn't think we'd really go and give the Sun an official name.

Thanks for that.

[Lazloth]

While we like to call Earth 'Earth', its more proper name is Terra (I think!). Kinda like how we call the sun 'The Sun', but it's really been titled as Sol. So, it was assumed some 40 years ago among sci-fi writers that aliens would either call us 'Earthlings' or 'Terrans'. Terrans has been gaining more and more popularity lately, since Earthlings sounds so... well, 1950's.

Arrogant english speakers with your latin cognates.  Where's luna?

[flurry]

On top of the possible evolutionary and biochemical differences between Earth and Zalanthas that AC pointed out, I think one factor that can't be overlooked is social gender expectations.  The way boys and girls are raised on Earth, what gender roles they are expected to fit, the types of activities they are encouraged to pursue - all influence this disparity in physical strength too.   On Zalanthas I presume it would be rare to hear things like "Oh, girls don't grow up to be warriors" or "You shouldn't roughhouse with your sister, she's going to get hurt", etc. etc.

[Supreme Allah]

Funny that you'd bring this point up. I'll repost my link from earlier.

http://www.narth.com/docs/york.html

Under the heading: "Hormones Trigger Aggression or Nurture"

At the University of Wisconsin, researchers injected testosterone into unborn female monkeys. Monkeys engage in very sex-stereotyped behavior, according to Stossel; the males are aggressive and fight, while the female monkeys typically groom and nurture the young. When the testosterone- injected females were born, they didn't groom or nurture their children. They fought and behaved like males.