A world without sexism confuses and angers me.

[Marauder Moe]

Go play over here instead, please.  You too, Nyr.   

I understood that the majority of your point was that men can't have babies, so I said that.  I must have misunderstood this line which seemed to go beyond (and a bit contrary to) what you said prior.

Gender equality stops at capability. There is no need to assume that someone can't or won't be called a gender related insult. There is also no reason to believe that someone won't believe that there is a better place for one gender or another as far as tasks.

It must've gone over my head because I misunderstood it entirely. 

Alright, fair enough. If you view the sentence completely independently of the rest of the post, I can see how that would happen.

My point about "equality" isn't a mathematical one. I didn't mean for lack of equality to mean one greater or less. By lack of equality, I meant lack of being completely the same in capabilities.
"Gender equality stops at capability."

• Males are incapable of bearing children, that makes them different them different
• Females are incapable of impregnating someone, that makes them different
• Most females cannot grow beards, that makes them different

"There is no need to assume that someone won't be called a gender related insult"

• People all have different backgrounds regarding their personal discrimination toward everyone. If someone grew up with a domineering parent figure of one kind or the other or has had poor experiences with on gender or another, there is no reason to assume they might have some predisposed attitude, and predisposed ideas of said gender.
• This doesn't mean simple canned sexism like "Men are strong, women are weak", "Girls are smart, men are stupid", this would be bad.
• This might mean "All men are uncaring whore mongers, or all women are bitches" This would be a perfectly IC.
  

"There is no reason to believe that someone won't believe that there is a better place for one gender or another as far as tasks."

• In several of the tribes, there are definite gender roles. I've know at least one tribe where I've heard IC (I have not read the official clan docs as I've never been part of that tribe) that the women are held on high because only from their wombs do new tribe members spring. The males of that tribe might mate elsewhere, but their offspring will never be considered part of the tribe.
• Jobs like nannying would be much easier for females, especially if the job required them to wetnurse as well. Poorer folks that could not hire would likely leave most of the early child rearing to the one who could provide.
• You need someone to spy on Lady Fancy-Silks, who is jealous of all other women, and wants to bed every man she sees. A male would probably be required to get close.

Anyway, I'm done derailing.

[MeTekillot]

I figure that most prejudices (race, sex, species, magickers) are learned from society rather than taught in the home, because a lot of the time people will have a tendency to alter their beliefs when they are continually rebuked by most of their close friends and family. People who do not do this do not function well in society.

[greasygemo]

Sexism by definition is just discrimination based on sex. Now, in Zalanthas, men and women may be veiwed as equal in terms of capabilities but as previously pointed out, the are not equal in terms of all physical roles. While it may be inappropriate to view females as a weaker sex, that doesn't mean a PC might have stereotypes towards a gender for other reasons. For example, because women bear children, a pregnant PC may be delayed or overlooked for a promotion because they are seen as being less capable now due to the role of motherhood impeding on their ability to work. This is not something a male pc would experience. Call it what you want, females are physically different than males though not necessarily in terms of physical prowess, but are still subject to be discriminated upon based on gender based roles.

[Narf]

I think it's appropriate that PC's develop all sorts of prejudices and stigma based on all sorts of things. It is, however, extremely suspicious to me when those social stigmas are exactly the same as we have IRL despite a world with drastically different characteristics. At the very least, it's unimaginative. Often it's outright ignoring documentation about differences between Zalanthas and Earth.

Maybe if one would want to roleplay a discrimanatory or prejudice character one should come up with some of their own prejudices? Play a female that's prejudice against men for being too weak to bare offspring. Play a man that thinks females are vulgar and uncouth for spurting blood out their groins a couple times a month. These are both things that should be just as, if not more likely to develop in Zalanthas as real world prejudices, and they have the meta-game benefit of not making everyone one rps with question whether they read the documentation.

I want to emphasize that I agree, sometimes prejudices mimicking Real World ones might develop naturaly in this sort of setting (albeit infrequently), but for OOC reasons you probably shouldn't have your character develop them because there's no way another PC can tell whether you're a special and unique flower with a wonderfully detailed background showing how you developed your preferences, or some newb that just started after reading the combat help files and figured they'd 'wing' the culture.

[Patuk]

I should roll a bald girl sometime.

Or one with a beard.

[Iiyola]

I somehow have the feeling that all the gentle, cute girls here on the GDB either play rowdy men or bitches. I don't know why.

[greasygemo]

 

[Taven]

Other similar topics:

• Sexism
• Hate! (again)
• Hot Button Issue: Sexism
• How Best To Address Sexism IC and Out
• Zalanthan Sexism Confessional!
• So that other thread doesn't get locked, Male and Female Equality
• Gender Equality
• The Non-Sexist Society

One of the things that's come up in discussions I've had on the topic of sexism in Zalanthas is the words used to describe things. We don't have alternate, non-gender specific words for masculine and feminine in the game. The concepts we have revolving around the roles of men and women in the real world are tied up in those worlds a lot; and so a lack of vocabulary to otherwise describe the traits which fit into one group or another is part of the problem.

In terms of actually thinking that all women are one way, and all men are one way, I don't know that a Zalanthian would notice gender first and foremost. Race and location are what is probably first considered, and perhaps occupation after that. Asides from things revolving around pregnancy, most other differences could be as likely to be attributed to something like eye color. The issue with that is that after a PC ICly sees a certain number of people acting the same way when the only apparent common denominator is gender, they're probably going to start making assumptions. Still, I don't know if it would ever be ingrained enough for them to make comments about it. It depends on the situation, really--and remember that you can counter balance what your PC encounters with other PCs in terms of vNPCs. For each muscular man and tressy-tressed woman you meet, there are other virtual people that are tressy-tressed men and muscular females.

[greasygemo]

I somehow have the feeling that all the gentle, cute girls here on the GDB either play rowdy men or bitches. I don't know why.

Armageddon: Giving a voice to your secret inner man-bitch since 1999.

[greasygemo]

Ok. Now I HAVE TO make my next PC a cross dresser. Bearded and more comfortable in lace than leather.

[Morrolan]

It was not until I approached middle age that I really began to see the sex-stereotypes around me.

Or, maybe man-bashing just became much more trendy around 2005.

Dunno.

ANYWAY,

One of the cool things about Arm is that there can be fifty different ways of approaching a non-sexist society. Read the docs, do your best to play within them, send questions to staff, and write player complaints as necessary.

[benegesseritwitch]

• Males are incapable of bearing children, that makes them different them different

Zalanthan males develop a Darwinistic mutation whereby they are able to become pregnant and carry babies to term.

Bam. Issue solved.

Edit: It's even justifiable in the docs! http://www.armageddon.org/general/mutant.html

[Lithium]

Ok. Now I HAVE TO make my next PC a cross dresser. Bearded and more comfortable in lace than leather.

[Synthesis]

Someone in Salarr should mastercraft a pregnant belly style of cuirass.  With fucking spikes and shit.

Then we can have a pregnant Byn Sarge charge into battle against gith, pop out a baby mid-fight, throw it in her backpack, and carry on.  When they get back, the placenta goes into the Byn stew and the baby gets a tour of the compound, an aba, and sparring weapons.

[Zoan]

I hate making endorsement posts because they're inane. But I just...just so, fucking endorse Synthesis' post. It's awesome.

[valeria]

Someone in Salarr should mastercraft a pregnant belly style of cuirass.  With fucking spikes and shit.

Then we can have a pregnant Byn Sarge charge into battle against gith, pop out a baby mid-fight, throw it in her backpack, and carry on.  When they get back, the placenta goes into the Byn stew and the baby gets a tour of the compound, an aba, and sparring weapons.

This happens in Dwarf Fort, so why not in Armageddon?   

[hyzhenhok]

Someone in Salarr should mastercraft a pregnant belly style of cuirass.  With fucking spikes and shit.

Then we can have a pregnant Byn Sarge charge into battle against gith, pop out a baby mid-fight, throw it in her backpack, and carry on.  When they get back, the placenta goes into the Byn stew and the baby gets a tour of the compound, an aba, and sparring weapons.

This happens in Dwarf Fort, so why not in Armageddon?   

Except you have the baby getting chopped in half in the melee, and then the mother goes berserk, killing all the other soldiers and then running back into the settlement, killing everyone.

[Patuk]

I'm going to assess the state of this whole sexism thing by making all my prissy social characters male and all my badass beastslaying sergeants female. Then I shall proceed to have my sensitive men hit on all the hulking, battle-scarred women(all two of them!) they can find while my females shall scoff every time they are hit on and flirt with only the most unassuming guys of them all.

[LauraMars]

This quote from LoD has always summed up this particular rule for me pretty well.  You don't need to rationalize gender equality within the game world until you're blue in the face.  The staff of this game has decided it shouldn't be an issue here - that's it. 

The point behind the gender-equal society is not that it's a well-supported IC phenomenon, but that, OOCly, women should have exactly the same opportunity to enjoy the game as men.  Female characters should be just as capable of playing a clan leader, cunning hunter, skilled mercenary, influential senator, shrewd merchant, and deadly assassin as any male character.  Sex should never come into the equation when considering a character for an appointment or role.  And as long as this is maintained, I can look past some of the subtle physical and mental breakdowns we occasionally demonstrate in our day-to-day interactions between our male and female characters.

-LoD

I definitely don't want to have to put up with being discriminated against within a fantasy game when I already have to put up with it in real life.

[Tuannon]

I definitely don't want to have to put up with being discriminated against within a fantasy game when I already have to put up with it in real life.

I will admit it, I discriminate against Martians all the time.

In relation to the OP, I guess it's another topic that relates to Zalanthas not being Earth.
But to be honest I don't really think about sexism in game when there are more tangible(?) things to discriminate against people for.

[Case]

it's bullshit there's no sexism

*bunch of gicker friends*

[Beethoven]

I don't have time to be sexist against other PCs when I'm too busy trying to figure out if they're a sekkrit breed, closet northron, rogue 'gicker or mindworm.

[Dakota]

Just take it out on a breed. You'll feel better IG.

[Lutagar]

I once had a character with so many, such absurd and such extreme examples of "masculine" stereotypes that it passed into parody at times. It was, simply, badass made silly. It didn't really break documentation, since he'd discriminate equally amongst those he considered less badass than him (everyone) even if he did come across as a dangerously unhinged individual.

I'm trying to think of a way to link this to make it relevant to the thread, only I can't. ;_;

[Hishn]

The point behind the gender-equal society is not that it's a well-supported IC phenomenon, but that, OOCly, women should have exactly the same opportunity to enjoy the game as men.  Female characters should be just as capable of playing a clan leader, cunning hunter, skilled mercenary, influential senator, shrewd merchant, and deadly assassin as any male character.  Sex should never come into the equation when considering a character for an appointment or role.  And as long as this is maintained, I can look past some of the subtle physical and mental breakdowns we occasionally demonstrate in our day-to-day interactions between our male and female characters.

-LoD

LauraMars has mastered search-fu.

This topic has been beaten like a dead horse many a good and many a bad day for the past 7 years in the search function.