Gendered Clothing Items in Armageddon

[Bebop]

Not trying to kick a hornets nest but is gendered clothing really something we need/want in Arm?  Arm has always been very progressive with being accepting of LGBTQ characters and role play.  There's a lot of use of the word "soft" on the feminine shoes and contrasting that you have words like heavy with the other.  The feminine shoes are also more expensive even though the masculine shoes seem kinda pointy and rad.  Is there a "pink tax" IG?  I'm kind of kidding there, but you see what I mean.  Who is to say what is gender specific in a game where men wear skirts and women are supposed to be treated as absolute equals.  I don't think anything in particular would be considered more effeminate or masculine, does that make sense?  Am I wrong here?

I think these both could be changed to a heeled, pair of black-raptor skin shoes or a pair of black shoes with pointed toes  - I'm not the best with sdescs.

Code Select Expand

Dyed skin and linen form this pair of soft, feminine shoes.  Raptor skin
covers the entire toe area, sewn so the seam is not only visible but also a
decoration along the top of the foot.  Linen stretches taut along the sides
of the foot.  An inch wide strip of leather-backed skin supports the
wearer's heel.  The raptor skin covering the toes and heels is connected
with soft black linen using tiny stitches that are virtually invisible. 
You assess a feminine pair of black raptor-skin shoes...
...it is primarily made of cloth.
...can be worn on one's feet.


Code Select Expand

Heavy leather sewn to close over the top of the foot, comes to a sharp
point at the toe, and has the slightest suggestion of an upward curve.
Black sandcloth hides the leather, and makes this shoe more fashionable.
Stopping at the shinbone, the shoes offer ankle support without rising as
high as boots. 
You assess a masculine pair of black shoes...
...it is primarily made of leather.
...can be worn on one's feet.

But maybe this hits a little close to home because not long ago I was looking for some ankle length boots and I found this AWESOME pair that were really wicked looking and studded and they only made them for men and the size was one size too big for my feet.  I come to Arm for escapism dammit.  I don't want my shoes gendered.     Thoughts?

These are kind of the real life shoes in question... not exact ones but the same brand.  Kind of Arm looking actually.

[ghanima]

I actually like items with those sdescs. I can't see how it could possibly be offensive or unaccepting in any way. If it's an item that doesn't suit your character you got plenty more to choose from.

[sleepyhead]

If you degender all the items, you're giving people who want to play gender-benders fewer options, not more. I am a cross-dresser IRL and I don't want all the clothing to be degendered. If I wanna play a man with feminine shoes and a woman with masculine shoes, let me do it without taking offense where there is no reasonable complaint to be had.

[Bebop]

If you degender all the items, you're giving people who want to play gender-benders fewer options, not more. I am a cross-dresser IRL and I don't want all the clothing to be degendered. If I wanna play a man with feminine shoes and a woman with masculine shoes, let me do it without taking offense where there is no reasonable complaint to be had.

I'm all for gender bending but would Zalanthans really see it as gender bending or just be like oh dude in a skirt and heels moving on.  Because I feel like any surprise at that would be OOC gender norms seeping into the game.  I mean you can still have a dude wear a dress or an androgynous figure right?  I'm just not sure the items themselves need to be gendered.  I'd get super annoyed if the shoes were pink or something.  I didn't think Arm was about that life.

[sleepyhead]

As a person with those proclivities, I want the chance to bend a few norms rather than just wear a generic style of shoe. The way I see it is there can still be a few gendered clothing conventions without it being SHOCKING or OFFENSIVE or HILARIOUS when people break them. The docs make a couple allusions to gendered clothing so I'm just going to continue to assume that there are a few general trends for men and women in various parts of Zalanthas, but it's nothing to make a huge fuss over.

[Hauwke]

The way I have always seen it, at least to a degree. Is that the words masculine and feminine in descriptions of items, are there for US THE PLAYERS to get an idea of what it looks like. You could spend ten lines describing how this shoe looks like the Zalanthan equivalent of what would be our shoe for a woman, with really flowery words and try but ultimately fail to get your point across. OR! You could say, this is a shoe in a feminine style with things and stuff on it that are also things.

Its like the use of other words that themself, do not belong in Zalanthas, like fishing around in your pocket for coins, or snow colored hair. They do not belong in the world, but we use them because its easier than typing out about how you take a long time to grab out a handful of coins one or two at a time because clumsy hands or that this hair is like -super- white dude.

I get it though, it does seem odd in the moment to see the word masculine or feminine in a game that is otherwise supposed to have both genders on entirely the same footing. Hell, I find it somewhat awkward when people play their character as SUPER girly and cute in a world where the vast majority of the world does not even know what the hell a bath is.

[azuriolinist]

I understand Bebop's point, though. What is considered 'feminine' or 'masculine' in Zalanthas, when genders should play little role at all?

I have to agree with Hauwke, here. I think some descriptions tend to be for the player's sake, which I don't completely agree with. It's a break out of Arm's immersive quality.

In general, there seems to be a vagueness with whether short descriptions should be kept in character or not, which I think should be clarified.

[Cabooze]

I really don't even see how clothing ('genderized') types are a problem whatsoever. Most Mdescs of items clearly point or even are so vague to the point where it's unquestionable whether either gender could wear it. There's going to be clothing specifically tailored toward the physique of one gender rather than the other.. It's just flavor.

[JohnMichaelHenry]

Just because Zalanthans don't view gender as limiting in one way or another, doesn't mean they don't see gender at all. There are women who act very feminine as well as men who act very masculine, and that should be just as okay as a man that wants to act feminine and a woman that wants to act masculine. Couldn't rightly do that if there were nothing to compare to. Like it or not, there ARE differences between men and women. Like men can't be pregnant, and if a woman stands up to pee, it's much harder to aim.

[sleepyhead]

I understand Bebop's point, though. What is considered 'feminine' or 'masculine' in Zalanthas, when genders should play little role at all?

Well, if you look in the helpfiles for bisht, kilt, tribal fashions, Tuluki fashions, and probably other pages (the word 'men' is harder to search for than 'women,' so I'm probably missing some), there are references to men's and women's fashions being different. That doesn't mean wearing something that's usually more commonly seen on the opposite gender should engender (haha) a reaction like 'omg she wore a thing meant for a man; what a freak.' But I do think it's a bit extreme to say that because men and women are equals and there is nothing wrong with men and women wearing and doing whatever they please, that means there aren't any gender-based trends at all. There's just nothing wrong with breaking them!

[Hauwke]

There are obvious visual differences, and people would almost certain make clothing to show of the assets true. That being said, male and female clothing would be similar for the same things. Want to show off your super sexy torso? Tight clothing. Women need more material though (on average) because breasts. Super tight pants? Slightly more at the front for a guy so his testicals are not just instantly crushed. But, who says that is a bad thing? Maybe it is the height of fashion to have your nuts squished into your stomach or your breasts pushed into lumpy mounds of shapeless flesh.

[azuriolinist]

Well, if you look in the helpfiles for bisht, kilt, tribal fashions, Tuluki fashions, and probably other pages (the word 'men' is harder to search for than 'women,' so I'm probably missing some), there are references to men's and women's fashions being different. That doesn't mean wearing something that's usually more commonly seen on the opposite gender should engender (haha) a reaction like 'omg she wore a thing meant for a man; what a freak.' But I do think it's a bit extreme to say that because men and women are equals and there is nothing wrong with men and women wearing and doing whatever they please, that means there aren't any gender-based trends at all. There's just nothing wrong with breaking them!

I just took a look at the help files you referred to. You and Hauwke make good points. I'm not going to counter the very fact that there are physical differences. But I think there are ways to describe the ways a piece of clothing accentuates particular parts of the body (man or woman's) without simply settling for the words 'feminine', 'masculine', or such similar terms.

[sleepyhead]

I think it's fine. There aren't very many of those items. People who choose to wear them do so to make a certain fashion statement. Those who don't have almost every other item to choose from.

[Hauwke]

No of course, there most definately are ways to get around using those words. There are plenty of far more creative people here than me who could describe those terms in just a handful of words.

I too dont really have an issue with the words when used in articals of clothing for example. I have a very slight problem when they are used in Mdescs, but eh, what are you gonna do?

[Nao]

Gendered clothing and these shoes in particular have always bugged me a bit. There are no gender roles, but what people wear is the exception?

While extra room in tight clothes makes a bit of sense, it's hardly necessary (plenty of clothing works just fine on both genders). But shoes? The clothing industry genders everything because it helps with sales, but male and female feet are actually extremely similar in shape. Any notion of feminine or masculine shoes would be entirely cultural, which just doesn't make sense to me in Zalanthas.

[valeria]

Bear with me while I go on a tangent, since gender and gendered clothing is something I think about a lot as a femme agender person. 

I don't think the words "feminine" and "masculine" are gendered in a way that doesn't fit the setting.  They describe dainty/pretty and rugged respectively.  Those qualities are generally associated with women (dainty/pretty) and men (rugged), and there is generally a negative associated with feminine things because of RL stereotypes, but enbies and genderqueers of various sorts use 'feminine' and 'masculine' to describe without meaning the equivalent of 'woman' and 'man.'  So I'm agender because that is my gender, but I'm femme 80% of the time because I present as a woman 80% of the time.  If that makes sense.  So I don't mind that the dainty shoes are 'feminine' and the rugged shoes are 'masculine,' and I wouldn't bat an eye at a man who likes wearing pretty or dainty things wearing the 'feminine' shoes.

tlrd; I don't think these are inappropriate clothing items, even in the setting in which genders are equal. 

Along these lines though!  I'd rather get rid of the skirt/kilt distinction, because it reinforces gender norms in a culturally weird way.  I doubt kilt culture is a thing on Zalanthas.  It feels even more anachronistic to me than sandwiches, but it feels shoehorned in as a way to let men wear skirts in a way that doesn't hurt the feelings of manly men players.  One person's opinion.

[valeria]

I really don't like that the feminine shoes cost more, though, to the point where I would probably bug that IG.

[Nao]

I don't think the words "feminine" and "masculine" are gendered in a way that doesn't fit the setting. They describe dainty/pretty and rugged respectively.  Those qualities are generally associated with women (dainty/pretty) and men (rugged)

But why would feminine be associated with dainty/pretty, or rugged with masculine, in zalanthas? I don't think the idea of the pretty princess or women being fragile is or should be a thing. It seems to me like using sky-blue to describe something - transferring RL concepts to zalanthas that really have no business in the setting.

It doesn't offend me or anything, but it's a pet peeve.

[valeria]

You cut off my quote in a weird place. While the roots of those words are associated with women and men respectively, that isn't what those words mean anymore  (at least in modern queer circles).

I'm saying that while RL people associate dainty and pretty and feminine with women, that doesn't mean that Zalanthan people would associate dainty and pretty with women. It's the idea that feminine==woman that I'm rejecting. So when you say the idea that women are not fragile and pretty, I'm agreeing with you, because I don't think that fragile and pretty is a woman trait. It's a femme trait. And there are femme men. I have nothing against shoes being described as feminine because nothing about that to me reads as "for women."

I did try to warn you that I was going on a tangent. The idea that feminine is automatically a woman gender word and masculine is a man gender word is a pet peeve of mine as a really very queer person. A transgender man who wears feminine clothing might be gender nonconforming, but he's still a man. Just because I wear feminine clothing doesn't make me a woman. We're moving away from the roots of the words IRL.



A more concise explanation, now that I have coffee in me:

Feminine and masculine are clothing styles, not genders.

Feminine does not equal for women. Feminine means pretty.
Masculine does not equal for men. Masculine means rugged.

Therefore, I have nothing against clothing described as feminine or masculine. Men can wear feminine things and women can wear masculine things, both IRL and in Zalanthas.

[najdorf]

i support the idea of removal of such gender specific words, and generalization of all items. that would increase options per PC. removal of words such as feminine and masculine would solve it easily.
men can have skirts and kohls and all, and they shouldnt be judged for it.
it may already be the case. i remember seeing male warriors putting on warskirts

as per bras, strapons and alike, just remove them from game

[sleepyhead]

Wait, why would anyone want to remove bras? Those fulfill a specific function that has to do with biologically female anatomy.

I guess I sort of get why people would be bothered by the few references to "masculine" and "feminine" in clothes, although I personally love those shoes and wearing the masculine ones on my female characters and vice versa if I think it fits their aesthetic. But bras?

[X-D]

I am amazed the number of people who actually believe that gender differences are nothing but a cultural bias.

IRL men and women are equal under the law. It ends there, not only are they not equal after that, nobody is. Or in a less offensive manner of saying it, equal but different. In game it is stated that men and women are equal in physical prowess and under the law. But Women are still the ones that have babies and men do not, this allows for differences in the way their minds may generally work...enforces it in fact.

So, having gendered clothing actually makes sense. Pricing...hey, just like RL...if ya don't like it, don't buy it and maybe the price will change.

Lastly, Not only are there people who want to RP the gender bending, there are people who want to RP the genders. My guess is they quite outnumber the degendered crowd.

Warskirt? Bleh...I tell you...somebody should put code in place so if you wear that item with underwear it makes the sdesc skirt and without, kilt.

[The Lonely Hunter]

I agree with X-D.

Yes, we should/ought to have gender-based clothing for various reasons.

[sleepyhead]

Lastly, Not only are there people who want to RP the gender bending, there are people who want to RP the genders. My guess is they quite outnumber the degendered crowd.

Uhh, this genderbender thinks genderbending is not only bland, but impossible if everything is degendered. So I actually agree with you. There's nothing about genderbending that means "everything should be genderless."

[James de Monet]

I think I'd generally disagree that things so labeled are bad, but speaking from a writing perspective, if we're using the word "feminine" to mean "dainty", why not just call it "dainty"?  More accurate, equally evocative, less blunt word trauma and unintended associations.

Feminine (for clothes) could be: dainty, elegant, floral, soft, impractical, stylish, flamboyant, metropolitan, bust-emphasizing, waist-enhancing, sleek, curving, sinuous, undulating, serpentine, supple, embellished, intricate, perilous, sacrificial

Masculine (for clothes) could be: rugged, spartan, simple, rough-cut, practical, wilderness, utilitarian, hard-wearing, angular, bold, chunky, minimalistic, shoulder-enhancing, bicep-emphasizing, straight-lined, trim, austere, severe, uncompromising

...etc.