[quote=“Walter Hamer”]Thanks Phillipa, excellent points.
On a related note, our community appears, from my perspective, little different to many other communities when it comes to letting women have a voice in discussions. Sometimes when I’m in a large group discussion I try to observe when people talk over other people, the speed at which people jump in with a comment, and which members of a mixed gender pairing receive the majority of eye-gazing and attentive behaviour. By far the majority of the time, interruptions tend to be done by men. Likewise, men tend to be in with a point within seconds of someone finishing their sentence, whereas women tend to come in after a pause of a few seconds (though this is slowly changing, at least in some cases). Attention usually goes to the male in a mixed gender couple, unless there is a specific reason to address the female. This is far more subtle than bullying or harassment, and even after years of trying not to I still find myself doing all of these things. I have to consciously try to let others speak, and not jump in with a point just because there is an opening. I believe it is partially within this context that inverting gendered norms becomes so difficult.[/quote]
Cue late night response!
Really spot on. I find that the females in Valeria get talked over or interrupted a lot, which we either react properly IC with a glare of “I’m sorry… what was that?”, or seem to just accept it because well… that is the norm.
A lot of ingrained tendencies and norms makes it so hard to reverse it. So that is why tropes are the easiest thing to call upon.
And as Pip said, perhaps if it makes you uncomfortable, change faction - because some of the cultures come with gender labels from the start.
I would be curious to see if this was attempted at future games of other campaigns and how it would be handled.
If a male within the community truly feels hard-done by because of discrimination of their gender, I think discussing it rather than actively fighting against it is a better way to handle it. What it has the potential to result in is some pretty heated interactions where one is trying to maintain their dominance, and the other is fighting to reclaim it (because they feel uncomfortable without it). A line is certainly crossed for anyone when something makes them uncomfortable. But figuring out why it makes you uncomfortable is a key to making sure the same sort of thing can be roleplayed, but in a different manner. If the players are all happy, I think the entire thing can be roleplayed with no one feeling hurt.
No, the females don’t have to be sexist a-holes to show their dominance. But in the real world, they still exist among both genders. There will be all types of …extremes, shall we say, that display this reverse concept. It just needs to be understood by all parties involved that this is what you signed up for as a culture.
A wider concern I hold though is that some people who perhaps have been mistreated as a result of their gender IRL could potentially get hurt by such actions. I feel that not too many voice that they are uncomfortable, and that it is a personal issue to them, so that should be encouraged more - for everybody.