Feminism is a role playing issue...
Feb. 14th, 2007 04:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annwfynI don't know if this will make any sense, but this has all been forming in my brain for a little while, and I'm trying to make it coherant without being offensive.
I think I shall start with how I perceive the general view of female gamers to be at the present time. In general, the loose stereotype that I encounter most often is that female gamers roughly fall into two categories.
The Princess has various subvarieties - role playing princess types often grow up to be Queen Bees, for example, but most girl gamer stereotypes come under those two categories.
Now, these stereotypes are more than a little disempowering. They get particularly annoying if you are a female gamer who, in any way, attempts to step out of that world.
Now, I first stepped away from Role Playing Princess (although not too far away), when I met the very suave and charmingchopsuey who killed my poncy Princess Brujah, and then made me play a bratty Gangrel who not only had Grip of the Damned (no fluffy blood sharing scenes for you, madame!) but made me firmly blood bonded to a fairly emotionless Ventrue (his PC) who used her as a killing machine. Bridget, my precious, darling bratling went on to achieve more than I've ever achieved with any other PC. Within a Cam Vampire larp setting, the girl did well for a scrotty little 11th gen with no MC. Heck, she ended up as an archon. But you know what? It wasn't easy to get there.
And one thing I did discover when I stopped playing the 'love me - look at my legs - love me' game, and started trying to role play like a person instead of a girl is that those sterotypes are a bitch and a half. And those stereotypes really bite.
And that's when I began to get irritated by the girls who didn't play the game fairly. I dislike it, because those girls have created the stereotypes that make it harder to play a Chalice, or a Bridget, or an April Meredith, because no one takes you seriously at first. It's those girls who are buying into the situation where people say "well, of course you never lost your Gangrel. Girls don't lose PCs. Having a four and a half year old PC is less impressive if you're a girl. A guy would have had his character taken down years beforehand", and it is those girls who are actively perpetrating the stereotypes.
Role playing is a male dominated hobby, and the girls who do play are still very much assumed to want to fit within a certain role. And I know it's just a game world, and as such isn't the biggest issue ever (although I spend a lot of time in that game world, and am prone to getting annoyed), but it is something that is there.
I know I am also not blameless in this. I've got Princess tendancies, and I ought to practice what I preach a bit more. I also know that there is a very big difference between being a bit of a useless wet blanket or spoilt princess character (which should be a valid concept, if agonisingly dull in my experience), and being a useless wet blanket or spoilt princess player. Role playing an outdated and really quite disempowering stereotype is one thing. Acting like that in real life, and as such encouraging men to treat every girl like she is probably going to need those tricksy numbers on her character sheet explained, because she doesn't want to worry her pretty little head about that, is something entirely different.
And in a world in which it's still surprisingly hard to convince anyone that sometimes girls do want to actually saddle up, mount up, and go kick ass, it is something that feels like it is a feminist issue.
Opinions? Debate? Discussion?
I think I shall start with how I perceive the general view of female gamers to be at the present time. In general, the loose stereotype that I encounter most often is that female gamers roughly fall into two categories.
- a) The Girlfriend
This is the female who isn't actually that interested in role playing. She doesn't bother designing her own character sheet, because that involves numbers and she doesn't want to number crunch in her spare time. She won't send in her own downtimes, or really shape much of her own character development, because that's the kind of thing her boyfriend will organise for her, and if she is lacking a boyfriend, but is still coming to games to socialise, another male will sort it out. If she gets into combat she will look frustrated, snap "well, I don't know" if asked what her traits are, and look around impatiently for someone else to come and run the character sheet for her.
The best way of identifying a Girlfriend type that I have found is to role play with her. If you spend your vampire larp thinking "OK...I've made a move against the Toreador Primogen. What will her boyfriend's PC do now", without actually having any interest or concern about the player of the somewhat sock puppet like PC in question, it's definitely a Girlfriend Character. If you ask the player "so, how come you wanted to play a Healer" and she points towards her boyfriend with a shrug and says "I don't know," your odds are also looking good. The more questions about her character she can't answer, the higher the odds are that she would rather be sitting at home and watching Sex In The City.
b) The Princess
The Princess is, it must be said, far far more understandable in my mind than the Girlfriend. Easy to mistake for a Girlfriend at first - the Princess, after all, rarely designs her own character sheets either, and normally has a harem of young men who are eagar to throw her combat challenges - the Princess is actually there for the rp, as opposed to the drinks at the bar afterwards. It's just that the rp she's there for is of a, shall we say, specific type.
When I started larping (vampire larp, I regret to say), there were some vary solid stereotypes abuot what yer average female rp'er was there for. And I've got to admit, I leapt joyeously into every one. In those days, the normal assumption made about a girl at a vampire larp was that she wanted to wear pretty dresses, do some romantic role play, maybe cry on cue and get the Good RP XP, and would go for the angst, as long as the angst didn't require them to get too confrontational, get into combat, or know the rules. Not having a clue what was on your character sheet("because I just role play it, darling. I don't use these nasty trait things") was a sign of being a good emotional role player. And that was, primarily, what girls were good for. A little plot chasing was OK, but girls weren't expected to do too much of that, and politicking was normally done with some fluttering eyelashes and a good dollop of OOC flirting.
No one was ever scared if a girl told you that her character was angry and wanted to kill you.
And, as far as I can tell, that's where the Princess stereotype still dwells.
The Princess has various subvarieties - role playing princess types often grow up to be Queen Bees, for example, but most girl gamer stereotypes come under those two categories.
Now, these stereotypes are more than a little disempowering. They get particularly annoying if you are a female gamer who, in any way, attempts to step out of that world.
Now, I first stepped away from Role Playing Princess (although not too far away), when I met the very suave and charming
chopsuey who killed my poncy Princess Brujah, and then made me play a bratty Gangrel who not only had Grip of the Damned (no fluffy blood sharing scenes for you, madame!) but made me firmly blood bonded to a fairly emotionless Ventrue (his PC) who used her as a killing machine. Bridget, my precious, darling bratling went on to achieve more than I've ever achieved with any other PC. Within a Cam Vampire larp setting, the girl did well for a scrotty little 11th gen with no MC. Heck, she ended up as an archon. But you know what? It wasn't easy to get there.And one thing I did discover when I stopped playing the 'love me - look at my legs - love me' game, and started trying to role play like a person instead of a girl is that those sterotypes are a bitch and a half. And those stereotypes really bite.
And that's when I began to get irritated by the girls who didn't play the game fairly. I dislike it, because those girls have created the stereotypes that make it harder to play a Chalice, or a Bridget, or an April Meredith, because no one takes you seriously at first. It's those girls who are buying into the situation where people say "well, of course you never lost your Gangrel. Girls don't lose PCs. Having a four and a half year old PC is less impressive if you're a girl. A guy would have had his character taken down years beforehand", and it is those girls who are actively perpetrating the stereotypes.
Role playing is a male dominated hobby, and the girls who do play are still very much assumed to want to fit within a certain role. And I know it's just a game world, and as such isn't the biggest issue ever (although I spend a lot of time in that game world, and am prone to getting annoyed), but it is something that is there.
I know I am also not blameless in this. I've got Princess tendancies, and I ought to practice what I preach a bit more. I also know that there is a very big difference between being a bit of a useless wet blanket or spoilt princess character (which should be a valid concept, if agonisingly dull in my experience), and being a useless wet blanket or spoilt princess player. Role playing an outdated and really quite disempowering stereotype is one thing. Acting like that in real life, and as such encouraging men to treat every girl like she is probably going to need those tricksy numbers on her character sheet explained, because she doesn't want to worry her pretty little head about that, is something entirely different.
And in a world in which it's still surprisingly hard to convince anyone that sometimes girls do want to actually saddle up, mount up, and go kick ass, it is something that feels like it is a feminist issue.
Opinions? Debate? Discussion?
