Happyninja42 said:
Apparently they are, because when I've discussed video games with my wife, and my other female friends, and we go over how we interpreted various character motivations, or why we liked/disliked characters, there was a very distinctive difference for them versus most guys I've known who played the game. And when I've asked them why they rationalized that particular plot choice over another one (usually the one I picked), they had a very different reason, that most guys I know just wouldn't contemplate.
This was most evident in games that had a lot of character/social interaction, as we could consistently have very divergent playthroughs. In games where there isn't a lot of roleplay, the games are pretty similar, but with lots of interaction, they would diverge drastically. But their reasons would mesh up with each other very easy.
I mean, this is the sort of thing where anecdotes become an issue, because I'm the most likely in my group of mostly male routine players to just start blowing things up because I'm bored. I don't even necessarily bother with story or character interaction unless they're mandatory. This is possibly more informed by age rather than gender, because I grew up in a time where game stories were little more than "save the princes by shooting/stabbing/jumping on things" and you just dived into the action. In fact, the other women around my age who started playing around the same time have a similar attitude, though less explodey. I am outstanding in my love of things that go boom.
But that also goes into personal anecdotes. It also deals with socialisation, as it doesn't inherently speak to a female condition so much as social expectations.
There's this guy, name of Carl Benjamin. He's one of these biotwoofers who argues that women are inherently more docile and less aggressive. He then talks about his girlfriend's daughter and how they're trying to break her of the habit of "bossing" the boys around because she loves to "boss" them around. Female assertiveness is something which is inherently discouraged in society, to the point that it's not really uncommon to see people who argue nature actively nurturing their kids into these boxes. Carl's just an easy example because he broadcasts his idiocy to a large audience.
It comes off as "stupid girl, don't you know you're not supposed to be like this?"
Kids don't tend to run into these problems until and unless they're enforced by adults who carry their prejudices. To borrow from Max Planck, you don't so much change these norms by changing minds. You change them when the old generastion dies off and a new generation, more receptive to the ideas is born. Or, if you're less interested in science and more in music, the Dropkick Murphys once said
ignorance is something you can't overcome but you've passed it on down and that's something much worse//another young man has been handed the torch.
A lot of this will simply come down to reinforcement. And with such defined gender roles, one might--completely hypothetically and I have never experienced this>.>--feel the need to blend in and thus end up reinforcing said stereotypes rather than just doing what they want to do and how they want to do it.
Again, purely hypothetical.
the December King said:
I always feel like I am not capturing something fundamentally feminine, something that makes the character a woman- either they end up as a woman in name only (as in, I don't roleplay at all and just drop dice), or I feel like I'm an imposter or man in drag.
If you figure out what it is, could you kindly let us know? Because I think a lot of actual women would fall under the trope of "women in name only" as well. Like, Phasmal already covered the notion of not really walking around feeling feminine or anything. Like, I'm curious, what exactly do you think it is that women
do that makes this such an issue?
