I've had this really strange idea floating about my head for a while now, and I thought I'd share it with you. You can do whatever you want with it.
It started when I was playing league of legends, and I began analyzing the various champions on the basis of how Masculine or Feminine I thought they were. There are several different roles in League (These are specifically about Teamfighting, not Laning), but they basically break down to Tank, Support, AD Carry (Sustained Damage), and AP Carry (Burst Damage). The tanks job is to get in the front of the fight, take damage, and keep the enemy team from blowing past him to kill the carries. Supports usually either use disables and debuffs to impede the enemy team and buffs and heals to boost their own team. Right now, there are very few pure supports- It's usually paired with either tank or AP Carry. AD Carries are responsible for dealing sustained amounts of damage to whittle the enemy down. They rarely have good defenses, and so need a tank or support (or both) to stick around and defend them. AP Carries are responsible from dealing large amounts of damage all at once, usually with the intent to instantly kill an enemy carry. Various champions fit into these roles to varying degrees, and there are other considerations- some champions have capabilities that step outside this rubric, while others can fit multiple roles depending on how the player builds them.
Anyway, I was analyzing champions, and I came to the realization that I could in large part categorize how I felt about their Masculinity/Femininity based on their role. I feel Tanks are the most masculine- their job is basically to go and break peoples fists
with their face. AD carries are the most Feminine- they have poor defenses, and are thus very vulnerable, especially to AP carries, but are also very powerful, and are usually the most important person to keep alive/murder horribly. AP Carries fall in the middle. They're not as physically tough, and can't take as much damage, but they can do more damage, and generally don't need to be babysat (because usually they can kill fragile opponents and ignore low damage ones, which rules out either AD Carries or Tanks going after them alone). Supports are hard to quantify, because there are very few pure ones. They'd probably also fall somewhere in the middle, depending on their specific kit/build/stats.
This has some interesting implications. For example, my Rubric for Masculinity/Femininity (at least when it comes to champions in league) is based almost entirely on how much a champion is geared towards being punched in the face. This might seem strange to you, (Indeed, it seems strange to
me), but do keep in mind that gender is a very subjective topic. Different societies at different points in time have had different views on the topic, and if you take into account the different views of the people and populations, it gets even more complicated. Thus, I find myself curious- How would you gauge Masculinity/Femininity?
It also brings to my mind the idea that perhaps we need not be limited to two gender roles. If we wanted, we could reorganize our society to recognize however many seemed appropriate, or if we really wanted to make things complicated, could instead recognize a continuum or multi-dimensional spread. Personally, I don't think they even need to be related to your biological sex. This may seem obvious to some, and like complete madness to others, but I find the idea interesting. What do you think? Do you have a particular set of roles to propose, or some other take on the idea?
Also, if you wish to post saying that I got my league roles wrong, you may do so, but I'd prefer you did it in the
League Thread, so as not to clutter this one up. That seems like a better place to discuss league mechanics and meta-game in detail.