Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[LegoLord]

What do you mean? I said two things: One, that women are biologically, statistically, slower to develop strength,

Yet that does not mean lower strength capacity.

[LegacyCWAL]

For maximum capacity, look to sports, namely at the highest levels.

[Mikademus]

In a nutshell: In a realistic(that is, internally consistent) setting, men would have an advantage over women as adventurers, but not through any fault of the women.

How does internal consistency figure into it?  It seems like you're saying "consistent with DF's perceived medieval Europe setting."

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. This is different from "realism" in light of the fact that DF also contains dragons, wizards, sea monsters, and deadly spinning coinage.

You saying that there are fewer female adventurers, warriors or soldiers etc in fantasy than in reality? Have you ever read any AD&D books? Or Elisabeth Moon's "The Deeds of Paksenarrion" (which is a low-brow feminist fantasy story where all the women are always better then the men, quite humorous in a way...). Fantasy overflows with mighty females, perhaps because if the exoticness of it compared to our normal conception of gender roles.

Jeanne d'Arc through crafty manipulation of her peers was able to win the trust of the government of France and gained some degree of leadership over the French military [the actual extent of which is unknown], and proceeded to... Well, fail, but she gets an A for Effort.

And it should be noted that this was the French medieval military, which historically had few victories, unfortunately.

Not actually true, depending on your definition of "medieval": french_military_victories There are more losses than wins in the stretch 1190 to 1347 but there ARE wins. Then it evens out again.

[Footkerchief]

Okay, since this discussion has gone in the typical direction, let's have a look at the ThreeToe perspective on gender norms.  I bolded some of more notable/hilarious parts.

Passion in the Arena

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The young man ran his fingers through her short bristly hair. Her father had been furious when she shaved her head. It was only a few months before her début at the palace. He would soon be meeting with rich suitors seeking her hand in marriage. It was bad enough that she had an abnormal obsession with the Blood Games, but now she seemed to want to look and dress as a gladiator.

[...]

She pulled her arm away and waved to Phaedrus, screaming. Matadon strode slowly up to the boy, sword in hand. Phaedrus looked down into his hand and saw his own sword for what seemed like the first time. With a high-pitched scream, he ran at the giant. Matadon put a sandaled foot in his chest and kicked him down. Maura shouted for him to get up. The boy picked up his weapon and held the point at Matadon. The gladiator knocked the sword out of his hand with a flick of his blade. It was clear to Maura that Matadon was simply playing for the crowd. He could kill Phaedrus at will. She lifted her face to the heavens and cursed the gods. Her father was now openly laughing.

Matadon shoved his sword to the hilt in Phaedrus's chest. Blood welled up out of the boy's mouth. Maura ripped off her long skirt and leap onto the railing of the box, revealing bright red pantaloons. Her father tried to grab her, but she landed an expert kick to his chest, breaking three ribs. She gripped the banner and slid into the ring. The crowd went wild. Matadon turned to face her, blood dripping from his blade. She circled the ring, eyes always on Matadon. When she reached Phaedrus, she knelt and took him in her arms one final time.

Matadon turned to face the crowd and lifted his sword in victory. Maura saw her chance and dropped Phaedrus's body into the sand. She grabbed up her dead lover's sword and rushed up behind Matadon and struck, cutting the tendon in his right ankle. The gladiator spun to face her, dragging his crippled foot. Maura struck again stabbing into his stomach. The crowd howled. She circled her enemy, taunting him as he taunted Phaedrus. Finally, he bowed his head, coughing up blood, and she struck it off.

Mother of Death

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He stared up at the beauty above him. Raven-colored hair fell over her face, framing cruel green eyes. The corner of her mouth lifted slightly, smiling as she let out a sigh. Slowly his hand crept along the floor. Her eyes flashed. He gasped as he felt the prick of her sword point. A drop of blood formed on his throat as she kicked the sword away from his hand. The warriors of the mead hall howled with approval. The woman held out her hand and helped the bested man to his feet. They joined the rest of the warriors, singing drunken songs into the night.

She was called Fraidae, which in the language of the north meant Mother of Death. Her young sons had died fighting the Halgrim, a clan that dwelt in the eastern hills. On that day she took up the blade vowing to take vengeance. In the years that had passed she had claimed many lives, calling out warriors and slaying them in single combat. Now the Halgrim were on the run. In the mead hall, Fraidae learned the last of the clansmen had taken refuge in the capital. Fraidae called for brave men to put down the last of the cowardly villains. Three men stepped forward, including the young man who was rubbing the wound at his neck.

As they rode through the hills toward the capital, the youth stole glances at the warrior woman. She wore black leather, decorated with designs in red paint. The great sword Painbringer was slung across her back. She turned to look at him and he turned away, hand at his throat. The two bearded warriors howled with laughter.

[...]

Fraidae looked up at the dragon. It was taking the treasure of the keep into its mouth and throwing its head back to swallow it down. Cursing with all her hatred, she made a new oath. The dragon had robbed her of vengeance. It must die. When she told the warriors of her plan they went pale and made to leave. She cursed them and questioned their manhood. Soon they were on their way to the dragon's liar. They changed their course to match the returning flights of the dragon as it flew back and forth carrying the treasure to its home.

Oh, and there's also the gender-related boasts from adventure mode:

Male victim:

Code: [Select]

whose womanly death screams aroused my thirst for blood
who cowered before me, not man enough to face death
who moaned like a whore as I nailed him to a tree
whose potency I question after his ineffective thrusts
whose bad luck in combat was exceeded only by his bad luck with the women
who sought his place at the head of the table, only to lose his head when I struck it off
who was but a boy in a man's world
Female victim:

Code: [Select]

who thought she could be a man
who didn't know her place
an unfit mother to the children she'll never see again
who waited submissively for her death
who wore her helmet like a veil to conceal her frightening appearance
who took up arms because she could not find a husband and met only death

Human male:

Code: [Select]

who cried like a little girl as I deprived him of his manhood
a fool, whose claim of manhood was laughable
who failed the test of manhood

[Granite26]

Jeanne d'Arc through crafty manipulation of her peers was able to win the trust of the government of France and gained some degree of leadership over the French military [the actual extent of which is unknown], and proceeded to... Well, fail, but she gets an A for Effort.

And it should be noted that this was the French medieval military, which historically had few victories, unfortunately.

Nah, screw that... Joan D'Arc was a special woman...  Which goes to the center of it.  People can accomplish anything, but some people start at a disadvantage.  That makes it MORE impressive when they accomplish great things.

[Savok]

I rather like how the only difference between males and females in DF is that the females occasionally have kids. It may not be realistic for humans, but who knows when it comes to dwarves? They all have beards anyway.

As of the latest raw updates, female dwarves do not have beards. Unless you mod them.

This is what i think:

Males +5% strength gain
Females +5% agility gain

Yeah. And Females +10 MP and Males +10 HP.

That is absurd.

[G-Flex]

Are you really trying to argue that women's inferiority at wrestling bears to death is a social construct as opposed to reflection of their somewhat inferior physical abilities as a whole?

It's the "as a whole" that's a problem here.

Women may not, generally-speaking, be as good as men at most sports/bear-wrestling, but two things to consider:

• Most sports were designed FOR men in the first place, so they'd play to their strengths.
• Just because a woman has some obvious natural disadvantages in some regards doesn't mean that they have no advantages. I mean, look at certain sports, like gymnastics or, hell, even tennis.

[LegacyCWAL]

• Most sports were designed FOR men in the first place, so they'd play to their strengths.

Well duh, that's true for a lot of sports, perhaps even most of them.  When I say "look at sports", I mean look at where the design of the game doesn't matter.  You see a lot of examples of that in the Olympics: how do women typically compare against men in running, jumping, or swimming?

• Just because a woman has some obvious natural disadvantages in some regards doesn't mean that they have no advantages. I mean, look at certain sports, like gymnastics or, hell, even tennis.

IndyCar changed its rules because Danica Patrick's small size gave her an unfair advantage

[G-Flex]

Running, jumping, and swimming aren't situations where "design doesn't matter"; those are very basic actions which one gender could, possibly, be statistically better at. That doesn't prevent, say, ones men are better at from becoming more popular than ones women would be good at, or something like that.

[LegacyCWAL]

That's exactly what I mean.  Something like Football would obviously be biased towards men.  But you can't say that, for instance, the 100m dash was "designed FOR men" because running is just running.

[G-Flex]

Yeah, but even those really basic activities can still be CHOSEN because men tend to be good at them; for example, if men tended to suck at some jumping activity, they probably wouldn't turn it into a sport, perhaps.

[Sergius]

G-Flex, you clearly don't have enough ESPN channels.

Try ESPN 8, The "Ocho"!

[Pilsu]

Women couldn't even compete when they were chosen. In fact, they couldn't even watch

It's always been about physical fitness and women just can't keep up. It isn't some grand conspiracy by the man to keep them down


I doubt that adventurer of yours would be ruined if she could only reach Mighty. For that matter, I think the higher strength levels should be rare even for men. As is, everyone and everything has the capacity to become superhuman and that isn't very realistic. Nor is it really necessary either, those champions of yours wouldn't be useless just because they had personal potential for being only very strong

[PTTG??]

What do you mean? I said two things: One, that women are biologically, statistically, slower to develop strength,

Yet that does not mean lower strength capacity.

That's exactly what I mean- that the potential is there. It just takes more work to get it.

[LegacyCWAL]

Yeah, but even those really basic activities can still be CHOSEN because men tend to be good at them; for example, if men tended to suck at some jumping activity, they probably wouldn't turn it into a sport, perhaps.

What?  The discussion is about raw physical capability in some basic activity like lifting objects or footspeed.  Can you think of a better way to measure footspeed than comparing footspeed?