I’m sure most internet geeks have heard of Wheaton’s Law: “Don’t Be a Dick!” – I’d love to think it’s that easy. However life is much more nuanced than that. People can be asses without even realising it. And so we can all discriminate, not even stopping think we’re being a dick and worse then justify it afterwards, nah, even defend it!

Despite being a white heterosexual male, the older I get the more aware I’ve become of how this plays out and it’s easy to let it slip and “forget” so I created this mental shortcut. Three axioms to remind me of how every one of us can be a “dick that discriminates” and how to sniff out the bullshit in others.

I’m not going go into huge amount of details. These three axioms distil a lot of information and concepts about discrimination and how it affects others. It’s a shortcut and certainly leaves gaping holes. I don’t keep a list of sources for the info behind these concepts either, I’m not an academic and I’m not really here to educate you (that’s you’re responsibility). But a lot of what I know about discrimination comes from these three core ideas.

It’s always important to remember, the more you try to distil real-world social-complex information down to basic points, the more information you lose. Nothing is really black and white. Everything is a shade of grey and painting it black and white means you cut everyone out except the two extremes. People, like you and me, don’t come in the two flavours: Dick and Not a Dick.

Axiom #1: We all have Privilege

Privilege has become a really loaded word these days. Everyone has some privilege over another. Though that does not make every privilege equivalent, forcing women out of the workplace because they may get pregnant is no way the same as men having to pay higher car insurance, though both are forms of discrimination.

Discrimination is based on privilege derived from your social group be it gender, race or whatever. And we all use privilege, otherwise it’s not privilege. Example, if you are rich, you will spend your money to buy better things and make better opportunities for yourself.

There are two aspects to Privilege which I find very striking and nearly form two sub axioms. It is very hard to recognise what privileges you have but it is very easy to recognise when someone has privilege over you.

Taking the rich man example. Everyone who is not rich, knows that man has money and spends it. It’s obvious to them. They may be jealous of him, they may want to be his friend in the hopes it rubs off on them. Business may give him free stuff in the hopes he spends big there later. The rich man though has become used to his money (and it’s perks) and he may even consider himself a good man, doesn’t look down on others and treats everyone equally. But sometimes he forgets that others don’t have as much money as him. He probably justifies it too, that those without money are lazy.

You may not recognise what privilege you have, but you still use it. Worse, if you don’t recognise it, you will still defend it. The rich man may get angry and defensive when someone is angry with him because he gets his way. The rich man will justify it by thinking why should he feel guilty for being rich?

If you don’t recognise what you have is privilege over another, you will justify why you are allow do some things, and others are not and/or why you should have it. Anytime you hear or read something where someone is justifying why they should be allowed do this or that or moan about why they must change their ways? Alarm-bells should ring in the back of your mind. Ask your-self are they trying to defend some privilege they don’t recognise?

Axiom #2: Equality does not mean everyone is equal

Just because something is open equally to everyone, doesn’t mean it’s equally open to everyone. I’m sure that sounds wrong to many. But it’s like Animal Farm, everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others. It’s just that no-one states that last part (i.e. privilege, first axiom).

If an industry or hobby is dominated by one social group, then folks from other social groups may not be as comfortable entering the industry or hobby (subtle discrimination can play a big part here, my third axiom). “Equality” may also be framed in such as a way to encourage one type of participant over others, even though technically it’s open to all.

Why make the effort to get someone from a marginalised social grouping when you’ve got all these people over here? If someone is good enough in that other social grouping, they say, they’ll have every chance. But often the marginalised ones have to work harder to be seen than the majority or privileged social grouping. While it should be the other way round, people should work harder to ensure equality. (If you don’t recognise the privilege you have, how would you even realise this? First axiom).

Quotas are often used to try and solve or break this problem in professional areas. The come-back from those with privilege is that it devalues the ones the quotas are designed to help, because now people will think they got in by quota instead of their actual value. This would only be a valid argument if there is genuine equality in the first place. I think long term quotas can have a negative impact by signally divisions to others where equality exists, but as a short/medium term solution, it can be useful to force others to make an effort to ensure and encourage equality and equal representation.

Really this Axiom is about framing. How we frame an argument or discussion can control and determine the outcome, not the value. This is pretty powerful form of control and is used very well in politics. If you can frame the debate, you can force you’re opponents to defend themselves to their disadvantage rather than present their own side and come to a equitable answer. If we start with the idea that “we’re all equal” then it’s impossible to talk about discrimination, because how can people be marginalised if we’re all equal. We’re not all equal. Some are more equal and they don’t even know it.

Axiom #3: Difference between Subtle and Explicit Discrimination

For this one, I do have a link! “Subtle Racism Harass Brain”, though not exactly on point. What I really picked up from that and what I keep in mind is that there is a distinction between overt discrimination and subtle or ambiguous discrimination. And it affects social groups differently.

The overt kind we can all recognise. Good people, we all hope, will say no to it and not do it. But then for some groups, we may not realise the subtle or ambiguous messages we send out to others. You could probably get away with your Dick jokes, but when there is more subtle or rather ambiguous cues surrounding it, then some may get uncomfortable about it because of the overtones of such jokes.

The media influence us greatly not matter what we think. What does the media tell us? If we don’t really recognise our own privilege and we miss the subtle or ambiguous negative cues targeting other groups, coupled with stuff like filter bubbles, it’s very easy to get caught in the framing trap of “everyone is equal”.

Being a father of a daughter and a son, I worry some about the cues the world is telling them. How toys are marketed, the stereotypes directed at them from cartoons, peer pressure in schools, etc. My son seems to be keenly aware when “something is for girls” even at three, yet he loves to collect flowers, unaware that some might perceive that as “girly”. How long is that going to last?

Telling someone their stupid every day, even if they are not, at worst may make them think they are stupid and worthless or at best make them angry and unhappy. You don’t really need a degree in gender studies or marketing to see the stereotypes aim at you and others. The really blatant ones can be easy to ignore (but they still affect you) and the subtle ones can affect you without you realising. Apparently even knowing that the source of message is biased before reading can influence your later thinking.

You can forget about what privilege you have, but you consider yourself a good person so you would never explicitly be a dick to another, but what subtle or ambiguous signals do you or others in your social group give out, that you may not realise? If you think everyone is equal, why are others complaining about being marginalised or feeling uncomfortable?

So that’s the three axioms I keep in mind anytime I read a heated discussion online about sexism or  an opinion piece in a newspaper. I hope you can see how the three axioms bleed together but I’m sure they don’t give a complete picture as there are probably things I think are simply too obvious or I’m utterly unaware of.  If you have a moment, please tell me what you think in the comments. Thanks for the attention.

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I was reading Castle in the Air’s latest post: ‘“Chess for Girls” — What women want from games’ and he mentions, in passing actually, that most roleplaying games have sexist language, the preference for ‘He’ over ‘She’. I know, I kinda of wandered around this topic already (and here too on LJ)…. but… could someone explain to me the problem with using “He” as a generic pronoun? I’m genuinely interested in an answer.

Until English has a common generic or singular gender-neutral pronoun, we seem to be stuck with a conundrum. If you use “She” explicitly in roleplaying games to say refer to the GM, is that being sort of sexist towards men as the use of “He” is sexist towards woman? If we switch equally between “He” and “She” in the text, I find that a bit disconcerting as a reader. Same goes for “it”, “they”, “s/he” etc. Though, to be correct, we should really use “they”. I did find this fascinating article on the use of “they” as the neutral pronoun and how it was changed (by an act of law) to be “he” and how that was later abused by men using it literally, as a male pronoun, instead of how it was intended, as a gender-neutral pronoun. I guess that’s a good argument to avoid using “he” (or “she”) specifically in law and other technical documents.

I do a lot of technical documentation on my job, and when you write such documentation you try to avoid using gender-specific terms. You know, saying “It can be done…” instead of “He can…” but this reads as very boring formal text. Well, it is meant to be technical documentation. You can’t write a roleplaying game that way, can you? I mean, part of a roleplaying book’s purpose is just as much to entertain you as provide you with information about the setting and rules. If it fails to entertain, people won’t be interested in playing or buying more of your books. Is it possible to write gender-neutral (as opposed to say balanced) text and still entertain?

What’s the best solution to all this?

Related Posts:

• The dust settles…
• Blogfight: Sexism in Roleplaying Games?
• My first RPG map
• The RPG Blog Alliance
• My Three Axioms of Not Being a Dick that Discriminates

I seem to be living in a time lag. It’s been a few days since the blog “fight” over sexism in roleplaying games kind of burned itself out and I’m only getting around to writing about it now. It ended like how all good fights end: nobody really “won”, people ended up limping away and nobody hates each other.

I must say I felt sorry for Matt over at lategaming.com, because he got called names by a feminist blogger and was described as an example of a chauvinist! I also posted on Irish Gaming LiveJournal and it got two responses, which pretty much says it is not an issue. Now, if I had critised a convention, the discussion would have exploded. (Admittedly I could have posted on “igaming” or the “irishgaming.com/forums” but I have to say not much real discussion goes on there any more and I really didn’t feel the need to push the issue that much). I guess it’s typical of our end of the “blogosphere” (that being the Irish online gaming community). People are more concerned with getting out and on with it and having a good time than if the wording of roleplaying books can be interrupted as sexist.

As an extended footnote, Fed Hicks, one of the master-minds behind Evil Hat, makers of Spirit of the Century, commented on my blog to tell me:

Interestingly, it was that whole virtual flare up that (indirectly) lead to Bruce Baugh committing to write a supplement that tackles the issue head-on for Spirit of the Century.

The supplement is called “New Horizons” which you can read about over on Bruce’s LiveJournal page (you can read specifically about New Horizons here). It does sound like an interesting idea for a game, I must admit. I can’t, sadly, imagine getting my group to play it and I’m not sure I’d be mad into it either… but I’d really be tempted to get it anyway. I love those kind of books that full of information, laid out in a way that’s really useful for gaming and writing. Even if you never use it, it ends up inspiring you directly or indirectly. Let’s see how it goes.

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I love this, an Irish gaming blogosphere “heated discussion”. I came across mer writes about roleplaying blog when she wrote about one of my articles on roleplaying. So I started to follow her blog… and then this post appears Spirit of the Century. Spirit of the Century is a Fate/Fudge based RPG that I’ve been hearing lots of good words about. Mary was actually commenting on an LJ post (here) about it.

Now, in my mind, it’s a Fudge game. I haven’t read it, however I have read Fate and think it’s one of the best systems I’ve read. So I’m not surprised Spirit of the Century is well-liked. The issue the original LJ poster (peaseblossom) has is that:

The biggest hurdle for me is the list of character ideas, which starts on page 15, at the very beginning of the character creation section. Of the twelve basic ideas for characters, four of them (Gadget Guy, Gentleman Criminal, Jungle Lord, Man of Mystery) are specifically male, four of them (Academic, Operator, Primitive/Foreigner, Two-Fisted Pilot) are referred to exclusively by male pronouns, and the other four (Explorer, Plucky Reporter, Science Hero, Scientist) simply avoid pronouns altogether (and Science Hero uses as its sole example Doc Savage, a guy). I’m a bit gratified that there isn’t a Femme Fatale option (although, wait for it), but, would it have been so hard to come up with an example that would make me, a woman, excited to play the game? And don’t even get me started on the Primitive/Foreigner one; I mean, the fuck?

So basically there isn’t enough female archetypes in the game for her to get excited about. But wait…

Another thing that I semi-appreciated is the section at the very beginning of the book, entitled ‘Some Ugly Truths’. This section entreats the players of Spirit of the Century to be aware that sexism and racism happen in the source material, and should be addressed “in a way your group is comfortable with.”

So the authors were trying to keep true to source material. One of the authors actually comments on the LJ page here. He says:

A fair critique, there. Honestly, if anything, the reason these weren’t presented as Gadget Guy/Gal, Gentleman/Lady Criminal, yadda yadda was that the slashes looked really distracting and ugly. We should have varied it more, certainly, but decided to let that be something that played out in character examples. Sally Slick is a Gadget Gal. Claire Holloway is a Woman of Mystery. Etc.

Also note that the character types grew out of our actual play, with a mixed gender group of players, some of whom preferred to play male characters.

And…

You’re also being selectively ignorant with your examples. You left out several very key illustrations of Sally in action.

One shows her rescuing Jet Black, who’s been chained to the face of Big Ben, in danger of getting pulled apart/crushed by the movement of the hands.

Another shows her outnumbered three to one by shadow men, as she swings her big wrench through the gut of one, cutting it in half.

A third shows her building gadgetry.

Which makes me say, uh, yeah… we sure made her look like a chump. I mean, she rescues men from danger, fights as well as or better than any of them, and builds crazy machinery. How dare we also show her needing a little rescuing (by the guy she has a crush on, no less), diving for safety, or being more alert than the bumbling guys she’s surrounded with!

Just to be clear, I’m totally on board with some of your complaints. You’re right; we didn’t put a heavy focus on making sure we did the gender balance act throughout the book, and that’s going to be offputting for some women. Then again, we had a female editor go over the book, and had the book proofread by my wife, and made one of our central, iconic characters a Rosie the Riveter-esque persona who was based on the player’s actual grandmother (whose real name was, in fact, Sally Slick). So if you want to suggest we didn’t make an honest effort to be pro-female, I’m gonna laugh at you. Good-naturedly, but I’ll laugh.

I think this is a “non-issue”, a virtual flare-up, if you will. I know that I have a few female gamers who read my blog, are RPG games really so male biased? What kind elements of an RPG get you excited or inspired?

As a maturing male player, I genuinely like good female archetypes in the RPGs I read. Heck I sometimes like to play a female character, as long as it’s a good female character. I know it’s a predominantly male hobby, can’t escape that. The best game I know of that really included issues of racism and sexisms as part of the setting was Riddle of Steel where different regions had very different clashing cultures. You could build an equally interesting male and female sword-swinging that wasn’t a D&D clone.

I think it’s nice to have a few good female roles/archetypes in games, as long as that is reasonable.

I’ve sidetracked a bit, check out the title of this blog post: If Jesus had tits, would you believe in God? which is a direct response to Mary’s “Spirit of the Century” post (who was only agreeing with peaseblossom). My, my. I love it, not for the content per say… for the drama. I would have commented on the post, rather than post myself about it but you have to register on their site! And as the Matt said in the post:

I’d have commented directly on Mary’s blog but…I’d have to register on wordpress.com for that and really I can’t be bothered.

*shess* I find Matt’s post, simply an over-reaction. But hey thats the fun of the Internet! (And here I am commenting on flame war started by feminist thoughts on RPG…. isn’t it just grand!) His second follow-up: It’s about starting conversations with new people, he tries to express again his annoyance about the issue.

Some game companies are currently trying to market cute and fluffly and romance and “social” games to women which is utterly patronising.

Seems like quite a reasonable point. So I ask the few female gamers (okay 2 maybe?) that read my blog again, are games like this patronising to women gamers?

Update #1: I’ve opened up the discussion on LiveJournal’s irishgaming community.

Update #2: Mary has replied on her blog.

Related Posts:

• The dust settles…
• Finally I might be able to start playing again!
• TDO Combat Fudge v0.1
• A thought on GM versus Player narrative power in indie games
• When and why should you roll dice?