Rich Morris' Comics - YAFGC and The ComixBlog

'Nowhere' has pretty much summed up anything I'd say, I s'pose. Let me flesh out something that seems to have annoyed many, though.

As I've already said, there is no question that both in the real and most fantasy worlds, women can be and become whatever they want. MY point in using the word pacifistic (which I do *NOT* back down from) is that the world of active violence is not one women typically pursue. I don't see why that point should be so contentious. Most soldiers are male. So are most cops. Most women are not typically attracted to these professions. The more nurturing professions of teaching, nursing and the like are heavily dominated by females. Most female doctors who specialize go into ob-gyn or pediatrics. In this day and age, I am sure there are still some lingering sexist reasons making entry into some jobs more difficult, but the essential general wiring of the genders is still caveman: Men club, women care. Please note the total lack of a VALUE judgment here. That much is an historical observation.

My social commentary, such as it is, fits a genre coined by Bill Maher. He calls it the "Making Women Nod" phenomenon. Hence my 'post-modern Oprah inspired BS' crack. I agree with Bill's sentiment that we have to pretend to believe or accept things we really don't so as to facilitate easier social discourse with ladies. I dunno if i take to the level of social pathology he does, but it's an identifiable thing. I've noticed that the many women in my life that I call friends are the ones I can say anything to, as long as I am being honest, and can expect an honest reply, even if it is 180 from MY idea. However, many of the women in my life that are co-workers or just folks (an whom I term acquaintance, NOT friend) are people I speak to very carefully so as to avoid offense.

Case in point - in the faculty lounge the other day, another male teacher commented on a chat about the Winter Olympics that he didn't bother watching the women's sports. The fit hit the shan. I agree with him, but I knew better than to say so. As the argument heated up, both sides tried to drag me and the other non-participants in by asking our opinions. I simply lied, and said I didn't watch ANY of the Olympics (I did watch the hockey). The other teacher now has a room full of women mad at him because he was dumb enough to say he doesn't like Ice Dancing. THEY think he means that women's sports aren't ever worth watching. The dummy forgot to make them nod.

So, I stand by what I've written in these posts. Women CAN be what they want. but most don't want violent jobs. Also, I think a mob of women suddenly coming together to form an army (when at least many of them have no military training) based on avenging rotten male behavior is enough of an aberration both in real or most fantasy worlds, that it merited a comment. I further think the kerfuffle my post has caused is proof that this can be a sore topic for a lot of people.

It WAS meant as a light-hearted thing, honest! I wasn't expecting to defend a social discourse. Having arisen, these are my opinions. If we're gonna get nasty, I hope Jone recalls that Glon and that human blacksmith were decent when they didn't have to be.

One side note to the site admin - No I haven't Googled anything. Nor do I plan to. It took me a couple days to answer because I'm BUSY. It's past Midnight here, and i just finished grading papers. I'm oh-so-terribly sorry for phrasing it wrong in my first reply post, but since you seem to think it matters, no, I hadn't seen that example before. But I've seen dozens of others. Something i DO run across all the time are folks who are dismissive if a teacher hasn't memorized or seen every piece of trivia dealing with their discipline. I know a lot - more than most history teachers Ive met, but any history buff on earth who has read a book I haven't can toss off a quote that's new. I fully admit it - doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm sad for you that scoring a debating point and closing a thread because you CAN is such a big deal. Howzabout we just ignore each other from here on in if I 'annoy' you so much?

And I'll repeat what I've said a couple of times already: show me your data about women choosing pacifistic professions because of innate desire to nurture, and not because of bias inherent in the system.

The main problem I have with this line of argument is that it all stems from the theories of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology, heavily politicized disciplines from the 1970s and 1980s that emerged as supposedly scientific reactions to the feminist movement. There are pockets where they're still accepted, I understand, especially in the States and within the Patriarchal Evangelical churches (in as much as they accept anything labelled 'science'), but they've been pretty well dismissed by the rest of academe.

The issue been taken with all of this is not whether there are innate physical differences between the sexes, but how far beyond the reproductive system that stretches and - far more importantly - how much that actually matters.

"Because evolutionary thinkers are alert to the self-interested motivations of all individuals, they are predisposed to view claims of male superiority over women [in physical realms] as rationalizations for promoting male power rather than as statements of fact. Similarly, comparison of men's treatment of women with the more general, widespread tendency for male animals to try to control female sexuality makes it both easier to recognize some aspects of men's behaviour as self-interested attempts at reproductive control and harder to justify claims to the contrary."

(B. Smuts, “Feminism, the Naturalistic Fallacy, and Evolutionary Biology,” Politics and the Life Sciences 11, no. 2 (August 1992): 176

Like the DungeonMaster says, a lot of your argument is still based on a society that heavily promotes the feminization of girls. Girls are raised and innundated from birth with images of delicate, beautiful women going about preforming daily housewifey chores. Girls are not given toy guns, ships, action figures, or pretty much anything related to martial combat. They are not raised to believe that they could or should be firemen, police officers, or enter the military (which, by the way, has strict rules regarding women's roles in combat and even basic service. It was just two years ago that the first female four-star generalwas nominated). Girls are discouraged from sports, in part because of sneers and derision from people like you (at least, you've sounded mocking in all your references to how you "don't watch/care for them"), and also because other girls, "popular" girls, aren't raised to praise and get into sports like boys are. Women are not raised to excel at math, and even dissuadedfrom it quite strongly. Read some more about why arbitrarily assuming that preformance differencesare based on the inherent nature of gender is just stupid.

There's also zero merit to women "choosing" caring professions because of some inherent desire- that's somehow greater than in men- to nuture or care. The positive reinforcement that women recieve from family and peers for saying that they "want" to do something in a caring profession is overwhelming. Many women are ob-gyns because, hey, guess what, a lot of women have vaginas, and most women are generally more comfortable talking about their vagina with someone else who also has a vagina. Here's some more data+articlesabout the skewing of women towards certain degrees/their exclusion from the workforce.

Basically, a lot of gender is just a social construct. I suppose that's probably my ultimate point here, but I really don't care to go and track down every source available about it. If you really care and actually want to understand the arguments, go pick up any book about it. They usually say a lot of the same things, along with numerous facts that most people aren't aware of, such as how some babies born as boys naturally develop into girls, and while genetically male, most don't realize they're women (oops this is supposed to say men) until attempts at conception.

But that's really irrelevant. Sure, there ARE some basic, physiological differences, but they rarely affect anything other than the function of the body in day to day life. Here'sa good article with a line that sums a lot of gender construct up nicely. "You can’t generalise about men and women. Cultural differences are much bigger than gender differences. You need to specify what culture and what community within that culture... ...it is intriguing to people that there are differences, but people use it as a prop”.

Personally, (and this is just my own opinion here) the culture of Elegrost is very, very egalitarian, which is why it's so funny (at least to me) that a horde of A) monsters, B) monster-women thinks that they have to go and do battle in a righteous crusade through a C) already egalitarian land. I mean, just the fact that there was no outcry over a woman potentially becoming Queen(re: King) by winning the Melee would be evidence enough that it's not at all rare or unusual to see a woman in battle, and basic logic would indicate that there would a long, long history if women doing just that in the DnD realms.

Aside from that, though, the vast majority of older fantasy is written by men, ostensibly for men, and follows in the footsteps of Tolkien, who had all of, what, two female characters of note in his original Hobbit+Trilogy? I mean... come on.

Oh hey I also totally forgot to link this statementmade by American Sociological Association, which I found an amusing response to the Harvard President's little quip.

also, I'm sorry for maybe seeming abrasive or not just letting this die, but your premise (essentlally that men say things they disagree with in order to not piss women off) and the following example of a male coworker (ostensibly) straight up saying that he has no respect for the female athletes of the Winter Olympics are flawed in that the female coworkers aren't mad at him for... for not agreeing which sport is the best, or whatever, they're mad because of his chauvanistic attitude. It'd be like a woman announcing to a bunch of guys how she didn't watch the male competitions because there's no way a male athlete could ever sacrifice as much as a female one. Even if no one opened their mouth and said anything to her, they'd all walk away thinking that she was kind of a bitch.

It's the same situation as your coworker's. Saying things to encourage rapport is not unique to men talking to women, and people getting mad when someone runs their mouth unnecessarily is not because they're uptight, or obsessed with being politically correct.

I don’t have any facts for this discussion except that last time I checked the female of ALMOST every other species is the most dangerous member. Even the Lion long lauded as KING of the beasts is a slave to the female members of the pride. What the female wants she gets including tossing a male out of the pride. Also the primary hunters of the pride are the females; they are far superior to the male. In most animal species it is the male that has to have bright colors to get a female, the males are forced to follow the female whim not the other way around. As far as humans I just have one question to ask. When was the last time a guy had to pass a large watermelon out of their body? Women do that every day. To me this is a sign that in nature the human race has twisted stuff a bit into thinking the female is weaker, more demure and more pacifistic. Most human women I have known have a much darker sense of revenge than the males. As far as I see it with the proper rearing and training most women can do just about anything a male can. The only thing that separates us from the animal kingdom is ages of reinforced concepts of strong and weak.
Sorry for the long winded diatribe but I have far too many female friends to keep silent here.

P.S. Ever notice the second a woman tries to take on a masculine job she is considered a DISEL DYKE (In the US at least). This is real pathetic when the woman is straight.

I prefer to think of everyone as individuals, I am bigger than my mom (and my dad actually), but some of my female relatives are three times my size, and will hand you your head.

Well... i will go against the general vote here. I am considered strong but i do not doubt that any of my male friends could pin me or hurt me if they wanted, even the most pudgy or frail of them... that is, unless i carry a weapon or take some martial arts training (which is why i do Aikido).I also agree with Rambam that warrior women were the exception, not the norm. Yes, the celtic tribes had warrior women and we had the Amazon tribes but they are famous because they are exceptions.
Having said that, i do not doubt that what kept women back was not their desire to be good mothers and wives, but social restraints and the status quo which was derived from more primitive times. Also, The thing is, after you have developed weapons, even primitive ones, things can even out pretty fast. Especially nowadays, when most things are done with the help of machines or tools, strength is not a factor and the gender division becomes more and more irrelevant. Not that we ever had a need for it after we discovered fire but ...

Maark30 has a good point about other species. I think insects (particularly arachnids) are the best example of females massively outweighing/numbering the males, and there are a ton of examples of the male of a species being little more than a glorified sperm delivery system(see Dronesand Angler Fish), but it's easily arguable that they are not mammalian and shouldn't count.

Granted, one-on-one, most mammal males are larger, stronger, and tougher than the females, but even then there are exceptions. Hyenas are strictly matriarchal, for example. Even a blind, old, three-legged deposed hyena queen has more rank than the highest-ranking male. The females are the ones who are exceptionally violent and aggressive, and I believe that Meerkats are the same way (though I'm not entirely sure).



I like to think of women's relative frailty as a trade-off for not having to lay eggs. Also, did anyone see that article in the news a while ago, where those anthropologists put forth the idea that it was probably our female ancestors who first invented weapons, in order to compete with the stronger males?

Which, of course, leads me to the obvious (to me, anyway) question… in a world where 90-lb weaklings can call lightning bolts out of the sky and throw fire from their hands, why would upper body strength determine the course of social development?

Well, in the real world where weaklings also handle fire and lightning nowadays i would say that this happens because we are creatures of habit, and changing from a male dominated society to an egalitarian one was hard, particularly when the old regime was fortified with religious and social beliefs. If men got the upper hand because they were stronger, and then society came up with religious explanations and justifications, it would take beings of extreme reason to just change their norms once technology pretty much allowed anyone to come up on top in a fight. And beings of extreme reason we are not.
In a fantasy world, whether that happens or not depends on how heavily this world is based on the real one. DnD worlds have to be egalitarian for reasons of a) gameplay and b) logic. Still, unless you come up with a very detailed system of social interactions, people will immediately assume that your sort of medieval setting resembles the one they know.

Going back to the "men club, women care" argument, a friend of mine made an interesting point. essentially the argument was "men club, women club because they care"
Now she wasn't man-hating by saying that men don't care, but she meant that because of women's nurturing behaviour, they can also be inspired to violence. She also pointed out that there is a huge number of murders comitted by women..

"The worlds of Dragonquest closely parallel the Europe of medieval Earth, where women were largely relegated to secondary roles. However, the bias is not as great in a fantasy world, for the physically weak have recourse to magic."

DragonQuest, 2nd Edition. SPI 1982.

I thought you were an old-school gamer. Now I have the proof.

Not quite white-box edition vintage, alas, though a former GM of mine was; I actually started in the mid-eighties with Palladium.

Okay. So some women are touchy about feeling that they don't get the respect they deserve from men. And you think that people ought to be able to say whatever they want without having to make other people (whether it be women, blacks, garbage men or whoever) nod in agreement.

So, how do you get from that to the idea that anything that makes someone nod is inherently insincere, and designed to elicit a nod response? After all, that's really what you're accusing Mr. Morris of. Your point seems to be: "The whole Jone of Orc thread, with her army of put upon women lead by a goofy Kobold seeress, wasn't created because Mr. Morris thought that it would be funny. It was created so that the women who read the comic could feel good about themselves at the expense of men." Which is all fine and good - but what about the comic to date gives you the impression that if Mr. Morris wasn't pandering to women, we wouldn't see something like this?

"The other teacher now has a room full of women mad at him because he was dumb enough to say he doesn't like Ice Dancing. THEY think he means that women's sports aren't ever worth watching. The dummy forgot to make them nod."

And now Mr. Morris has a history teacher mad at him because he was dumb enough to include strips with an army full of women. HE thinks Mr. Morris means that women need to be pandered to at the expense of believability. The dummy forgot to make the teacher nod. I'm sorry, but I don't see the difference here. Why are YOU any more entitled to something that make you nod than anyone else is? And just because we don't see things your way, that doesn't mean that we're also caught up in making people nod. I, for my part, find that The Rule of Funny fits in just fine here, so I'm willing to keep my disbelief in suspension.

"[Art] Caplan draws a wise lesson from the Nazi doctors: Beware the human weakness for moral rationalization. But part of that weakness is the illusion in each of us that we have escaped it." William Saletan ("Natural-Born Killers" Slate Magazine, 4 April, 2005)

It's easy to point out failings in other, and believe that we're above them. My point is that you seem to be falling into the same pit that you're accusing the rest of us as having fallen into, and then portraying yourself as a victim when that accusation sparked anger.

"But in wildly over-arguing a fallible case, [Harvard President Larry] Summers seems to have fallen prey to self-flattery's ugly twin: Because what I say offends the liberal dogmatist, it must be true. (And not only true, but courageous.)" Stephen Metcalf. ("Harvard Inc." Slate Magazine, 28 Feb., 2005)

The fact that people take umbrage when something they enjoy is characterized as "bullshit" by a stranger, doesn't have to mean that they suspect it actually is BS. The simple fact is that they tend to feel disrespected. I'm pretty sure that if said that history teachers were lying bastards who served the false agendas propagated by The Powers That Be, I'd have some pissed-off history teachers on my hands. Not because they suspected what I was saying is true, but because I challenged their legitimacy.

How does Bob eating that Harpy figure into all this? Oh wait it doesn't, because this is a crap theory.