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Dwarf Fortress => DF Suggestions => Topic started by: Granite26 on September 26, 2008, 01:25:58 pm

Title: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on September 26, 2008, 01:25:58 pm
Sex matters.

In some cases a lot.

I'm trying to get all the ways that DF does not currently respect this into one place.  So far I've got

Gender Species differences : There's a big fancy word (sexual dimorphism) for this, but guys have beards, lions have manes, the femal mosquito is the one that sucks your blood, ants have queens, and a host of other cases where the male is physically different from the female

Gender Naming Conventions : Linguistically, there is no 'male names' or 'female names'.  This would be extremely helpful in terms of not assigning girls to the military, etc.

Gender Dress Conventions : Would be nice if me dwarves stopped wearing the Jenny clothes, eh?

Gender Behaviour and Ethics Conventions : Boys play with tin soldiers, girls play with dollies.  (It's ok for guys to be half naked and kill animals but society frowns on chicks doing the same.)  Obviously this will differ by species and civ

Gestation Periods:  Right now, there is no effect of being pregnant.

That's all I've got now.  Anything else?
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Neonivek on September 26, 2008, 01:42:59 pm
Quote
ants have queens

In ant's case all members are in fact females except for males whos job it is only to impregnate the queen.

Lets ignore the fact that the Antz movie cast consisted of entirely female ants. (Which gives a different spin on the movie ending... Can anyone say cheating?)

Anyhow, my suggestion is that if it is added it shouldn't be as one dimensional when relating to civilisations. Who says that women cannot play with Tin soldiers and men play with dollies?

I mean some people complain that Women in this game who are soldiers bring a battalion of children with them... You know who else does that? BATMAN!!!
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Tormy on September 26, 2008, 01:52:14 pm
Sex matters.

In some cases a lot.

I'm trying to get all the ways that DF does not currently respect this into one place.  So far I've got

Gender Species differences : There's a big fancy word for this, but guys have beards, lions have manes, the femal mosquito is the one that sucks your blood, ants have queens, and a host of other cases where the male is physically different from the female

Gender Naming Conventions : Linguistically, there is no 'male names' or 'female names'.  This would be extremely helpful in terms of not assigning girls to the military, etc.

Gender Dress Conventions : Would be nice if me dwarves stopped wearing the Jenny clothes, eh?

Gender Behaviour and Ethics Conventions : Boys play with tin soldiers, girls play with dollies.  (It's ok for guys to be half naked and kill animals but society frowns on chicks doing the same.)

That's all I've got now.  Anything else?

Stats? Females should never be as strong/agile as males. However this would change a lot of things in the gameplay, so I dont know that it should be implemented or not, even if it would be realistic. [Basically all female dwarves would be less useful in many cases, such as mining, hauling, fighting, etc.]
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Neonivek on September 26, 2008, 01:54:14 pm
Though the game is somewhat "Realistic" it is also "Heroic" and "Dramatic"

Gender differences don't really convay being "Heroic" too much when your playing a female and your just not all that strong

At least when respecting the Civilisations not based on Gender differences.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Derakon on September 26, 2008, 02:26:50 pm
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.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: korora on September 26, 2008, 02:45:20 pm
Stats? Females should never be as strong/agile as males.

I think this is a bit too strong of a statement; sure, male humans tend to be stronger than female humans, but there's no reason to be sure this is the case for dwarves or elves or randomly generated race #342, or even that a strong (for a female) human is weaker than a weak (for a male) human.

I'm not saying there isn't room for stat differentiation between sexes.  But it's not as black and white as you make it seem.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Steely Glint on September 26, 2008, 02:56:24 pm
Am I right in thinking we can all agree that male and female dwarves should have different names? I don't want my champions carrying babies into battle or being followed by a swarm of children as they enter the fray.

An a related note, I'd like to see families share the same last name. I don't care if it's taken from the father or mother, but it would be a nice touch.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Skizelo on September 26, 2008, 02:57:36 pm
I support the gendering of names and clothing (would give something for the "Loves to defy convention" personality to do), but I would argue against stat-nerfing and the implementation of gender roles. Basically because it would get really annoying and, since they're dwarfs, it's got no basis in reality.
As for the Gender Species Difference thing; most aesthetic distinctions need to wait for whatever bloat or core handles that; now all Toady could do is make them different creatures, which brings it's own problems.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: illiterate on September 26, 2008, 03:36:03 pm
I support the gendering of names and clothing (would give something for the "Loves to defy convention" personality to do), but I would argue against stat-nerfing and the implementation of gender roles. Basically because it would get really annoying and, since they're dwarfs, it's got no basis in reality.
As for the Gender Species Difference thing; most aesthetic distinctions need to wait for whatever bloat or core handles that; now all Toady could do is make them different creatures, which brings it's own problems.

Seconded. 

Adding different genders into the raws has some interesting possibilities, though.  There are some hive organisms where the vast majority will be female (as commented above).  Others in which one species is grossly larger and more aggressive than the other (more commonly the female, really).  While the gender differences between humans because of how testosterone affects muscle growth is significant, we have no guarantees that this is true of dwarves or gobbies. 

It would also make the [can_mate_with] tag essential to reproduction, whether you want to have sexual reproduction or parthenogenesis propagated amazon dwarves(on the moon)
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Silverionmox on September 26, 2008, 03:43:53 pm
Sexual dimorphism would greatly improve wildlife! There are lots of possibilities, for example the angler fish: the male is mostly a parasite that becomes part of the female's body.

Some people like the fact that dwarves don't do gender differentiation, however. So it's definitely something for the raws.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: MMad on September 26, 2008, 03:47:03 pm
I support the gendering of names and clothing (would give something for the "Loves to defy convention" personality to do), but I would argue against stat-nerfing and the implementation of gender roles. Basically because it would get really annoying and, since they're dwarfs, it's got no basis in reality.
As for the Gender Species Difference thing; most aesthetic distinctions need to wait for whatever bloat or core handles that; now all Toady could do is make them different creatures, which brings it's own problems.

Seconded again (Thirded? :p).

Differenting names would be useful; differentiating stats or preferences would just add one more layer of annoying complexity that would mess up your plans. More importantly though, IMO one of the really cool thing about DF style dwarves is how bitchin' hardcore warriors the females can be. Go gender equality! :)

However, even though I don't like the idea of harsh limitations on the player races (or at least not on dwarves), it would make a lot of cool sense to make it possible for the two sexes of any species to behave very differently though. Especially for randomly generated races and stuff like that.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: G-Flex on September 26, 2008, 04:22:11 pm
Ideally, I think it sexual dimorphism should depend on race. We obviously know how it works with humans, but what about dwarves or elves? No idea.

I wouldn't really be in favor of stat bonuses/penalties for gender. That's kind of pushing it, in my opinion, unless the game were to use a relatively decent statistical model to choose creature stats, and it currently has NONE seeing as how every single dwarf starts with the same baseline stats and develops them the same way.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on September 26, 2008, 04:26:31 pm
According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism), for most mammals the male is bigger, and vice versa in most everything else.

Long term I would think the correct way to work gender would be completely in the raws, with a given creature being defined as having as many sexes as you want, different types of reproduction, etc.

I'll use hive insects as an example where the queen mates with the males and the workers are female.  You effectively have 3 sexes and types, whereby most births are worker 'females', 1 in 100 are queens and 9 in 100 are males (rough numbers).  Obviously we've got room for 3 completely different creatures here.  They would also have completely different personality and morality sets (Queens would be encouraged to kill other queens...)

Several Sci Fi works include 3 or more sexes all required...

Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: LegacyCWAL on September 26, 2008, 04:47:53 pm
I support the gendering of names and clothing (would give something for the "Loves to defy convention" personality to do), but I would argue against stat-nerfing and the implementation of gender roles. Basically because it would get really annoying and, since they're dwarfs, it's got no basis in reality.
As for the Gender Species Difference thing; most aesthetic distinctions need to wait for whatever bloat or core handles that; now all Toady could do is make them different creatures, which brings it's own problems.
Fourth-ded.  They're an entirely different species which flat-out does not exist in the real world, so saying "it's like X in the real world" doesn't actually support anything at all.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Neoskel on September 26, 2008, 07:13:49 pm
I mean some people complain that Women in this game who are soldiers bring a battalion of children with them... You know who else does that? BATMAN!!!

Yeah but those kids kick butt. Dwarf kids just die or run away.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Nesoo on September 26, 2008, 08:50:53 pm
Several Sci Fi works include 3 or more sexes all required...

Mass Effect has
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
with a rather peculiar form of reproduction.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: 1138 on September 26, 2008, 09:48:16 pm
I could fully support gender roles becoming a moddable feature dependant on race.

I do not support Dwarf Fortress becoming just one more game that alienates female fans by being stupidly chauvinistic (girls only play with dollies, females receive an automatic stat hit, etc).
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Veroule on September 26, 2008, 11:10:06 pm
As I am just one silly males of the pitiful human species, you can take this statement with as many grains of salt as is needed it to make palatable for you.

An average of females and males of our species tends to result in finding females to be superior in nearly every way to males.  Males tend to have a greater maximum strength; but using a formula of weight*time held, females take the lead.  Pain threashold, which relates to toughness, also tend to go to the women.  Agility, is generally a matter of flexibility, and yet again the things that pratice this are shunned by men and embraced by women.

Face it boys, you are out classed by women.  The best thing we can do for our dwarves is put nonmarried women into our military.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: IndonesiaWarMinister on September 26, 2008, 11:32:04 pm
Eargh! But men are superior in thinking. In logic, In WAR!!!! Blood! And, of course, technology created by men! We create. We RULE. Ravens follow where men gathers, since there will definitely be casualties. Screw peace! We are heading into a time of wars, so male must be on top! We must survive.

[/chauvinist]

Still, it is good to be able to define this in the raw.

P.S.: Isn't men is superior in DREAMING? That's explain why we always day-dreaming, and consequently lost.
P.S.S.: And it seemed that men is far more happy when winning, compared to women. Hmm.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Pilsu on September 26, 2008, 11:57:32 pm
An average of females and males of our species tends to result in finding females to be superior in nearly every way to males.  Males tend to have a greater maximum strength; but using a formula of weight*time held, females take the lead.  Pain threashold, which relates to toughness, also tend to go to the women.  Agility, is generally a matter of flexibility, and yet again the things that pratice this are shunned by men and embraced by women.

Face it boys, you are out classed by women.  The best thing we can do for our dwarves is put nonmarried women into our military.

Don't believe everything the feminists spew out of their mouths, every last one of those points is laughable non-logic. The question of pain threshold is laughable, we aren't even equipped to know whether lobsters feel pain so good luck getting REAL data instead of worthless anecdotal shit and non-logic like being equipped for child birth magically giving you a higher pain threshold. Nature doesn't work that way. And agility is SPEED, not gymnastics prowess. Only reason anyone would mention flexibility is a pathetic attempt to support their agenda


Anyhow, Dwarf Fortress doesn't have need for sexism, these are dwarves who live in holes in the ground breathing toxic fumes and mining rock with amazing speed. Hell, I've yet to see a dwarven king, it's always a queen. Eventually we'll have a choice of starting race and then I'm all for differentiating the species although 'go back in the kitchen' humans and matriarchal elves are pretty generic


It would be nice to see -man races turned into real civs instead of random critters. Finding a giant antman colony with a megabeast queen would be fun
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: IndonesiaWarMinister on September 27, 2008, 12:10:24 am
Or snailmen community.
How the hell they move?  :o
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Romantic Warrior on September 27, 2008, 01:34:50 am
Gender specific names are cool by me but I like the fact that dwarven women aren't much different from the men. It always annoys me when I start up an RPG and the females are weaker but tougher or some other silly stereotype. If we're going to do that, we may as well not allow women to fight or have "male" jobs. Gender differences are a testy enough subject in the real world without having to inject that into a world that doesn't need it.

Males tend to have a greater maximum strength; but using a formula of weight*time held, females take the lead.

If men and women were the same size, they would have an advantage. But we aren't.

Quote
Pain threashold, which relates to toughness, also tend to go to the women.

In which studies? All the research I've seen suggests pain threshold is gender neutral or that men have a higher threshold.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/07/050705004113.htm
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=51160
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9780941&dopt=Citation

The only research I can remember off the top of my head suggesting that women had a higher pain threshold was based on the dose of morphine given to patients after surgery. The men received more of it and for longer times. The pitfalls of indirect measurements like that should be obvious. The men could have been given higher doses because they had more body mass. My brothers, father, grandfather, and myself all weigh in the range of 200 pounds. My mother, grandmother, aunts and female cousins tend to be in the 100-120 pound range. Obviously, I would require a greater dose of morphine than my mother would. The amount administered to males could also be influenced by the stereotype, self-reinforcing it. The men are thought to be less able to endure pain, so they are medicated more... which someone discovers, thus "validating" the idea.

Quote
Agility, is generally a matter of flexibility, and yet again the things that pratice this are shunned by men and embraced by women.

The best dictionary definition of "agile" I know of is "quick and well-coordinated in movement." Flexibility is not listed as a synonym for agility. Where would quick and well-coordinated movement be needed? Sports. While my home town has a great girl's softball team, most of the sports players are male. This seems to be pretty true in most places. Also, you've strayed into the realm of gender roles, not differences.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Dwaref on September 27, 2008, 04:58:55 am
Females should never be as strong/agile as males.
This is what i think:

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

My thought is that males are more bulky, and women as a consequence are more agile.
This makes for a real difference without gimping either sex either way.

It would hardly impose gender roles. First off, agility and strength are both of equal value. Be you a fast warrior or a strong one. A fast hauler or a strong one.
One could argue that the roles are already in place, since nobody wants their female warriors to run off into battle with their infants. Any outdoor profession is less likely in fact. Woodcutting, plant gathering, hunting, weaving. All those are already classed to be male tasks.

Also requesting different dwarf names.

We could handle the children-thing by allowing infants to follow another dwarf. We could have a profession that herds children. Some sort of daycare thing, just a dwarf who sits in the meeting area with the whole fortress' children. Kind of a surrogate mother. Just move kids around like with the pets screen.
The mother could spend time with the child and reset the bond whenever she's not performing any 'dangerous' task. Like when she's sleeping. t.t a bit too close for comfort there.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Footkerchief on September 27, 2008, 05:04:31 am
I support the gendering of names and clothing (would give something for the "Loves to defy convention" personality to do), but I would argue against stat-nerfing and the implementation of gender roles. Basically because it would get really annoying and, since they're dwarfs, it's got no basis in reality.
As for the Gender Species Difference thing; most aesthetic distinctions need to wait for whatever bloat or core handles that; now all Toady could do is make them different creatures, which brings it's own problems.

Nthed.  This is the only reasonable approach ITT
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Appelgren on September 27, 2008, 07:39:08 am
An average of females and males of our species tends to result in finding females to be superior in nearly every way to males.  Males tend to have a greater maximum strength; but using a formula of weight*time held, females take the lead.  Pain threashold, which relates to toughness, also tend to go to the women.  Agility, is generally a matter of flexibility, and yet again the things that pratice this are shunned by men and embraced by women.

Face it boys, you are out classed by women.  The best thing we can do for our dwarves is put nonmarried women into our military.

Don't believe everything the feminists spew out of their mouths, every last one of those points is laughable non-logic...

I didn't want to get in this debate but feminists rarely claim women are superior. I mostly hear that from men with a quite firm belief in the importance of gender differences. Anyway. I think gender roles is a really interesting theme for a game to explore. Implementing it in a "girls play with dolls, boys play with soldiers" way is dull and damn near insulting. Doing something like "Urist was worried about her son playing with dolls lately" or having female adventurers face prejudice from the world around them could be interesting. Though you should probably be able to turn it off. I quite like the egalitarian dwarven society so maybe that would fit better when human settlements become playable.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Tormy on September 27, 2008, 10:06:21 am
Stats? Females should never be as strong/agile as males.

I think this is a bit too strong of a statement; sure, male humans tend to be stronger than female humans, but there's no reason to be sure this is the case for dwarves or elves or randomly generated race #342, or even that a strong (for a female) human is weaker than a weak (for a male) human.

I'm not saying there isn't room for stat differentiation between sexes.  But it's not as black and white as you make it seem.

Yeah, I was thinking about the same stuff, after I replied... ;D
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: DJ on September 27, 2008, 10:33:44 am
The most realistic thing to do would be to give males an edge when it comes to physical skills and give females an edge when it comes to social skills. However, these are dwarves, not humans, so I support gender equality. I would like to see gender-specific names, though.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Jude on September 27, 2008, 10:35:01 am
Maybe for elves and humans. For dwarves I like the idea that there is no gender differentiation.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Silverionmox on September 27, 2008, 10:53:24 am
If I recall correctly, human males have on average or potentially 20% more upper body muscle strength than females. Historically this has translated in overwhelmingly male armies and higher wages for males for physical work - which was almost everything before cheap energy was available. The female advantage is less measurable, but social skills (memory for faces and names, less prone to conflict,..) are a good catch-all, as mentioned.
The other difference between the physical genders is XX vs XY chromosomes. XX is less likely to let mutations manifest themselves, because there are two copies of the same DNA. So there simply are more and more extreme abnormalities in males... for better and worse - more geniuses, and more morons.

For dwarves, I think the minimal gender difference approach works well, and is appropriately dwarfish.

Question: Do dwarven babies require milk from their mothers?
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Dwaref on September 27, 2008, 11:18:24 am
Maybe for elves and humans. For dwarves I like the idea that there is no gender differentiation.
I feel myself that elves if anything do not need gender differentialisation. Them being androgyneous hippies and all.
Now remember that dwarves slave under a harsh and unforgiving god and similar conditions, much like worshipers of abrahamic religions. Tolkien even based his dwarves on jews and judaism which represent the archetype of the unforgiving god thing, which most of the organized stigmatization of females have sprung from(adam and eve anyone?).
Tolkien avoided opening the female dwarf can of worms since he felt that they'd become a subject of much controversy. His dwarven females were presumed to be kept locked-up inside the fortresses, which in itself kind of tells us enough. This whole thing about 'Female dwarves having beards' is a jab at salvaging this whole bit of dwarfdom, which tolkien certainly never made mention of.

Then again, Toady's chosen this interpretation, and thus i think we should go with it! Complete equality ftw! However it's easy to start to think in terms of gender, when they DO have gender, are called different things depending on gender, and one gender can have children.
Thus:
Quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug
Reproduction

Slugs are hermaphrodites, having both female and male reproductive organs.

Once a slug has located a mate, they encircle each other and sperm is exchanged through their protruded genitalia. A few days later around 30 eggs are laid into a hole in the ground, or under the cover of objects such as fallen logs.

A commonly seen practice among many slugs is apophallation. The penis of these species is curled like a cork-screw and often becomes entangled in their mate's genitalia in the process of exchanging sperm. When all else fails, apophallation allows the slugs to separate themselves by one or both of the slugs chewing off the other's penis. Once its penis has been removed, a slug is still able to mate subsequently, but using only the female parts of its reproductive system.
I think this'd be interesting. Well except that chewing part, that's just gross.
I think it'd be a small thing to implement code-wise.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Neonivek on September 27, 2008, 11:30:16 am
Eargh! But men are superior in thinking. In logic, In WAR!!!! Blood! And, of course, technology created by men! We create. We RULE. Ravens follow where men gathers, since there will definitely be casualties. Screw peace! We are heading into a time of wars, so male must be on top! We must survive.

[/chauvinist]

Still, it is good to be able to define this in the raw.

P.S.: Isn't men is superior in DREAMING? That's explain why we always day-dreaming, and consequently lost.
P.S.S.: And it seemed that men is far more happy when winning, compared to women. Hmm.

Well when it comes to brains... and Humans...

Males tend to have a lot of varience in intelligence thus there are a lot of smart and stupid males

Females tend to have consistant intelligence thus while there are less highly intelligent females, it also means there are less stupid ones as well.

Thus brains do NOT require any gender modification...
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: MiamiBryce on September 27, 2008, 12:44:47 pm
I would think genderization of dwarven names would be done with what words would be chose as a first name.  For example Totmon(Flower) or Thetdel(Hare) would be names given to female dwarves.  Male dwarves given names like Famthut(Horse) or Stul(Maw).

We should also take into consideration that this mythoi seems to be the one where female dwarves have beards.  So, obvious some (per haps all) lines we humans would discern for differences between genders (and their roles) do not exist for dwarves.

One the subject of identifying a dwarf's gender, when you (V)iew a dwarf, its gender is listed for you.  Also, when you view thoughts and preferences (you do that right?) you can't miss the fact that "her/she" is used rather than "him/he".

Off-topic, but still on the subject of names.  I find the names given dwarves to be too long and unrememberable.  I don't like having to write down the name of a dwarf from a message then paging through my unsorted(1) unit list to find it.  I've changed my nicknames to completely replace displayed names and now number my dwarves starting at 0001.

(1)  Yes, I know its sorted but the order its in is useless 90% of the time.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Mikademus on September 27, 2008, 02:04:27 pm
I'm sorry to be condescending, but all you who attribute human norms to DF dwarves are boring. Also you are incredibly lacking of imagination.

So, who says dwarves are bi-gendered? Who says they are monogendered? Who says they are sexually dimorphic? Well, the RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR DOES!

It would be trivial to have these factors be randomly generated. Dwarves, or any race, could have any number of genders. Each gender could diverge have systemically from the other genders, and these differences could be along arbitrary attributes.

Thus foobarale dwarves are generally faster and more crafty than the more lumbering but intrinsically funny and administrative barbazale dwarves. Both these genders are greatly attracted to dwarves of barfoole gender, who have an particular affinity for cooking and tend to be great with weapons, but also be moody and depress easily. They form mate-relationships in three or four, and barfoole dwarves spawn offspring when simultaneously impregnated by one (or more) foobarle and barbazales.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: illiterate on September 27, 2008, 10:35:46 pm
Question: Do dwarven babies require milk from their mothers?

Don't ask this. 

It will only lead to some sort of exploit involving training up a legendary milker. 
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Pilsu on September 28, 2008, 03:49:05 am
Question: Do dwarven babies require milk from their mothers?

Yes, it's called dwarven milk

They tell humans it comes from maggots to keep them from snooping into their dark secret


Where did you think all those milkers came from? Oh and cow's can't be milked either so humans have their own secrets. Wonder what human cheese tastes like..
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Aquillion on September 28, 2008, 04:48:28 am
I'm sorry to be condescending, but all you who attribute human norms to DF dwarves are boring. Also you are incredibly lacking of imagination.

So, who says dwarves are bi-gendered? Who says they are monogendered? Who says they are sexually dimorphic? Well, the RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR DOES!

It would be trivial to have these factors be randomly generated. Dwarves, or any race, could have any number of genders. Each gender could diverge have systemically from the other genders, and these differences could be along arbitrary attributes.

Thus foobarale dwarves are generally faster and more crafty than the more lumbering but intrinsically funny and administrative barbazale dwarves. Both these genders are greatly attracted to dwarves of barfoole gender, who have an particular affinity for cooking and tend to be great with weapons, but also be moody and depress easily. They form mate-relationships in three or four, and barfoole dwarves spawn offspring when simultaneously impregnated by one (or more) foobarle and barbazales.
Honestly (while I certainly don't think dwarves need human gender dimorphism -- some versions give female dwarves beards, and having dwarf genders have essentially the same strength isn't really a problem compared to that), randomness to that extent can be a bad thing.

Particularly in an ascii game like Dwarf Fortress, it's very important that players be able to visualize things from relatively sparse cues.  This doesn't mean that they have to exactly reflect reality, but going for completely strange genders and so forth that have no relation to anything in human experience is, in my opinion, not a good idea (except for really weird creatures like elder horrors and demons, which are supposed to be strange and impossible to visualize.)

I recall that Armok 1 had really freaky random creature generation for everything and, basically, I don't think it added to the game.  Having a world players can relate to is important...  there's room for really freaky creatures on the fringes (or in a mod or whatever), but something called a 'dwarf' should match at least some fantasy archtypes, and having more than two genders doesn't really fit into that.

...also, there are humans in the game.  Should we represent gender dimorphism for humans?  I don't think it's terribly important, but I don't think it would be a horrible disaster, either.  (One possibility:  Represent gender dimorphism accurately for 'typical' humans, but declare that all adventurers are by definition 'exceptional', so it doesn't apply to them -- in other words, adventurers aren't a random sample; any female adventurer is going to be freakishly strong, which is not uncommon for female adventurers in fantasy or legend.)
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: IndonesiaWarMinister on September 28, 2008, 08:41:47 am
Agree to the post above....
We need to be able to change this in the raws.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Tormy on September 28, 2008, 11:20:02 am
Agree to the post above....
We need to be able to change this in the raws.

Yes I was thinking about this also.
Perhaps Toady can code this one in. Males/females should be separated in the RAWs for all kind of creatures. Also some variants should be added. [Maximum strength/constitution/agility etc.]
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Refar on September 28, 2008, 11:30:40 am
I think it is common knowledge that dwarves of different sexes can not be told apart.
They might even be anatomically identical (don't ask how they would reproduce...)

For the other races there are differences, but sinse these are not featured as much as the dwarves are...
Do we really care about elven genders ?!

Once milking got implemented there might be some points of interest...

Urist cancels milking.
Urist was struck down by a Bull.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Rhenaya on September 28, 2008, 12:31:07 pm
Sex matters.

In some cases a lot.

I'm trying to get all the ways that DF does not currently respect this into one place.  So far I've got

Gender Species differences : There's a big fancy word for this, but guys have beards, lions have manes, the femal mosquito is the one that sucks your blood, ants have queens, and a host of other cases where the male is physically different from the female

Gender Naming Conventions : Linguistically, there is no 'male names' or 'female names'.  This would be extremely helpful in terms of not assigning girls to the military, etc.

Gender Dress Conventions : Would be nice if me dwarves stopped wearing the Jenny clothes, eh?

Gender Behaviour and Ethics Conventions : Boys play with tin soldiers, girls play with dollies.  (It's ok for guys to be half naked and kill animals but society frowns on chicks doing the same.)

That's all I've got now.  Anything else?

i really think it would be ok that boys dont use dresses and stuff, but gender behaviour and ethics are not really something in the df world. i mean everyone can get a soldier, why should females behave otherwise just because some players hate the babyshielded motherdwarf? ^^

the only thing i want is t oget different tilesets in graphicmode for females (but its somewhere in bloat 3xx i already suggested this myself)
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Neonivek on September 28, 2008, 12:46:54 pm
Guys wear dresses: Kilt, Robe, Trenchcoat, Toga, Skirt

You need to brush up on your Sociology

You need to seperate what is our current society, or that which has been built up for the last hundred years in select areas, and start thinking more global

I can entirely picture Dwarf Males wearing Dresses

At most the game needs to randomate dresscodes on a civilisation to civilisation basis... If it has one
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Mikademus on September 28, 2008, 04:23:06 pm
Honestly (while I certainly don't think dwarves need human gender dimorphism -- some versions give female dwarves beards, and having dwarf genders have essentially the same strength isn't really a problem compared to that), randomness to that extent can be a bad thing.
[/quote]

Female dwarves with beards, what's the problem with that? You're saying that some recognition factors are beneficial for immersion, but then, what exactly IS a dwarf? A DF dwarf? There is an entire thread on that (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=3894.0).

Basically, a dwarf sexual dimorphism based on human stereotypes is boring. Ok, a totally outlandish and extreme mandatory randomisation might be over the top, but (a) we don't know or agree on what DF dwarves really are, and (b) it doesn't have to be a binary choise.

What about dwarf sub-races or heriditary traits? The dwarves of our particular continent, region or source mouintain home might be different from the mainstay template. Thus, an embark option might be "dwarf type", where we could chose from

* Standard dwarf (Not sexually dimorphic)
* Human-template dwarf (str male>female; dex female>male)
* Random binary gender dimorphism
(* Random gender model)
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on September 29, 2008, 09:08:25 am
Dwarven women care for their babies and can't control their fertility.  Behavioural differences around this are only logical.

Sorry to fail the 'being PC' check, but I'd rather be realistic.

If you want your dwarves not to act like that, maybe you should suggest that they get build from stone, or split like amoeba's or get born fully capable or teleport in from the homeworld.

Anyway, I'm adding gestation periods and a few other things to the OP.  Back to the original question:  Any other real life sexual (di)morphisms I'm missing?
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Neonivek on September 29, 2008, 09:22:52 am
Quote
* Human-template dwarf (str male>female; dex female>male)

Actually in terms of dexterity that is just steriotype but not how things work... Men tend to have the records and advantage in all speed and hand-eye related sports as well.

As for Sexual Dimorphism in terms of Stats the game entirely doesn't need it at all... Base stats are rather low when you think of it and can more then fit poor to ok attributes which you would get. After that there is no reason why the genders should be stunted in any area of growth... The game doesn't benefit from human females mysteriously being slower and weaker then males.

If you want altering stats between men and women, for some reason, then the next best bet is to simply allow men and women to have different jobs and thus through the natural gaining of skills have them obtain different abilities. Though this makes no sense for Dwarves or Elves. Humans it depends. Mind you that any job limitations should be lax and non-existant in some areas (like Nobility)

Once again though... it stops at the obvious main races...

The Animal People are an entirely different story as would any new race that is added that may rely on extreme differences between the sexes
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on September 29, 2008, 10:23:45 am
some versions give female dwarves beards, and having dwarf genders have essentially the same strength isn't really a problem compared to that), randomness to that extent can be a bad thing.
So give female dwarves the [beard] tag, s'no big deal...  Nobody has said that the differences have to/should be the same as humans. 
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: MMad on September 29, 2008, 10:57:10 am
Dwarven women care for their babies

Heh. Mine sure don't.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: LegacyCWAL on September 29, 2008, 01:22:20 pm
"Now isn't this great, widdle Coggy?"
"Goo-goo?"
"See all the Goblins shooting at us?  Isn't that sooooo cute?"
"Gaa-g...cth...." *hit by arrow*
"Awww, that's so adorable!  I have to tell my friends about just how cute you are!"
"..." *bleeds to death*
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Zwergner on September 29, 2008, 01:53:24 pm
When I imagine Dwarfs in DF, I always imagine that it's impossible to tell males and females apart (from a human perspective at least, I sure dwarfs can tell).  Like baby alligators and chickens, you have to have them sexed (i.e. stick your finger in their ass) to be sure what gender they are.

The only idea I really like is maybe more gendered names, so that if someone WANTS gender roles, it's easier to implement them.  As far as different stats and behavior, I think that it's a bad idea for vanilla, but go nuts you crazy modders.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Mikademus on September 29, 2008, 02:33:49 pm
some versions give female dwarves beards, and having dwarf genders have essentially the same strength isn't really a problem compared to that), randomness to that extent can be a bad thing.
So give female dwarves the [beard] tag, s'no big deal...  Nobody has said that the differences have to/should be the same as humans. 
Sure, but why are you beating in the open door and telling me this? You're quoting the wrong person.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: MMad on September 29, 2008, 03:07:03 pm
The only idea I really like is maybe more gendered names, so that if someone WANTS gender roles, it's easier to implement them.

Yeah, this seems to be the one point pretty much everyone agrees on.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on September 29, 2008, 03:08:33 pm
some versions give female dwarves beards, and having dwarf genders have essentially the same strength isn't really a problem compared to that), randomness to that extent can be a bad thing.
So give female dwarves the [beard] tag, s'no big deal...  Nobody has said that the differences have to/should be the same as humans. 
Sure, but why are you beating in the open door and telling me this? You're quoting the wrong person.

Sorry, bad quote, I guess it was something Aquillon said.  It was a messy quote structure...

Anyway, I care less about dwarves than I do about the missing raw tags.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Neonivek on September 30, 2008, 07:23:52 am
When I imagine Dwarfs in DF, I always imagine that it's impossible to tell males and females apart (from a human perspective at least, I sure dwarfs can tell).  Like baby alligators and chickens, you have to have them sexed (i.e. stick your finger in their ass) to be sure what gender they are.

The only idea I really like is maybe more gendered names, so that if someone WANTS gender roles, it's easier to implement them.  As far as different stats and behavior, I think that it's a bad idea for vanilla, but go nuts you crazy modders.

Ugh, Why do I have an image in my head of you actually doing that for a living... CURSE YOU IMAGINATION!!!

Anyhow as for MAle and Female versions of names as well as Male and Female only names including Gender Neutral names... I wonder if it will make THAT much of a difference?

Male: Ugbista
Female: Agdistra

Ohh well it is flavor... Go AGDISTRA!!! USE BABY BOOM ATTACK!!!
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: IndonesiaWarMinister on September 30, 2008, 07:35:16 am
When I imagine Dwarfs in DF, I always imagine that it's impossible to tell males and females apart (from a human perspective at least, I sure dwarfs can tell).  Like baby alligators and chickens, you have to have them sexed (i.e. stick your finger in their ass) to be sure what gender they are.

The only idea I really like is maybe more gendered names, so that if someone WANTS gender roles, it's easier to implement them.  As far as different stats and behavior, I think that it's a bad idea for vanilla, but go nuts you crazy modders.

Ugh, Why do I have an image in my head of you actually doing that for a living... CURSE YOU IMAGINATION!!!

Anyhow as for MAle and Female versions of names as well as Male and Female only names including Gender Neutral names... I wonder if it will make THAT much of a difference?

Male: Ugbista
Female: Agdistra

Ohh well it is flavor... Go AGDISTRA!!! USE BABY BOOM ATTACK!!!

Use Arabic styles.

Or general semitic.

It will relieve Toady from many hours of stress.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on September 30, 2008, 09:02:54 am
When I imagine Dwarfs in DF, I always imagine that it's impossible to tell males and females apart (from a human perspective at least, I sure dwarfs can tell).  Like baby alligators and chickens, you have to have them sexed (i.e. stick your finger in their ass) to be sure what gender they are.

The only idea I really like is maybe more gendered names, so that if someone WANTS gender roles, it's easier to implement them.  As far as different stats and behavior, I think that it's a bad idea for vanilla, but go nuts you crazy modders.

Ugh, Why do I have an image in my head of you actually doing that for a living... CURSE YOU IMAGINATION!!!

Anyhow as for MAle and Female versions of names as well as Male and Female only names including Gender Neutral names... I wonder if it will make THAT much of a difference?

Male: Ugbista
Female: Agdistra

Ohh well it is flavor... Go AGDISTRA!!! USE BABY BOOM ATTACK!!!

Use Arabic styles.

Or general semitic.

It will relieve Toady from many hours of stress.

What?

The truly generic way would be to have a [gender:1:Male:Names] list and a [gender:2:Female:Names] list.  Would easily support more than two genders (especially if you treated hive animals as trinary and wanted the queens to have special names), could be expanded to support child vs. adult names. 

As for the work of splitting them, just divide the list in half.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Mephansteras on September 30, 2008, 10:48:26 am
I'm all in favor of gender differentiation. Especially in the raws. And, regardless of what rules we want to put in place for dwarves, the humans of this world should follow the same rules as us. I don't want to imagine human women with beards. Ugg. And, anyway, the stats stuff for humans should also make sense (women should have better social stats, if those get put in). As should gender roles. I shouldn't see too many female human caravan guards, for example.

Actually, I'd love to see some randomization with how the different human civs treat women. In some, they should be nearly slaves, in others, we could have a matriarchy. The fun thing about humans in games like this is we can make them REALLY random, because of all the differences in real life and various fantasy stories. Imagine a band of human women and their children fleeing form an oppressive culture to your fortress because they hear that dwarven women are treated as equals?
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Dwaref on September 30, 2008, 11:15:51 am
Imagine a band of human women and their children fleeing form an oppressive culture to your fortress because they hear that dwarven women are treated as equals?
Who the hell would want to live as an equal to a dwarf?
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on September 30, 2008, 11:32:57 am
gnomes
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Soadreqm on September 30, 2008, 01:15:45 pm
Okay, I couldn't be bothered to read most of this thread. And I still want to voice my own opinions. Whatever.

Anyways, this could be cool if properly extended in the proper dwarf fortress fashion of unnecessary complexity. Rather than just apply current western gender roles into dwarves, give each culture their own. Matriarchal amazon civs. Ancient Greece-style with women as property and pederasty. Polygamy, monogamy, agamy, everything. And it could affect diplomacy in diverse ways, in the same way gods do.

I expect race would have something to do what kind of system the civ would be prone to adopt. It's easier to preach gender equality if the genders actually are mostly equal.

Which brings me neatly to my next point, physical differences. I think dwarves should probably be exempt. In most fantasy portrayals (most of which are at least partially ripped off from Tolkien) dwarf females are mostly identical to males. Short with long beards.

As for the other fantastic races, I'm not quite as sure. Elves are usually inherently superior to everyone else in every way (They are! just ask them!), but how that would affect gender roles is beyond me. And I have no idea how goblins and kobolds would work.

And I don't think we should go crazy limiting humans either. I guess men are statistically a bit stronger than women, but only statistically. That doesn't meant that all men would be stronger than all women, or that a randomly chosen man would be stronger than a randomly chosen woman. Especially since the current stat system (and most proposals for future stat systems I have seen) is a bit limited for that. And then there's the whole sexism=bad thingy.

Maybe let culture pick applicaple professions for each sex, and let professions give modifiers to default stats. Farmers and blacksmiths generally have to be strong, whereas prostitutes and nobles don't.

Also, culture specific names, with possible further segregation between genders and social classes.

Also, also, culture specific clothing. And architecture. And everything.

(edit)
And the animal people would follow their own messed-up rules. Hermaphodite snailmen (visualize THAT!). And as for antmen, I think I'll just link the relevant section (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant#Polymorphism) of the wikipedia article and leave it at that.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Mikademus on September 30, 2008, 02:57:56 pm
BOLDFACE
You know, when you bold your entire post except for the first sentence, it sort of loses its attention-grabbing poignancy.

Okay, I couldn't be bothered to read most of this thread. And I still want to voice my own opinions. Whatever.
That's ok, I didn't bother reading your post either.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Mephansteras on September 30, 2008, 03:18:34 pm
BOLDFACE
You know, when you bold your entire post except for the first sentence, it sort of loses its attention-grabbing poignancy.

Oops. Ok, fixed. I was missing a close tag somehow.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: MMad on September 30, 2008, 05:08:26 pm
And, anyway, the stats stuff for humans should also make sense (women should have better social stats, if those get put in). As should gender roles. I shouldn't see too many female human caravan guards, for example.

Since it's pretty much impossible to even approach the issues of sex and gender without it being horribly political and up for heated debate, I honestly think it'd be sensible to just leave even the human sexes physically identical. That was you at least have deniability (in the form of "eh, not a priority right now" if nothing else :p). Although it could of course be added to the raws for anyone wanting to mess with it, I suppose.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Mephansteras on September 30, 2008, 05:23:43 pm
And, anyway, the stats stuff for humans should also make sense (women should have better social stats, if those get put in). As should gender roles. I shouldn't see too many female human caravan guards, for example.

Since it's pretty much impossible to even approach the issues of sex and gender without it being horribly political and up for heated debate, I honestly think it'd be sensible to just leave even the human sexes physically identical. That was you at least have deniability (in the form of "eh, not a priority right now" if nothing else :p). Although it could of course be added to the raws for anyone wanting to mess with it, I suppose.

I don't really see that it's an issue, as long as heroic (Adventurer) characters aren't penalized. I don't think you'll any backlash for NOT having a bunch of female guards, since no one really expects them. As long as you can have the exception to the rules as a character, even most politically minded feminists are going to be ok with it.

Besides, this is dwarf fortress. It's SUPPOSED to be specific, and deal with things like social issues. At least, that's the impression I get from reading Three-Toe's stories. I get the feeling that they'd love to have situations where the player has to deal with chauvinistic NPCs not taking their awesome female warrior seriously, and then being shown just how much they underestimated her.

In the end I think it's how the issue is handled that determines the reaction, not whether or not the issue is included.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Zwergner on October 01, 2008, 02:47:57 pm
I don't think you'll any backlash for NOT having a bunch of female guards, since no one really expects them.

Speak for yourself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazons).
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on October 02, 2008, 08:56:57 am
I don't think you'll any backlash for NOT having a bunch of female guards, since no one really expects them.

Speak for yourself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazons).
1:
As far as I'm concerned, as long as DF players complain about (and they are):

    Woman soldiers carrying babies into battle
    Woman soldiers having babies on the battlefield
    Woman soldiers forming romantic relationships with other soldiers so that one or the other goes dangerously beserk during or after battles (which is hillarious because it's one of the things modern armies use as an excuse)

You've got a reason for differentiation in terms of military service.

2:
Saying that you can't make woment slightly less strong than men because they'd be less useful in combat, and therefor not used is, if anything, MORE insulting.  You know, what with them actually being slightly weaker (OK, needing slightly more xp to get extra strength).

3:
Amazons would be another benefit from adding civ level gender differences.  It would be possible to make a society of women warriors whose men were docile (hell, there's a 'kidnap' tag, isn't there?)



My goal isn't to debate the PC-ness of gender roles for ascii characters, and I certainly don't want to talk about how much harder the game would be if you had to pay enough attention to figure out if yer dwarf is a Jerry or a Jenny.  My main interest is in figuring out what all would be possible, and what else is limiting people in their mods.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Footkerchief on October 02, 2008, 02:50:10 pm
DF players complain about everything, how does that constitute a reason?
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Neonivek on October 02, 2008, 02:56:58 pm
DF players complain about everything, how does that constitute a reason?

*Tries to find something DF players don't complain about... fails* (They even complained once that Toady actually reads the suggestion board)

Sometimes you need to do things that people will complain about, if only because they don't realise it made the game better (such as annoying people in videogames, who give you more respect for the non-annoying people... Hense why JarJar Binks is in truth the greatest character ever! because he sucks so bad that he makes the first three movies seem better despite being outdated, plot holed, and corny)

Ive been thinking of this a lot... Perhaps children should start learning Fighting from their parents and if they are skilled enough they can be a Squire of their parent... Thus being butt kicking robins!
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on October 02, 2008, 03:43:31 pm
butt WHATing robins?

(watched too much 60's batman growing up, sorry)
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Neonivek on October 02, 2008, 03:44:13 pm
butt WHATing robins?

(watched too much 60's batman growing up, sorry)

Butt Whamning Robins!
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Lightman on January 09, 2009, 07:46:35 pm

I would like to see names and pregnancy (gestation) implemented. Names, if nothing else.

The other topics (dress/ethics/behaviour/physical attributes) are all interesting points. They would add some fun variation to the game. I tend to think that most points would be best implemented in the raws so that obsessive/neurotic people players can adjust them.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Pilsu on January 09, 2009, 09:16:15 pm
Pregnancy is already sort of implemented. There's no associated bed rest nor is the player informed about it but it's there. Babies can miscarry too. Dad doesn't care but mommy gets upset, amusingly
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Lightman on January 09, 2009, 11:46:38 pm
I didn't know they could miscarry! That's interesting... and it sounds like the game needs to be fixed so that the father is (possibly) affected, too. Anyway, I meant that I would like the player to be informed and there to be some kind of bed-rest prior to the birth.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: ProfessorA on January 10, 2009, 05:46:11 pm
5 pages of DF gender discussion and I'm the loser who reintroduces the topic of gay dwarves.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Footkerchief on January 10, 2009, 06:28:14 pm
5 pages of DF gender discussion and I'm the loser who reintroduces the topic of gay dwarves.

Honestly though, it's kind of worth considering, especially in the general sense of drawing a distinction between pairing and breeding in the creature caste raws -- gay males and straight males could be handled as separate castes, etc. (leaving aside the issue of bisexuality and Kinsey scale stuff).  I imagine it'll be possible at some point.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: bjlong on January 10, 2009, 07:01:26 pm
A few things:

Gestation periods are a must, and should adversely affect dwarven females to some extent. No more of the "Oops a baby just fell out of me" births.

Names, dress, etc., and gender roles could all be defined by how a civ relates things to different cultures.

For names, if the civ sees Hares, Cups, Donkeys, and Plump Helmets as feminine objects, then they'd have names based on Hares, Cups, Donkeys, and Plump Helmets for their women.

Dress should be more utilitarian. If the civ thinks that mining is a man's job and masonry is a woman's job, the man might get skirt-esque clothes, while a woman might get pants so that she's able to climb on the megaprojects easier. (That gets into gender roles)

More things could be considered gender-differentiated, such as architecture, toys, and so on. This would depend on the society's values, so it'd have to be randomly generated, to an extent. Perhaps there should be raws for anything that could be considered gender-differentiating for different races, with a few different options for male and female stereotypes, as well as gender-neutral toys.

Gender roles would be a combination of perceived capabilities, jobs, and preferences. This all seems trivial to add to the Random Number Generator and raws.

What would concern me, though, is that we'd be stepping into a completely different world in terms of gender roles. Perhaps the game could somehow walk us through the expectations of each gender?

Speaking of gay dwarves, someone should probably look up the wikipedia article about non-western homosexuality concepts. It had a discussion about something called "the third gender." (I don't remember much of it, and am off to dinner now.)
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Pilsu on January 10, 2009, 08:16:53 pm
I really don't see why a race's culture should be randomly generated if nothing else is
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: CobaltKobold on January 10, 2009, 08:34:51 pm
I really don't see why a race's culture should be randomly generated if nothing else is
All right- should the culture dri'e on the right side of the road or left?

I oppose a pre-programmed gender differentiation (beyond the presently included).
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Sutremaine on January 10, 2009, 08:43:31 pm
Dwarven women care for their babies and can't control their fertility.  Behavioural differences around this are only logical.

Sorry to fail the 'being PC' check, but I'd rather be realistic.
I'd rather have babysitting options and be able to pick which dwarves get pregnant instead of putting contraceptives in the booze via the init file.

I also disagree with the comments about NPCs expressing shock that an adventurer is female (or male, if you like...). One of the things I love about the DF universe is that it's high fantasy without any of the sexism that usually pervades these settings.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Pilsu on January 10, 2009, 10:26:53 pm
I oppose a pre-programmed gender differentiation (beyond the presently included).

You could just mod in the values you want

I detest the random number generator enough as is, let alone if it decided all my dwarves wear thongs and nothing else
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: bjlong on January 10, 2009, 10:32:09 pm
To be fair, there are a lot of reasons for clothing and gender roles that should bias the random number generator, such as climate and males generally gravitating towards higher-risk jobs. However, a lot is simply cultural, and the RNG could help out with this.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: azrael4h on January 11, 2009, 07:19:03 pm
In my own RPG I'm developing, each race uses different differentiation as to genders, as they are (surprise!) different. So Dwarves tend to be not even noticeable, because it's a more utilitarian society, not truly concerned with gender roles in the society.

I'm not PC, I just felt that it would provide some distinction to the races if each had differing mechanics for genders than either nothing, or a simple flat bonus/penalty. Plus, I like needless complications that add nothing.

Obviously, it's up to Toady to do what he will.

I would like to see differing names for the male/female dwarves, if it's only gender differentiation in the names themselves. Perhaps differing colors for them as well; just so I can tell at a glance. But that isn't an major issue.

The main thing is that I'd like to see my pregnant moms at least let me know of it. I'd pull them off labor during the pregnancy. Especially I'd pull them back from military duty. Nothing automatic, just a simple not on the unit screen. Not that I ever look at that.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Whiskey Bob on January 18, 2009, 03:34:23 am
Sexual dimorphism is a biological process.  In Dwarf Fortress, my understanding is the gods simply whip up the various species at the beginning of time.  Hell, in one of the recent worlds I generated, a significant number of the original dwarven population is still alive at the time of playability.  Hardly enough time for major evolutionary changes.

Animals that depend on instinct for survival, sure, let them differ if it'll make the game more interesting.  But there's no reason to project our sexual (mis)conceptions on a fantasy world that doesn't even adhere to the same natural laws.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: brainfire on January 18, 2009, 11:03:58 am
The RNG already determines what clothing a civ wears...

[HELM:ITEM_HELM_HOOD:COMMON]
[HELM:ITEM_HELM_TURBAN:UNCOMMON]
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on January 19, 2009, 11:09:17 am
Animals that depend on instinct for survival, sure, let them differ if it'll make the game more interesting.  But there's no reason to project our sexual (mis)conceptions on a fantasy world that doesn't even adhere to the same natural laws.
Unless you've skipped every real science class in favor of liberal artsy fartsyness, it's not a misconception or even conception that human males have a significantly higher muscle mass than human females.  It's a fact.  The misconception is that this higher muscle mass makes them better or more efficient people, which you implicitely buy into when you make statements like that.

The RNG already determines what clothing a civ wears...
But not based on caste or rank.

Actually, there's anew point:

Castes could have different body structures:  If the males are stout, and the females are narrow, will we need two sets of clothings?  How will the system decide what to make?  Will we need tailors of every caste?  (I'm worried about the 4-armed golden dwarf king not having shirts)

Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Demonic Gophers on January 19, 2009, 01:42:53 pm
Castes could have different body structures:  If the males are stout, and the females are narrow, will we need two sets of clothings?  How will the system decide what to make?  Will we need tailors of every caste?  (I'm worried about the 4-armed golden dwarf king not having shirts)

Now, there's a topic that deserves a thread of its own.  I've been meaning to write something up to start a discussion on handling clothing in the new version.

As I see it, articles of clothing are going to need something in the definition that determines who can wear them - based on either a list of creatures and castes, or on permitted and covered body parts.  They should also have an acceptable range for difference in size; something like a cloak can be worn by a lot more people than, say, a set of plate armor.  We could have ill fitting and well fitting garments, with accompanying thoughts, and all sorts of complexity and fun.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Fieari on January 19, 2009, 02:58:04 pm
For names, different word sets could be associated with males or females.  This would be easy enough to be placed in the civ RAW.  You know, like FLOWERY or MOUNTAIN or whatnot.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Whiskey Bob on January 19, 2009, 03:24:51 pm
Unless you've skipped every real science class in favor of liberal artsy fartsyness, it's not a misconception or even conception that human males have a significantly higher muscle mass than human females.  It's a fact.  The misconception is that this higher muscle mass makes them better or more efficient people, which you implicitely buy into when you make statements like that.
Except I never said anything about muscle mass, did I, Chuckles?

The point was, there is no need to project real-world dimorphism (which arose due to natural processes) on a fantasy world where gods create species apparently out of thin air.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Mephansteras on January 19, 2009, 03:30:17 pm
That's not to say that physical dimorphism won't happen in a fantasy world. Nothing stops the gods from deciding that males should be huge and females tiny, for example. It may be based on aesthetics and not evolution, but it should still be accounted for.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Footkerchief on January 19, 2009, 03:40:51 pm
For names, different word sets could be associated with males or females.  This would be easy enough to be placed in the civ RAW.  You know, like FLOWERY or MOUNTAIN or whatnot.

Good idea.  Could be done as easily as this:

[SELECT_SYMBOL:NAME_MALE:VIOLENT]
[SELECT_SYMBOL:NAME_MALE:FLOWERY]
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Whiskey Bob on January 19, 2009, 03:48:43 pm
That's not to say that physical dimorphism won't happen in a fantasy world. Nothing stops the gods from deciding that males should be huge and females tiny, for example. It may be based on aesthetics and not evolution, but it should still be accounted for.
And nothing is to stop the gods from doing the opposite, or nothing at all, or something extreme.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on January 19, 2009, 03:50:40 pm
That's not to say that physical dimorphism won't happen in a fantasy world. Nothing stops the gods from deciding that males should be huge and females tiny, for example. It may be based on aesthetics and not evolution, but it should still be accounted for.
And nothing is to stop the gods from doing the opposite, or nothing at all, or something extreme.
except, ya know, the raws not supporting it...
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: CobaltKobold on January 19, 2009, 06:47:40 pm
That's not to say that physical dimorphism won't happen in a fantasy world. Nothing stops the gods from deciding that males should be huge and females tiny, for example. It may be based on aesthetics and not evolution, but it should still be accounted for.
And nothing is to stop the gods from doing the opposite, or nothing at all, or something extreme.
except, ya know, the raws not supporting it...
yet
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: eerr on January 19, 2009, 11:08:15 pm
on the topic of ants, the queen only mates once.
males and females both work, and any ant that seems like it might mate out of line is litterally smelled out and killed
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: eerr on January 19, 2009, 11:13:07 pm
As I am just one silly males of the pitiful human species, you can take this statement with as many grains of salt as is needed it to make palatable for you.

An average of females and males of our species tends to result in finding females to be superior in nearly every way to males.  Males tend to have a greater maximum strength; but using a formula of weight*time held, females take the lead.  Pain threashold, which relates to toughness, also tend to go to the women.  Agility, is generally a matter of flexibility, and yet again the things that pratice this are shunned by men and embraced by women.

Face it boys, you are out classed by women.  The best thing we can do for our dwarves is put nonmarried women into our military.

i disagree, with pain threshold women are not as willing to ignore pain. muscle strength is enhanced in men through positioning, while muscle endurance is altered based on what type of muscle tissue is stimluated to develop.

flexibility just doesn't matter that much.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: CobaltKobold on January 19, 2009, 11:34:06 pm
DF dwarfs =/= Humans =/= DF humans
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: eerr on January 20, 2009, 01:29:25 am
so boobs don't interfere with agility?
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Techhead on January 20, 2009, 05:55:37 am
Good idea.  Could be done as easily as this:

[SELECT_SYMBOL:NAME_MALE:VIOLENT]
[SELECT_SYMBOL:NAME_MALE:FLOWERY]
"Cog Viscouspetunias"
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Sutremaine on January 20, 2009, 06:55:05 am
so boobs don't interfere with agility?
Depends how good your bra is.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Len B on January 20, 2009, 10:13:19 am
I also like the gender-neutral treatment of DF.  However, gender is still a characteristic, and I'd like to see support for all kinds of hooks in the RAWs for all the clever modders (or the horribly offended) out there to alter things to their own liking.

***

Urist McBouldercleavage recently received a happy thought the support of her masterfully crafted Giant Spider Silk bra, with Adamantine underwire, decorated with rings of elf bone, goblin teeth, and obsidian.  It menaces with spikes of giant carp fin.

If gender differences go in, we need happy thoughts for males with their masterfully crafted uh, support undergarmets.  Different, but equal.

Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Sergius on January 20, 2009, 10:17:27 am
Didn't Xena had a baby once in the middle of a swordfight? I think she actually strangled her foe with the umbilical cord.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Sergius on January 20, 2009, 10:21:27 am
For names, if the civ sees Hares, Cups, Donkeys, and Plump Helmets as feminine objects, then they'd have names based on Hares, Cups, Donkeys, and Plump Helmets for their women.
That's actually a pretty good idea. I wonder how it would be implemented tho, it can't be in the object raws because it's a civ thing. It's in the language raws? A tag that says a noun is "feminine" or "masculine". For some cultures there are gender-neutral names tho.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on January 20, 2009, 10:51:56 am
except, ya know, the raws not supporting it...
yet
Yeah, back when this topic started, the new release wasn't on the horizon.  Castes look like they'll do 90% of what has been suggested, and even allow ant queens, etc, as a third 'caste'.  Hell, xenomorphs should be possible, with facehuggers, snakes, warriors, praetorians and the queen all being separate castes with differing roles, although the lifecycle won't be right.

I really don't understand how people think modelling a culture that keeps it's women locked up is morally worse than modelling a culture that steals babies, tortures it's leaders or cannibalizes it's foes.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: G-Flex on January 22, 2009, 03:53:32 pm
Well, as far as cannibalizing the dead goes, I think there's something more wrong with mistreating the living than mistreating the dead. :P But your point stands, yeah.

I think introducing sex differences in DF would have to be handled extremely carefully. For instance, if women are treated as having less strength but more flexibility or whatever other arbitrary characteristic, it should only be on a statistical model, such that there still CAN be strong women and weak men, for instance. And any differences (at least in any race supposedly similar to real humans in the ways we're talking) would have to be very minimal, because the last thing anybody would want is for the game to appear sexist or anything like that. Of course, if a creature is obviously supposed to have DECIDEDLY different features between sex (like if goblin women are ten feet tall or kobold men have little tusks and kobold women don't), that's different.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Pilsu on January 22, 2009, 04:28:34 pm
Heaven forbid a game where you can steal a baby and push your thumbs into it's eyes might have 14th century sexism

Leave your prejudices at the door, being able to mod meaningful genders would be a good feature no matter how abused.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)


Hmm, spousal abuse.. Perhaps resulting from unhappiness, a special kind of tantrum. Whether it's punished at all would be subject to civ ethics and whether both genders can do it should be in the raws with the rest of the gender features
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on January 22, 2009, 04:35:05 pm
Well, as far as cannibalizing the dead goes, I think there's something more wrong with mistreating the living than mistreating the dead. :P But your point stands, yeah.

I think introducing sex differences in DF would have to be handled extremely carefully. For instance, if women are treated as having less strength but more flexibility or whatever other arbitrary characteristic, it should only be on a statistical model, such that there still CAN be strong women and weak men, for instance. And any differences (at least in any race supposedly similar to real humans in the ways we're talking) would have to be very minimal, because the last thing anybody would want is for the game to appear sexist or anything like that. Of course, if a creature is obviously supposed to have DECIDEDLY different features between sex (like if goblin women are ten feet tall or kobold men have little tusks and kobold women don't), that's different.

My understanding is that (using the DF model) Men should require few XP points in strength to gain a point (develop muscle mass easier and faster) but the food intake of anybody would go up with strength (muscle mass).

Do you really think it would be sexist to say that guys are generally stronger than gals?
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: bjlong on January 22, 2009, 05:00:45 pm
For names, if the civ sees Hares, Cups, Donkeys, and Plump Helmets as feminine objects, then they'd have names based on Hares, Cups, Donkeys, and Plump Helmets for their women.
That's actually a pretty good idea. I wonder how it would be implemented tho, it can't be in the object raws because it's a civ thing. It's in the language raws? A tag that says a noun is "feminine" or "masculine". For some cultures there are gender-neutral names tho.


Yes, I imagine everything that is "sexed" would have possible masculine, feminine, and neuter tags, maybe with more if there are more genders in the game.

It would be interesting for a civ to go through and make nouns masculine, feminine or neuter, but that usually makes for linguistic differences. I imagined something like the current sphere system--we have several "name concepts," that are either hardcoded to be masculine, feminine or neuter, or otherwise we can allow the RNG to associate those concepts with genders as they please.

What would be nice about these concepts is that they can change from civ to civ without any big linguistic confusion. Even better would be if these concepts start getting involved in actions, for example having tending hares being viewed as a feminine act.

Warning: I am not a programmer. I probably suggested something that requires quantum computing somewhere.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on January 22, 2009, 05:23:34 pm
heirs or hares?

but yeah, I'm in favor of defining jobs by caste (Only the warrior ants become warriors if you want real world justification)

Also, it may not be worth it but breeding castes with other than 2 sexes would be cool.  Asexual obviously.  There's nothing but sci-fi suggesting more, but hey..
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Sutremaine on January 22, 2009, 06:49:33 pm
Do you really think it would be sexist to say that guys are generally stronger than gals?
For human men and women who exist in the real world, no. For fantasy human men and women, it depends what kind of world the author is trying to model and how well they pull it off. For dwarves, it would depend how much of the game beyond the tech level is intended to stick to human medieval European norms.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: mickel on January 22, 2009, 07:14:58 pm
It would be fun to introduce a completely random sexual dimorphism. Maybe dwarf males all have dark hair, and dwarf females all have blond hair? Or the other way round? That way you would go by the color of the beard, and hair dye would be all-important to crossdressers.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: LegoLord on January 22, 2009, 07:24:31 pm
I mean some people complain that Women in this game who are soldiers bring a battalion of children with them... You know who else does that? BATMAN!!!
Wait, Batman's a woman  ???

Anyway, all I have to contribute to this argument are these two things:
1) Dwarves that ignore gender for day-to-day life are awesome cause it makes them more culturally diverse from humans.  Therefore dwarves in DF should do so.  If dwarves are, in the physical sense, just small humans, then there is no reason to play as them, as opposed to playing as humans.
2) Female spiders are far more vicious than male spiders.  Whether the male or female of a species is stronger than the opposite sex should be determined by something in the raws.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: G-Flex on January 22, 2009, 07:27:36 pm
Do you really think it would be sexist to say that guys are generally stronger than gals?

No, just that you have to actually treat it as realistically as possible in order to avoid a sexist implementation of it. With a lot of in-game systems, you can fudge things a bit and nobody cares, but you might run into weird implications if you end up with a system where, say, a woman can never be as strong as any man of identical training, or whatever (e.g. all men are more "naturally strong" than all women). For instance, you CAN'T just say "men need fewer experience points than women to increase strength" unless you take individual differences into account such that some women require less experience than some men for it.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: bjlong on January 22, 2009, 07:29:37 pm
^^^It would be great if body types were taken into account in determining stats. Then you could just define a range of body types per gender, and let that take care of the stat differences.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Navian on January 22, 2009, 08:24:36 pm
Many of the differences between males and females in humans are due to gender roles, not sexual dimorphism. This has been breaking down in many cultures over the last century, and there are many women who are more physically impressive than most men could ever dream of being.

The main pitfall lies in assuming that both sexes have the same bell curve, so that you can compare statistics just by looking at the best (and most visible) members of a group. This doesn't work, because males, only having one X chromosome, have a shallowing bell curve, making the analysis very complicated. There's little point in representing this in a fantasy game, because it's merely a quirk of genetics.

I should also point out that he main reason men go to war and women don't isn't capability, it's expendability. Women tend to have fewer 'hunter' adaptations, such male facial structure and the ability to easily gain muscle mass. The verdict of the past few million years of evolution is that the females of our species are too valuable to go beast-hunting and raiding under uncertain conditions. If they weren't, they'd be better at it by now. If they couldn't, they'd be worse at it by now.

Women tend to have many adaptations that are actually pretty important to staying alive and in control in dangerous situations of extended length and high complexity, ones that men tend to lack due to a focus on raw mass and singlemindedness. It's a matter of style, it's physically impossible for one gender to be 'better' than another in such an advanced species, it would be too inefficient to not have both maximized--human brainpower costs a lot of energy, it's a shame to waste it on the arbitrary assignment of a submissive role, and the universe figured this out on its own before the dawn of history, even if not all people understand it yet.

I think the current gender neutrality of the game is great, and any changes to it should be modest and reserved. It's very, very easy to go wrong with it. A simple system that ensured that there were more men deviating from the norm (for good or for ill) than women would be interesting and model reality just fine for any humanoid race, but there'd be little point except to ensure that female leaders and criminals would be something special. I'm not even sure that'd be a good thing.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Neonivek on January 22, 2009, 08:54:53 pm
We should probably be careful and not degenerate into a "Male vs. Female" battle especially since many steriotypes we apply to males and females are often untrue, reversed, or taught. If we open this up to the Animal kingdom then all bets are off.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Sergius on January 22, 2009, 11:30:54 pm
It makes sense than in a species, male and female can be different, and one even inferio stat-wise than the other (on average at least).

It also makes sense to let players choose their gender and not have an unbalanced character when choosing male vs female, so most people just do away with gender difference (in the case of player characters).

Note that games like D&D claim that "females are just as able as males", they never mean the barmaid or the local blacksmith. (unless it's a female blacksmith, in which case she's big and oafy)


Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Neonivek on January 22, 2009, 11:34:34 pm
Well the issue is that in a Dramatic world having Women weaker then males even when they both go through the same training as a whole goes against such a system.

Remember as much of a reflection of real life Dwarf Fortress is... it is a world where people can become superhuman by beating up wolves.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Sergius on January 22, 2009, 11:38:02 pm
You get superstrong by signing off a lot of production orders and counting stock and becoming a legendary liar.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Neonivek on January 22, 2009, 11:40:31 pm
You get superstrong by signing off a lot of production orders and counting stock and becoming a legendary liar.


I should probably elaborate that I don't mean the system is silly and thus real life makes no sense.

I mean... that the setting is supposed to express a sort of mythological environment where being a woman or man is no more an advantage as it is a disadvantage.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Faces of Mu on January 23, 2009, 03:14:28 am
Do you really think it would be sexist to say that guys are generally stronger than gals?

...For instance, you CAN'T just say "men need fewer experience points than women to increase strength" unless you take individual differences into account such that some women require less experience than some men for it.

I'm glad someone finally brought individual differences into the debate. I've always been warned to be careful in interpreting averages as they may have no practical relevance whatsoever. My stats lecturers often said "There can often be more variability within a group than between two groups".

I like the gender equality in DF, and I think when Toady establishes more moddable data then there should be options available in the raws for traditionalists and budding sociologists alike.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on January 23, 2009, 11:21:24 am
1) Dwarves that ignore gender for day-to-day life are awesome cause it makes them more culturally diverse from humans.  Therefore dwarves in DF should do so.  If dwarves are, in the physical sense, just small humans, then there is no reason to play as them, as opposed to playing as humans.
2) Female spiders are far more vicious than male spiders.  Whether the male or female of a species is stronger than the opposite sex should be determined by something in the raws.
1: Humans are in the game too, though.  (Honestly, I don't really care about making human females weaker, I'm just upset that people think that saying 'the fact the human females are generally weaker should be in the game' is sexist, or that modelling the vast majority of human societies with gender roles somehow perpetuates some great travesty)

2: Tell me about it.  In most species, the female is bigger, stronger, meaner, and more deadly.  I think it's just Primates and a few other social mammals that this trend got reversed

I'm glad someone finally brought individual differences into the debate. I've always been warned to be careful in interpreting averages as they may have no practical relevance whatsoever. My stats lecturers often said "There can often be more variability within a group than between two groups".

I like the gender equality in DF, and I think when Toady establishes more moddable data then there should be options available in the raws for traditionalists and budding sociologists alike.
If the model reflects individual variants in potential, yes.  But what is traditionalist about saying 'This is true in general'?  (Prejudiced is saying 'your category and thus you'... it isn't saying 'your category' in the first place)
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Chthonic on January 23, 2009, 11:37:51 am
Many of the differences between males and females in humans are due to gender roles, not sexual dimorphism . . . Women tend to have fewer 'hunter' adaptations, such male facial structure and the ability to easily gain muscle mass. The verdict of the past few million years of evolution is that the females of our species are too valuable to go beast-hunting and raiding under uncertain conditions . . .

I'm not saying you're contradicting yourself, but you aren't convincingly supporting your thesis . . . any time you're pushing the 'nurture' side of the debate, you have to stay far, far away from evolution.

Far, far away . . .
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Pilsu on January 23, 2009, 11:42:34 am
Many of the differences between males and females in humans are due to gender roles, not sexual dimorphism. This has been breaking down in many cultures over the last century, and there are many women who are more physically impressive than most men could ever dream of being.

Name some female athletes that consistently trump men in the same sport. How about female scientists or mathematicians? Anything that can be twisted into a competition? No?

That's politically correct bullshit if I ever heard some. Yeah, women aren't completely helpless or useless but let's not pretend human sexual dimorphism doesn't exist and how we're fundamentally all equal. The very concept is laughable pandering to women's insecurities


That said, I don't think dwarves need that crap. Humans might have stronger males and should you want to pander to women and stoop to clichés, elves might be physically female dominated. Personally I'd throw that one away and make the goblins and/or kobolds female dominated. It's easier to picture musclebound kobold females than tough elves. So much for liking them for their grace. Kobolds liking deir wimmenz big-like sounds more like it
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Hectonkhyres on January 23, 2009, 11:52:49 am
I'd go with the theory that female kobolds should be a full size or two larger than the males and be the meanest, nastiest thing you can possibly pack into that amount of space. Think the mortal hand of the goddess of naked molerats.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: LegacyCWAL on January 23, 2009, 12:27:09 pm
Name some female athletes that consistently trump men in the same sport.

QFT.  Case in point: Candace Parker.  Sure, she could kick my ass without breaking a sweat, but being the best dunker in the history of women's basketball doesn't even put her on par with a whole lot of NBA players.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: CobaltKobold on January 23, 2009, 12:37:39 pm
I mean... that the setting is supposed to express a sort of mythological environment where being a woman or man is no more an advantage as it is a disadvantage.
This. Many people like their escapism.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on January 23, 2009, 02:16:10 pm
I'd go with the theory that female kobolds should be a full size or two larger than the males and be the meanest, nastiest thing you can possibly pack into that amount of space. Think the mortal hand of the goddess of naked molerats.

I was thinking elves, but this is even better.... Huge liter sizes and a 99 times out of a hundred favoring males could be awesome, especially if ethics support 'Males kill each other, but noone kills Females' kind of environment.

FR Drow have the females being bigger and stronger too...
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: LegoLord on January 23, 2009, 04:08:01 pm
Uh, Granite, you've got what I said down as a quote from Neonivek and what you said down as a quote from me.  Kinda confusing. 

I don't get what humans being in the game has to do with dwarves ignoring gender.  The fact humans are in is why dwarves should ignore gender.  But I like that last idea.  Paves the way for modding in the Nac MacFeegle.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Mephansteras on January 23, 2009, 04:42:27 pm
I think the main point of all of this can be broken down a bit. There are two topics here, and they keep getting mixed up in unproductive ways.

Topic #1) Should the game have the ability for creatures and cultures to make differentiations based on gender. This includes simple things like only women wearing skirts to major things like females being 2x bigger then males.

Topic #2) Should Humans/Dwarves/Elves/etc have these differences and if so which ones are appropriate for that race.

Topic #3: Should adventurers be exempt from gender differentiation.

Personally, I'm all for #1 being true. I WANT to have weird races and cultures where gender differences are important. I want to have a human culture of amazons fight with the goblins because their women are virtually slaves. I want lizardfolk where females are huge and do most of the fighting/heavy lifting stuff. I want elves that don't see any reason to differentiate at all since there is so little different between their males and females. And I want to be able to mod the hell out of it.

For #2, I think as long as #1 is handled properly everything else will fall into place. Toady can and will make Vanilla DF into his vision for the races and the rest of us will be able to mod things to our satisfaction. Don't like that he made dwarven women beardless, change it. Don't think that human women should be common sights among the soldiers, change it. Whatever makes you happy.

But don't say "I don't want X therefore no one should be able to!". It's not fair and it's a silly stance in a game as moddable as DF.

Edit: Good point, Sergius. I'll add that one too.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Sergius on January 23, 2009, 06:31:56 pm
Topic #3: Should adventurers be exempt from gender differentiation.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Pilsu on January 23, 2009, 08:57:01 pm
Topic #3: Should adventurers be exempt from gender differentiation.


Probably

Then again, it can be treated as a difficulty setting
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: LegoLord on January 23, 2009, 09:20:14 pm
Topic #3: Should adventurers be exempt from gender differentiation.


Probably

Then again, it can be treated as a difficulty setting
That should depend on whether or not the race you are playing as has gender dimorphism.  Like, I dunno, goblins.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Demonic Gophers on January 23, 2009, 09:58:47 pm
Topic #3: Should adventurers be exempt from gender differentiation.

Absolutely not.  No way.  With the caste system, gender differentiation for some creatures could be very drastic, and exempting adventurers from that would be both difficult and bizarre.  For creatures where the differences are minor, leaving them in shouldn't have that much impact.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Chthonic on January 23, 2009, 10:07:17 pm
Topic #3: Should adventurers be exempt from gender differentiation.

Female adventurers will be at enough of a handicap as it is, assuming they pop out battle-babies like dwarves.  Although, for the "horrific things you can do in DF" topic, it would be pretty twisted to go into battle wielding your own child as a weapon.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Footkerchief on January 23, 2009, 10:23:10 pm
Absolutely not.  No way.  With the caste system, gender differentiation for some creatures could be very drastic, and exempting adventurers from that would be both difficult and bizarre.  For creatures where the differences are minor, leaving them in shouldn't have that much impact.

Agreed on all counts.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on January 24, 2009, 10:05:12 am
Uh, Granite, you've got what I said down as a quote from Neonivek and what you said down as a quote from me.  Kinda confusing. 

I don't get what humans being in the game has to do with dwarves ignoring gender.  The fact humans are in is why dwarves should ignore gender.  But I like that last idea.  Paves the way for modding in the Nac MacFeegle.

Sorry about that, my bad for not checking.  I think I fixed it. 
Humans being in the game means tags should be in the game.  I'm not willing to argue dwarves, but I'm willing to argue humans. (OK, I AM willing to argue dwarves, but it's a separate argument from the tags)

Topic #3: Should adventurers be exempt from gender differentiation.

Absolutely not.  No way.  With the caste system, gender differentiation for some creatures could be very drastic, and exempting adventurers from that would be both difficult and bizarre.  For creatures where the differences are minor, leaving them in shouldn't have that much impact.

Depends on whether the dev/modder sees more value in pure escapism or trying to overcome (reality/ancient prejudices).  Denying reality/history doesn't make it better, it trivializes it, but not every media needs to wallow in the sins of the past.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: LegoLord on January 24, 2009, 11:11:20 am
Uh, Granite, you've got what I said down as a quote from Neonivek and what you said down as a quote from me.  Kinda confusing. 

I don't get what humans being in the game has to do with dwarves ignoring gender.  The fact humans are in is why dwarves should ignore gender.  But I like that last idea.  Paves the way for modding in the Nac MacFeegle.

Sorry about that, my bad for not checking.  I think I fixed it. 
Humans being in the game means tags should be in the game.  I'm not willing to argue dwarves, but I'm willing to argue humans. (OK, I AM willing to argue dwarves, but it's a separate argument from the tags)
Ah, okay.  Understood.  And agreed.  The tags should be in the game, if only to make it easier to make the races more culturally diverse.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: G-Flex on January 24, 2009, 05:30:32 pm
Many of the differences between males and females in humans are due to gender roles, not sexual dimorphism. This has been breaking down in many cultures over the last century, and there are many women who are more physically impressive than most men could ever dream of being.

Name some female athletes that consistently trump men in the same sport. How about female scientists or mathematicians? Anything that can be twisted into a competition? No?

You're SERIOUSLY pulling the old "women aren't as good at math and science as men" bit?

Are you kidding me?

None of that has any actual evidence to back that up, and can be explained just fine by sociological causes; women aren't EXPECTED to be good at those things, or to study them, hence they don't end up being as good on a whole. And when there ARE amazing female scientists, they likely get the short end of the stick as far as recognition goes.
Example: Ever here of Rosalind Franklin? Her work (along with James Watson's and Francis Crick's) was extremely important to deriving the molecular structure of DNA, but Watson and Crick tended to get all the credit for a long time, even though they DIDN'T discount her efforts; mostly the media did.

Point is, gender differences in mathematical and scientific abilities are explained perfectly well by social causes - ones that are well-known, even. Some sort of as-of-yet-unfound genetic or hormonal (or any other inherent physical) difference in intelligence/ability isn't even necessary, and, as I've said, there's no evidence for it anyway.

Here's a quote from a National Science Foundation study: "girls perform as well as boys on standardized math tests. Although boys in high school performed better than girls in math 20 years ago, the researchers found, that is no longer the case. The reason, they said, is simple: Girls used to take fewer advanced math courses than boys, but now they are taking just as many."

Most studies find either no difference or an extremely small difference between men and women on IQ scores, the most significant actual difference seeming to be that sometimes, men are represented at the extreme ends of the spectrum more often than women (as has been said in this thread). However, there's no reason to believe that social explanations can't account for any of this either.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Neonivek on January 24, 2009, 05:37:36 pm
Quote
Most studies find either no difference or an extremely small difference between men and women on IQ scores

Hmm I thought they noticed that Men had more varience then women (as in more poor and high scores)... I guess I was wrong.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Demonic Gophers on January 24, 2009, 05:48:29 pm
Topic #3: Should adventurers be exempt from gender differentiation.

Absolutely not.  No way.  With the caste system, gender differentiation for some creatures could be very drastic, and exempting adventurers from that would be both difficult and bizarre.  For creatures where the differences are minor, leaving them in shouldn't have that much impact.

Depends on whether the dev/modder sees more value in pure escapism or trying to overcome (reality/ancient prejudices).  Denying reality/history doesn't make it better, it trivializes it, but not every media needs to wallow in the sins of the past.

What do you mean?  If a modder wants complete gender equality, that's easy to arrange.  It wouldn't need some sort of exemption for adventurers.  But if someone wants to play as, for example, an antman queen, that's pretty much going to have to be a different experience than playing as a different caste.  How would these differences be ironed out for adventurers?
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: G-Flex on January 24, 2009, 05:56:12 pm
Quote
Most studies find either no difference or an extremely small difference between men and women on IQ scores

Hmm I thought they noticed that Men had more varience then women (as in more poor and high scores)... I guess I was wrong.

I mentioned later in the post that I did see a bit of that, but it depends on the study, and there's no easy way to attribute a cause to it, and social explanations are still there. For instance, a high variety of things ARE expected of men in recent history; as a man, you can be accepted as a guy who hits things with a pick in a coal mine, or as a biochemist; women's roles have tended to be much more limited, which would provide for less variation in what they end up doing and what skills/abilities that entails. Not that I totally discount the POSSIBILITY of some genetic/other reason for this, just that one doesn't appear necessary and I haven't seen evidence of it.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on January 24, 2009, 09:54:56 pm
Not that I totally discount the POSSIBILITY of some genetic/other reason for this, just that one doesn't appear necessary and I haven't seen evidence of it.

I started "The Blank Slate" last night, and this quote seems to be the crux of... (recent?) socialogical thinking.  As a society, we're better off assuming social causes than genetic causes, until conclusively proven otherwise.  A few of the quotes went so far as 'even in the face of otherwise compelling evidence.  It gives us fewer excuses to be prejudiced... (OTOH, I'm not prejudiced because we ARE equal admits the possibility of change later, which is telling)
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: PTTG?? on January 25, 2009, 02:19:36 am
While I agree that in the modern world that women have as much potential as men do, in the past- and in any internally consistent fantasy setting in the "past"- this was/is not true, both from a cultural standpoint and a biological one. Frankly, it takes a lot of strength to swing a sword or pull a bow effectively, and a woman will always have to put more training into achieving the same level of strength. Female snipers and submariners, however, can easily be as effective as male ones in the modern world(in fact, women submariners are more efficient, as they tend to have less mass and thus use less air, ect.). Also please note that a determined woman can be much stronger than the average man; it is only that it would be somewhat more difficult for her to reach that level than it would for a male.

If one must make a balancing element, perhaps one could say that women are "more connected with nature" than men, and thus have a comparative advantage to men in magic, and that men can achieve great things in magic, but they have to work harder than women do to do so. And, furthermore, this could be unique for different races, as humans are somewhat odd in the fact that men are stronger than women- see big cats and bears, as well as nearly all the great herbivores. (However, it may be unwise to praise a woman by saying that she reminds you of an elephantess.) It could easily be that Male and Female dwarves are equally strong (the beards would bear out the idea of similar body structure(though the new raws seem to have removed them)), and elven men may very well be much weaker than the women... it seems elfish.

This biological argument does not go into sociology; If this is supposed to be a midevil-like culture, then there is no reasonable way that there will be many professional female soldiers. Naturally, Dwarves are mores egalitarian than humans, and elves may be the inverse, as Three Toe's stories tell us. The intelligence idea has no meaning in today's society; women can become more 'intelligent' just as easily as men, they can have the same skill at spatial reasoning, mechanical aptitude, tactics, craft, and so on. However, the opportunity to be an expert in some skill or craft would not be there because of existing prejudices; no self-respecting craftsman would take on a girl apprentice (though such an occurrence would make a good idea for a story, and indeed, the struggle against social adversity could be very interesting as a game play element...)

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. Having such differences would be a realistic and more importantly fun element.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Footkerchief on January 25, 2009, 02:22:42 am
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."
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: PTTG?? on January 25, 2009, 03:01:16 am
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.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Ampersand on January 25, 2009, 04:50:05 am
It should be noted that even in Medieval Europe it was entirely possible for women to rise above enforced social roles due to circumstance or exceptional acts.

For example, in the charter of the English blacksmith guild, the wife of a Blacksmith could take up the job of her husband upon his death to provide for her family, if she was knowledgeable in the craft.

Second, 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.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: LegoLord on January 25, 2009, 08:03:44 am
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.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Pilsu on January 25, 2009, 10:13:52 am
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?

Everything else is sociology. Stats don't really matter a whole lot in labor as is, with the possible exception of speed which I find stupid and broken anyway. Breaks guard animals completely and makes no sense
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Ampersand on January 25, 2009, 11:06:40 am
I think the real problem here is the ability for anyone, particularly a dwarf to wrestle a bear to death.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: azrael4h on January 25, 2009, 11:33:41 am
I think the real problem here is the ability for anyone, particularly a dwarf to wrestle a bear to death.

Haven't you ever wrestled a bear to death?

That does remind me of a thread on some random forum once. A guy was determined to kill a grizzly with nothing but a combat knife. His reasoning was that he could charge straight up to the bear, but it's throat, then get away, while the bear would be too confused to attack (?). I doubt he ever did it, seems the insane ramblings of a madman or the boasts of an idiot looking for attention.

Personally, if I ever went after a bear, I'd want a Browning Automatic Rifle (the one developed at the end of WWI)... and an armored personnel carrier.

In the context of DF, there should be little reason to have genders affect skills or capabilities. These are DWARVES, not humans, and human reasonings have no place in determining anything about our favorite, hairy psychopaths. I would like an easier way to determine them at a glance, which would just mean introducing gender into the nouns and names of the Dwarven language. At worst, having different pallets for the male/females, but that isn't even needed.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Ampersand on January 25, 2009, 02:02:38 pm
In any case, dwarven females have beards. From this we can infer that they have equal testosterone levels compared to males. Egro, probably equal muscle mass.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: PTTG?? on January 25, 2009, 02:16:41 pm
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?

Everything else is sociology...[/size]

What do you mean? I said two things: One, that women are biologically, statistically, slower to develop strength, and Two; that in a semi-midevil universe, social pressures will make it more difficult for a woman to gain some  skills, notably crafting, tactics, and other "male" skills including combat.

Essentially, a woman could learn to wrestle a bear to death, but it would be more difficult for her than for a man.

Also, yes, this is Dwarf Fortress, but humans, particularly in adventurer mode, have a lot of importance. Dwarves, yes, I could see them being much less distinct. Elves, like I said, would be interesting as an inverse of that trend.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: LegoLord on January 25, 2009, 03:42:17 pm
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.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: LegacyCWAL on January 25, 2009, 04:57:15 pm
For maximum capacity, look to sports, namely at the highest levels.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Mikademus on January 25, 2009, 05:41:46 pm
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 (http://www.militaryfactory.com/battles/french_military_victories.asp) There are more losses than wins in the stretch 1190 to 1347 but there ARE wins. Then it evens out again.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Footkerchief on January 25, 2009, 06:08:35 pm
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 (http://bay12games.com/dwarves/story/tt_passion_arena.html)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Mother of Death (http://bay12games.com/dwarves/story/tt_mother_of_death.html)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on January 25, 2009, 09:41:01 pm
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.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Savok on January 25, 2009, 11:13:02 pm
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.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: G-Flex on January 25, 2009, 11:52:45 pm
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:

Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: LegacyCWAL on January 26, 2009, 03:00:33 am
  • 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 ;)
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: G-Flex on January 26, 2009, 03:50:20 am
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.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: LegacyCWAL on January 26, 2009, 04:04:19 am
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.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: G-Flex on January 26, 2009, 04:35:27 am
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.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Sergius on January 26, 2009, 10:41:14 am
G-Flex, you clearly don't have enough ESPN channels.

Try ESPN 8, The "Ocho"!
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Pilsu on January 26, 2009, 10:59:29 am
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
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: PTTG?? on January 26, 2009, 01:03:54 pm
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.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: LegacyCWAL on January 26, 2009, 01:04:16 pm
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?
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on January 26, 2009, 01:56:52 pm
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.

I disagree (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_records_in_weightlifting)
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: G-Flex on January 26, 2009, 05:25:17 pm
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?

Oh, of course. I agree with that. I'm just saying that the basic activities which men are good at would historically be more likely to become publicized sporting events, perhaps.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Granite26 on January 26, 2009, 05:45:30 pm
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?

Oh, of course. I agree with that. I'm just saying that the basic activities which men are good at would historically be more likely to become publicized sporting events, perhaps.
I dunno, I'm suffering from a bad case of the Politically Correct Internet, but it seems to me that most of the major, classical, olympic sports were based around individual combat skills (AKA exactly what we care about)
Quote
The Olympic games were not proving grounds for real combat. Just because skills in the Olympics matched valued martial skills does not mean the Greeks assumed the best wrestler made the best fighter. The games were more symbolic, religious, and entertaining. Unlike hoplite, team-style warfare, the ancient Olympics were individual sports which allowed an individual Greek to win glory. Today's Olympics, in a world described as narcissistic, where warfare is distant, involving only small clusters of people, being part of a gold-winning team confers honor just as well. Ritualized sport, whether team or individual, continues to be an outlet for or way to sublimate humanity's aggression.1 (http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0geu6aVPH5Jpf0A_olXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEzdmwycjVwBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2FjMgR2dGlkA0Y5NDVfMTE0/SIG=12jd9ep8k/EXP=1233096213/**http%3a//ancienthistory.about.com/od/olympics/p/OlympicEvents.htm)
Is a good example of the PCness, if not the best 'Sports were originally ritualized demonstrations of war prowess' support.

So yeah, I disagree with ya'
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: LegoLord on January 26, 2009, 09:32:29 pm
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.
Joan D'Arc was not actually from France.  That was another oddity of that military; victory came more often under foreign leaders.  But yes, she did accomplish great things.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Arkenstone on April 07, 2010, 06:26:18 pm
You know, DF2010 makes put of what this thread's asking for into the game, with castes.  The differences between men and women now becomes a question only of modding; unless you really want to insist it be in vanilla DF.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Sizik on April 07, 2010, 09:11:27 pm
You know, DF2010 makes put of what this thread's asking for into the game, with castes.  The differences between men and women now becomes a question only of modding; unless you really want to insist it be in vanilla DF.

This thread is almost as old as 40d, you know.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Arkenstone on April 07, 2010, 09:43:03 pm
I know, i got the warning when I posted.  I just wanted to tell everyone that they should probly change their eternal voting thing.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Shurhaian on April 27, 2010, 08:32:29 pm
Agreed. Is there any reason for this to still be on the suggestions list? It doesn't currently have many votes, but at 6, it doesn't have none, either.

If this isn't clarified soon, might be worth sending a PM to the OP about it; it's a complex enough issue that I for one wouldn't want to just suggest to Toady that he scrub it from the voting list without offering a chance to refine it.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Pilsu on April 29, 2010, 03:49:15 am
While replying to posts whose age is measured in years is rather pointless, I have to wonder how people can assume a bunch of naked men wrestling is some sort of war demonstration.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Sergius on May 02, 2010, 01:56:44 pm
For example: pole vaulting was not a war thingy. It was used by regular folks at ancient Greece to get over canals and stuff because they were too lazy to walk to a nearby bridge.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Arkenstone on May 02, 2010, 02:49:06 pm
What bridge?  Bridgebuilding is a very complex art, and the widespread existence of bridges did not occur until the Roman era.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Rotten on May 02, 2010, 04:01:02 pm
What bridge?  Bridgebuilding is a very complex art, and the widespread existence of bridges did not occur until the Roman era.
Take plank
Lay over canal
Be a roman  8)

But yeah, no. Bridges existed before the Romans. Perhaps not very long or arched bridges, but normal ones certainly existed.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: darkflagrance on May 02, 2010, 09:08:00 pm
For example: pole vaulting was not a war thingy. It was used by regular folks at ancient Greece to get over canals and stuff because they were too lazy to walk to a nearby bridge.

I'm too lazy to walk, so I'll just practice a dangerous Olympic sport instead :)
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Arkenstone on May 03, 2010, 08:23:09 pm
What bridge?  Bridgebuilding is a very complex art, and the widespread existence of bridges did not occur until the Roman era.
Take plank
Lay over canal
Be a roman  8)

But yeah, no. Bridges existed before the Romans. Perhaps not very long or arched bridges, but normal ones certainly existed.
Really? Where'd you get the 50 ft. long plank that wont bend or sag in the middle?  And how about removing it when the next barge comes through?  I am CERTAIN that the greeks didn't have drawbridges.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Max White on May 03, 2010, 08:42:38 pm
So, generic debate any point you can thread?

Because debating on the internet is productive!  ;D
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Sergius on May 05, 2010, 01:50:08 am
What bridge?  Bridgebuilding is a very complex art, and the widespread existence of bridges did not occur until the Roman era.
Take plank
Lay over canal
Be a roman  8)

But yeah, no. Bridges existed before the Romans. Perhaps not very long or arched bridges, but normal ones certainly existed.
Really? Where'd you get the 50 ft. long plank that wont bend or sag in the middle?  And how about removing it when the next barge comes through?  I am CERTAIN that the greeks didn't have drawbridges.

"Even the most primitive human communities must often have created bridges from material lying easily to hand. Hunters and gatherers follow favourite paths; streams need to be crossed. A fallen tree can be dragged into position to serve as a plank. Forest tendrils may be intertwined as an elementary suspension bridge. Or rafts can be tied together in a pontoon." - History of Bridges (www.historyworld.net)
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Lord Shonus on May 06, 2010, 02:23:56 pm
Both the greeks and celts built bridges. ROman roads and bridges were just the only ones that were overbuilt to the point that they lasted for centuries.
Title: Re: Gender Differentiation
Post by: Techhead on May 06, 2010, 11:06:30 pm
Bridgebuilding is seriously out of topic here. Take it to another room.