HOW DO ROLEPLAY ACROSS GENDER!?!, I don't mean erotic fanfiction Options

[Blade]

Now perhaps that is anot an axiom, perhaps men and women thing differently merely as a product of their upbringing and acting how they believe people expect them to.

Scientifically no. You just need to see how changes in hormones can totally change one's mood to know that there is more than upbringing (even if it has its impact).

[hyzmarca]

Action movie characters are motivated by revenge primarily because the pivotal life experiences that steer a person toward violent action-movie rampages tend to be revenge-inducing. Lady Snowblood and The Bride are no less feminine because they go upon bloody revenge-rampages, they have simply chosen to channel the anger and frustration that they feel over the tragedies in their lives into the time-honored art of stylishly killing a bunch of people instead of wallowing in self-pity as most people, both male and female, are apt to do.


One thing you could do is simply imagine that you yourself wake up one day and have a vagina and breasts (or a penis, if you're female playing a male) for no apparent reason. After the initial freakout and self-exploration period, assuming that you coped with the transformation fairly well, how would you go about your business? More importantly, how would you react to other people treating you as they would treat a member of this gender.

Then, take that thought experiment backwards and imagine that you were born with this gender and consider how people's different expectations of you would make your life experiences different and how you would react to that.

To take it a bit further, you could always try a real experiment where you make yourself appear to be a member of the opposite gender, not unlike in Mrs. Doubtfire, Big Momma's House, Just One of the Guys, She's the Man, Butch Jamie, or Ladybugs.

The way other people treat you differently throughout your liofe depending on your gender is very important and shouldn't be dismissed or ignored.

[Glyph]

So I guess my point is that a lot of background stories I see that are dealing with male protagonists tend to emphasize interpersonal relationships (i.e. relations with parents, from your example) less, but your questions are dealing with these things more. As such, would you consider your questions to be more geared towards female characters? If you were going to ask background questions of male characters, would they be more centered around revenge, deaths of friends/relatives, personal anger, and so on? Or, alternately, do you feel that your sample questions are best treated as universal questions?

I think that whether a character is male or female will impact a lot on certain of those questions, but I think they are pretty much universal questions. Basically I am asking - how was the character raised, what socioeconomic circumstances does the character come from, how popular was the character, does the character have a pragmatic or realistic attitude towards violence, etc. The vengeance thing, as others have pointed out, has less to do with gender roles than it has to do with genre tropes.

My point was that women may be different than men, but other things make characters different, too. If you have a man and a woman who were raised in the barrens, did what they had to do to survive, and ran with a gang, they might turn out differently due to gender roles in the barrens, even if they were both fighters. Maybe the man would be more driven by macho pride in a fight, while the woman would be more concerned about surviving, and would have less problems ambushing a rival. The man might be more promiscuous, since he wouldn't have to worry about being labeled a "slut" for sleeping around. The woman might be tougher, because she had to fight male advances and the pressure to be a more "suitable" role, such as a joygirl. Maybe the guy is proud of the scar on his face, while the girl, despite not wanting to be thought of as a sex object, still finds the scar on her face to be a deformity.

But for all of the differences between the two, the guy will still have more in common with the girl than he has in common with the ex-Fuchi company man from a middle-class background. The girl will still have more in common with the guy than she has in common with the spoiled brat mall princess who's never worked a day in her life and hacks for mischief.


One thing that really helps me when writing a character is to use a structured format, such as the old 20 questions, or Bull's 50+ questions. They help me to focus on individual aspects of the character's history, and they might help you the same way.

[Platinum Dragon]

Well, yeah, I kind of do think of myself as male. I think it was a combination of developing gender identity during puberty, and also over the course of my life the odd friend/acquaintance mentioning that I behaved in a masculine manner, at least in terms of self-referential identity. Tied in with that also was the "male gamers repel females" sterotype that worked its way into my mind over years of gaming and which served to create a mental distinction between myself as a male gamer and females in general. And IIRC there was a least one dude I played Shadowrun with for years who usually made female characters who seemed to be expressing some aspect of his personality through those characters; he was one of the people who once commented on my being masculine.

This could actually be a pertinent question for any character: do you strongly identify with your own gender? Personally, I see aspects of both halves of the spectrum in myself, and only start to identify as 'male' once I get to thinking about it in discussions like this. Most of the time I'm just 'me.' So, as a male playing a female character, you could ask, are you simply a character who happens to be female, or are you a character who strongly identifies as female? Are you playing a female character who strongly identifies as male, and either crossdresses or seeks to raise money for major cosmetic surgery - or doesn't realise they identify this way and blame something else for why they're miserable in social circumstances?

You've hit on an important distinction with your comment - is being male/female something that impacts your personality, or is it something you were born with and were never really affected by?

Besides for just self-referential stuff, I notice certain characteristics about females versus males that seem to hold pretty broadly.

Like most females don't like physical fighting i.e. combative sports, full contact sparring. The people who do like that stuff are usually male. This explains the market for "women's self defense" as a watered down, sanitized, and condensed version of learning how to fight. This came up earlier in the thread, i.e. discussions about male and female relationships to physical combativeness. And with those rare, awesome, and precious females who do like combative sports and seriously participate the thread has covered how they tend to be extremely technical fighters compared to the male counterparts. So although it would be a little abstracted, somewhat exaggerated, and poetic, I might even classify deft bobbing and counter-punching in close quarters as a feminine way of fighting whereas I might classify alternating overhand power shots as a masculine way of fighting.

There are also shared characteristics. Like both men and women like fast cars. I see lot of mustangs here in Las Vegas and usually they seem to be driven by women. I think that crappy Knight Rider TV movie did their demographic research when they made the male lead a gay-looking effeminite guy as they were in fact marketing expensive custom mustangs to females. I personally am not really into cars so much but I prefer the more blocky designs of the 70s and 80s than the more spherical designs of today and so I find that mustangs don't appeal to me visually. Of course, I actually have no clue if that preference holds true for males in general, as I very well could be the odd person out on this count. I guess the point of this paragraph was more that both men and women like fast cars.

That's another difference, actually. If marketing research is to be trusted it seems that women like to see foppish girly men. I prefer to see powerful looking beefy dudes like Ahnold, Dolph Lundgren, or indeed Brock Lesnar. So I am guessing just based on empirical observation that there seems to be a gender divide in terms of preference for male body types and so forth. I feel like this also comes up in fantasy fiction. In fantasy or historical fiction written by women a lot of the heroic or sympathetic male leads are basically kind of gay-acting. If anyone is a Sonny Chiba style powerhouse in these works of fiction they're usually a dumb bad guy. On the other hand in lots of fiction written by male authors the heroic male leads are more likely to be ubermensch heroic.

Personally, I find it easier to empathise with the 'girly' men, in part because I myself am less of a powerhouse and more of a 'house' (not the TV character). Which is not to say I can't enjoy watching some muscle-bound guy tote a machinegun one-handed and blow away the opposition, but I prefer the James Bond action heroes over the Rambos. As you can see, while broad archetypes apply, there are exceptions to every rule. You could play a female character who is sick of people dismissing her because she's a woman, and overcompensates by being more testosterone-fuelled than any of her male counterparts, and she would be no less 'female' as a character than the quiet yet charismatic face, who leads by 'suggesting' things that everyone else inevitably agrees to.

One last thing I noticed that seems to hold up as well. I noticed (again empirically just in my own experience) that while lots of males love to just sip hard liquor straight, women are much more likely to sip hard liquor only while making exaggerated comical grimaces and having a chaser handy. I don't know if that's socialization, or what, but just something I observed that seems to apply very broadly. Not trying to be sexist, and I know there must be awesome females who exist who can drink a pint of Johnny Walker Red like it's a beer, but just reporting my observations on what appears to be consistient gender difference.

So, I dunno, now that I think about it, there do seem to be pretty well articulated gender preferences on various miscellaneous issues manifested in society as a whole. Based on my emperical observations.

You're correct; statistically speaking, there are quite noticable differences between the genders, which is why - even in countries that are almost completely free of sexism in the workplace - certain careers are almost exclusively pursued by men, or by women. As an example, physical sciences (physics, chemistry, geophysics, etc) tend to be male dominated, while environmental sciences (biology, zoology, etc) tend to have a much higher percentage of women.

In spite of this though, there are people of both genders in all walks of life. Which leads to:

I think that whether a character is male or female will impact a lot on certain of those questions, but I think they are pretty much universal questions. Basically I am asking - how was the character raised, what socioeconomic circumstances does the character come from, how popular was the character, does the character have a pragmatic or realistic attitude towards violence, etc. The vengeance thing, as others have pointed out, has less to do with gender roles than it has to do with genre tropes.

My point was that women may be different than men, but other things make characters different, too. If you have a man and a woman who were raised in the barrens, did what they had to do to survive, and ran with a gang, they might turn out differently due to gender roles in the barrens, even if they were both fighters. Maybe the man would be more driven by macho pride in a fight, while the woman would be more concerned about surviving, and would have less problems ambushing a rival. The man might be more promiscuous, since he wouldn't have to worry about being labeled a "slut" for sleeping around. The woman might be tougher, because she had to fight male advances and the pressure to be a more "suitable" role, such as a joygirl. Maybe the guy is proud of the scar on his face, while the girl, despite not wanting to be thought of as a sex object, still finds the scar on her face to be a deformity.

But for all of the differences between the two, the guy will still have more in common with the girl than he has in common with the ex-Fuchi company man from a middle-class background. The girl will still have more in common with the guy than she has in common with the spoiled brat mall princess who's never worked a day in her life and hacks for mischief.


One thing that really helps me when writing a character is to use a structured format, such as the old 20 questions, or Bull's 50+ questions. They help me to focus on individual aspects of the character's history, and they might help you the same way.

Which is basically what it boils down to. Knowing the differences between the genders is a good starting point, but simply making a character and then tacking on things that are viewed as 'female' won't automatically get you a realistic character. A better approach is to simply make a well-rounded character, and decide, on a case-by-case basis, wether or not any of the individual gender sterotypes apply. In the barrens example above, the female character might have developed quite a taste for hard liquor, and dislike chocolate. She may have taken a more 'male' mindset when it comes to conflict resolution, as part of her quest to stay at the top, but following her chromosomal heritage, she might have stuck to the aforementioned tendancy to fight with technical precision over brute force and anger.

Basically, give some thought to how gender has affected your character, but don't over-think it, or you'll end up overcompensating. If you feel like your character has ended up 'too' masculine for a female character, play it up! Drink the guys under the table, beat them at sports and laugh when they feel belittled for being beaten by a 'girl!' Or change the metatype to troll and play up how 'effeminate' you are compared to the average troll 'lady.' >.>

[Wounded Ronin]

Well, yesterday I saw something on the internet that really inspired me which is related a bit to gender roles and perceptions.

Oleg Volk has taken a photo shoot of two women who compete in combative sports but also own many firearms for the political purpose of supporting less restrictions on gun ownership.

I recently got a PM from one of the women in the photo shoot where she stated that she has always been annoyed by the the "tough chick" which is portrayed in mainstream movies and culture, because she felt that "screenwriters substitute bitchiness for actual personality in an attempt to make a female character look 'strong'." She also mentioned the tendency for the "women with guns" thing to become overly cheesy with oversexed and physically weak looking women holding firearms incorrectly.

In my own opinion I feel like usually when combative or "tough" women are portrayed in movies the actresses tend to look skinny and flexible rather than powerful and skilled, and a lot of times if they're using martial arts techniques they tend to have something of an amateurish wobble. Also, usually the actresses don't portray the mental aggression and determination in the face of pain that a real combative sports athlete needs to be able to produce in a fight in order to be successful.

I feel like this is relevant to the question of role playing gender because it speaks to social expectations of gender and whether or not they're realistic. If society expects that women would be skinny and flexible without high levels of mental aggression, that says something about society, but nevertheless it might not actually be realistic. Maybe a realistic woman who engages in combat a lot would in fact be considered "weird" by our society because this person's actual bearing and mental configuration could be considerably different than the type of female fantasy portrayed in popular media.

Maybe the proof is in the pudding. I'd be willing to guess that more women in the United States to tip-tappy TKD and less do full contact Muay Thai with knees and elbows. I remember back in college there were a lot of young women who weren't necessarily super athletes who'd get into TKD and kind of enjoy the high kicks and the bouncing around and were only mediocre with the point sparring, and they really got into that sort of activity. I don't remember meeting a single woman at the muay thai club, on the other hand, where one of the guys there basically beat the crap out of me on my first time sparring with them.

But I wouldn't want to leave this on a very narrow note talking only about combative sports. My point more broadly is that if a certain amount of aggression, fitness, and determination in the face of pain is required to participate in combative sports, I would guess that these qualities are required in even more strength if we're talking about real combat situations with mangling, life and death, firearms, and so on. Whenever you read the stories of how someone in the US military got a Medal of Honor it often involves someone being wounded multiple times but still pushing themselves on at a cruicial time to be a whirlwind of firearms death. So, maybe if we were to make a "realistic" female warrior character, she would actually seem "unrealistic" to most Americans, because the vast majority of people have a fantasy about a skinny nonagressive flexible woman, whereas at the same time most people don't participate in rigorous activities which require high levels and strength and determination and therefore they don't understand those things enough to project them on a fictional character.

Anyway, here's the bullshido.net thread, with some wonderful photos: http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=79248

This is my favorite one, because you can really see Kat's muscles in her shoulder and arms and really appreciate her athleticism: http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images0...c58cbb3e5fc.jpg

It's subtle and tasteful, though, because she's not blatantly flexing for the camera or anything like that. The muscular tension you see is just what's required to hold the rifle.

[The Jake]

Receptionist: How do you write women so well?
Melvin Udall: I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.

-- As Good As It Gets (1997)

- J.

[Apathy]

I feel like this is relevant to the question of role playing gender because it speaks to social expectations of gender and whether or not they're realistic. If society expects that women would be skinny and flexible without high levels of mental aggression, that says something about society, but nevertheless it might not actually be realistic. Maybe a realistic woman who engages in combat a lot would in fact be considered "weird" by our society because this person's actual bearing and mental configuration could be considerably different than the type of female fantasy portrayed in popular media.

Maybe the proof is in the pudding. I'd be willing to guess that more women in the United States to tip-tappy TKD and less do full contact Muay Thai with knees and elbows. I remember back in college there were a lot of young women who weren't necessarily super athletes who'd get into TKD and kind of enjoy the high kicks and the bouncing around and were only mediocre with the point sparring, and they really got into that sort of activity. I don't remember meeting a single woman at the muay thai club, on the other hand, where one of the guys there basically beat the crap out of me on my first time sparring with them.

While I have to agree with you in general, I think it is starting to change. After a couple generations of Title IX I think I've observed a slow change in the general aggressiveness of women in sports. We've got a handfull of regularly-attending women at my Muay Thai gym. For most of them we need to tone down the contact during sparring, but there is a girl there who's a bit of a beast (term intended to be admiring, not derogatory). It may be that the average woman pugilist is inherently less aggressive and physically resilient, but I think as time goes on we'll see more outliers that break out of the stereotype.

[knasser]

I recently got a PM from one of the women in the photo shoot where she stated that she has always been annoyed by the the "tough chick" which is portrayed in mainstream movies and culture, because she felt that "screenwriters substitute bitchiness for actual personality in an attempt to make a female character look 'strong'." She also mentioned the tendency for the "women with guns" thing to become overly cheesy with oversexed and physically weak looking women holding firearms incorrectly.

In my own opinion I feel like usually when combative or "tough" women are portrayed in movies the actresses tend to look skinny and flexible rather than powerful and skilled, and a lot of times if they're using martial arts techniques they tend to have something of an amateurish wobble.

That's because if a woman in a film is even remotely unattractive to some male viewers, they feel the desperate need to savage the movie for casting her. The producers go where the money is and are very averse to derisive comments from teenage males. In direct contradiction to a lot of men's preferences, what is called attractive is often an extremely thin body. Not that this is necessarily unattractive to me - I set a pretty face, a warm smile and a brain above all else - but we know what the magazines say. There are notable actresses who don't conform to the pretty and vulnerable image, but they're less common. For every Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hamilton or Jessica Biel there are at least three Sarah Michelle-Geller's.

Not that I'm saying Sigourney Weaver isn't attractive or that Sarah Michelle-Geller doesn't work hard on her fitness. I'm just illustrating market forces as perceived by many movie producers. The moment they cast someone that a lot of males don't find pretty and sexually approachable enough, the online wailing begins.

However, my personal hang up is when the movie producers decide to show that a woman is tough and capable by giving her another woman to fight! I can't think of how many movies do this. Hero and villain are male. But both have a female ally and these two pair off for a bitch-fight at the end that usually gets inter-cut with the "real" battle. I'm not sure whether it is the sexism or the cliché that is more tiresome. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

I used the term "sexually approachable" above and I used it specifically because the issue is not, imo, one of conventional attractiveness alone, but one of perceived power. Buffy might (suspending distinctions between reality and fiction for a moment) be able to kick you fifteen feet through the air, but she still gives off all the signals of femininity. Take another look at those photos of Linda Hamilton or Sigourney Weaver in those particular roles and tell me that if you were feeling horny you'd just as likely make a move on them. Well I might, because I'm not that casual in this area of my life and I go for someone who looks quite independent. And you might for all I know because you're fairly physically confident by the sounds of things. But I know that a lot of guys would not because their ability to chat up a girl depends on them coming from a position of power. Take that away from a lot of guys and they don't know what else to depend on for approaching a girl. And girls know that too (which is why no small number of them exaggerate how helpless of dependent they are - otherwise the guys aren't confident enough to make a move).

Which brings us neatly on to your experiences with muay-thai training girls.

Maybe the proof is in the pudding. I'd be willing to guess that more women in the United States to tip-tappy TKD and less do full contact Muay Thai with knees and elbows. I remember back in college there were a lot of young women who weren't necessarily super athletes who'd get into TKD and kind of enjoy the high kicks and the bouncing around and were only mediocre with the point sparring, and they really got into that sort of activity. I don't remember meeting a single woman at the muay thai club, on the other hand, where one of the guys there basically beat the crap out of me on my first time sparring with them.

Your value system may place a high regard on being able to physically fight. A lot of people, including a lot of girls, think it's a lot less relevant in modern society. So getting really into martial arts with its accompanying reduction in "femininity" just isn't that high value. But I don't think that's the main thing. I've trained in a few places and the harder places (with the bags and the muscles and the gum-guards rather as opposed to what you call tip-tappy) weren't really that friendly to women. Not verbally and not really in practice. These are places where a high premium is placed on being able to punch hard and grapple big people. Most girls are starting off at a big disadvantage in terms of strength and these sorts of places are pretty intimidating. If you had the same physique now that you did when you were 14 would you feel quite as comfortable and accepted at that muay-thai club when you walked in that day? Perhaps, but perhaps not. You get my point anyway, I'm sure. Those TKD schools promise newcomers that they can fight without being big musclely monsters. You can see the appeal to people who will never be big muscly monsters (and certainly don't want to be). I've done a range of styles and I can think of one woman I've known in my life that I'd say has a good shot at taking me down in a face-to-face-know-we're-fighting fight. I also know that a lot of guys had a problem with just how tough she was. It takes a lot of guts to step right outside the boundaries that society sets for you.

So, maybe if we were to make a "realistic" female warrior character, she would actually seem "unrealistic" to most Americans, because the vast majority of people have a fantasy about a skinny nonagressive flexible woman, whereas at the same time most people don't participate in rigorous activities which require high levels and strength and determination and therefore they don't understand those things enough to project them on a fictional character.

I don't think such a character would seem unrealistic, except to those sexist individuals that don't believe a woman can fight. I think most people can distinguish between fantasy ninja school girls and realism. But it might not occur to many younger players to choose realism over fantasy. Many people like their fantasy of their super-tough non-threatening feminine-fatale.

Anyway, here's the bullshido.net thread, with some wonderful photos: http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=79248

This is my favorite one, because you can really see Kat's muscles in her shoulder and arms and really appreciate her athleticism: http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images0...c58cbb3e5fc.jpg

It's subtle and tasteful, though, because she's not blatantly flexing for the camera or anything like that. The muscular tension you see is just what's required to hold the rifle.

She's pretty and has gorgeous muscle-tone. Totally the sort of example you'd want any daughter you had to look up to. Though not necessarily the shooting people bit. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Regards,

Khadim.

[Glyph]

That's one of the things I've always liked about the Shadowrun art. Granted, they do still have T&A stuff, but they also have women who look strong, competent, normal (as opposed to rail-thin supermodels), or even ugly. They have a pretty wide range of types, and I've always liked that.

I agree that women who are fighters will tend to look different than what you see on a movie or TV screen. Keep in mind, though, that in Shadowrun, magic and augmentation might make it more difficult to tell. That skinny chick could be a wire-fu sammie with a fingertip monowhip, or an adept who can punch through a ferroconcrete wall, or a mage who can blast people with lightning or summon a huge earth elemental to burst up through the floorboards.

[knasser]

That's one of the things I've always liked about the Shadowrun art. Granted, they do still have T&A stuff, but they also have women who look strong, competent, normal (as opposed to rail-thin supermodels), or even ugly. They have a pretty wide range of types, and I've always liked that.

I agree that women who are fighters will tend to look different than what you see on a movie or TV screen. Keep in mind, though, that in Shadowrun, magic and augmentation might make it more difficult to tell. That skinny chick could be a wire-fu sammie with a fingertip monowhip, or an adept who can punch through a ferroconcrete wall, or a mage who can blast people with lightning or summon a huge earth elemental to burst up through the floorboards.

This came up when a new player was preparing her character with me. She wanted to play a tough, beautiful elf samurai. When it came to description, she wanted to clear how slim her character could look whilst still having a high Strength attribute. I said Muscle Replacement needn't add to the bulk - it was synthetic so could generate a lot more power per kg. She settled on a natural Strength of 3 which I said was the maximum I could allow before a woman looked extremely muscular (not a criticism, just that a woman with Strength 4 is going to have arms and shoulders bigger than mine! ) and she made it up to Strength 6 with Muscle Replacement which I said I wouldn't count visually. Thus she got her highly athletic but still "acceptable" character that was nonetheless still as strong as Darth Vader. And she was well-pleased. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[ElFenrir]

The whole looking-the-Strength thing, IRL, I've had some interesting experiences with. Now, others might have different, but this is what I've experienced:

Women I've met tended to ''look their fitness'' more. For example, the girls Ive met who are very slender or whatnot, actually tend to preform, well, rather unexceptionally physically-very average at best. However, the female athletes I knew in school looked it. They looked very toned or whatnot, and preformed the same way.

Men, though, I can never tell. I've met some rather hefty guys before who were very unexceptional strength-wise. Likewise, I've met some skinny dudes who did some ''whoa!'' stuff. A friend of mine comes to mind-a tall, rather lanky dude; doesn't look any more than a strength of 2 in SR. But this guy is strong as an ox; i swear he might have a few levels of muscle augmentation in there with the stuff I've seen him do. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I might have just met freaks of nature or whatnot, but I dunno-it just seems that more women I've met sort of ''look'' their strength; in other words, I wasn't surprised on how they preformed(like in high school, the female athletes always did well on any kind of endurance/strength tests.) But somehow, more men have surprised me strength-wise, for better or worse(the skinny dudes I've met who were stronger than bulls, and the big, hefty guys I've met who really aren't to strong.) I really wonder about that.

[Whipstitch]

Well, a lot of it comes down to the simple ability to really push yourself. Whether people like to admit it or not, giving something your all is far more often an exceptional trait or a learned ability than it is something the average joe just happens to climb out of bed with. It's quite rare that a person truly knows just how much they're capable of doing without being repeatedly challenged. A lot of hefty guys are hefty because they don't take part in activities that push their physical limits in any way. Even if they don't really lack exercise, they still might have an idea of their capabilities that may not quite fit the reality and fail to really leverage their strengths. Meanwhile, my mother's last relationship was with a real scrawny looking guy, but he had been in the navy and worked for years as a carpenter. In terms of raw muscle mass, I doubt he's really packing that much power; I'm bigger than him and at the end of a day of work, he shows his age and I just keep trucking along like a 24 year old is wont to do. But his hands are toughened by work; he doesn't quit pulling hard on something just because the edges are a bit sharp or the material is rough or because it's too damn hot outside. He'll damn near kill himself getting something done if he has to. I'm willing to bet that in theory, I'm a hell of a lot stronger than this guy; lord knows I look stronger. But the bottom line is I'm softer than he is, so in terms of functional strength we're not as far apart as you might imagine.


Another thing worth pointing out about guys is that the man made enviroments are designed with the lowest common denominator in mind when it comes to physical ability, this includes small women, adolescents and the eldery. Thanks to our natural physical advantages, it's quite possible for a guy to be pretty damn lazy, never really push themselves all that hard and still get along just fine in the modern world until life (or a drill sergeant/coach) comes along and puts a boot to their ass.

[knasser]

I've done quite a bit of weight training. On the order of about four years total, I'd guess. I think I look reasonably strong, but I never went for bulk. I went for explosive power primarily, due to the sports I participated in. I've occasionally been surprised how much stronger I am than men who look about my build. This is topical for me as I was recently coaching someone who was just starting to do weight training and desperately wants to bulk up. He was about my size visually, but turned out to weigh over 10kg less. I have no idea where I've put it all. Though girls I have dated have commented on how strong I feel.

Anyway, the point is that strength training can lead to much more strength than is visually apparent - partly through improved muscular coordination, but mainly through improved musculature. Naturally there is a limit to this, but its true within bounds. If you want to train for bulky arms, do some biceps and triceps curls at about four sets of 10 reps, approximately 75% of your maximum weight. If you want pure, good as it gets strength, go for around 85 - 90% of your max in a few sets of about 5 reps. Why are the two goals trained for differently? Because they're not the same.

On the subject of girls and muscles, though, keep in mind observer bias. If you're a guy, you probably pay a lot more attention to a girl's physique than to a guys. Likewise, girls tend to notice that I'm strong whilst guys are sometimes quite surprised when I lift significantly more weight than they do if we're roughly the same build.

Of course, there are in turn people who are very much stronger than I am.

[Dr Funfrock]

OK, this thread intrigues me, so I'll throw in my 2 cents.

As others on this thread have suggested, it seems to me that the best way to approach roleplaying a woman is not to start with a woman, but to start with a character.

Whenever I'm creating a character, pretty much the first place I go is "Why is this character awesome?"
For me, this isn't about stats, it's about what it is that makes you interested in playing this character in the first place.

Just look at the kind of characters that women tend to play in Shadowrun. I knew one girl who's first character was "Almond", a psychotic ex-bunraku sex slave turned assassin who had been heavily brainwashed and augmented with an Oral Slasher amongst other nasty tricks (I don't need to tell you what that was for). In the same game the two other female players created "A hot elf with magic and a bow" (quoted directly) and "Mr Turquoise", a cool, capable, sophisticated and intelligent data thief, with a penchant for smart suits, hard talk, and getting away clean.
Some other examples would be "Metatron", a tall, tough, blue elven sniper and general all-round cybered up badass dude, "Wing" (Mandarin for pretty. She wasn't), a hard as nails Ork merc with an automatic shotgun, wired reflexes, a tricked out chopper, a short temper, and absolutely no tolerance for 'prissy girly-girls', and Chilli, a thrill seeking nutjob with a pair of SMGs, a complete lack of planning skills, and a daredevil attitude that just couldn't be satisfied.

All characters created by women, but if you try to look for some kind of cosmic "common thread" in there, you'd have to look pretty hard, because being female gamers, none of them started with "OMG I'm playing a female character", they started with "What would be a really cool character to play?"

The other piece of advice I offer, no matter what character you are creating, is to look for the contradictions. Complex characters should have things about them that just don't make sense... or at least, not until you get the whole story.

Jason Bourne is beloved of SR players; take a look at the core idea, a killer who hates to kill. He knows that he has all this power, but he doesn't want to use it. He doesn't want to be who he is. Resolving that contradiction is basically Jason's arc.
These contradictions can be smaller things: My grandfather had this massive love of Japanese culture. He built a gravel garden, converted to Buddhism, visited Japan on several occasions. You'd never think, from seeing his house, that he had fought in the jungles of Burma, had friends who were tortured in Japanese prison camps, and had been inundated with all the World War 2 propaganda about the Japanese. That apparent contradiction is one of the things that defined him. He could fuss over raising the thermostat by one degree, because it was wasting money, but he'd give someone a thousand pounds without question if he thought they needed it.

Look for contradictions in your characters, male or female.
Maybe they hate being identified as a "girly girl" but harbour a love for dumbass rom-coms, because secretly they long for those kind of effortless relationships where everything works out happily. Maybe they find big tough guys attractive, but go out with weedy looking guys because they're nervous about their own looks, and feel intimidated by the idea that a handsome guy wouldn't look twice at her. Maybe they sneer at "testosterone fueled male posing", but will slap someone down as soon as they suggest that there's anything a guy can do which they can't, not realising that they're succumbing to that same posturing. Maybe they're incredibly practical about most things, but still wear their hair long, despite it getting in the way in fights, because somehow they feel that they need to preserve their feminity.

Find contradictions, and then ask yourself "Why is that?" In answering that question, you'll begin to add real depth to the character. As you explore these reasons, you'll begin to delve into their history, begin to explore where they came from, and who they are, what kind of person they had to be for the events of their life to shape them into this complex mess of apparent contradictions that they are today.

[Snow_Fox]

I think TKD is pretty pointless for a woman. I think Aikido or Judo that use leverage and balance are far better than something that uses brute force.

As for owmen shooting. I don't know about movies but I'm amazed how often guys at the range look at me and almsot sneer, like "what's she doing here without a man?" and as they shoot at targets with big honking guns at all of 10-15 feet- I'm not kidding, then I run my targets to 50 feet and do better at that than they're doing at 15

[knasser]

I think TKD is pretty pointless for a woman. I think Aikido or Judo that use leverage and balance are far better than something that uses brute force.

I would disagree with this, though I studied Karate for a bit rather than TKD and my experience with the latter is limited to having sparred with a couple of practitioners. Whilst I've enjoyed Judo and found it quite practical in real world terms, (particularly Brazillian Ju-Jitsu which despite the name is more judo), the reality is that size and weight do matter for these arts. You can overcome someone else's greater strength with better technique, but you'd better be good at that technique and they'd better not know the same things you do. Simple striking arts in comparison, despite falling out of favour in some martial arts circles, I've found very practical in the real world for a couple of reasons. Primarily, a punch or a good kick is... a punch or a good kick! Correctly applied they can take down most opponents. A girl might only weigh 50kg (120lbs), but 50kg being applied at speed to the centre of your jaw through the area of two knuckles will knock most people flat. If you punch your weight and are accurate, even light people (men or women) are dangerous. Following on from that, real world fights are not like the movies. Two people do not square off in stance (well, I saw one person go into full karate stance in the middle of a pub once to the general amusement of everyone). Real world fights usually begin with a lot of posturing and shoving or just an out and out suprise grab or blow in the case of muggings, sexual assaults, etc. Awareness that an attack is coming or a willingness to strike first and hard are the critical factors in a fight. It's the lack of both of these that tends to render pure striking less effective than grappling arts just as BJJ (Brazillian Ju-Jitsu) because grappling arts are great once things get tangled up. But for opponents at a physical disadvantage, you can't afford to lose those two factors. If someone who is physically weaker is going to win a fight, they need the awareness that the fight is coming and a willingness to take the initiative. And in this case, I think someone landing a fast, surprise punch on the jaw is going to be far more likely to end the fight than someone doing a fast, surprise attempt to grapple, take down and mount your opponent.

None of this is to denigrate learning a good grappling art. If you only learn striking or you only learn grapplling, then you have a weakness, but if you're going to only learn one (and they both take valuable time to learn properly), then you might as well learn one that plays to your strengths.

In short, striking arts are:

• Quicker to learn
  No quicker to perfect, however. Don't let there be any confusion on that! But a 70% effective punch is probably a great deal preferable to a 70% effective pin on the ground.
• Do not depreciate as much in value against larger opponents
  No matter how much a guy works out, he seldom builds up much muscle on his jaw or scrotum. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
• Provide a greater destructive power in surprise scenarios
  If you're at a physical disadvantage to your opponent, your best hope is striking first when he's not expecting / ready. If you strike first in this circumstance, then you get the most from a good hard punch (or even kick if you know what you're doing). Using you precious seconds to grab him and drop him to the ground to mount him is probably unwise.
• Do not make one as vulnerable after a poorly executed technique (imo)
  Obviously not universally true, but I would sooner throw a punch and not have it land and already be prepping the next one, than to step in, try and drop him and realise that I now have a much larger guy on top of me with his arms free.

These are just my thoughts. It takes time to do any martial art well and you should consider what works best for you. For example, I have read several of your posts before Snow Fox and know that you like your guns. You might consider that for you grappling is better because if you have sufficient space and warning you'll be trying to draw your pistol rather than launch a nice kick. But I think the above is good advice or I certainly wouldn't be offering it on a matter as potentially serious as this. I had a couple of neighbours who had been to a women's self-defence class and were keen to show me how they could take me down "if I tried to rape them" (thank you sooo much, Michelle). There was a certain amount of squirming around finally followed by the classic line: "You're not supposed to grab me like that!" If you're going to be a judo master, by all means go for it. But until that point, do anything that will teach you how to hit someone hard. For all the stick it takes for lack of realism or weakness against grappling arts, a good Karate school will teach you how to drive your fist through someone's face and outside of a dojo, where people aren't in a proper stance or a trained martial artists, that's your best means of attack.

Hope this is of interest to you.

As for women shooting. I don't know about movies but I'm amazed how often guys at the range look at me and almost sneer, like "what's she doing here without a man?" and as they shoot at targets with big honking guns at all of 10-15 feet- I'm not kidding, then I run my targets to 50 feet and do better at that than they're doing at 15

Well I know which of you I would rather was shooting at me, Snow Fox... THEM! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Regards,

Khadim.

[Chrysalis]

Back in Glasgow I used to do Savate. Well it was called Savate but it was more of about street fighting really. Our instructor was always the one who would push us into being situational aware and also use extreme aggression in fighting. The rule was once we were in the sports facility we were fair game. It would often involve itself into ambushes and pins, which we would then then disassemble and analyse. We would also deal with hypothetical situations often involving bars.

Very important aspects were conflict avoidance, but when it couldn't be avoided we would then switch over to extreme aggression.

One weekend the NCOs thought it would be fun if us cadets would be taught the rudiments of close combat. I was still pumped about our last lesson and well... accidentally punched Harry in the nose hard enough to get blood from both nostrils and pinned him on the ground. Harry's nose still is a bit bent because of it.

It's horrible on how much bodymass I have lost to fat in the past two years, basically because I have stopped going to the gym.

I had some other point I wanted to make, but I kinda forgot.

[knasser]

This thread appears to have turned into one about how a woman can learn to be just as capable of thumping someone as guys can be.

I will leave the discerning of my point as an exercise to the reader.

[Wounded Ronin]

Two people do not square off in stance (well, I saw one person go into full karate stance in the middle of a pub once to the general amusement of everyone).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmcqIlJuVQg



EDIT: Re-reading your post made me remember something related from back when I was in college. A female friend of mine had just gone to one of these "women's self defense" classes given for free on the campus by some local karate school or other. I guess one of the tricks they'd taught had been the old "rotate your arm towards the gap between the index finger and thumb to get out of a grab", because she was like, "Grab my arm!". Of course I knew exactly what she was going to attempt so I gripped her on the middle of the forearm instead of near the wrist and held on tight, and then that technique didn't work at all. I can't remember what we did or said next but I think she made a joke or something. Maybe I told her to punch the guy in the face in a situation like that. I don't really recall.

A couple years later I remember assisting someone in giving a similar seminar. I remember thinking that whatever validity the techniques had (or indeed did not have) was mostly a load of hooey because there's no way to get good enough at that stuff to use it after just an hour or two in a big class. Plus the classes tend to focus on the asinine "grab my wrist so I can attempt to wristlock you" stuff when they should probably be focusing on SITUATIONAL AWARENESS first and going berzerk and being as aggro and mean-spirited as possible if nothing else.

[Wesley Street]

I'd suggest reading Dick for a Day and Chick for a Day if "gender-bending" is something anyone want to seriously explore as a player.

[ElFenrir]

Basically, give some thought to how gender has affected your character, but don't over-think it, or you'll end up overcompensating.

This quote sticks out. Overcompensating is something that I've seen with characters of all stripes-but the thing is, I see it happen quite often with same gender roleplaying. I mean, I've seen women play the overblown crazed feminist-sam ''i can do it as good as the guys and I'll shoot the ones who say otherwise'' as often as men(in fact, it's an archetype I quite dislike, as much as I do the Gears of War esque male Space Marine with the Plasma Minigun who oozes testosterone from every pore.) Thing is with these archetypes, they often, IME, end up extremely...shallow. They don't really add anything to any game but what usually ends up as the most disruptive character in the game. (Again, YMMV, but I've found this happen fairly often. Male or female player, male or female character, some archetypes just cause too much undue disruptiveness.) Overcompensating doesn't really add anything to the character.

At the same time, I kind of fall into my own sort of character-niches. Often, my trolls and orks-normally physical characters-I tend to play much more brain or magic oriented, no matter what the gender. Again, I do play males 90% of the time, and even my male trolls and orks tend more cerebral.

My few female characters take a bit more after myself-more brainy, less physical-but oddly enough, end up saving the day more often than my male characters due to this, and end up more leader-like, taking the reins, directing things, etc. They aren't meek or anything; they are actually usually very optimistic and full of willpower. My gunslinger is more of the methodical gunslinger-believing in one shot, one down. But they don't try to outdo anyone being women; they just...do what they do.

My male humans and elves tend to be my up-front physical fighters; this might just be me breaking the other stereotype of how elves are usually shoved as less physical magic users.(though I stop short of Minigun Mcgee the Testosterone Factory, again.)

I don't know why this is. Now, I, personally, myself, practically a pacifist; besides fun wrestling after some beers or something, I disdain fighting personally; perhaps this is why characters of my own gender tend more toward the cerebral. (though why I have no trouble playing my male elven samurai who can kick off heads is beyond me. I mean, it IS roleplaying, and I'm sure most of us wouldn't go out and do the stuff my characters would.) I myself have more of an interest in firearms than physical fighting for my own hobbies(firearms for target-shooting doesn't bother me at all, and I liked archery a lot when I was in high school.)

I'm not sure why that is for me. I mean, I'm sure some sort of roleplaying psychologist would have a field day with me. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

EDIT: I think i know what it is about me playing more cerebral orks/trolls/dwarves. Going back to my dislike of the testosterone-oozing OMG BLAM Space Marine, I think that with my physically-fighting male humans and elves, I'm still able to inject a tiny bit of...femininity into them(I'm still a hell of a tomboy myself, but I DO have feminine sides to me, and plenty of them.) I have trouble, though, injecting this into male trolls/orks/dwarves...and thus, my brain is afraid they will turn into BLAM BLAM MINIGUNS!! so I play them more cerebral. It's just a thought, but it's there.

As for playing more cerebral women...it might be that I simply just relate much easier to them, since I'm more of a brainy-nerd female. (oh yeah, the stubborness tends to leak to them too. Boy, am I ever. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) )

[Chrysalis]

To be honest, I had a look at both books and they don't necessarily say anything rather are a collection of poems and anecdotes of what if.

I wrote something about social cognitive theory, but I have to admit it's way too analytical. If you are serious look up the biopsychosocial model or ask a psychology professor on the development of personality.

For me when I play men or even women I find that they are more likely asexual beings without any interest in anything like sex. It is as if they functional cogs that are part of the greater machine called the team. When I roleplay I find it to be so heavily event driven that characters often do not have the luxury of inter-character relationships. When they do happen they are often ridiculed. World of Darkness has more reasons for inter-character development than any other RPG I know and yet it is scorned at by gamers.

On the other hand when I LARP, everything is character driven and that is so much more enjoyable. It also means I explore the world through my character. I remember playing a boy once, who wrote love letters to his sister about eloping with her during the game. My character who was so afraid of leaving the surroundings of women since the age of eight forced himself into remaining at the mental age of a child. Polio also had something to do with it, but ultimately understanding of gender and sex was at the most abstract and childish level.

[knasser]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmcqIlJuVQg

I probably shouldn't laugh... but that was funny!

K.

[Wounded Ronin]

On another forum, I've been PMing people trying to learn about social interaction with females. One person sent me a very long and thoughtful message, and one paragraph in particular seemed relevant to role playing in the context of a table top game.

Its all biology man. Not reasoning. Women are in much better touch with their emotions. Have you noticed that the more smarter and logical a woman is, the more dude-like she is? My gf is sorta like that. My roommate is at the extreme end of this. She fucking hates men, but doesn't understand why she needs a man. She doesn't want kids, ever, but when she sees a baby she starts crying. This is what happens when women aren't in touch with their emotions. Emotions and intuition rule their world.

This paragraph blew my mind, because I felt that the issue of women and emotionality is one of those things that was alternately embraced, discredited, and them embraced by the feminist establishment, while at the same time touching on the idea of logic and masculinity in females. It also made me recall some personal interactions I'd had over the last couple of years.

That is because I once had a good female friend who I'd really liked, and who is in med school now, who was very very logical and intelligent. I'd met her in Micronesia and some of the most fun I'd had out there was sitting with her on some random evenings having random abstract debates about various topics as they came up. (Haven't seen her since I got back to the US.) And the thing is that she was METICULOUSLY logical. I consider myself a pretty logical person, because I feel like logic is the only way we can ever really strictly speaking know anything, whereas emotion tends to mislead, but if I ever made a non-logical statement of feeling for any reason she'd jump on that and I felt delighted whenever she did that. (I actually did something with her I had never done with any other female either before or since, which was I asked her out to dinner a few times, but she kept telling me she couldn't because she had diarreah.)

But, this is the thing. People have told me every now and then over the years that when I articulate the kinds of things I'm attracted to that even though I'm a heterosexual male that I seem to be attracted to male-type personal qualities, rather than female-type ones. Was my aforementioned female friend in fact "dude-like", as the PM quoted above puts it? Would many males in fact be turned off by her exhibiting a supposedly masculine trait like ruthless logic?

Okay, but setting aside my acoustic-guitar-summoning personal boring story, there's the other topic of women, emotionality, and the ideas in US society that sort of fluctuated back and forth concerning those. Basically, before the feminist movement you had the idea that women were all emotional and nice whereas men were logical and mean. Later, you started to have the idea that that was totally wrong. However, I think as early as the 80s (as I've encountered in my reading), you basically had some people calling themselves feminists who put forward the idea that yes, women are emotional and nice, and that is good, because our society is masculine and crazed with sex and power, and that is why all sorts of abuses occur and why we're going to destroy ourselves in nuclear war. I read some book written by some female doctor from Harvard in the 80s saying that nuclear arms proliferation was symptomatic of male obsession with sex and power and that female emotionality and nurturingness needed to enter society to bring us back from the brink. And then if you do a Google search you find people critiquing that sort of viewpoint when talking about Abu Ghraib.

Do these viewpoints have any elements of truth? Or are they merely reflections of intellectual orthodoxy and social expectation in the United States bouncing back and forth between today and the 1950s?

I recall encountering some hispanic females who explicitly claimed to be emotional. There was one pregant hispanic female who was telling me that because she was pregnant she was more emotional and that she'd therefore started crying when someone close to her suggested that the father of the child had another wife in Mexico. So this would suggest cultural orthodoxy rather than quantifiable fact, I suppose.

Is logic masculine? Is emotion feminine?

If any of this is true, then what the heck does it feel like to be emotional rather than logical, or vice versa?

Are the above statements just entirely cultural constructs?

[kzt]

I've done a range of styles and I can think of one woman I've known in my life that I'd say has a good shot at taking me down in a face-to-face-know-we're-fighting fight. I also know that a lot of guys had a problem with just how tough she was. It takes a lot of guts to step right outside the boundaries that society sets for you.

Yeah, they are out there. Steve Stirling, before he became a fluffy bunny, wrote an article where he listed the injuries that one woman in his hard-style kung fu (forget the actual name) had done to him in sparing over about a decade. It included several broken bones.