Playing the Opposite Sex

[Marian]

Okay I have a theory. Is it possible that when guys play female chars, they tend to play the more flirty types? And when women play male chars, they're more likely to be gruff, manly men? Is it maybe that no one is really 100% sure that they're RPing the opposite gender 'correctly', so they cover by playing them as stereotypes?

I don't think this is always true, but it's a trend I've noticed and something I might be doing myself with my 2 male chars.

[sanchez]

Okay I have a theory. Is it possible that when guys play female chars, they tend to play the more flirty types? And when women play male chars, they're more likely to be gruff, manly men? Is it maybe that no one is really 100% sure that they're RPing the opposite gender 'correctly', so they cover by playing them as stereotypes?

I don't think this is always true, but it's a trend I've noticed and something I might be doing myself with my 2 male chars.

How many rl women you know enjoy being vapid and annoying? Perhaps you're right.

[deadboy]

Nope, I play a mix. I have a few flirty type girls charris, one of which is a little crazy, then I have a few shier female characters, and then I have a few.... well.... I'll just say.... odd ones

Then my male characters I have a few butchish ones, one who I think of as being reasonably japanese and obsessed with honour, and a few who are quite shy as well

Oh and I have a few really grumpy male charris

[the_antisocial_hermit]

Right now, I only have 1 guy of 15 chars... but in my old account, I had more.. something like 5 or 6 guys..

I like playing guys alright, and right now, I love playing the guy I have, though he's definitely not a tough, strong, in control sort of guy. (Can we say pansy? lol) He's actually quite different from the ones I played before. The one I played the most before was a chivalric sort, strong and anything but awkward. Maybe more of a stereotypical ideal than a stereotypical reality. Definitely an antithesis to the new guy.

I have to agree with Sunni, if you have a female character and she knows how to "bat her lashes at someone she doesn't care for" (to quote Missy ), she can get anything nearly... but she has to do it right, or find someone that will fall easily for her guiles. At least, this is what I've observed in watching other characters around mine.

>.< Marian, now I have the "I've got a theory" song from the Buffy musical stuck in my head..

[SekoETC]

I was thinking what, haven't I replied to this already? But it was some other topic. I just counted I play 9 guys and 5 girls.

[sanchez]

I suppose they either figured that people would just genderize their charries though their names, or they always planned on implementing procreation. I guess they also could have thought having gender neutrality would have been simply too weird.

But gender's not relevant for spawnparents, right?

[Hellzon]

But gender's not relevant for spawnparents, right?

I'd assume that's right, since one of mine and another man fathered a newspawn (while exploring a mountain, so no considerable chance that a female was there just before we got there).

[the_antisocial_hermit]

But gender's not relevant for spawnparents, right?

I'd assume that's right, since one of mine and another man fathered a newspawn (while exploring a mountain, so no considerable chance that a female was there just before we got there).

Right, the sex of the character is not relevant to spawning of a new one. It's just if two characters are there, or were there recently. I have a girl in a place with another girl and they've had quite a few newspawns pop up throughout the years.

[AngelSpice]

I play 10 females and 5 males. I tend to just try to think of it as a story from their point of view and their motivations. It seems pretty easy to me to think of it that way.

[formerly known as hf]

Sex, as in the biological sense, has no 'natural' relation to gender.

The have been studies which give evidence to dispute this: certain areas of the brain known as sexually dimorphic nuclei (spelling?) may affect a persons sense of gender (as opposed to physiological sex). The studies suggested that larger SDNs were characteristic of masculine gender identities, and smaller SDNs were characteristic of feminine gender identities. I believe this study was conducted among transgendered individuals, although I can't find the details of the study to check (I think it was held in Norway/Sweden or somewhere like that, possibly Holland...)

Yeah, I know those studies. There have been a few like it, mostly in research attempting to 'understand' transgendered people. What it indicates is that there are various hormonal differences between male and females, and that it is possible to have these hormones in opposition to biological sex.

But hormones, do not, cannot, be the source of individual gender identities, certainly not of widely socially accepted norms. As yet, I have yet to find a study which claims that 'a woman's place is in the kitchen' is backed up by some hormone or neural response in women to dirty dishes...

Ok, sarcy comment, but my point is that, as a society, we construct widely accepted gender norms, and enforce these by deeming those outside these norms as deviant, and discriinate against them, bully them, whatever. When people discuss 'masculine women' and 'feminine men' it is not about the balance of hormones in their body, it is in relation to these widely accepted gender norms.

Whilst some gender identities are possibly hormonal and somewhat biological - that men are generally physically stronger than women is a fact of biology - it is how societies have constructed these into much more powerful genders. That men are mostly stronger than women may be biological fact. That men are stronger than women, thus women must be subservient to men is not biological, it is social construction, one which has been soldified by centuries of patrarchal society. This is clear from the fact that women are not seen as 'naturally' subserviant to men in many non-western societies. The way in which we have interpreted these various, often quite indistinct, biological differences is a much more powerful determinant of gender identity.

Moreover, we have constructed gender identities to such a degree that the vast majority of popular conceptions of femininity and masculinity have not, and cannot, have any relation to biology. Alongside my dish washing example, the common understanding that femininity means carefully applied make-up cannot be biological, that masculinity means a lack of high emotion is not biological, that feminitity means an affinity with the romantic comedy genre of film, is not biological - the are time and space sepcific, to contemporary, western culture.

These are the constructions of gender which hold much more sway than any vaguely possible natural determinism might - and the ones which need to be challenged, and confronted as what they are - not 'natural' results of biological difference, but the result of centuries of subjugation of women under a patriarchal society.

[SekoETC]

I heard that if a mother expecting a boy child is abused during pregnancy, maybe beaten, maybe just threatened, her hormones will affect the child and give him features which are usually considered feminine. Even if the child never saw his father, the stress and fear the mother experienced during the pregnancy have put a mark on the child. I think it comes from caveman ages, if the father was violent then the child would be likely to inherit the same fierce genes, thus the mother's body would emit hormones which subdue hostility and other masculine features so that the child would be more like the mother, and therefor an ally. Whereas a masculine child might start beating up the mother when he grows old enough. I'm not exactly sure why I'm writing this here... My mother was afraid when expecting me because she'd had two miscarriages before and was dripping blood throughout the pregnacy. I'm a girl, physically, mentally something in the middle.

[Nixit]

At birth (or sometime around then), there is a surge of testosterone (for males), or estrogen (for females). Scientists performed an experiment where they cut off the testosterone surge from rats and replaced it with estrogen, and the rat behaved exactly like a female for its life. They did the same thing with a female and it behaved exactly like a male.

I think there is a strong connection between gender and aspects of personality.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/10/041030133346.htm

That explains it I believe.

[The Sociologist]

Sex, as in the biological sense, has no 'natural' relation to gender.

The have been studies which give evidence to dispute this: certain areas of the brain known as sexually dimorphic nuclei (spelling?) may affect a persons sense of gender (as opposed to physiological sex).

Yeah, I know those studies. There have been a few like it, mostly in research attempting to 'understand' transgendered people. What it indicates is that there are various hormonal differences between male and females, and that it is possible to have these hormones in opposition to biological sex.

No, it goes further than that. Hormones you can replace, but instead there are differences in the brain, as Solfius said. The old idea that gender is a purely social construction is well on the way out.

By the way, only four of my fifteen charries are female, but they include two of my most successful. I don't play them especially feminine, though. But I do try add a touch here and there so they're not quite just men in dresses.

[Solfius]

It's a complicated debate, the nature vs/ nurture idea.

I tend to a combination of both: nature giving us predispositions, and our life experiences shaping those predispositions.

I find it interesting to note how much of our behaviour is influenced by chemicals, and not by an eternal soul of sorts.

[formerly known as hf]

Sex, as in the biological sense, has no 'natural' relation to gender.

The have been studies which give evidence to dispute this: certain areas of the brain known as sexually dimorphic nuclei (spelling?) may affect a persons sense of gender (as opposed to physiological sex).

Yeah, I know those studies. There have been a few like it, mostly in research attempting to 'understand' transgendered people. What it indicates is that there are various hormonal differences between male and females, and that it is possible to have these hormones in opposition to biological sex.

No, it goes further than that. Hormones you can replace, but instead there are differences in the brain, as Solfius said. The old idea that gender is a purely social construction is well on the way out.

Old idea? It's hardly 80 years old. Natural determinism on gender has been around for centuries.

Are women's brains 'wired' to be housewives? Or is that a social construction?

I can accept that there are some biological differences between men and women - physical, hormonal and some, possible, neurological differences.

But, as a society, we have constructed so many specific details of a 'woman's' place, what a man should do, so on so forth, that are a result of our society, not some kind of physical difference.

Consider the gender sterotypes - the man is the breadwinner, men must emotionally stable, men must be rational - women must stay at home, women must cook, women must do their best to appeal to men in what they wear, women must wear makeup, women must be subservient to men ect. etc. - those are broad examples, there are much more specific ones.

Are you really telling me that these gender stereotypes are somehow 'hardwired' in the neurological differences between men and women, or other biological differences? Do men have a brain pattern which supposedly means they make better plumbers? Do women have hormones which makes them supposedly like make up?

Be really careful where you go with natural determinism - by saying that it forms a basis, no matter how weak, for our gender stereotypes - you are giving some form of credence to patriarchal, discriminatory gender stereotypes.

Natural determinism for gender stereotypes has been around for centuries, that gender stereotypes are a social construction is a relatively recent development. We cannot start going back on ourselves.

Sugggesting that gender differences are biological begins to give credence to the ideas that it's a man's right to beat his wife. You might scoff, but during the Victorian era and earlier, it was understood that beating a woman was supposedly good for her health, as women's bodies needed it...

These highly discriminatory gender ideals and stereotypes that form an integral part of our society need to be challenged, even after all the progress that has been made. We still live in a widely patrarchal society, where women are regularly discriminated against because of these gender stereotypes.

By giving some form of credence to that situation by saying it's a result of natural differences, may be vaguely correct, but not only can it never account for the differences I have given in example, it can only account for broad, generalised, minor differences. Natural determinism cannot be that string a force, else all women, all men, would be much more similar than they are - it can only ever account for minor differences, which are going to be very varied. It is dangerous to start retreating down the route of natural determinism.