Gender Question/Poll

[Luvian]

Originally posted by Nachtrafe: quote: Originally posted by Luvian: Actually, I explained in the post after the one you quoted that I was talking about the theorical potential of women as a "species". Not the average housewife. Of course today's typical women is not made to be a fighter. But that's because of our society's current taste in women, not a genetic limit.

ARRRRGHHHH!!!!!! Luvian, you're still not getting it! WOMEN DO NOT HAVE THE PHYSICAL CAPACITY TO BE AS PHYSICALLY STRONG AS MEN!! PERIOD!! I dont care whether they are housewives from Philadelphia, Bodybuilders from Prague, or Amazons from Crete. No matter how much they work out, no matter how much physically demanding activity they do, they will never be as physically big and strong as a man who does the exact same thing! They CANNOT! Their genes/hormones will not allow it! It has nothing to do with "society's current taste in women"! It has EVERYTHING to do with "a genetic limit"! Women do not have testicles!! Their bodies do not naturally produce as much testosterone as a man's! Therefore, they are not genetically equipped to be as physically strong as a man![/QUOTE]First of all, relax. You didn't understand what I was trying to say, and if you you want to take that tone, then you'll have to argue alone. I have no intention of discussing it further with you if you can't remain civil.

[Luvian]

Originally posted by Thoran: Here's the conundrum... it's very difficult to make an argument without doing direct comparisons. My position is that I choose (for whatever strange reason) male characters for human fighters. This may be strange in a fantasy game but it's my choice. Now I'm told this is sexist because that's the same as saying women can't be fighters. So now the game is afoot. [img]smile.gif[/img] . The problem is not that you like fighter better as male. That your personal opinion and it's ok. The problem is that you said "I try to be realism" and then went on to say male make good martial classes, and priests are male, as there is a martial aspect to it. This imply that it's not realist to think women could be good in a martial class. That's what I found sexist about your comment. . Without comparing the relative physical characteristics of males and females It's impossible to argue anything, and comparisons inevitably come up with things one or the other is better at. I was going to drop the subject altoghter because I don't want to be negative towards the accomplishmenst of women, such as the girl who could snatch 300lbs (an impressive feat)... I would place her around 14 str (given that 18 is the maximum attainable strength for a human), this is an amazing high value (I'd place the average modern human under 10). It's no diminishment of her accomplishment to say there are guys out there who can snatch close to 500lbs, but I suppose the very nature of comparison means it's inevitably interpreted that way. . No, a character with 18 str can lift 255 pounds max, which mean she has more than 18 str. Someone with 14 str can lift 170 pounds max. . I agree genetics is a tricky business, and causal relationships are difficult to quantify when the effect is non-obvious (like spatial imaging and multitasking). BUT, physical performance is fairly easy to quantify and has been measured ad-nauseum... I don't beleive it's illogical to draw conclusions when the body of evidence is huge. . The problem is that you are dimishing the achievement of women. They are a lot better than you think, as I just said above. They can have 18 str. I said multiple time that my problem was not with peple saying men have more muscle potential. My problem is that people see women's muscle potential aslower as it really is. . Anyway... this is good stuff and I'd like to add more, but sadly I've got to run... hopefully the thread will still be running tuesday when I get back!

[Luvian]

Originally posted by IAmThumper: Oh my.... Oh my goodness!!! I thought I was writing long posts. There has been so much said I can't keep who said what straight anymore. LOL. I'll try to be concise. LOL First I applaud anyone who fights silly illogical stereotypes. I don't think people try to fight stereotypes towards men enough though. I don't know who wrote this (Can't keep it straight, heck I can't even find it) "that most abuse is done by men towards women". The fact is that violence in the home is done about equally by both men and women and in reality it's actually slightly more women doing the abusing then men. Most deaths are actually women killing men and family members. 54% of lesbian couples report having been abused by their (lesbian) partners and only 14% of gays report the same. People only hear about violence against women and violence against men is often unreported so it's easy to understand why you would think so. I think there is a stupid stereotype that men are abusers which it only starting to be confronted.

I have nothing to add to this.

I do get what Luvian is saying. You aren't fighting the fact that the female limit of physical strength is less then the male limit but that people set the limit too low for women. I don't believe most people do this (or at least it's a bit exagerated) and I'll try to explain...

I don't think it's exagerated. Most people do it sometimes unconsiously. It just that it's in tiny uninportant things. I'm sure I do it sometimes, too.

Luvian, you said "It's not my fault if most people underestimate women and overestimate men." Oh man I can't tell you how much this sounds like feminist brain-washing to me! Sure there are truly sexist dinosaurs out there but I think people get this opinion mainly from feminist groups that propagate it for their own gain. As long as this is "true" then feminist groups have an excuse to help women and knock down men so they propagate the idea. The same kind of thing is happening with the propagation of men as abusers (imo).

What you just quoted me saying is true. Just look at all the examples and opinions people gave in this thread. Men did get overrated and women did get underrated. The perfect example to this is when people kept comparing men to the perfect men, and women to some typical house wife. That's a totaly unfair comparison.

And no, I don't listen to feminist group, I create my own opinion from what I see. I consider most of feminist I've seen to be sexist.

The simply fact is as long as these opinions exist (unchallenged) men and women will never be equal.

That's why I'm trying to make people accept both as equal, but as you can see, most people don't want to accept that.

I don't see any evidence that anyone is underestimating women here only being realistic and looking at the facts and their observations. I hope you are not continuing this argument simply for this belief.

Look again, and re-read my posts, and you should see. I gave lots of example already.

People don't only underestimate women when it come to strength. They do it with almost everything. Of course it's not as bad as what the old sexist dinosaurs think and say, but it's still something that should be stoped.

That girl is amazing. I would actually go so far as saying she has 17 or 18 strength (If anyone wanted to they could look it up in the rules!). But I think that in the real world women wouldn't get into the 1100) range which the AD&D game restricts to the truly exceptional.

Now that comment really annoyed me. I DID look into the rules. Where do you think I pulled my numbers from? What do you guys take me for?.

And yes, she is stroner than basic 18 str. She lifted 300 pounds, and the 151-75) range is 305, so I guess it's safe to assume she would be in that section today. Bbut if you want to go by the 300 pounds, that would put her in the 01-50 range, which cap at 280. I guess she would be 50 and a half.

[ 08-28-2003, 11:26 PM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

[Zuvio]

I'm a male and I play a male because I do not want to romance a male. I want to romance a female. That roleplaying.

[Avatar]

In NWN like games where only one PC is involved I play my own sex, which is male. It's because I only play most RPGs once due to lack of time, so I want to get through them as I personnaly would, making decisions, talking and romance natrually.

But if I had to pick a team in IWD, even BG type:
Then I am usually always a Thief/Mage Male.

I then like to balance the team, 3 boys and 3 girls [img]redface.gif[/img] )
Usually a Druid girl, because somehow I have the Jaheira image etched into me from BG saga i guess.
And another Thief/Mage girl, because of Imoen. She was hilarious in BG.
Then the choice opens up. I would usually have a female cleric that looks like Aerie because I am sad and the of the clan ALSB.
As for the 2 blokes, I would have them making up what my party lacks: Paladin and a Fighter.

[Nachtrafe]

Originally posted by Gabrielles blades: id just like to point out that the language you did use is by its nature saying women are weak. the word stronger, it means x is more strong than y, which in the context used means you are putting down women. If you wanted (which i dont think you do) to say entirely positive things about men, you could say things like men are strong; as this doesnt by its nature say they are better than another.

GB...since you're from Florida, I hope I'm correct in assuming that English is your first language, otherwise, this grammer lesson is going to be wasted. [img]smile.gif[/img] For the record, I think you are way off base. The word 'stronger' is a relative. The word 'weak' is an absolute. Saying that someone is 'stronger' does *not* equate to saying someone else is 'weak'...it equates to saying they are 'weakER'. There's nothing derogotory or sexist about that...it's a simple fact of life. There are some people that are stronger than others. That doesn't make everyone else 'weak'. It just makes them 'weaker'.

I think I phrased myself very well on every occasion. I used relative terms. I said men are stronger. Yes, by implication, that means women are weaker...again, that's a fact of life. But, by no means did I say, or even imply, that women are *weak*.

In fact, I said, quite specifically, that I was impressed by, and admired the work that all of the women bodybuilders that were being used as examples went through. None of those women could be considered, in *any* way, weak. But, from a purely physical standpoint, when compared against a man with similar background and training, they are *physically weaker*.

As for the whos better at super body building; youll probably note that the men are in an entirely different weight class, you wouldnt expect a man who weighs 180 lbs to be able to do the same things that a man who wieghs 300 lbs to be able to do the same things now would you? so why expect a woman to be able to? If you were going to run an experiment to determine whom has the most potential, a man or a woman when it comes to body building you would first have to set certain rules. For example, before they begin the man and woman must weigh the same, have same height/width, have the same body fat percent, have the same mentality, do the same exercises the same amounts of time etc etc. Now it would be more difficult to do such an experiment the earlier in the childs life you start it. it would be best probably to choose people who are past the growing phase so that you wouldnt have to redo the experiment because of differences in height/width etc.

Yeah but, I *did* provide an example of two similarly built people in a previous post, and in every weight lifting category, the man was able to lift more weight...every category! Sure, I agree with you, putting a 300lb man against either a 180lb man OR woman is completely unfair. That's why I provided the example of Chaplin and Hayworth. They are about the same height, about the same weight, and about the same age. In fact, she's just a little bit taller than him, but he's still able to lift more.

And, even if you move away from the arguement of genetics, you can simply look at compiled data(the height/weight charts that I posted earlier). It also shows that men are larger, on average, than women. And therefore, by simple deductive logic, the *average* man will be stronger(larger size generally = larger muscle mass) than the *average* woman.

Originally posted by Gabrielles blades: As for being hit on...yes ive been hit on when ive been roleplaying as a woman, it doesnt happen very often. usualy its flirting, being hit on is rare. When it does happen i generally put them in their place.

Personally, I prefer claymores(the exploding kind, or the pointy kind, makes no difference to me).

EDIT: To add the last paragraph.

[ 08-29-2003, 09:35 AM: Message edited by: Nachtrafe ]

[Nachtrafe]

Originally posted by Bozos of Bones: Haven't logged on a few days so I'm a little out of flux. I tried to get back in touch by reading the last two pages I missed but.... STOP WRITING BLOODY ESSAYS IN YOUR POSTS!!!!!!!!! That would be all.

Erm...sorry. [img]smile.gif[/img] Well, not really. LOL...Some of us, when we get the bit between our teeth, really do tend to ramble on. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Nachtrafe]

Originally posted by Luvian: quote: Originally posted by Nachtrafe: quote: Originally posted by Luvian: Actually, I explained in the post after the one you quoted that I was talking about the theorical potential of women as a "species". Not the average housewife. Of course today's typical women is not made to be a fighter. But that's because of our society's current taste in women, not a genetic limit.

ARRRRGHHHH!!!!!! Luvian, you're still not getting it! WOMEN DO NOT HAVE THE PHYSICAL CAPACITY TO BE AS PHYSICALLY STRONG AS MEN!! PERIOD!! I dont care whether they are housewives from Philadelphia, Bodybuilders from Prague, or Amazons from Crete. No matter how much they work out, no matter how much physically demanding activity they do, they will never be as physically big and strong as a man who does the exact same thing! They CANNOT! Their genes/hormones will not allow it! It has nothing to do with "society's current taste in women"! It has EVERYTHING to do with "a genetic limit"! Women do not have testicles!! Their bodies do not naturally produce as much testosterone as a man's! Therefore, they are not genetically equipped to be as physically strong as a man![/QUOTE]First of all, relax. You didn't understand what I was trying to say, and if you you want to take that tone, then you'll have to argue alone. I have no intention of discussing it further with you if you can't remain civil. [/QUOTE]

[Zuvio]

By the gods Nachtrafe, are you trying to get to the one-post-per-page limit?

[Nachtrafe]

Originally posted by Zuvio: By the gods Nachtrafe, are you trying to get to the one-post-per-page limit?

Well, I was trying to cut down to just two per page, but I ended up with three(now four) on this one. [img]smile.gif[/img] See...if I could just refrain from writing novella's, it wouldn't be a problem. [img]smile.gif[/img] But, when I get my dander up, I just start writing, and sometimes cant seem to stop. [img]smile.gif[/img]