Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I have been reading a lot of games so I can see how to make my own version for fun. I am surprised I have been reading something. In a lot of cases, I have been reading, "His" or "He". Never do I see "Hers" or "She's".

I know our hobby is mostly male. I also know there is a lot of females as well. So I am curious bing a male it doesn't bother me, because it's aimed at me, because I am "His/He". How about the females here? How do you like it, or feel when you read the rules and it's like that? You don't read a "her" or a "she" does that make you feel excluded a bit? Do you feel the game is not meant for you then? Do you feel a bit insulted in this?

Or do you think us men are idiots, and it's boys being boys so you take pity on us?

Just like to know what the females think from this.

This is more a problem with the English language and its restrictions rather than any obvious intent by most game system writers, isn't it?

A lot of otherlanguages have gender neutral pronouns for referring to people.

 Shandara wrote:
This is more a problem with the English language and its restrictions rather than any obvious intent by most game system writers, isn't it?

A lot of otherlanguages have gender neutral pronouns for referring to people.

Not really, English has very gender-neutral words, derivations of 'they' comes to mind.

 Shandara wrote:
This is more a problem with the English language and its restrictions rather than any obvious intent by most game system writers, isn't it?

A lot of otherlanguages have gender neutral pronouns for referring to people.

Done in one. I can think of a lot of reasons why women would feel neglected in the wargaming hobby, but pronouns isn't one of them.

 Frankenberry wrote:

 Shandara wrote:
This is more a problem with the English language and its restrictions rather than any obvious intent by most game system writers, isn't it?

A lot of otherlanguages have gender neutral pronouns for referring to people.

Not really, English has very gender-neutral words, derivations of 'they' comes to mind.

But when attempting to describe a singular individual, that would be incorrect in a grammatical sense, wouldn't it?

I think the original point is a good one, maybe, but it is only a part of the 'problem'.

 Alpharius wrote:

 Frankenberry wrote:

 Shandara wrote:
This is more a problem with the English language and its restrictions rather than any obvious intent by most game system writers, isn't it?

A lot of otherlanguages have gender neutral pronouns for referring to people.

Not really, English has very gender-neutral words, derivations of 'they' comes to mind.

But when attempting to describe a singular individual, that would be incorrect in a grammatical sense, wouldn't it?

I think the original point is a good one, maybe, but it is only a part of the 'problem'.

Correct, I was only saying that the usage of 'they', 'their', 'theirs' could be used. Or 'the player' or 'the players'; the post above said that English was limited, I was only indicating otherwise.

But yeah, the original point is, in fact, a good one.

Is it really a good point?

There are parts in my copy of the Pathfinder RPG core book (for exemple, the Barbarian class section) that refer specifically to 'she' and 'her.' Should I, as a male, then feel as though I'm not meant to play as a barbarian, since it's apparently not 'meant for me' by not referring specifically to my gender, or to a gender-less pronoun?

Vampire: The Masquerade rule books seemed pretty equitable with their pronoun usage. I remember the first time I saw a feminine pronoun used in one of those books it was jarring because I was so accustomed to seeing masculine pronouns used as a default.

 Shandara wrote:
This is more a problem with the English language and its restrictions rather than any obvious intent by most game system writers, isn't it?

A lot of otherlanguages have gender neutral pronouns for referring to people.

I know their is a few then people have been trying to throw around like "ze" and "zir"/"hir" in english for genderless pronones.

Personally if your worried about it, I would just describe player 1 with He and Player 2 with Her.

 infinite_array wrote:
Is it really a good point?

There are parts in my copy of the Pathfinder RPG core book (for exemple, the Barbarian class section) that refer specifically to 'she' and 'her.' Should I, as a male, then feel as though I'm not meant to play as a barbarian, since it's apparently not 'meant for me' by not referring specifically to my gender, or to a gender-less pronoun?

To me they are talking about a female playable character now. I am not talking about males are always talked about in games and are the only playable character. I am talking about the Person playing the game. For instance,

The person with Initiative rolls HIS dice and HIS opponent then rolls their dice. The winner will go first. HE can decide to pass and then HIS opponent goes first.

It keeps talking about His, He so it seems to always be a males game. It's like they think no girls will ever play their game.

Davor wrote:

 infinite_array wrote:
Is it really a good point?

There are parts in my copy of the Pathfinder RPG core book (for exemple, the Barbarian class section) that refer specifically to 'she' and 'her.' Should I, as a male, then feel as though I'm not meant to play as a barbarian, since it's apparently not 'meant for me' by not referring specifically to my gender, or to a gender-less pronoun?

To me they are talking about a female playable character now. I am not talking about males are always talked about in games and are the only playable character. I am talking about the Person playing the game. For instance,

The person with Initiative rolls HIS dice and HIS opponent then rolls their dice. The winner will go first. HE can decide to pass and then HIS opponent goes first.

It keeps talking about His, He so it seems to always be a males game. It's like they think no girls will ever play their game.

I would argue that it's simply an extension. If a section using 'he' or 'her' implies it's meant for that gender alone, then Pathfinder and Paizo means for me to only play as women Barbarians. I think you can acknowledge how absurd a notion that is, and so how absurd it seems to think that rules writers only want men playing their games because they happen to use 'he' and 'his' when writing.

Instead of any sort of malicious intent to keep women out of gaming, I'd put forth the idea that the man writing the game has simply thought in terms of 'his' or 'him' all his life. It wouldn't surprise me to find a set of rules written by a woman uses 'she' and 'her,' unless she was specifically conscious of herself doing that (the same going for any guys writing). I say 'you guys' or 'those guys' when referring to a group of people I'm with, regardless of their gender mix. That doesn't mean I'm referring only to the men in the group to the exclusion of any women.

 infinite_array wrote:

Instead of any sort of malicious intent to keep women out of gaming, I'd put forth the idea that the man writing the game has simply thought in terms of 'his' or 'him' all his life. It wouldn't surprise me to find a set of rules written by a woman uses 'she' and 'her,' unless she was specifically conscious of herself doing that (the same going for any guys writing). I say 'you guys' or 'those guys' when referring to a group of people I'm with, regardless of their gender mix. That doesn't mean I'm referring only to the men in the group to the exclusion of any women.

I don't believe it's malicious as well. I keep doing that all the time. I believe it's just boys being boys and being used to everything being male for them in a males word. Still that being said, I just wonder how females like it. It just hit me, that when I am reading these books, who are they aimed at. It looks like they are aimed at males. Still shouldn't you be aiming at all your parities that are interested in your work and not ignoring others? I know I wouldn't be feeling so enthused about someones work if I kept being excluded in something.

In my experience in both nerd hobbies and as a Software Engineer, women who are in these male dominated arenas are anything but neglected. If anything, they'd rather you'd stop paying so god-damned much attention to them.

I asked my girlfriend what she would like me to call a female wargamer... she replied: the winner. (We tie way too often these days... and I can beat most of the others in my group on a regular basis. Also, she has learned that the chess clock is her friend, and my enemy. )

The Auld Grump

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Vampire: The Masquerade rule books seemed pretty equitable with their pronoun usage. I remember the first time I saw a feminine pronoun used in one of those books it was jarring because I was so accustomed to seeing masculine pronouns used as a default.

The world of darkness books tends to be rather good trying to keep it rather equal and inclusive, all there books.
I have had a few people comment about it, but it is a great thing to try to write from a inclusive tone.
And it does get noticed
They also had a thread on there forums last year about asking how there female players where fealing about there games. I belave it's now gone sadly :( which is a shame as it had some realy good things about this topic.

Soda Pop Miniatures use 'she', and other female pronouns, to refer to players all the way through the Super Dungeon Explore rule book.

I'm sad to admit that I also stumbled the first time I came across it. I had to re-read the sentence to make sure I hadn't missed them introducing a female character somewhere, but they were in fact talking about 'the player'. Once I realised it was just the convention that they were using, it didn't bother me again. In fact I would say I liked that they decided to take a more progressive stance (albeit an optimistic one).

I'd be perfectly happy if all English texts were that way. The only thing that bothers me is when they write "he or she". That's just annoying, and it still winds up being sexist if you always put "he" first. Just pick one and stick with it.

 infinite_array wrote:
Is it really a good point?

There are parts in my copy of the Pathfinder RPG core book (for exemple, the Barbarian class section) that refer specifically to 'she' and 'her.' Should I, as a male, then feel as though I'm not meant to play as a barbarian, since it's apparently not 'meant for me' by not referring specifically to my gender, or to a gender-less pronoun?

They refer to it as whichever the iconic is.

 Alpharius wrote:

 Frankenberry wrote:

 Shandara wrote:
This is more a problem with the English language and its restrictions rather than any obvious intent by most game system writers, isn't it?

A lot of otherlanguages have gender neutral pronouns for referring to people.

Not really, English has very gender-neutral words, derivations of 'they' comes to mind.

But when attempting to describe a singular individual, that would be incorrect in a grammatical sense, wouldn't it?

I think the original point is a good one, maybe, but it is only a part of the 'problem'.

A few of the more conservative linguists claim it is grammatically incorrect yes, but personally I think they're hidebound numpties. Using They, Their, They're to refer to a nonspecific third person in a gender-neutral way is the rational thing to do, and far better than artificially switching between He/His and She/Hers every other paragraph or just swapping for the feminine all the time, which is what aforementioned hidebound numpties suggest(except for the even smaller group of even more hidebound numpties who say there's no issue at all and we should just keep using the assumption of masculinity for nonspecific people).

 Yodhrin wrote:
A few of the more conservative linguists claim it is grammatically incorrect yes, but personally I think they're hidebound numpties.

Just because something sounds okay to you doesn't mean it sounds okay to everyone. Lots of people do use casual grammar when they are talking. It's common to hear people say things like "It weren't me" and "I done that" or use "me" when they mean "I". From my perspective, someone saying "Me and jack went to the shop" sounds just as grating as "Me went to the shop" which is clearly dense caveman speak.

You would never say "Jack picked up their piece so they could move it" (I hope), Unless "they" is some 3rd group unmentioned. So why say "A player picked up their piece"? It's just wrong, and it sounds wrong. It's okay to say things like that in casual speech, but please not formal writing. There is no excuse for that other than ignorance. Call people numpties all you want.

I think the people who expend energy worrying about pronoun use are far outnumbered by the people who don't care and just want to play the game.

 Smacks wrote:
In fact I would say I liked that they decided to take a more progressive stance (albeit an optimistic one).

In what way is it progressive?

 infinite_array wrote:
There are parts in my copy of the Pathfinder RPG core book (for exemple, the Barbarian class section) that refer specifically to 'she' and 'her.' Should I, as a male, then feel as though I'm not meant to play as a barbarian, since it's apparently not 'meant for me' by not referring specifically to my gender, or to a gender-less pronoun?

The issue isn't that sometimes the player is referred to by the wrong pronoun, it's when they are exclusively male pronouns. You could read the entire rulebook to 40k and never get even the slightest hint that women ever play the game. Other games avoid this problem in various ways. Some say "his or her" (MTG cards, for example), but my personal favorite is switching randomly between male and female pronouns for each section of rules. This provides gender neutrality, but avoids the awkward "is this really allowed" problems with using "they" as a singular pronoun.

 Vermis wrote:
In what way is it progressive?

"Progressive: (of a person or idea) favouring social reform*."

*The social reform being: women are treated respectfully by the language.

That would imply that they're being treated disrespectfully in the first place. This is a paper tiger.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
That would imply that they're being treated disrespectfully in the first place.

language being male orientated and females being ignored is arguably less respectful. In any case: I didn't say it was necessary, I just it was progressive, which it is.

Most players are male by a giant margin, thus using "he" is what makes the most sense. Furthermore, in the English language, using "he / his" is the standard use and isn't gender-specific. Using "he" and "she" in an alternating manner would be confusing and uneconomic - would you count the total amount of "he" / "she" in a text to make sure both words are used for exactly the same time? Waste of time.

If you feel offended / neglected by the use of "he", then I'd say that you already feel being disadvantaged / disrespected in the first place and that there's another reason for it that should be looked into beforehand.

 Sigvatr wrote:
In the English language, using "he / his" is the standard use and isn't gender-specific.

He and his are most certainly gender specific: "Victoria took his dog for a walk" nothing neutral about it. People have often suggested that he and his be used where gender is uncertain, along with a bunch of other words, such as 'ze' (the list is actually quite long). However, none of them have ever caught on, which is why this issue is still being discussed.

If you feel offended / neglected by the use of "he", then I'd say that you already feel being disadvantaged / disrespected in the first place and that there's another reason for it that should be looked into beforehand.

Yes, women are disrespected in lots of ways, language is just 'yet another' example.

"He" when not used as a pronoun to replace a name, is gender-neutral in its use.

If you see an offense in that, go ahead.

 Sigvatr wrote:
"He" when not used as a pronoun to replace a name, is gender-neutral in its use.

From the oxford dictionary usage notes:

"Until relatively recently he was used to refer to a person of unspecified sex, as in every child needs to know that he is loved, but this is now generally regarded as old-fashioned or sexist. Since the 18th century they has been an alternative to he in this sense ( everyone needs to feel that they matter), where it occurs after an indefinite pronoun such as everyone or someone. It is becoming more and more accepted both in speech and in writing, and is used as the norm in this dictionary. Another alternative is he or she, though this can become tiresomely long-winded when used frequently."

And what is actually used?

Thanks.