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2009-10-22 Gleichberechtigung

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Summary: After ten seconds of looking at a book, an eight year old girl can tell that most of the women have enormous breasts and lack half their clothes. That's how sad it is.

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< That reminds me of a blog post by the [http://godlesspaladin.wordpress.com/ Godless Paladin] on [http://godlesspaladin.wordpress.com/2009/05/17/sexism-in-games/ sexism in games]. He's quite a ranted. :)

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> That reminds me of a blog post by the [http://godlesspaladin.wordpress.com/ Godless Paladin] on [http://godlesspaladin.wordpress.com/2009/05/17/sexism-in-games/ sexism in games]. He's quite a ranter. :)


Gleichberechtigung is German. I guess it could be translated as “equal rights” or “the granting of equal rights”. The thing is that Recht is the law, a right you might have, but Berechtigung is authority, entitlement, power. Gleichberechtigung! It’s a command! It’s imperative.

Many moons ago, I posted on the Paizo message boards:

The other day my best friend’s kids were looking at Gallery of Evil and the eight year old girl remarked twice on how the sorceress was half naked. So I had to try and explain that people do this because they think it will sell more… That was a bit weird. Specially since she made her first comment after about ten seconds of looking at the product. [1]

After ten seconds of looking at a book, an eight year old girl can tell that most of the women have unnaturally enlarged breasts and lack half their clothes. That’s how sad it is.

I just saw that Judd Karlman linked to An Open Letter to the Gaming Industry because of a thread on rpg.net. I agree that there’s not much else to be said.

The problem starts at the gaming table, I think. A lot of the racist, homophobic, and sexist language I heard in recent months was related to my gaming. I’m usually too stunned to say much. Often I manage a groan, a “please!!” or some eye-rolling – instead of just telling people to shut up.

It’s hard to do because I feel like I’m ruining the atmosphere by calling people out. And to my shame I must confess that I’ve used the same language at one time or another, somehow thinking that I was playing along. Probably a sad tendency to adapt to the people I’m talking to, using the same phrases, laughing about the same jokes, using the same language, even when it’s not something I want to adapt to.

It starts at the gaming table and spreads to our games. It has to stop.

That reminds me of a blog post by the Godless Paladin on sexism in games. He’s quite a ranter. :)

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