well i haven’t practically none of them except Im a good cocking . I like men sports i hate highheels shoes. i have none i only have a pair of wear shoes and usually use sport shoes and casual wear i never make up and i don’t have earrings. And Im not a tomboy or lesbian so all of that supposedly feminine stuff creeps me out. Its cruel, in many societies women die and suffer mutilation to be “feminine” even nowadays so using that concept is totally bad same than masculinity stuff. like you like ballet and like dress good you are called gay its stupid lol
This topic obviously opened up a firestorm of replies, but rather than read each & every one of them, here’s my opinion…
Its your story. Tell it how you feel it needs to be told. If a story is engaging enough, I can forgive a little “Well, I wouldn’t have done that if it were a Choice” here & there. However, if you’re not comfy handwaving some things, just take a day or two to really think that particular part of the story over & come up with a reason…its how I built the history of Wanderlust.
There’s been many interesting opinions. Thank you all for your input.
The roman woman Fulvia comes to my mind. She married 3 times, gathering every time more money and power until, while married to Mark Antony, she was powerful enough to command her own legions and have her face in a coin.
She is better documented than Cleopatra, as she took an active part in the civil war that ended with the creation of the Roman Empire.
@Aquila there are some Romans women who let Henry VIII like a saint. Like Nero’s mother Aggripina and his wife From the first one to messalina. All are worst than Agustina
@FairyGodfeather Is it strange? I don’t see how. I argue that gender choices are consequential; you express a view that the gender of a character alone changed your perception between detest of a male, and adoration of the female; I point out the natural connection.
“Long time” readers will know I’m on board with the CoG political agenda. Escapist fiction and games help to set the limits of the imaginable; there’s real-world value in allowing people to play a hero of their own gender, and in having a storyworld where no options are closed to people on the basis of sex or orientation.
So there’s a sense in which I don’t need a hand-wave. Choice of Broadsides is essentially a historical fiction about the Napoleonic naval era, and has invested quite a bit in the plausibility of its naval scenes – but it cheerfully kicks historical plausibility out the window if you choose to play as a woman, and never returns to it again. (The “explanation” you get is more of a wink than a hand-wave). People who really care about a historically consistent story can play as a male, but people who really care about gender inclusivity can also enjoy it.
I do think it’s admirable when writers go the extra mile and try to write a world that is both internally consistent and gender egalitarian. And here, a half hand-wave is sometimes worse than none. AotC has tried to sketch a plausible gender-egalitarian world, and is thus fair game for the points where it falls down.
That said, even if it were 100% successful, it would still trigger @Galador’s gender radar. The authors were (rightly) playing with the fact that in a gender-equal world, many of the traits we consider “masculine” or “feminine” would be open to characters of either sex. Indeed, as the discussion here has highlighted, there are plenty of examples in our far-from-equal world of queens displaying Agustina’s supposedly masculine traits.* And there are plenty of English-speaking contexts where the words “beautiful” and “lovely” can be applied without any cognitive dissonance to straight men… “Perfectly lovely bloke,” as I heard in the pub yesterday.
*other than the ability to lift me effortlessly, which I agree would have been better left out of that one scene in CoR.
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@Drazen You seemed to be saying that it was a bad thing. I see it as a positive feature.
@Havenstone Choice of Broadsides was rather on the opposite end of the “Inclusivity” spectrum to Affairs of the Court, which is why there are contentious discussions for one but not the other.
Effectively, the gender choices of the former take place in entirely different universes, thus leading to everybody being able to play to their preferences, without finding themselves questioning the sanity of the environment.
The latter sought, instead, to have both choices merged into the same universe, - that, I think, would be a bad thing to make commonplace. Enforced androgyny is not inclusive. I’m not denying that it was an interesting project, badly implemented, but I would hate for CoG’s “Give an option to everybody” policy to produce worlds like that, as standard.
Tangent aside, you are correct that projects where there are gender-androgynous worlds suffer from handwaving, more than others do, in this regard. Which connects to the general rule that I’ve been advocating on this issue: The more prominent a deviation [from reality], the more a justification/explanation/articulation is needed.
@FairyGodfeather Ah, no, I think I’ve not expressed myself properly, then. I wasn’t saying that the game suffered from being able to change perception with pronouns; I was simply suggesting that authors should be aware of the consequences of those little pronouns, - since the effects can be quite radical, as you rather curiously demonstrated.
@FairyGodfeather its not positive is pure sexism. If a women did A its cool but if a men did same its terrible?. That’s pure discrimination same conduct has to be same criteria. If not you are same sexist that the machism .Ultra feminism or anti men its a pure crap and same morality bad as machism. Equal treat has to be the goal Not put Women likeke The best and perfect.
@FairyGodfeather Your last post is exactly how I was thinking you would respond to the stuff about a pronoun flip changing your entire perception, and I totally see your point! It’s uncommon to see a female character like Augustina who is utterly ruthless, whereas there are plenty of male characters just like Augustin. That can lead to a different opinion of the same exact character based on nothing but a gender flip. That said, the reason that I still like Augustin better than Augustina is because I enjoy that personality as a man and am more accustomed to seeing that. It is easier for me to think of him as a man because it is very easy for me to imagine a promiscuous male monarch with a devoted female consort who has very little control over his actions (Ines) than it is for me to have the genders both flipped. Don’t get me wrong, though- I still enjoy the story both ways, and it’s not really better or worse either way. I just have to adjust my thinking to play with certain flips. Earlier when I said “best read to worst” I should have said “my order of preference” since, as I said, none of them are really “worse.” It’s just that I have to change my thinking about the characters to differing degrees with different genders.
I find it so easy to agree with you on this because I had a similar experience with both Black Magic and with Villenueve in CoB.
@Havenstone I’m curious to know why exactly you think that I am any more likely to have my gender radar triggered than is anyone else here. No offense taken, of course, but I’d like to know.
I had the opposite experience with Heroes Rise. I really dislike Black Magic as a woman because she falls into that typical female superhero role, of the woman who is judged purely on her looks. A woman who despite being an extremely powerful superhero, finds herself forced to sell herself sexually. A woman who falls head over heels for the hero, and throws herself at them, inundating them with emails. I wasn’t fond of female Black Magic, and she was thankfully overshadowed by Jenny who I much preferred.
I actually liked male Black Magic far better though, probably because it’s the type of character you never see.
Is it sexism? Probably. I just find it interesting the way choice of games plays with my perceptions using the pronoun flip. I think it’s a feature of the games, something I enjoy about them, and unique to them.
I do think that it sometimes causes small issues, but I don’t want them to stop.
Hey @Galador, thanks for not taking offense – none was or is intended.
You’re obviously not the only one who would have your radar triggered. But your posts on this thread and the “Antonio life mage” one have come back to personality more explicitly and specifically than other people’s, as well as the sorts of adjectives used (“beautiful” and “lovely”).
Unlike the dynamics of pregnancy and legitimacy in AotC – where I agree there’s been some partly unsuccessful handwaving/lampshading going on – I think the personality and language issues that you’ve specifically raised are a feature, not a bug.
The authors are inviting us into a world where power, lust, and language were never “gendered” in the way they were on Earth. In AotC Iberia, both men and women can be ruthless, promiscuous, dominant or passive. Their personalities are shaped by their social status, not by their gender; same with the way they’re treated and described by other people. For example, less powerful people, if attractive, are described with words with a slightly diminutive connotation like “lovely”; more powerful attractive people get words like “handsome.”
The game was explicitly not “written for a straight female” – it was written with the intent of giving people of any gender the experience of being in a position where making a good match with a more powerful individual is the only means of social advancement… where they have to get forward on looks, charms, or subtlety, rather than more direct ways of making a fortune. (And @P_Tigras, I’m not convinced that in a gender-egalitarian world, the direct routes would always be available to everybody – partly because not everyone is suited to be a soldier or entrepreneur, and more because I can see a hierarchical social system strongly encouraging young people into the marriage market where they’ll have less scope to cause political trouble).
There are a few inadvertent flaws in the execution, but the personalities are part of the package. It’s taking the stuff that’s “easy for us to imagine,” flipping it, and coming up with characters that many of us find quite rich and plausible, and the more interesting for being the opposite of the cliche. (And there are real-world analogues. Catherine the Great has been mentioned, and I’ve had girlfriends who were very much like de Mendosa in the aspects @P_Tigras finds hard to accept).
@Drazen, I don’t think we’re in too much danger of having the AotC approach become the CoG standard. There are plenty of ways to do inclusivity, and most of them are easier than what Heather and Adam went for here.
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@Havenstone Perhaps not, but a worrying number of authors (most of whom do, admittedly, vanish, along with their work, - as is customary) seem to adopt AotC’s interpretation of inclusivity, - or at least lean more in that direction, - as opposed to CoB’s far more sensible take.
One little niggle:
“were never “gendered” in the way they were on Earth. In AotC Iberia, both men and women can be ruthless, promiscuous, dominant or passive.”
Those aspects of AotC’s Iberia, are also all true of Earth. I don’t see what is supposed to have changed in that regard between the world with sex/gender, and the one without.
I agree with your niggle. Those were some of the personality traits that others on the thread have suggested gave the king a “male vibe” and made the MC read better as a female. MaraJade has already ably pointed out that on Earth, there are plenty of counter-examples.
@Havenstone, this is the most strongly we’ve disagreed with each other in a long time:
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Those counterexamples aren’t really counterexamples. They all exhibited at least some behaviors that are commonly considered feminine.
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I think it’s pretty obvious that the primary author originally visualized a female protagonist. There are just too many little details that point in that direction.
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Just because some people might not be suited for the military doesn’t mean -my- character isn’t, especially if death magic is my character’s chosen strong suit. You’re rationalizing here. And this may be politically incorrect to say, but numerous peer-reviewed studies back up the fact that teen-age males as a group react much more poorly to coercion than teen-age females, and are much more prone to respond with violence towards those attempts at coercion. Good luck in convincing young men who aren’t naturally wired that way to become submissive spouses to men and women in whom they have no interest.
@P_Tigras, well, that just makes the conversation even more interesting than usual. 
As you know from previous go-rounds on similar topics, I’m persuaded that the great majority of what’s “commonly considered feminine” and masculine comes down to culture rather than nature – that even in those surprisingly-hard-to-specify cases where biology predisposes a sex in a certain direction, that predisposition gets worked out in very different ways in different societies (let alone individuals). So it’s hardly surprising that an agnostic on gender roles like me reads AotC very differently than a believer.
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Sure, but you could tell a cracking good tale about them without mentioning a single “feminine” trait. Who talks about Catherine the Great’s shoe collection? It’s her power and ruthlessness, her expansion of the Empire, her lovers, her intellectualism, her over-the-top libido. The fact that she was a woman colors how we think about those elements of her story – as with @FairyGodfeather responding to the AotC monarch differently – but none of them are “feminine” as such, and you wouldn’t need to use feminine adjectives to describe them. I’m not sure why the omission of such details from the story of AotC would be such a stumbling block, in a fantasy world which is less strongly gender-differentiated than our own.
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Per the blog entry I linked to above, the authors clearly intended a protagonist who was “feminine” (in terms of social power dynamics) but not necessarily female. Of course, the models they had in mind (chiefly Anne Boleyn) were women, and once or twice that heuristic has led them to slip up and write something more female than feminine. (I’ve not actually read the bit you cited where the character remembers how childhood tea parties “made you feel like a grown up woman,” even if you’re male… but assuming that hasn’t been edited out, it’s the single biggest slip).
I agree with you that those slips undermine the authors’ intent. But I think they’re fewer than you imply; as far as I can see, a couple small edits (to cut the word “woman” in the above passage, and to explicitly attribute to magic Agustin/a’s ability to lift you effortlessly) and we’d be comfortably back in either-sex territory.
For example, in that earlier post, you mentioned the preoccupation with clothes and jewellery as one of the giveaways that the AotC protagonist is really female. But in many countries (European and non), male courtiers and nobles have bedecked themselves in pretty clothes, makeup, jewels, powdered wigs, etc. with not a whit less abandon than the women. A good historical CoG would make us aware of precisely this kind of thing – immersing us in the differences in what it’s meant to be human in different eras and countries. And a good fantasy can extrapolate from those real-world differences.
- It’s perfectly legitimate for you to want the full range of choice at the beginning (and later with de Mendosa)… just as it’s legitimate for readers of Heroes Rise to want to choose outright supervillainy or for readers of Choice of Broadsides to want to go join the Royal Dragoons instead. But I also think it’s fine for the authors to say, “That’s not the story we’re telling here… so you don’t get the choice to be that kind of person.” It’s not rationalizing to point out that not every young death magician is suited by personality to go off to war; or that in the face of strong family and social pressure to marry well, the great majority of young people comply rather than rebel.
If you have it handy, I’d be interested in a link to those peer-reviewed studies you cite (or an accessible article that talks about them). Regardless, I’m confident in saying they don’t apply to the kind of system of social coercion I have in mind… because those kinds of systems exist and have historically been more common than not, notwithstanding the existence of teenage boys. The European noble marriage system in our world constrained boys as well as girls… even in our time, Prince Charles didn’t get to marry who he wanted until he was 57.
To take a contemporary example, over a billion young men and women in rural China and India still face tremendous pressure to get married at a young age to someone their parents pick/approve. Those social systems have safety valves, of course – various options for the strong-willed individuals, male and female, who consistently refuse to play the game. But those individuals are exceptional, and it takes a lot more to break the system down than simple testosterone.
Frankly, teenage boys are defined more by their vulnerability to systems of social coercion than by their resistance. Just define “masculinity” in a particular way, and those insecure violent impulses will serve your social system rather than breaking it.
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@Havenstone It’s moments like this where I always find myself in a state of somewhat bemused disbelief. “So it’s hardly surprising that an agnostic on gender roles like me reads AotC very differently than a believer.” - That, I find very hard to believe; Mainly because I find the case against Gender to be untenable Marxist naivety (err, no offence intended), and I do so for two interconnected reasons*:
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Nowhere in the world has there even been a place where the gender roles have been flipped; A few societies have put more emphasis on womyn in politics than others (Such as the Teutons), but these tended not to last. The same basic roles go across the board: Men have duties of a military and economic basis (and as such, political ones also), whilst womyn have domestic duties, - womyn putting themselves at risk are *greatly* discouraged, men limiting themselves to domestic affairs are shamed. - These rules seem too universal to be merely supervening cultural ones, and I never considered powered wigs to be effeminate anyway.
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The “Gender Roles” of our world perfectly match our evolutionary purpose, on a psychological level. Men are hunters (security and provision), womyn are reproducers (domestic affairs). Womyn putting themselves at risk a) jeopardises their reproductive capabilities (See why the Neanderthals went extinct), and is also b) something they are incapable of doing for, effectively, a year at a time, - Thus, fundamentally, men must develop the mindset of stoicism, self-sacrifice, and ambition, in order to succeed in the world, and provide for their family; Womyn, likewise, of anxiety, compassion, and not so much a lack of ambition, as a tendency to approach prosperity on a personal, rather than social, level - This, they evolved, to better care for themselves and their children.
So, I don’t really believe anyone can read AotC and not see femininity/masculinity in all the reported places. It seems to me that it would take some palpable doublethink to overcome such hardwired perspectives. Even the most lobotomised liberal would still succumb to the neotenous faces of womyn, and excuse them for behaviour which they wouldn’t excuse in men (Which @P_Tigras mentioned earlier, and which can be seen in their far, far more lenient punishments in matters of justice in our world), and likewise said hypothetical liberal would probably express a garish “You go girl!” attitude whenever a woman does something so unusual and masculine as joining the army, - even in fantasy worlds where such matters are supposed to be commonplace. These perspectives can’t be so easily eradicated, just because you [falsely] believe they lack grounding.
For the examples @P_Tigras gave, then, I have to express my support. Take Catherine the Great, for his first point: All the traits you listed could also be said of the other frequently recurring name in this discussion, Henry VIII. But, here’s the rub: Can anyone imagine Catherine the Great jousting? I certainly can’t. Such combative activities are far too masculine (due to my above reasoning) to feasibly imagine. When Augustina jousts and hunts, then, she shows qualities of an uncomfortably masculine nature. - And don’t get me wrong, I agree that Augustina reads well as a female, but this is primarily because she is an interesting woman due to her atypical nature. It’s just in areas such as her hunting and jousting that I feel the authors go too far.
The authors did well to describe her as handsome, rather than beautiful, in accounting for her more masculine bent; but they should have been overall more cautious in how they addressed the contrasting elements of her personality, - for our perspective as readers is different to those of the characters of the Iberian gender-androgynous fairyland, and we will need far more elaboration to properly appreciate the character. I imagine quite a few problems with Augustina’s masculine nature are either produced or aggravated by the pronoun flip from Augustin… Which is why I think merely flipping pronouns to be silly.
Likewise, for his second point, our worldly minds will colour our MC female. Not because of the clothing and jewellery, - which I found to be a rather pleasant addition to the story, - and nor was it because of having a [potentially] male character being fiscally dependant on a female. ( - The gigolo aspect of the story made me uncomfortable, yes, but not in an off-putting manner - It was an interesting situation, that could have done with being properly explored.) No, it was the MC’s flamboyant behaviour that made me realise I was playing what was intended to be a female. Every turn of speech was phrased in a manner that was slightly too emotional, and every action likewise conveyed such. Bursting into tears after encountering Thomas just took the cake. I understand this was written to be an androgynous world, but why on Earth *must* the MC be so un-masculine? Reservedness and stoicism, especially, are found wanting.
“Frankly, teenage boys are defined more by their vulnerability to systems of social coercion than by their resistance. Just define “masculinity” in a particular way, and those insecure violent impulses will serve your social system rather than breaking it.” - I agree with you, there. You wouldn’t get 14 year old boys dying in warfare, otherwise. However, I would add a nuance: They are more vulnerable to coercion (insofar as that coercion is in accordance with their psychology), but probably less vulnerable to being ordered by the family; that sort of subservience would not sit well with the teenage mindset, I imagine.
* Yes, I’m flogging this particular dead horse again. I’m always displeased with how I express my arguments on this matter, so if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again… Until you’ve irritated everybody into submission with your persistence, I guess.
@Havenstone We clearly disagree on the extent to which nature (ie. genetics) plays a role in gender behavior. While I do agree that nurture (ie. the environment, including cultural conditioning) shapes the tendencies and predispositions imparted by ones genetics, it can only do so much, otherwise the transgendered who feel they are trapped in the wrong body wouldn’t exist.
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As long as you keep the tale to them as monarchs, sure. Once you inject romances with them into the picture I disagree. Not everyone is attracted to androgyny. In fact it has been my experience that most people are not. And there is a difference between being forceful and assertive on the one hand, which is a must for a successful monarch, and being androgynous on the other. None of the examples were anywhere near as androgynous in personality as Augustina was presented.
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The slip-ups are all one way however. They all presented the protagonist in a female manner. And while they aren’t many, they are enough to undermine the argument that the male protagonist was just as strongly present in the mind of the primary author as the female protagonist.
It wasn’t I who mentioned the preoccupation with clothes and jewelry previously, and as I said then, I don’t really have an issue with that. You’re on display, and it’s vitally important that you look attractive to draw in potential suitors. God knows there are plenty of men who are into “bling” out there in the real world. This as you would say, is something that would more likely “come down to culture rather than nature”. It’s more a perceived gender difference than an actual one. And I’m with you on a good historical CoG immersing us in the differences in what it’s meant to be human in different eras and countries. I just disagree that a difference in gender boils down to nothing more than a few pronouns.
- Yes, but the authors could have justified that limitation on the protagonist’s choices much better. They didn’t stop to think that in the gender-inclusive world they had created the protagonist would have had more choices that would need to have been believably closed off somehow. That was never done. They just sort of assumed that the same reasoning that worked for a patriarchal world in which the protagonist’s gender truly had no other options, would also work here. It didn’t. To add insult to injury de Mendosa encouraged us to do what the story never gave us the option of doing, to make our own way.
Marriage wasn’t about love in the medieval mindset, marriage was about alliance, and about survival. Men were allowed, and often encouraged to have affairs if they wanted affection. This “safety valve” was rarely afforded to women except in extraordinary circumstances. Women could be destroyed by rumors of scandalous behavior, and killed for committing adultery.
The articles to which I referred are from an adolescent development class I took over ten years ago. Maybe if I dig through my boxes, I’ll be able to find that old textbook. It was pretty clear though that authoritarian parents produced the highest achieving girls, but low achieving boys. Less authoritarian parents had higher achieving boys, but lower achieving girls. Other studies on younger children indicated that while both girls and boys desired the approval of their parents, it was a bigger determinant for girls than it was for boys.
Can you create a system of social coercion for boys? Certainly. That has not been done in AotC however. Instead you have a system, if we can call it that, that is based on wishful thinking, and that is extremely unlikely to work for either gender. There are too many successful people of your gender around you who are walking examples of what you too can accomplish. I can’t imagine how anybody with a brain would buy the BS that you absolutely must marry when all those counterexamples are out there staring you in the face every day. Sure, I may consider marrying if I find someone worthwhile, but it wouldn’t be a survival imperative the way the story makes it out to be. And if Augustin(a), Mendosa & Torres all were to slip through my fingers, there is no way in hell I’d have allowed myself to be railroaded into marrying that smelly elderly person with fully grown heirs older than I am, and who would leave me destitute when she dies. I’d have given my family a big fat finger and went out into the world on my own.
@P_Tigras A very good point on transgenderism, one which I’ve never received a satisfactory response to.