Re: Gender Neutral Writing

["David Chappell" <kaith_athanes@yahoo.com>]

--- In dq-rules@yahoogroups.com, rthorm@c... wrote:
>   At the time it was written, it was probably OK for SPI to write 
everything
> with masculine pronouns and then say that girls could play, too.  
But I'd like
> to be a bit more contemporary and enlightened than that.  
> 

>From what I remember of gaming in the early 80s, DragonQuest was 
fairly enlightened. The combat example included a female character 
in an active roll, as opposed to just being someone to be rescued. 
The artwork included several women in adventurering roles, and none 
in exploitive poses. I think that was much more indicative of 
authors who considered women equals than making a conscious effort 
to alternate pronouns would have been. I have seen sad attempts that 
involved very politically correct writing, but all the women in the 
art were either tied to sacrificial altars or clad in chainmail 
bikinis. The perception this creates is that women are being 
patronized. I honestly think that removing the PS, MD, and FT 
modifiers for choosing a female character would mean more than 
pronoun choice. I'm probably in the minority on this opinion, but I 
feel that you should just treat people as equals instead of 
pandering to them. Pandering is just discrimination pretending to be 
nice.

-David