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[Makkal]

Makkal chatted in the Summit the other day about transhumanism and a Minmater made two claims I thought were interesting.

(Paraphrased)
1. You have breasts and a vagina, which is why you think you're a woman.
2. I know you're a woman because you wear make-up and have long hair.

Are these generally held ideas within the Minmatar cultures? That sort of strict attitude toward gender is something I expect in Amarrian culture but none of the others. Then I went into the character creator and noticed that Galletean men can't have long hair or wear make-up while even Caldari women default to high heels.

Likewise, if you read the original blurbs for the races, there's both strict racial and gender segregation in the descriptions. 

[Matariki Rain]

You've got a lot of questions in there. Could you maybe pick a couple to clarify, so we can discuss those?

"The Republic" probably doesn't have much of a take on gender, although I expect that a child's main tribal affiliation would default to being that of its mother. The tribe write-ups from chargen show that some of the tribes have gender tendencies, roles or stereotypes. The clans and sub-tribes that I've worked with have tended to have defined gender roles, although those might not be what you think.

You can play pretty much what you like. Especially once you become a podder there's a whole realm of "I am not my body" that we haven't had the game tools to explore. Use story tools instead.

There seems to be a common belief that podder psychosis and body dysphoria are somehow dealt with by requiring you to maintain clones which look alike. I think that's going to get increasingly hard to justify. It does, however, make things easieR for game design, and players are apparently more likely to bond with a specific avatar and keep playing.

[Wanoah]

The fact that gender is irrelevant beyond superficial appearance attributes when you create a character is quite telling. So is the apparent gender equality when you look at agents, NPC corporation leadership, and the Empress. Maybe you shouldn't read too much into all of that, but is does appear on the surface that even the extremely traditionalist societies like the Republic and the Empire have a degree of gender equality that exceeds anything in our own societies.

[Makkal]

You've got a lot of questions in there.

... I have one question in there. 

[Matariki Rain]

You've got a lot of questions in there.

... I have one question in there. 

One question mark: lots of issues.

[Lyn Farel]

"The Republic" probably doesn't have much of a take on gender, although I expect that a child's main tribal affiliation would default to being that of its mother. The tribe write-ups from chargen show that some of the tribes have gender tendencies, roles or stereotypes. The clans and sub-tribes that I've worked with have tended to have defined gender roles, although those might not be what you think.

I guess it might depend if that child is of a patriarchal or matriarchal tribe.

[Matariki Rain]

"The Republic" probably doesn't have much of a take on gender, although I expect that a child's main tribal affiliation would default to being that of its mother. The tribe write-ups from chargen show that some of the tribes have gender tendencies, roles or stereotypes. The clans and sub-tribes that I've worked with have tended to have defined gender roles, although those might not be what you think.

I guess it might depend if that child is of a patriarchal or matriarchal tribe.

Note that I said "The Republic" there. I don't think the Republic would get involved in such matters except in cases where the tribes couldn't work things out. (Mother's group is patrilineal; father's group is matrilineal, for instance.)

Given what we know of Minmatar society--from the situation in the refugee camps to the fancy nightclubs for ritual sex--I also expect there's a reasonable amount of "father unknown" in certain sectors. "Maternity is fact: paternity is conjecture", especially in an environment where making paternity testing freely available isn't a priority over vaccinations and other basic healthcare. Therefore, I expect that if things get to being decided at Republic level they will default to following the mother's affiliations.

[hellgremlin]

I think I recall one of the smaller cultures (Ni-Kunni?) having marked differences in gender rights, though I don't recall where I saw this...

[Lyn Farel]

Jin-Mei have, at least. They are quite mysogenous in their traditions if i recall correctly.

[Gottii]

I always imagined the Brutor Tribe had markedly differing gender roles, given their emphasis on martial, athletic and physical training, and their use as slaves for dangerous jobs in the Empire (i.e.  if a Holder wanted to use the slaves for dangerous manual labor, you likely would use the male slaves for the actual physical labor, since theyre both generally stronger and also ultimately disposable, whiling holding back the female slaves to use as breeding stock to replenish any losses).    I imagined that would create the idea of differing gender expectations and roles.

[Aria Jenneth]

Gender and the empires: I presume less gender equality in the ones with more focus on "traditional" values: ethnic Gallentean culture most-enlightened; Caldari and Minmatar fighting for the mid-ranks; Amarrian conservatives bringing up the rear.

Notes: desperate times and "anything goes" tactics, as in a slave revolt, tend to equalize gender roles. Point, Minmatar. Overly-strong repression of women is impractical: point Caldari. Empress Jamyl was a potential Imperial Heir before she ever popped out of, um, death to save the Empire. Point, Amarr.

Every single player-character culture lets women be capsuleers-- a role of significant responsibility and prestige. Point everybody.


Transhumanism and gender: fun topic, which our characters are potentially on the bleeding edge of. The possibilities for, ah, diverse experiences with transgender or similarly experimental surgery applied to jump clones are quite interesting, though this might not do anything extra for a capsuleer's mental health.

Worth exploring. Haven't seen anybody try. Conservative little Aria will not be the first and might well be the last.

I'd recommend that those with an interest in giving it a go approach the topic with some nuance: fascinating new experiences crossed with serious identity issues sounds like a fun recipe.

Bear in mind also that the very concept will push the hell out of certain player buttons, so it's probably better to approach the topic with, again, nuance, and ideally not develop a reputation for cybering, since that will tend to reduce thoughtful musings on identity and gender into the reactions people have to a sexual fetish.

[Matariki Rain]

The fact that gender is irrelevant beyond superficial appearance attributes when you create a character is quite telling. So is the apparent gender equality when you look at agents, NPC corporation leadership, and the Empress. Maybe you shouldn't read too much into all of that, but is does appear on the surface that even the extremely traditionalist societies like the Republic and the Empire have a degree of gender equality that exceeds anything in our own societies.

This is kinda why I asked for more explanation about the question.

Does it take the testimony of four women to balance the testimony of one man? Spirits, no! How testimony is credited will depend on the relative mana and clan/social connections of the witnesses, not on their sex or gender.

Do you have equal opportunity to work as an agent, or in any of the official roles in registered CONCORD NPC corporations? Yep.

Do you have social or physical obligations tied to your sex and fertility that would normally affect your life path? If you're a baseliner I'd say "Maybe", inclining towards "Probably yes". If you're a podder, "Probably no" unless you choose to continue a social role as part of your connection with a clan that expects that. (I play that our so-called "clones" are infertile unless there's some consciously-chosen bio-gene-engineering stuff going on.)

Do you have default social roles or expectations about your character that are determined by your sex? Chargen and tribe write-ups say "Yes". Brutor women go out and get what they want; Brutor men endure. Vherokior women are often heads of small family businesses; the Voluval ritual is exclusively handled by Vherokior shamans who, from the placement of the write-up, appear to be always men.

In Mata's dirtside clan all youngsters were expected to earn their rifles. It was mostly the young men, however, who went off to earn money fighting in various wars; and mostly the young women who did their higher study, learnt to run the clan businesses, and popped out at least one child in their mid-to-late teens "for the clan to raise". Could you work around that if it was clearly in everyone's interests to train the mind of a particular young man or send a particular young woman into a combat role? Yes, although those would be marked as being not-the-usual-way-of-things.

And I'm still not sure if this addresses the initial question, which seemed to have a blend of "How do we construct gender?" and "Huh, CCP kinda gave some us some odd gender choices which can easily play to sexualised gamer stereotypes, didn't they?".

[Yoshito Sanders]

I think I recall one of the smaller cultures (Ni-Kunni?) having marked differences in gender rights, though I don't recall where I saw this...

Ni-Kunni were described as being polygamous in the old CC descriptions, but that's been removed (I think). It was claimed this colored gender relations, but didn't go into much detail. The Ni-Kunni article on the Fiction Portal expands this into saying "their kings and tribal leaders had many wives, their regular dudes didn't."

[Matariki Rain]

I think I recall one of the smaller cultures (Ni-Kunni?) having marked differences in gender rights, though I don't recall where I saw this...

When the Jin-Mei joined the Federation the social standings of Jin-Mei women were woefully inadequate for liberal democracy. Much has changed since then, not the least by Jin-Mei women themselves grabbing the torch of equal opportunities by both hands and carrying it forward with fervor.

[BloodBird]

Makkal chatted in the Summit the other day about transhumanism and a Minmater made two claims I thought were interesting.

(Paraphrased)
1. You have breasts and a vagina, which is why you think you're a woman.
2. I know you're a woman because you wear make-up and have long hair.

Are these generally held ideas within the Minmatar cultures? That sort of strict attitude toward gender is something I expect in Amarrian culture but none of the others. Then I went into the character creator and noticed that Galletean men can't have long hair or wear make-up while even Caldari women default to high heels.

Likewise, if you read the original blurbs for the races, there's both strict racial and gender segregation in the descriptions.

If you believe that the different races in EVE have overt gender roles and quirks or that the character creator is a good indicator for/against these or present any kind of evidence then you have been missing a lot of clues. I might get back ot this later when not supposed to be sleeping if it has not been covered in great detail until then.