Gender stereotypes in SL: "Real" women

More contradictions...



"Without looking it up"? So, being able to look it up is less tech-y/geeky/masculine than remembering what you bought? I think you have that backwards. Tell us, using your non-masculine Windows interface skills, how does one look up what video card is installed?



As someone else said, needing to know, and not taking no for an answer, is kinda masculine. Also, isn't owning a computer mic kinda tech-y/geeky/masculine?



IOW the tech-y/geeky stuff *you* do isn't masculine, but the tech-y/geeky stuff other people do is. Neat.

This topic comes up the Gorean Forums from time to time. Not so much "how to tell" but "does it matter" and the topic usually ends with a shrug and "it happens -- if it works, fine."

Here's an example:

http://www.goreanforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=4732

I guess because it is a roleplay environment it's understood that the avatar is not the person at the keyboard. One man I know says "OOC, I'm a nice guy but IC I'm an asshole." If you start with this separation, why care what the other person looks like in real life?

Gor is a man's world, sometimes it's suggested to women that they play a man at first. In that way they can travel more easily and get a grip on what's happening.

I don't understand the gender intolerance. If a RL handicapped person plays a SL buff dude, there is no problem. If a RL tall gawky girl wants to be an SL elf, there is no problem. If an elderly person wants a child avatar, there is no problem. Why should we draw the line at a different gender? It's supposed to be "your world - your imagination."

I guess it comes down to what you are looking for in SL. If someone is lonely in RL and is looking for a SL friendship, possibly leading to romance, and crossing that over into RL, then maybe the gender of the person they are getting involved with in SL mattters hugely to that person.

Relationships in SL have crossed into RL, both with good and bad results. So for people who are starting to get involved with another in SL, at what point should their 'true' gender be revealed? Or never at all, until they meet for real?

The complexity of this is giving me a headache!

Vi

If it got to that for me & someone, I'd ring them up then.

Some other net venues it's a total no no because they are geared pretty much completely to relationships o/l and r/l.

This.

Or it could be something as innocuous as she has problems with her voice too.

When I first came inworld, I was experiencing a partially paralyzed vocal cord which resulted from surgery of another situation. Talk about bad luck. So, aside from the fact that I had no desire to voice with anyone (for me, it crossed a boundary which I felt was far too personal and I mean that even for a friendship), I was embarrassed that in the middle of talking, my voice would give out on me. I continuously had to clear my throat, my voice was raspy, thin and left me breathless when I spoke too much. It was so bad that my specialist and I were seriously considering surgery to repair the problem.

Anyone who cared that much about hearing me, I wasn't that interested in getting to know. Either take me at face value, or not - it made no difference to me.

BTW, I never had one person who ever questioned my gender because of this.

It would be similar to dating from Internet match sites.

They email you a photo on Friday....they weigh 180 pounds with a full head of hair. You meet them for lunch on Saturday....and they've gained 100 pounds and lost their hair overnight. (no offense to the flabby and hairless....just be a man and send your flabby, hairless pic upfront).

In the gender case, they simply "changed" a bit more dramatically overnight. No guarantees until face to face.....even then....I suppose "checking under the hood" would apply in some cases.

@ Voice "Verification". Do those who follow this mantra ever consider how relatively easy it is to disguise one's voice, and I don't mean with a voice changer? Actors do it all the time, anyone can do it with a little practice. Or, have they never met someone in RL whose voice didn't match their gender, especially if it was strictly on the phone, with no viusal cues? Everyday in RL, you can encounter a woman with a deep whiskey voice, or a Guy who sounds like nails on a chalkboard. If you think hearing them speak "verifies" anything, you are being a bit naive in my opinion.

If knowing someone's true gender or other RL data is important to you, that is fine. We each have our own comfort levels. As long as they willingly share it with you, no problem. If they aren't and that is unacceptable to you, simply move on. No need to berate and harrass.

For the "experts" out there: Feel free to analyze away.

I like sports, including auto racing.
I love shopping.
I change my clothes several times a day sometimes, other times I keep an outfit on for a couple of days if I'm not spending a lot of time online.
I love cooking and interior decorating
I hate Lifetime
I am not interested in Computer/Tech stuff
I don't play games
I love my dog.
I don't eat a lot of chocolate and am allergic to a lot of flowers
I like beer, scotch and fine wine, though usually not together.
I don't use voice. I don't own a microphone.
I don't care what age, race, gender, body type, occupation,political or religious affiliation you are in RL.

You get all hot about military jets and guns, too, don't you?

So, uh... are you seeing anyone?

.

All my research indicates that this guarantees that you are a woman. I've not met a man yet that didn't care about gender. Possibly a few rare exceptions out there. Age...maybe 80% care about...body type...75%....sound right?

/me waves.

A large part of it is the dynamic range. Women tend to have a broader dynamic range in both pitch and amplitude. I'm not deadpan enough to pass as a guy on the phone.

Bwahah know thy enemies.

I would do a good job posing to be a female avatar that poses to be a guy.

No I am sorry, you are wrong, I am not a guy.

uhm..no. No one in particular.

The aircraft do it more than the guns. The guns are just another useful household item.

Yeh. Basically SL seems a lot more "live and let live" than other social sites. It's if or not you can accept it as it is.

One could always set up a sim that had voice verification as a rule, or go to another site like alt.com or mIRC where they do care about gender.

OOHHHH...Seven and Brenda?

I know a lot more female clothing designers than female scripters of weapons and cars. Which is not surprising. I don't design clothes at all, I don't even own a female barbie/model type avatar and never bought a single skin in my entire life. So yeah you are right, I don't fit into my own stereotype. However this is not a contradiction.

I see the genderbending topic from a very relaxed and rather funny point of view. I never take it serious. Most of my genderbending friends are pretty open about it. It's just an avatar, a choice you make, nothing more, nothing less. Why getting that serious about it?

Seven and Brenda, sitting in a tree,

S... N... I... P... I... N... G!

/me sticks out her tongue

I'm just an incurable tease.

I don't think either of us are interested in online romance.

.

Romance...no. Mischief of all kinds....always.

Mostly I'm just giving you a hard time because your stereotypes are so...stereotypical

It seems sort of odd to me that people are willing to accept that a person who is a man offline will roleplay a woman here on Second Life in order to fulfill a fantasy, but unwilling to accept that a woman who is not into these things offline, could be roleplaying them here for the same reason.

*Takes aim, breathes in and squeezes..............POP! goes the weasel.

Damn! Incoming! Clear? Clear?

Hmmm...




Hmmm... tell that to the Poser / Daz community and wait to get flamed.

First person I ever hired to help me back when I worked web design was a woman. In fact, every assistant we had show up every time I went looking for contractors was female. That said, the two artists on staff that knew HTML and sometimes helped were guys, one straight and one gay.

RL experience has always made me think neko's were more likely to be women than men. Furries, I don't know - I've only ever encountered that online. Furries and Nekos are -NOT- the same thing, but nekos and catgirls often are the same groups.


See above on scripting.

Is 'X' meant to be [insert verb / noun here] or to mean 'hardcore'? My experience has been that you can't tie tastes on this to biology - but in the west women are much more inclined to hide it.

At least in the LGBT community, there are a number of women who 'hunt' rather than wait to be 'preyed upon'. Pretty sure that's true for straights as well.


Growing up, it was my mother's porn collection, not my fathers, that I managed to discover...


I find violent sex activities repugnant, but I've been attacked by women before when I've tried to make this claim. Fantasy for me is often what I wish RL could be like, so I've never been able to understand this, and have trouble accepting people who like it. Though intellectually I understand when they tell me fantasy for them is -not- what they want in RL, emotionally its an argument I cannot come to terms with as it is the opposite of mine.


I would think many 'Real women' would -NOT- voice or cam verify unless they desire stalkers... which is no woman I know.


In RL at least, men seem to carry guns for machismo, women for paranoia. Not really good reasons either way.
In SL, I have no clue. But can you really say? If it fits a genre or theme, the weapon might be there just for that alone. heck, my avatar has swords (that I hide) just because they came in a pack I bought. Sometimes if I miss-configure an outfit change, I end up carrying them around for a bit. That said, its handy to let me do a genre switch if I want to try out something different for a day.


Most violent, bloody fight I ever saw was two friends outside a dance club in Seoul after one too many drinks and the local version of the word slut getting tossed out. We're talking head slamming into cement, broken glass, and worse... If people in Korea carried guns, that fight would have ended -permanently-. As it was, it probably came close.


A good amount of anime -only- appeals to women. Maybe I just get confused having lived in the west and Asia. But go check elfwood art gallery, a mostly PG gallery, and you'll find a -LOT- of younger artists doing anime that are women. One difference between that gallery and some others is that it might feel safer to be public there.


I know a number of women who put on anime like affectations in RL, as well as online... (and let me tell you, it gets old real fast in RL - although anime emotes are just versions of normal 'boy/girlishness' in Korea/Japan put into silly-overdrive - the winks, giggles, guffaws, gestures, and so on have RL milder versions).


Now...

I do have some stereotypes that I am stuck with:

1. Women seem more willing to be social and sensual at the same time.
2. Men seem more desiring to 'shag' - they like the dirty talk, but not the sensual.

I can hang out in a fem club and nobody's trying to get it on with anyone, but I've yet to see that in a club with mostly men. The men are more aggressive too - I pop into a club with a lot of men and local chat is often hostile, some argument going on. That doesn't happen -as often- in a mostly fem environment.

I'm actually looking forward to age verification in the hope that it might clean up some of that...

Unless its just 'chimp behavior' and not a maturity thing...

Here's the important thing .... who cares? SL is SL ... RL is RL ... if a 600 pound guy wants to be a 100 pound petite girl in SL ... so be it. Why does it matter?

If you *really* want to spot the RL men playing as SL females .... look at the hands.

But we're still really just talking about avatars - some of those agressive male avatars might be women in RL!

I'm the sort of person who always wants to be cheerful and friendly but if I wanted to try out being surly and agressive I'd create a more suitable alt to fit the part and not necessarily female or even fully human. I haven't actually done that and have no intention if doing so, I must add! I have created a few alts that have come and gone but none of them have had agressive personalities, in fact none of them have had any personality worth speaking of1!