I created a post suggesting you add more female artwork into the game and a female player got upset.
I have to point out the females are grossly underrepresented in this game.
There are roughly 85 distinctly male cards, 36 (arguably gender-less) monster cards but sadly only 26 female cards.
Many of the monster cards although technically you can’t tell their gender, have masculine flavor to them as well.
Out of the 23 legendary cards, most of which are gender-less monsters, there is NOT A SINGLE distinctly female legendary card! Yet, there are at least 8 that are distinctly masculine. That hardly seem fair at all. The only cards the might be construed as female are Sheggra and Webspinner (based on the character descriptions) which are both hideous and not a positive representation of women.
I realize that some people will make the argument that men are more likely to go to war then women, but that’s just sexist stereotyping! There was a recent archaeological find that proved half of all viking warriors were female, Women are just capable of wielding a sword as men as are! Since women are half of the population, why are men are represented four times more often than females in the game? And why are there are not some powerful female legendary cards? Please also note that women are allowed to serve in modern arm forces in many countries.
I humbly request that you create a female based Amazonian kingdom. There is actual historical and legendary basis for an Amazonian kingdom, so it’s an appropriate theme. You already made a Stormheim kingdom based on a viking theme but there are only two female cards in it with four male cards. Again, historically half of viking warriors were female.
I also request that you add some female legendary cards to game to rightfully represent women in a position of power and equality with men.
Valid argument in politic talking points only, but physically impossible in reality. While men and women are equal in many ways, men have more strength then women, and nothing can change that. If you want to match reality, you add 1 legendary female for every 6 male.
An argument could be made that webspinner is a perfect representation of women. Not my agreement, but in the spirit of comedy that argument definitely exists.
Don’t you have any clichés and jokes about men as funny as these ones are supposed to be?
That would make a nice change.
There was an archaelogical find recently discovered by internet that proved a few female Vikings were buried with weapons. As far as I know there is nothing more.
There is no historical basis for an Amazonian kingdom. Some Scythian women were warriors. That is all.
You left out the part where your original suggestion in the other thread was not at all about female representation, but to “bring back the chainmail bikini!” and “make more hot warrior babe cards!”, because “you have to understand that geeky gamers like hot babes and cosplay and all that stuff”. Also, the part where this was the very thing that annoyed the female player you are referring to, as well as several other players, me included. No one was upset by the suggestion to add more female characters in and of itself, at least not in the original thread.
I’m actually in support of the suggestion as you have phrased it in this new thread.
Unfortunately, to paraphrase Machiknight, “an argument could be made” that this here thread derailed real fast and that a lot of its content boils down to “haha, women”… “jokes” and… attempts at memes, I suppose? That and some semblance of discussion around the absurd notion that a fantasy game would need to base its gender distribution on “reality”, as well as some nice historical revisionism back and forth. Frankly, as much as I disliked the original thread’s suggestion, and as much as I can question your good intentions for the feminist revamp of your suggestion, the responses it gathered here are unsavory, to say the least.
Just to clarify my intentions : I fully agree with what you said.
Of course it is absurd to refer to history to discuss about a fantasy game. I was annoyed by the fact that psychetruth tried to use the argument of the underrepresentation of women in the game whereas it was obvious it was a mere pretext for having more eye candy and by the jokes his words had inspired. I just wanted to show that his historical allegations did not hold water. Archenassa has explained in detail in the other thread that half-naked female warriors don’t convey an image of power and don’t contribute to sexual equality. There was no point to add something more on the subject.
Closing this thread off due to it’s continuation of unproductive discussion. Please remember when posting on the Gems of War forum that this is a place for EVERYONE, regardless of who you think might play this game.
