Re: [enworld] D&D Historian Benn Riggs On Gary Gygax & Sexism

On Tue, 9 Jul 2024 10:52:48 +0200, kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:

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Source:
https://www.enworld.org/threads/d-d-historian-benn-riggs-on-gary-gygax-sexism.705192/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon
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D&D Historian Benn Riggs On Gary Gygax & Sexism
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Thread starter Morrus Start date Yesterday at 11:42 PM
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D&D historian Ben Riggs delved into the facts.
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The recent book The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970-1977
talks about the early years of D&D. In the book, authors Jon Peterson
and Jason Tondro talk about the way the game, and its writers,
approached certain issues. Not surprisingly, this revelation received
aggressive "pushback" on social media because, well, that sort of thing
does--in fact, one designer who worked with Gygax at the time labelled
it "slanderous".
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D&D historian Ben Riggs--author of Slaying the Dragon--delved into the
facts. Note that the below was posted on Twitter, in that format, not as
an article.
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D&D Co-Creator Gary Gygax was Sexist. Talking About it is Key to
Preserving his Legacy.

As an off-the-top-of-my-head response, I think part of the problem is
that -for his time- Gygax wasn't particularly misogynistic. His
behavior was just the generally accepted attitude; it's only today
that he looks particularly horrific. But Gygax was born in the 1930s;
his opinions on women as being frailer, less intelligent, and
generally less capable were accepted truths, and even in the '60s and
'70s claiming otherwise was controversial (just look at how long it
took women to be accepted into combat roles in the US military, where
opponents to the concept used these arguments well into the 2000s!).
If you're taught that the Earth is flat from childhood, are you being
stupid if you repeat these facts years later or have you just not kept
up with the newly accepted changes?

So I think a lot of these arguments about Gygax's misogyny are talking
across one another; is it misogyny if it's just reflecting the then
accepted view of what women can and can't (or should and shouldn't)
do? That's more 'sexism', innit?

And the sad truth is, sexism /was/ rampant in tabletop gaming.
Especially after the game became popular with teenage boys. Even when
girls weren't outright chased away from the table, the general
attitude was often horrific. I'm pretty sure any gamer from that era
can remember some instances they personally witnessed that would be
rightly condemned today. But the game --and the media in general--
were RIFE with it. Whether game or TV or movie, women were treasures
to be won, or threats to be chased away, or side-characters to be
taken advantage of (and LGBTQ characters got far, far worse
treatment). I mean, you only have to look at the artwork featured in
pretty much any TSR product to see evidence of that. There were
exceptions but they were just that... exceptions.

I don't think Gygax was particular misogynistic except by modern
attitudes. I do think he was undeniably sexist and he occasionally
strayed a bit farther down that line than was generally prudent and he
definitely should be called on those instances. I think you could
equally well find examples of Gygax trying (in his old-school,
Boomer-taught way) of trying to empower females as often -if not more-
than his attempt to chase them away. Those attitudes are unforgivable
today, and I get why some people want to call him on it, and why calls
of misogyny are bandied about. But ignoring the attitudes of the time
-wrong as they might be- only makes the critics look strident and
extreme.

As much as I hate to agree with Hasbro/WoTC, I think they have it
right: "this is what D&D was. We think its wrong. We're trying to do
better now. But we're not ignoring it."