I think the point of the Star Wars anecdote is:
Woman do engage in roleplaying but when they do they don’t focus on papers-and-dice fighting and instead have a discussion about moral issues.
The woman who wrote the example with the evil elves probably wanted to show that she didn’t cared primarily about battling the evil elves but that she rather wanted to help the farmers directly.
Well… if that’s the intended point, then I just don’t think it’s well-supported by the anecdote.
I tell the story here of a D&D gaming group I ran which was over half female. I play D&D with several more women on a semi-regular basis. There are some differences in play style between some of the guys I play with and some of the girls I play with, but there’s no monolithic bloc such that I can even begin to generalize, even ignoring the small sample size and selection effects.
To put it another way, the anecdote in question justifies an existentially quantified claim, but in no way does it justify a universally quantified claim. And anything in-between requires that stuff that you famously don’t get by pluralizing “anecdote”.
I think the point of the Star Wars anecdote is: Woman do engage in roleplaying but when they do they don’t focus on papers-and-dice fighting and instead have a discussion about moral issues.
Is that actually true, though ? This seems to fit the pattern of “men are combative, women are nurturing”, which is often denounced as a stereotype; at the very least, there is a lot of debate on whether or not this principle is generally applicable.
I’m not saying that the statement is wrong, necessarily; only that I require more evidence to be convinced.
This seems to fit the pattern of “men are combative, women are nurturing”,
I would read it more as “men like to model situations, women like to model people.” This may be a stereotype, but I’ve noticed it to be anecdotally true. Men, when spending time together socially, tend to talk more about sports and politics than women do; women spend more time talking about other people (i.e. gossip) and analyzing their motivations. Fighting elves is a situation; you don’t have to try to understand the elves’ motivations and ‘drama’ in order to fight them.
“This may be a stereotype, but I’ve noticed it to be anecdotally true.”
“but”
What do you think sterotypes are? Generally they tend to be statements that are true 30-90% of the time, which should provide plenty of room for confirming annecdotes.
I think the point of the Star Wars anecdote is: Woman do engage in roleplaying but when they do they don’t focus on papers-and-dice fighting and instead have a discussion about moral issues.
The woman who wrote the example with the evil elves probably wanted to show that she didn’t cared primarily about battling the evil elves but that she rather wanted to help the farmers directly.
Well… if that’s the intended point, then I just don’t think it’s well-supported by the anecdote.
I tell the story here of a D&D gaming group I ran which was over half female. I play D&D with several more women on a semi-regular basis. There are some differences in play style between some of the guys I play with and some of the girls I play with, but there’s no monolithic bloc such that I can even begin to generalize, even ignoring the small sample size and selection effects.
To put it another way, the anecdote in question justifies an existentially quantified claim, but in no way does it justify a universally quantified claim. And anything in-between requires that stuff that you famously don’t get by pluralizing “anecdote”.
Is that actually true, though ? This seems to fit the pattern of “men are combative, women are nurturing”, which is often denounced as a stereotype; at the very least, there is a lot of debate on whether or not this principle is generally applicable.
I’m not saying that the statement is wrong, necessarily; only that I require more evidence to be convinced.
I would read it more as “men like to model situations, women like to model people.” This may be a stereotype, but I’ve noticed it to be anecdotally true. Men, when spending time together socially, tend to talk more about sports and politics than women do; women spend more time talking about other people (i.e. gossip) and analyzing their motivations. Fighting elves is a situation; you don’t have to try to understand the elves’ motivations and ‘drama’ in order to fight them.
“This may be a stereotype, but I’ve noticed it to be anecdotally true.” “but” What do you think sterotypes are? Generally they tend to be statements that are true 30-90% of the time, which should provide plenty of room for confirming annecdotes.