Women are greatly out numbered here. I blame it on romances like Anomen, what sane woman would want to romance him?
I really really hated Anomen's romance and could barely stand him as a character. I'm crossing my fingers that additional romances are added in BG2EE for females or at least making all the romances capable of being romanced by male or female characters.
Damn, i am surprised there are any female gamers here: i noticed the female gamers usually play Sims,fallout3 or some other rpg but not one as sophisticated as Baldur's gate where you actually need to read a lot. And thats not stereotype but real life facts: same as you dont see a lot of women working out with weights or doing bodybuilding\powerlifting\weight lifting\calisthenics\armwrestling because: they think they are going to bulk up into 250lbs beings. Or because they are lazy. Women basically prefer "charisma" stat over everything else: they look good,try to impress,love reading,painting and nothing like hard labor. Lets say i dont know any girl who's Strength (based in DND world) would be greater then... 12? .
Well I think that female should have like -5 penalty to strength and condition. How dare can we discriminate races (by giving them bonuses and penalties) and not gender...? I think that you are just being racist. It’s easy to give -1 Wis for Gnomes because you all know no one will stand up for them
Ok, first, the average woman is indeed weaker in terms of physical strength than the average man because of 2 reasons :
1) The average male is larger than the average female and 2) Males produce more testosterone, a hormone which helps produce muscle mass, this is why the average male is more muscular, and thus his lifting capacity is larger, or he can run faster etc.
Saying that, there is of course something that women have, and men do not. Because of their period, women tend to be able to handle internal physical pain or exhaustion from illness better than men.
Those are things you learn in medical school as facts.
However, there are exceptions to both rules, sometimes a woman can outmuscle a man if she's bigger or very trained, and some men can be almost too hardy to pain, more than women.
Being physically strong and being good at fighting 1 vs 1 or vs many is another thing.
Martial arts were designed for that. And they are not just punching and kicking, they are a whole psilosophy of how you fight.
I have been doing martial arts for 22 years, and i can honestly say that i have "outmuscled" bigger and stronger guys than me countless times because they can't fight if they're too big, and if they don't even know how to fight, well, let's leave it at that. Mind you, i'm pretty big myself.
I've seen women bring down men in the blink of an eye thanks to technique or taking advantage of the fact that women have 8-10 vital spots vs men who have 9-11. The big difference because of genitals, which most people have no idea how to protect passively, and are wide open in males. One swift kick is all you need to go down and start vomiting literally.
Of course that's not olympic martial arts, that's street martial arts, that will help you when you fight for your life.
A woman can be as able, although very few women are interested, and the ones who would be good at it, are usually interested in other things.
You can be as big or more muscular as you want, but someone more thin and fit will out-endure you in running or other aerobic exercise since you need more energy to spend because of that muscle mass you carry.
Anyway, conclusion, women are generally weaker than men, and they are generally more hardy in illnesses or internal pains.
They generally live longer than men and are less prone to strokes or heart attacks.
It doesn't mean they are shit for army or fighting, if a bigger guy always won, there wouldn't be any reason for martial arts to exist.
People that depend on their physical strength will always fail when dealing with someone stronger. And there is ALWAYS someone stronger than you.
Now, i don't know if some of you are insecure with the idea that a woman could potentially beat you up, and that's why you need to establish that men are superior or something, but it doesn't look good when you show such insecurities.
And when you say something in a provocotive way, what do you expect? People to bow down to your nameless genius or something?
There is no need for provocative comments, we can have a nice discussion. About the topic that is...
I think i avoided flaming or naming, so all good :]
Please remember that Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura employed such an attitude. Men received a +1 Strength bonus, while women +1 Constitution (since women are more resistant to physical pain). I didn't notice any feminazis foaming at their mouths over that. Or the fact that, in Fallout 2, you could just sleep around as a woman in return for various favours.
Any differences based on the gender of the main character should be purely narrative, as is the case with the Fallout games.
Mechanical gender differences like stats are asinine, especially given that being able to start at 20 Constitution for a female dwarf or 20 strength for a male half-orc would be crazy powerful.
@Mornmagor: Thanks for contributing with such an interesting post. Better than what certain provocative trolls have said thus far. I have to agree on the various points you make, Mornmagor. I just detest the idea of your gender having an influence on your stats in games. It seems unfair and not only sexist, but also restrictive.
And I just detest the idea of pretending that both genders are equal. Please spare me the politically correct crap. Only part of the West still believes in this nonsense.
And I just detest the idea of pretending that both genders are equal. Please spare me the politically correct crap. Only part of the West still believes in this nonsense.
It's not so much that genders are equal as both are equally capable of being awesome at any of the classes. Like it or not, there are women that could easily kick the crap out of you. There's no reason to arbitrarily make male Fighters better than female Fighters, just like female Mages aren't better than male Mages.
I can agree with most of those points, Sir, but we were talking about female warriors, not martial artists. Besides, in my previous post I aknowledged that, in general, women are more resistant to pain.
Martial arts are the arts of the warrior, you know. Anyone fighting for a living would be practising martial arts.
And I just detest the idea of pretending that both genders are equal. Please spare me the politically correct crap. Only part of the West still believes in this nonsense.
And you're also committing a logical fallacy by saying that since the average woman is weaker than the average man, all women are weaker than all men. Individuals are not bound by the averages, they make up the averages. The "politically correct crap" you're talking about is simply the modern notion that every individual person should be seen from and judged by their individual capacities and not by generalised prejudice. What a ridonkilous thought, right?
Which is also why I THINK +1 THIS and -1 THAT rules are ridiculous. I'm playing an individual. Just because other such individuals are more likely to be weaker or less pain-resistant or whatever doesn't mean that this individual should be.
I have been watching this topic and getting sick to my stomach at the misogyny. Honestly, who would you back in a fight? 1st level male fighter with an 18/00 strength, or a 12th level female fighter with a 14 (say) strength? The fight doesn't always go to the person who is stronger. 1e AD&D had stat limits based on race and sex. Human females had a maximum of an 18/50 strength. Half Orc women had a maximum of 18/75 strength. Male elves had a maximum of 18/90 strength. It also had minimums, too. If you had a 5 Wisdom or less? You could only be a thief. You could have an 18 strength and a 16 constitution (and this was in the days where stats were rolled as 3d6, not 4d6 drop the lowest die, so a 5 Wisdom was very possible), but nope, you had to be a thief.
In 2e, they got rid of all of that- to the better, I think. Although the stat roll system changed several times (there was one system where you rolled between 4 and 9 dice for each stat, and only kept the three highest dice- but that was insane.) The changes were because the first edition was based more on reality, while the second was based more on Fantasy. And we are playing a fantasy RPG, aren't we? You have a fantasy of romancing a Drow Elf. Maybe someone else fantasizes about doing heroic deeds in a fantasy world. Women can be just as heroic as men, and I don't mind if that means throwing out some of the reality of how strong a woman can be versus a man.
I have been watching this topic and getting sick to my stomach at the misogyny. Honestly, who would you back in a fight? 1st level male fighter with an 18/00 strength, or a 12th level female fighter with a 14 (say) strength? The fight doesn't always go to the person who is stronger. 1e AD&D had stat limits based on race and sex. Human females had a maximum of an 18/50 strength. Half Orc women had a maximum of 18/75 strength. Male elves had a maximum of 18/90 strength. It also had minimums, too. If you had a 5 Wisdom or less? You could only be a thief. You could have an 18 strength and a 16 constitution (and this was in the days where stats were rolled as 3d6, not 4d6 drop the lowest die, so a 5 Wisdom was very possible), but nope, you had to be a thief.
In 2e, they got rid of all of that- to the better, I think. Although the stat roll system changed several times (there was one system where you rolled between 4 and 9 dice for each stat, and only kept the three highest dice- but that was insane.) The changes were because the first edition was based more on reality, while the second was based more on Fantasy. And we are playing a fantasy RPG, aren't we? You have a fantasy of romancing a Drow Elf. Maybe someone else fantasizes about doing heroic deeds in a fantasy world. Women can be just as heroic as men, and I don't mind if that means throwing out some of the reality of how strong a woman can be versus a man.
I have to say I always love reading your well thought out posts and this one might have been my favorite post from you yet. So thank you
@Dragonspear Thank you. I really appreciate that. I bit my tongue so many times when reading this thread, I think I might have bled to death from tongue-related wounds. There was a comment somewhere about how a male fighter might be able to cleave a foe from head to crotch because of his strength. A Female fighter saves herself the effort by paring her foe's head from his neck. It takes less strength, but both foes are equally dead. (One of the AD&D articles I read somewhere. It doesn't take great or exceptional strength to be a fighter, it can also be about using the strength you have in an intelligent way.
As an aside, my first Basic D&D character was a female fighter. Zenobia had bright red hair and a 14 strength. She kicked more than her fair share of ass. She certainly was the one who killed the Ogre in the Keep on the Borderlands module. And she got in the first and last blows against the Minotaur there as well.
Agreed @LadyRhian about the having to bite your tongue. I love playing characters that use two-handed weapons but I always wish there was some option to finesse them in combat. Brute strength only gets you so far, but finesse, tactics and momentum can be equally important in keeping yourself alive in combat. I think my first character was an elven ranger but my second was a greatsword wielding paladin.
@Dragonspear I like the sound of your characters! In Basic D&D, there were only four classes for humans: Fighter, Mage, Cleric and Thief. Then there were the racial classes of Dwarf, Elf, and Halfling. Dwarf=Fighter. Elf= Fighter/Magic User and Halfling=Thief.
@LadyRhian To be fair, the greatsword only made sense cause of carsomyr. But I have a preference for 2hers rather than sitting behind a shield on a paladin. The whole "best defense, good offense" approach to fighting evil. And here's a toast to one day a game letting you weapon finesse a greatsword!
Been watching the olympics here. There are some pretty physcially strong women out there. Okay, the top male weightlifter could lift more than the top female weightlifter, but a top female boxer could still kick the arse of 99% of blokes.
i'm not even bothered about laughable attempts to apply generaly perceived "facts"/stereotypes to every existing individual. i'm more bothered by people not realizing that feminism is A DUTY at last of every sane being. radical elements are at your discretion.
I have been watching this topic and getting sick to my stomach at the misogyny. Honestly, who would you back in a fight? 1st level male fighter with an 18/00 strength, or a 12th level female fighter with a 14 (say) strength? The fight doesn't always go to the person who is stronger. 1e AD&D had stat limits based on race and sex. Human females had a maximum of an 18/50 strength. Half Orc women had a maximum of 18/75 strength. Male elves had a maximum of 18/90 strength. It also had minimums, too. If you had a 5 Wisdom or less? You could only be a thief. You could have an 18 strength and a 16 constitution (and this was in the days where stats were rolled as 3d6, not 4d6 drop the lowest die, so a 5 Wisdom was very possible), but nope, you had to be a thief.
In 2e, they got rid of all of that- to the better, I think. Although the stat roll system changed several times (there was one system where you rolled between 4 and 9 dice for each stat, and only kept the three highest dice- but that was insane.) The changes were because the first edition was based more on reality, while the second was based more on Fantasy. And we are playing a fantasy RPG, aren't we? You have a fantasy of romancing a Drow Elf. Maybe someone else fantasizes about doing heroic deeds in a fantasy world. Women can be just as heroic as men, and I don't mind if that means throwing out some of the reality of how strong a woman can be versus a man.
Exactly! Fighting experience, willpower, demeanor and wits are much more important than strength when it comes to fighting and winning.
And indeed, very wise of you to point out that it doesn't take strength to harm a person. The ways are countless, the possibilities endless, in the end strength is good for carrying stuff easier, not winning fights.
There is no point in giving extra stats or take away others if you're male or female.
And in the end, even the differences because of muscle mass in real life are not as big as people think they are, same for constitution for women.
A woman your size, weight and body type will be probably near your strength, it's a matter of how aggressive or violent someone is, or how gentle, do they want to harm or just defend? If they want to harm, there are so many ways...
Anyway, people tend to forget that warriors or heroes in general win against Ogres, Dragons, Giants, monsters that are FAR stronger and bigger than a human. Do they win because of their physical strength? Or wits, tactics, and their comrades being there for them?
If strength was all it took to be a hero or a ruler, then Giants would be ruling and Hulk Hogan would be world leader.
as someone who's been in the (US) military quite some time, i'd like to touch on the "women as soldiers" concept.
the problem isn't with the fact that they're women. the problem is with how women are raised in a particular culture. compounding this is the personal/family/etc. situation of the average woman who joins the military. skipping past all of the "our soldiers are brave real life hero saviors of the union protectors of freedom blah blah" bullcrap, alot of people in the military are bottomfeeders. this has been true throughout history, with the possible exception of the Spartan military simply on the merit that the sole purpose of their "superman army" was to instill control of the noble class over the slave class (not to defend against mutant persians as some movies would lead you to believe).
back to bottomfeeding: sorry, this is just my experience, but the average woman who joins the military is alot more desperate than the average male who joins. to an american woman, the military seems to be (whether they are conscious of this bias or not) the last resort for a paycheck. i would wager that the average military woman usually comes from a far more jacked up background than the average male. of course, this changes depending on the specialty and enlistment vs commision, and there are definitely alot who do it because their mom/dad did it or because they really think it's cool.
the problem that this creates is that you generally don't get the best women in the nation doing the job. on the flipside, military service for men is not only acceptable, but viewed upon as the highest calling for men in many cultural circles in the United States. as a result, you will probably see a higher proportion of diversity and talent within the male majority.
going back to my personal experience, i would say that because the male side of the military derives from a much broader pool, you get a more balanced mix of personalities. for males (and i'm talking about enlisted personnel), i would say 20% are slackers who drag the organization down, 20% are morons/unremarkable fellows who get the work done at a minimal level and proceed to spend their entire paycheck on condoms and alcohol, 50% are solid workers, and 10% are A-type personality overachievers or "intellectuals with teeth" (in other words, dorks with the personality and drive to actually put their intellect to use for the better of the organization). on the female side of the house, i would say that extremes are far more pronounced: 30% are entitled and would rather talk about how much their job sucks (without realizing that there are people in the military who are dying or losing limbs) and constantly go to sick call with made-up problems and just want to go to the club at the end of the day, 5% are actively trying to play the military to take advantage of the pregnancy clause (finish technical training, do enough job time to qualify for the GI bill, find another military member to marry because of the ease, get pregnant and get out of the military early, which is financially feasible because the military offers compensation to couples with children), 25% are awkward females who have nothing to focus on but work because males and other females alike shun them (sorry, its just the truth :S), 20% are solid workers, and the remaining 20% are alpha females who play 3 sports, volunteer for every deployment, etc... however, that final 20% is rarely found in the enlisted corps and are almost always officers.
many in the military feel that putting women in high stress fields or combat arms roles will degrade effectiveness and standards; while it is hyperopinionated bawing to a degree, there have been negative effects. the department of defense put out a feel-good story about the first class of women to graduate special forces training (the Army is experimenting with all-female units that will help them better interface with the female populaces of islamic cultures). the dark truth that came out was that the instructors were forced to pass the entire class, despite 22 of the 26 students failing to meet the passing criteria in the various areas. the department of defense would rather have an underqualified handful of personnel than deal with feminists or lawsuits.
many point to israel or the soviet bloc countries as evidence that women are, unconditionally, just as qualified to be combat personnel. however, the truth here is that israel itself has toned down employing women in combat arms positions because their research based on combat throughout the decades has found the stereotype coming true: mixed gender combat units find hormones kicking in when crap hits the fan, and not in a positive way.
those are the only real counterarguments ill bring up, and those arent even arguing for barring women for military service. theyre just arguments that the two genders are not unconditionally equal when you take into fact cultural considerations. i have no problem with a woman joining the military, or even becoming combat arms. the problem is the fact that theyve already been conditioned as Western female civilians for 18-24 years of their life; it does take adaptation to fit into the military role, and many of them simply do not adapt.
are there **** bag men who join, too? yes, there are plenty of guys i had no respect for while i was in. there is a Good Old Boys club mindset as you look at higher ranks or more elite specialties. these Good Old Boys are generally protestant, white, alpha male, and believe that swagger is the most important aspect for a leader or warrior to have. time has generally proven that this 1950s-on model of leadership is detrimental to both long term and short term success, as the GOB club generally lacks humility and the ability to examine flaws and shortcomings realistically. the rubric here is that these GOBs have an unspoken discrimination towards people the farther away you get from the protestant/white/male qualities. for clarity, i am saying that a pagan mixed female will never make it to Senior NCO or colonel ranks, as those are the levels where your superior has much more say over whether or not you get promoted to those ranks (as opposed to standardized testing/boards free of personal bias at lower ranks). the only example you need of the harmful effect they have on both military capability and competent female recruitment is the Tailhook scandal in Los Vegas; a bunch of Navy/Marine pilots (fighter pilots are among the largest portion of the GOB populace) basically sexually abused about 100 women after an event, and Navy leadership tried to cover it up. the chief of staff of the navy literally said that, while he feels sorry for the women, that "fighter pilots need a man's swagger" and he doesnt want "female-oriented political correctness to infect his military". needless to say, the civilian secretary of the navy effectively fired him, but it goes to show that the military has always erred in favor of the man's side o the argument until the 2000s. more importantly, this high profile scandal ensured that alot of competent, self-respecting women would vow to never join or encourage military service. who would want to work in a climate like that?
overall and kind of throwing out a TL;DR summary, i think that it honestly goes both ways: alot of women in the military do screw up their reputation simply because of how Western culture raises women, but until recently it was an organization that used any incident to castigate them before they castigated men. moving into the Forgotten Realms environment, they can justify it simply on the fact that in the fantasy world women are raised differently within the varying cultures. the sad truth is that on Earth, women have always had the short end of the stick in most cultures... the only modern culture that has really meainginfully empowered women in terms of 'taking charge' is China, as the Communist Party actively followed an experimental agenda in the early 90s of raising/training women to have the aggressive, confident characteristics typically associated with masculinity (this was promoted through media, mandatory military training, required political education classes, etc) in an effort to see how they can improve the productivity of the other 50% of the nation.
i dont know why i felt the need to post all of this; it's just getting annoying seeing culture in general praising/discussing the military to no end, while simultaneously knowing very little about it. to most people, it's a charicature: brave soldiers saluting each other in front of a gracefully waving flag and hooting out a bunch of over-the-top military jargon (or in some people's minds, a bunch of barely-sentient biomasses acting at the behest of some cheesy conspiracy organizaton bent on controlling the world). the reality here is, whether you are discussing women or gays or wars for oil/democracy, etc etc etc, the organization is full of hundreds of thousands of average people with average people thoughts and average people problems. there is no clear cut answer to female performance in the military because of this, and none of the other issues are as black/white as well.
@Maciak87 congratulate to anyone or anything that pleases you, because it doesn't matter.
yes, feminism is a duty of anyone against discrimination or denying of equal opportunity, and/or that knows a female human being or ackowledges that no human being is purely masculine or feminine for that matter. we cannot talk about any kind of equality, peace, or other idealistic discourses without acknowledging and combating this extremely basic and senseless divide in our culture.
and yes, goal of the feminism is equality in a true sense not supremacy or copy of drow culture.
@Solyaris I agree, but I also think that rape in the military against women is a much bigger problem than most people realize. I saw a statistic somewhere that 40% of military women will be raped. And the treatment of women who are raped? A lot of them get slapped with a diagnosis of "Personality Disorder" and are drummed out of the military: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/14/health/military-sexual-assaults-personality-disorder/index.html
Comments
And thats not stereotype but real life facts: same as you dont see a lot of women working out with weights or doing bodybuilding\powerlifting\weight lifting\calisthenics\armwrestling because:
they think they are going to bulk up into 250lbs beings. Or because they are lazy.
Women basically prefer "charisma" stat over everything else: they look good,try to impress,love reading,painting and nothing like hard labor.
Lets say i dont know any girl who's Strength (based in DND world) would be greater then... 12?
"Heavy objects carried by women? Preposterous."
"Reading? Absurd. Women are shallow idiots."
How dare can we discriminate races (by giving them bonuses and penalties) and not gender...?
I think that you are just being racist. It’s easy to give -1 Wis for Gnomes because you all know no one will stand up for them
1) The average male is larger than the average female and 2) Males produce more testosterone, a hormone which helps produce muscle mass, this is why the average male is more muscular, and thus his lifting capacity is larger, or he can run faster etc.
Saying that, there is of course something that women have, and men do not. Because of their period, women tend to be able to handle internal physical pain or exhaustion from illness better than men.
Those are things you learn in medical school as facts.
However, there are exceptions to both rules, sometimes a woman can outmuscle a man if she's bigger or very trained, and some men can be almost too hardy to pain, more than women.
Being physically strong and being good at fighting 1 vs 1 or vs many is another thing.
Martial arts were designed for that. And they are not just punching and kicking, they are a whole psilosophy of how you fight.
I have been doing martial arts for 22 years, and i can honestly say that i have "outmuscled" bigger and stronger guys than me countless times because they can't fight if they're too big, and if they don't even know how to fight, well, let's leave it at that. Mind you, i'm pretty big myself.
I've seen women bring down men in the blink of an eye thanks to technique or taking advantage of the fact that women have 8-10 vital spots vs men who have 9-11. The big difference because of genitals, which most people have no idea how to protect passively, and are wide open in males. One swift kick is all you need to go down and start vomiting literally.
Of course that's not olympic martial arts, that's street martial arts, that will help you when you fight for your life.
A woman can be as able, although very few women are interested, and the ones who would be good at it, are usually interested in other things.
You can be as big or more muscular as you want, but someone more thin and fit will out-endure you in running or other aerobic exercise since you need more energy to spend because of that muscle mass you carry.
Anyway, conclusion, women are generally weaker than men, and they are generally more hardy in illnesses or internal pains.
They generally live longer than men and are less prone to strokes or heart attacks.
It doesn't mean they are shit for army or fighting, if a bigger guy always won, there wouldn't be any reason for martial arts to exist.
People that depend on their physical strength will always fail when dealing with someone stronger. And there is ALWAYS someone stronger than you.
Now, i don't know if some of you are insecure with the idea that a woman could potentially beat you up, and that's why you need to establish that men are superior or something, but it doesn't look good when you show such insecurities.
And when you say something in a provocotive way, what do you expect? People to bow down to your nameless genius or something?
There is no need for provocative comments, we can have a nice discussion. About the topic that is...
I think i avoided flaming or naming, so all good :]
I'ts like Coca Cola, goes with everything o/
Mechanical gender differences like stats are asinine, especially given that being able to start at 20 Constitution for a female dwarf or 20 strength for a male half-orc would be crazy powerful.
@AndreaColombo, haha, no, not yet, and we won't let it.
And you're also committing a logical fallacy by saying that since the average woman is weaker than the average man, all women are weaker than all men. Individuals are not bound by the averages, they make up the averages. The "politically correct crap" you're talking about is simply the modern notion that every individual person should be seen from and judged by their individual capacities and not by generalised prejudice. What a ridonkilous thought, right?
Which is also why I THINK +1 THIS and -1 THAT rules are ridiculous. I'm playing an individual. Just because other such individuals are more likely to be weaker or less pain-resistant or whatever doesn't mean that this individual should be.
In 2e, they got rid of all of that- to the better, I think. Although the stat roll system changed several times (there was one system where you rolled between 4 and 9 dice for each stat, and only kept the three highest dice- but that was insane.) The changes were because the first edition was based more on reality, while the second was based more on Fantasy. And we are playing a fantasy RPG, aren't we? You have a fantasy of romancing a Drow Elf. Maybe someone else fantasizes about doing heroic deeds in a fantasy world. Women can be just as heroic as men, and I don't mind if that means throwing out some of the reality of how strong a woman can be versus a man.
The Forgotten Realms does not need to follow reality. That's why all this talk about women being physically weaker is pretty pointless.
As an aside, my first Basic D&D character was a female fighter. Zenobia had bright red hair and a 14 strength. She kicked more than her fair share of ass. She certainly was the one who killed the Ogre in the Keep on the Borderlands module. And she got in the first and last blows against the Minotaur there as well.
i'm more bothered by people not realizing that feminism is A DUTY at last of every sane being. radical elements are at your discretion.
Exactly! Fighting experience, willpower, demeanor and wits are much more important than strength when it comes to fighting and winning.
And indeed, very wise of you to point out that it doesn't take strength to harm a person. The ways are countless, the possibilities endless, in the end strength is good for carrying stuff easier, not winning fights.
There is no point in giving extra stats or take away others if you're male or female.
And in the end, even the differences because of muscle mass in real life are not as big as people think they are, same for constitution for women.
A woman your size, weight and body type will be probably near your strength, it's a matter of how aggressive or violent someone is, or how gentle, do they want to harm or just defend? If they want to harm, there are so many ways...
Anyway, people tend to forget that warriors or heroes in general win against Ogres, Dragons, Giants, monsters that are FAR stronger and bigger than a human. Do they win because of their physical strength? Or wits, tactics, and their comrades being there for them?
If strength was all it took to be a hero or a ruler, then Giants would be ruling and Hulk Hogan would be world leader.
the problem isn't with the fact that they're women. the problem is with how women are raised in a particular culture. compounding this is the personal/family/etc. situation of the average woman who joins the military. skipping past all of the "our soldiers are brave real life hero saviors of the union protectors of freedom blah blah" bullcrap, alot of people in the military are bottomfeeders. this has been true throughout history, with the possible exception of the Spartan military simply on the merit that the sole purpose of their "superman army" was to instill control of the noble class over the slave class (not to defend against mutant persians as some movies would lead you to believe).
back to bottomfeeding: sorry, this is just my experience, but the average woman who joins the military is alot more desperate than the average male who joins. to an american woman, the military seems to be (whether they are conscious of this bias or not) the last resort for a paycheck. i would wager that the average military woman usually comes from a far more jacked up background than the average male. of course, this changes depending on the specialty and enlistment vs commision, and there are definitely alot who do it because their mom/dad did it or because they really think it's cool.
the problem that this creates is that you generally don't get the best women in the nation doing the job. on the flipside, military service for men is not only acceptable, but viewed upon as the highest calling for men in many cultural circles in the United States. as a result, you will probably see a higher proportion of diversity and talent within the male majority.
going back to my personal experience, i would say that because the male side of the military derives from a much broader pool, you get a more balanced mix of personalities. for males (and i'm talking about enlisted personnel), i would say 20% are slackers who drag the organization down, 20% are morons/unremarkable fellows who get the work done at a minimal level and proceed to spend their entire paycheck on condoms and alcohol, 50% are solid workers, and 10% are A-type personality overachievers or "intellectuals with teeth" (in other words, dorks with the personality and drive to actually put their intellect to use for the better of the organization). on the female side of the house, i would say that extremes are far more pronounced: 30% are entitled and would rather talk about how much their job sucks (without realizing that there are people in the military who are dying or losing limbs) and constantly go to sick call with made-up problems and just want to go to the club at the end of the day, 5% are actively trying to play the military to take advantage of the pregnancy clause (finish technical training, do enough job time to qualify for the GI bill, find another military member to marry because of the ease, get pregnant and get out of the military early, which is financially feasible because the military offers compensation to couples with children), 25% are awkward females who have nothing to focus on but work because males and other females alike shun them (sorry, its just the truth :S), 20% are solid workers, and the remaining 20% are alpha females who play 3 sports, volunteer for every deployment, etc... however, that final 20% is rarely found in the enlisted corps and are almost always officers.
many in the military feel that putting women in high stress fields or combat arms roles will degrade effectiveness and standards; while it is hyperopinionated bawing to a degree, there have been negative effects. the department of defense put out a feel-good story about the first class of women to graduate special forces training (the Army is experimenting with all-female units that will help them better interface with the female populaces of islamic cultures). the dark truth that came out was that the instructors were forced to pass the entire class, despite 22 of the 26 students failing to meet the passing criteria in the various areas. the department of defense would rather have an underqualified handful of personnel than deal with feminists or lawsuits.
many point to israel or the soviet bloc countries as evidence that women are, unconditionally, just as qualified to be combat personnel. however, the truth here is that israel itself has toned down employing women in combat arms positions because their research based on combat throughout the decades has found the stereotype coming true: mixed gender combat units find hormones kicking in when crap hits the fan, and not in a positive way.
those are the only real counterarguments ill bring up, and those arent even arguing for barring women for military service. theyre just arguments that the two genders are not unconditionally equal when you take into fact cultural considerations. i have no problem with a woman joining the military, or even becoming combat arms. the problem is the fact that theyve already been conditioned as Western female civilians for 18-24 years of their life; it does take adaptation to fit into the military role, and many of them simply do not adapt.
are there **** bag men who join, too? yes, there are plenty of guys i had no respect for while i was in. there is a Good Old Boys club mindset as you look at higher ranks or more elite specialties. these Good Old Boys are generally protestant, white, alpha male, and believe that swagger is the most important aspect for a leader or warrior to have. time has generally proven that this 1950s-on model of leadership is detrimental to both long term and short term success, as the GOB club generally lacks humility and the ability to examine flaws and shortcomings realistically. the rubric here is that these GOBs have an unspoken discrimination towards people the farther away you get from the protestant/white/male qualities. for clarity, i am saying that a pagan mixed female will never make it to Senior NCO or colonel ranks, as those are the levels where your superior has much more say over whether or not you get promoted to those ranks (as opposed to standardized testing/boards free of personal bias at lower ranks). the only example you need of the harmful effect they have on both military capability and competent female recruitment is the Tailhook scandal in Los Vegas; a bunch of Navy/Marine pilots (fighter pilots are among the largest portion of the GOB populace) basically sexually abused about 100 women after an event, and Navy leadership tried to cover it up. the chief of staff of the navy literally said that, while he feels sorry for the women, that "fighter pilots need a man's swagger" and he doesnt want "female-oriented political correctness to infect his military". needless to say, the civilian secretary of the navy effectively fired him, but it goes to show that the military has always erred in favor of the man's side o the argument until the 2000s. more importantly, this high profile scandal ensured that alot of competent, self-respecting women would vow to never join or encourage military service. who would want to work in a climate like that?
overall and kind of throwing out a TL;DR summary, i think that it honestly goes both ways: alot of women in the military do screw up their reputation simply because of how Western culture raises women, but until recently it was an organization that used any incident to castigate them before they castigated men. moving into the Forgotten Realms environment, they can justify it simply on the fact that in the fantasy world women are raised differently within the varying cultures. the sad truth is that on Earth, women have always had the short end of the stick in most cultures... the only modern culture that has really meainginfully empowered women in terms of 'taking charge' is China, as the Communist Party actively followed an experimental agenda in the early 90s of raising/training women to have the aggressive, confident characteristics typically associated with masculinity (this was promoted through media, mandatory military training, required political education classes, etc) in an effort to see how they can improve the productivity of the other 50% of the nation.
i dont know why i felt the need to post all of this; it's just getting annoying seeing culture in general praising/discussing the military to no end, while simultaneously knowing very little about it. to most people, it's a charicature: brave soldiers saluting each other in front of a gracefully waving flag and hooting out a bunch of over-the-top military jargon (or in some people's minds, a bunch of barely-sentient biomasses acting at the behest of some cheesy conspiracy organizaton bent on controlling the world). the reality here is, whether you are discussing women or gays or wars for oil/democracy, etc etc etc, the organization is full of hundreds of thousands of average people with average people thoughts and average people problems. there is no clear cut answer to female performance in the military because of this, and none of the other issues are as black/white as well.
yes, feminism is a duty of anyone against discrimination or denying of equal opportunity, and/or that knows a female human being or ackowledges that no human being is purely masculine or feminine for that matter. we cannot talk about any kind of equality, peace, or other idealistic discourses without acknowledging and combating this extremely basic and senseless divide in our culture.
and yes, goal of the feminism is equality in a true sense not supremacy or copy of drow culture.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/rape-military-invisible-war-documentary-exposes-assaults/story?id=16632490#.UCUPqxxsi4A
To me, this is more of a turn-off than any kind of supposed "unfitness" of women for war or combat.