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Instructor
#26 Old 14th May 2011 at 9:11 PM
I used to allow either sim to take on their spouse's name when they got married. I choose based on what name just sounded better or fit the person better. I've stopped doing that and only allow women to take on their husband's last name, keep their own last name, or make it hyphenated.

I do have some housewives in the game and one househusband. Usually it's because they wanted it that way or they had zero interest in a career LTW.

When it comes to babies I will generally give the blue crib to the baby boys and the pink crib to the baby girls. Boys don't get in pink cribs - I pretty much stick to that. I have other colored cribs too and I use them randomly.

I only allow make-up on boys if the boy is a goth person. Otherwise no make-up on guys and no trimmed eyebrows. And men can only have one earring.

When it comes to proposals I don't care who initiates. But I agree that slow dancing and classic dancing should be initiated by the man, because men lead.
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Test Subject
#27 Old 14th May 2011 at 10:16 PM
To me, this isn't deconstruction. It's just using your head and thinking about the way you view the world.

I am a feminist and do find it important to highlight privileged and unbalanced behaviours and systems.

BUT, this is a game forum and I don't want to get into that here.

Nevertheless, I'll add this to the discussion: Some of my married couples take the his name. Some of them take hers. Some of them aren't heterosexual pairings. Taking a look through Pleasantview's premade families, more married couples took the female's name (Mortimer became Caliente, Darren became Goth, etc)

Call me Mal.
Field Researcher
#28 Old 15th May 2011 at 12:06 AM Last edited by CleoSombra : 15th May 2011 at 1:13 AM.
Quote: Originally posted by AlexandraSpears
Gender and women's studies? What happened to the men?

Nothing wrong with "sexism", as in acknowledging the differences between the genders (it goes way beyond the "plumbing").


At any rate, my Sims take on traditional roles. The mother is the primary caregiver. Wives always take the husband's last name. My females don't always get Family aspiration as primary, though--lots of times they'll get Knowledge, or Fortune, or even Popularity. Jobless Fortune Sims can be kept happy with the occasional bauble. Jobless Popularity Sims are happy yapping on the phone.

I'm 38 and a very traditional woman. Wouldn't have it any other way.


Men's studies? That was your education from kindergarten to twelfth grade.

I don't mean to be cynical, but that's really the truth. Unless you went to an atypical school, you've mostly learned about (white) men in history and science courses. I just took a course on Womanhood in America - it's not man-bashing or anything like that, but it does show that women played a very large part in the development of our country, more than the high-school curriculum recognizes.

However, some colleges do offer Men's Studies courses. And male feminists do exist.

While we're on the subject of feminism, I want to clarify something, not just to you, but to everyone who might go on this thread:
Feminism is a belief that both sexes should have equal rights and should not be treated differently based on their sex.
Sexism is the belief that men and women are different to the point that one group is too weak/incompetent/immoral to have as much power as the other group.

Believing that men and women are different isn't sexist, exactly. Believing that women tend to be more sensitive than men isn't sexist, but believing that women are sensitive to the point that a person feels they (all of them) shouldn't have certain jobs - that is sexist. Men are physically stronger than men, but if a given person applying for a job can lift 50 pounds easily, and that's what the job requires, then gender shouldn't matter.

There are a few main "types" of feminism, although there are many more groups within that. However, the biggest group (the overwhelming proportion) are liberal feminists, who simply think that men and women should be treated equally. 99% of people who think men and women should be treated equally . . . are not bra-burning politically-lesbian man-haters (no bra-burning ever took place, actually. Beauty products and bras were thrown into a "freedom can" at the protests, but nothing was set aflame).

Feminism isn't about making men equal to women. It's about making men and women equal to each other. Although men have more power and status then women, they are disadvantaged in certain ways. Men who want to be elementary school teachers are stigmatized as being pedophiles or creepy. In custody hearings, the woman always has the upper-hand. Socially, men don't have as much freedom to wear what they want to wear.

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Scholar
#29 Old 15th May 2011 at 12:47 AM
Quote: Originally posted by CleoSombra

While we're on the subject of feminism, I want to clarify something, not just to you, but to everyone who might go on this thread:
Feminism is a belief that both sexes should have equal rights and should not be treated differently based on their sex.
Sexism is the belief that men and women are different to the point that one group is too weak/incompetent/immoral to have as much power as the other group.

Believing that men and women are different isn't sexist, exactly. Believing that women tend to be more sensitive than men isn't sexist, but believing that women are sensitive to the point that a person feels they (all of them) shouldn't have certain jobs - that is sexist. Men are physically stronger than men, but if a given person applying for a job can lift 50 pounds easily, and that's what the job requires, then gender shouldn't matter.

There are three main "types" of feminism, although there are many more groups within that. However, the biggest group (the overwhelming proportion) are liberal feminists, who simply think that men and women should be treated equally. 99% of people who think men and women should be treated equally . . . are not bra-burning politically-lesbian man-haters (no bra-burning ever took place, actually. Beauty products and bras were thrown into a "freedom can" at the protests, but nothing was set aflame).

Feminism isn't about making men equal to women. It's about making men and women equal to each other. Although men have more power and status then women, they are disadvantaged in certain ways. Men who want to be elementary school teachers are stigmatized as being pedophiles or creepy. In custody hearings, the woman always has the upper-hand. Socially, men don't have as much freedom to wear what they want to wear.


Thank you.

To derail the thread a little further, true feminism as envisioned by Elizabeth Katy Stanton and other feminist was really a humanitarian movement that was to give greater equality to both sexes and all races. Men would be greater part of child rearing,the disenfranchised would have equal rights and we would all be happier, unfortunately in the early part of the 20 century it was highjacked by racist,wealthy, white women.
Alchemist
#30 Old 15th May 2011 at 3:12 AM
I usually make sure children have their father's last name, if the parents aren't married, and if a (m/f) couple divorces, the kids usually stay with the mother. Other than that, anything goes. I'm not picky about who proposes marriage, the Sim who takes care of the child is the Sim who's free at the time, either both sims work outside the home, or the one who stays home is chosen based on each particular family, men jump into women's arms, and sit on their laps on couches just as often as women, etc.
Mad Poster
#31 Old 15th May 2011 at 7:09 AM
I'm not against fathers teaching their toddlers to walk, talk, etc. It's just that women, by nature, are more nurturing in general, so that's why she's the primary caregiver.

I for one am happy that my husband is very much involved in our son's life. Especially since I never knew my natural father. I know who he is, I've just never had contact with him.

(I would think that REAL gender studies would highlight the natural differences between male and female. We're not all the same. I'm all for equal opportunity, just not forcing equal outcome.)
transmogrified
retired moderator
#32 Old 15th May 2011 at 7:24 AM
Reminder:
This thread is about how you play the Sims. We have a debate forum for arguing the merits of socialization vs. biological determinism.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#33 Old 15th May 2011 at 7:36 AM
Quote: Originally posted by AlexandraSpears
(I'm all for equal opportunity, just not forcing equal outcome.)


As previous posters have said, that's really what feminism is all about. I think radical, man-hating feminists have distorted the image a lot, but for me (and apparently to CleoSombra and A.G. Doren as well) it is about equal opportunity; it doesn't mean anyone should be forced to do anything. As I mentioned upthread, there's nothing at all wrong about wanting to be a "traditional" woman, so long as it's your choice (as opposed to a choice that's made for you).

Aaand getting back to the subject at hand (sorry, Mangaroo) -->

What you said about men and women being different - that's part of why this topic is interesting to me. I think someone already said something about it, but Sims are actually fairly androgynous; they have different appearances (though even that's determined by the player to a considerable degree), but male and female Sims don't really have much to distinguish them as...well, male or female. There's essentially nothing built into the game - no want, fear, aspiration, behavior, personality trait, interaction, animation, et cetera - that's limited to either gender. Not that I've observed, anyway.

If male and female Sims are different in your game (and by "your game" I don't mean your game, AlexandraSpears, I mean anyone's game), it's because you play them that way. We attribute the gendering we observe in our lives to - how was it someone else said it? Bags of pixels? - on our computer screens, because it's that intrinsic to our nature.

Man. I should've written my final paper on this. "Gender and The Sims 2." I bet I would've gotten an A on that.
Lab Assistant
#34 Old 15th May 2011 at 9:30 AM
For me, it totally depends on what Sim or family I'm playing. Some families have the wife taking care of the kids and husband going out to work. Some families have the wife as breadwinner and the husband being a stay-at-home-dad. In some households both Sims work, in some both stay at home and make a living through other means (painting, homebusiness, digging for treasure...) It's not like my same-sex couples have any 'traditional' roles they can follow, either
It really depends on the Sim's preferences and how things turn out during play, seeing as I base most of my decisions on Sim wants. Dad rolls lots of wants about his tots? He gets to take care of them. Mom rolls wants to open a business, she gets to do that. Anyone with a LTW involving careers gets to pursue them, regardless of gender.

I don't impose rules about who is allowed to do what or who has to do this either. You want to jump in the arms of your wife? Go right ahead. Proposing to your boyfriend? Why not? I have patrilinial and matrilinial families, and some don't get married at all.

I'm definitely not going to pull Sims out of doing the traditional marriage thing just because I feel I'm not being politically correct enough either, though. It's all good.

Yet Another Bloody Sims Blog - A BaCC Journal
Mad Poster
#35 Old 15th May 2011 at 1:40 PM
No one should waste time feeling defensive about how they play their game, or judgmental about how other people play their games. Some people build their fantasy world, some people want to tell dramatic stories, some people want to simulate reality - nine-and-sixty ways, and every single one of them is right.

What interests me about the gender roles in my game is that no conscious decision-making went into any of it. I developed the backstory and core families while playtesting each EP before starting the neighborhood. I had certain vague ideas about how the different families and characters would probably be, but I never thought about them while playing, I just played. I added CAS sims and premades to the rotations as I needed them. The characters accumulated sufficient critical mass that I began to hear their voices ("I don't need a pity date from some pasty-faced rich girl who never went hungry a day in her life," said Ernest, when I tried to make him move on from Sage Ann and go out with Jane Stacks) and the subcultures developed in the same way, my understanding of who these people were and where they came from guiding my choices.

The most interesting thing to me is that, objectively, I can see the flaws in all three attitudes. Privileging one group of people over another and locking individuals into a group identity regardless of personal characteristics is inherently unjust and will lead to exploitation; but strong gender roles do make many things easier and the female nurturer/male provider has a basis in evolutionary biology. The endless negotiation and striving for fairness of the modern families is based on stronger ideals, but results in constant competition, which is bad. Yet it was clear that, for the most part, my core families worked better than any of the others.

Player favoritism, yes; but characters for whom player favoritism should have been working were wearing themselves out, so that's not all it is. I finally worked it out last night. In my core families, although women are the policy-setters and the men define themselves in relation to them, both parties subscribe to the same underlying rule of family life, so obvious the only time anybody needed to articulate it was when Cooper Hawkins married Ginger Newson, the first cross-cultural marriage. She was having a bad case of nerves (Ginger is always having a bad case of nerves) and he said: "All we got to do for the rest of our lives is make each other happy."

It doesn't matter who does what or who has the higher status if everybody involved in the family is following this rule. Marriages that shouldn't work - I put one marriage in the core families that I was sure would break up, and it's strong as an ox - do.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Instructor
#36 Old 15th May 2011 at 1:43 PM
Quote:
It's not like my same-sex couples have any 'traditional' roles they can follow, either


I was wondering about this as sort of an off-shoot to the original question - if people have same-sex couples follow gender stereotypes or not.

--
Would anyone be interested in continuing the RL aspects of this thread in the debate forum? See, I get a little peeved when people disparage feminists because I'm old enough to remember when it was weird for women to pump gas and weird for women to want to excel at sports (don't even think of running the Boston Marathon) and weird for women to be on radio or TV speaking with any sort of authority. Actually, it was weird to have women as any sort of authority outside the classroom or the home.
The Great AntiJen
retired moderator
#37 Old 15th May 2011 at 1:53 PM
Quote: Originally posted by esmesqualor
Would anyone be interested in continuing the RL aspects of this thread in the debate forum? See, I get a little peeved when people disparage feminists because I'm old enough to remember when it was weird for women to pump gas and weird for women to want to excel at sports (don't even think of running the Boston Marathon) and weird for women to be on radio or TV speaking with any sort of authority. Actually, it was weird to have women as any sort of authority outside the classroom or the home.


I'd join you Esmesqualor - only I remember that too and agree with you. I sometimes think people are forgetting just how far we've come in the last 50 years or so.
Mad Poster
#38 Old 15th May 2011 at 2:57 PM
Quote: Originally posted by esmesqualor
I was wondering about this as sort of an off-shoot to the original question - if people have same-sex couples follow gender stereotypes or not.

In the last thread on an almost exactly similar topic, I asked this question and the replies were all roughly "But that wouldn't make any sense." Apparently butch/femme is dead. Of course, there are still butch women and femme men, whether the overall culture recognizes that or not, and that's very hard to model in Sims2 without extensive CC. Which reminds me, I came in here to follow up the links to the trans CC; I hope it isn't really all tarty, because that wouldn't work for my purposes.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Banned
#39 Old 15th May 2011 at 3:09 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Peni Griffin
In the last thread on an almost exactly similar topic, I asked this question and the replies were all roughly "But that wouldn't make any sense." Apparently butch/femme is dead. Of course, there are still butch women and femme men, whether the overall culture recognizes that or not, and that's very hard to model in Sims2 without extensive CC. Which reminds me, I came in here to follow up the links to the trans CC; I hope it isn't really all tarty, because that wouldn't work for my purposes.

I don't understand the point of butch/femme. Besides sexual attraction, same-sex relationships are supposed to be built upon social and aesthetic attraction of women to feminine and men to masculine.
</off-topic>
The Great AntiJen
retired moderator
#40 Old 15th May 2011 at 3:51 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Peni Griffin
Which reminds me, I came in here to follow up the links to the trans CC; I hope it isn't really all tarty, because that wouldn't work for my purposes.


Actually, I take back what I said about that to some extent - Simmergirl (someone posted the link above) has some nice stuff and you can get skintones and meshes there too.
Instructor
#41 Old 15th May 2011 at 4:49 PM
Quote:
In the last thread on an almost exactly similar topic, I asked this question and the replies were all roughly "But that wouldn't make any sense." Apparently butch/femme is dead


My understanding is that butch/femme exists in cultures with more stringent gender stereotypes. I guess the idea is that the gender stereotypes are so strong the individuals are forced into them regardless of actual gender.

So, in that regard, I was wondering if those that find gender stereotypes seeping into their game also see this in their same-sex couples. It doesn't have to be extreme, but is one Sim sort of designated as the provider and the other the nurturer?


Quote:
I'd join you Esmesqualor - only I remember that too and agree with you


I'll see if this was covered before, but I'm not sure how best to frame it so that it wouldn't become a nightmare for the mods.
Site Helper
#42 Old 15th May 2011 at 5:33 PM
I play the sims the way that I play my own life. I'm basically oblivious to gender stereotypes in real life and that carries over to my sims. It's so nice to have a game where sims honestly couldn't care less about gender stereotypes and there's no discrimination or role playing.

I remember a man that I was dating once who was truly upset once when we ... accidentally ... ended up with his head on my shoulder (similar to the sims' position after the woman initiates woohoo). He explained to me that this was taking feminism too far. I just couldn't believe that someone could actually believe that this was an improper position. However, it's obvious from this thread that some people feel strongly enough about this to go to some lengths to ensure "proper" gender positioning in their game. It really is true that we all have our own play styles.

My only beef is that the game believes that attraction to males decreases attraction to females and vice versa. That doesn't match my own life experiences. There's definitely a bias in the game against bisexuality.

Quote: Originally posted by Lance
I don't understand the point of butch/femme. Besides sexual attraction, same-sex relationships are supposed to be built upon social and aesthetic attraction of women to feminine and men to masculine.
[Emphasis mine] It's funny listening to people's ideas of being gay. I didn't realize that there were rules. Guess that someone forgot to give me the rule book.

Honestly, though, I thought that same-sex relationships are built upon attraction of women to women and men to men. Perhaps even the attraction of two specific women for each other, or two specific men for each other.
Theorist
#43 Old 15th May 2011 at 6:23 PM
Not very sexist at all--most of the time I have to remember them to treat my sims like people so their perceived wants and expectations don't enter into it. When I do slow down a bit and role play my sims then my game tends to mirror the traditional.

I have to say I always thought it would be cool if someone came up with masculine and feminine tokens I could put in my sims inventory though, because as you've said, there isn't any gender bias built into the game and I'd like there to be the option. If I was arranging those tokens it would simply be things like someone with a masculine token wouldn't cry after a fight or leap into someones arms and maybe someone with a feminine token wouldn't get up from the table and fart--those sorts of things. And of course they could be assigned to women or men.
Site Helper
#44 Old 15th May 2011 at 7:30 PM
I've always been under the impression that "masculine" and "feminine" are societal constructs, and that they may therefore vary across cultures. Perhaps better than a mod which defines "masculine" and "feminine" behaviors, would be a mod which allows users to select specific behaviors to allow or disallow for a sim? The default could be however the creator decides to define those terms.
Scholar
#45 Old 15th May 2011 at 7:57 PM
One of the things I've always liked about the sims is that there's no reason for any sim not to do any sim thing. I can't make weddings work well to my satisfaction, so mostly my sims live together without benefit of a license, so I don't know how the last name thing would work. I noticed that when I had my Julien Cooke get together with a townie named Wendlend (and I was disappointed because I wanted him to want a different one), their children got her last name, not his, and while I liked his last name better than hers I didn't care enough to change it. But the issue there was that I liked his last name, not that I didn't want them to have her name on principle.

In real life, when I got married, I said "I like my last name. I don't think I have to change my name to prove that I love my husband!" We divvied up the work of life in ways that worked for us, not because of someone else's rules. So I guess that's why I like my Sims fast and loose too.

(or maybe the kitten wants the beer, the girl wants the sports, and the boy wants the knitting needles . . .)
Theorist
#46 Old 15th May 2011 at 8:10 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Mootilda
I've always been under the impression that "masculine" and "feminine" are societal constructs, and that they may therefore vary across cultures. Perhaps better than a mod which defines "masculine" and "feminine" behaviors, would be a mod which allows users to select specific behaviors to allow or disallow for a sim? The default could be however the creator decides to define those terms.
I agree that they are societal constructs--the few things I listed at least--men cry and women do fart.

A mod that let people choose those types of behaviors à la carte would be pretty awesome and provide a wider variety of nuanced characters--rather like TS3's traits in a way. But maybe too complicated to program? Both versions are way out of my league in terms of the skill needed to create it, unfortunately, because I'd definitely be willing to put in the time needed if I had a clue how to go about it.
Site Helper
#47 Old 15th May 2011 at 8:36 PM
I haven't done much in-game modding either and my mods tend to be "brute force" mods rather than making subtle differences in behavior.

However, if you're putting a new token into inventory already, then it should be a simple matter to have one data item for each behavior that you want to allow / disallow. The data item could either be 0 / 1 for off / on, or perhaps a range from 0 to 10, where 0 will never happen, 10 will always happen, and the values in-between are likelihoods. For an initial attempt, I would just implement the on / off switch.

Since you'd have to provide the on / off switch inside of each behavior anyway, and since you'd have to provide the check on the sim's inventory anyway (to decide whether to perform the on or off branch of the behavior), it should be a fairly simple matter to check the individual data items for known values.

The only other issue, that I can think of, would be adding the ability to switch the individual behaviors on and off from inside of a sim's inventory.

Everything other than the UI sounds fairly straightforward, especially if you start with just one behavior, like crying, and then add on to the mod as time goes by. The UI may be simple, too, but I don't know how to do it, so I can't assume that it's easy.
Banned
#48 Old 16th May 2011 at 6:06 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Mootilda
[Emphasis mine] It's funny listening to people's ideas of being gay. I didn't realize that there were rules. Guess that someone forgot to give me the rule book.

Honestly, though, I thought that same-sex relationships are built upon attraction of women to women and men to men. Perhaps even the attraction of two specific women for each other, or two specific men for each other.


It's not even my own idea, I get it from antique philosophy
I understand that is like 2 thousand years outdated, but that was exactly the thing which made me reconsider the idea of homosexuality being "bad".
Site Helper
#49 Old 17th May 2011 at 8:46 PM
My couples are all heterosexual, unless they couldn't find someone. My women sometimes wear makeup, if I remembered to add it in CAS, but my men don't. (Exception: I have 4 men who wear face paint, and only one woman.)

My sims tend to be are all non-human unless I married a townie, so they might have gender/race issues, but the issues aren't "human issues."

For example: An Air fey loves wind. (which was why I needed panpipes about 2 years ago.) Male or female will avoid being inside a structure if at all possible. Males are more likely to garden, while females have discovered that other races enjoy looking at them and are more likely to perform for tips.

But Shadow Weavers are more likely for the males to be seen performing in public, while the females are more likely to be in an isolated area catching fish, or hunting in darkness as vampires.

And, of course, stereotypes don't fit all individuals.

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Test Subject
#50 Old 17th May 2011 at 9:26 PM
I guess my Sims game is half-way gender-neutral, half-way sexist (to an extent!)

For example, most of my male sims don't wear make-up as opposed to females, and most of my female sims don't have extremely short hair, as opposed to a lot of the men in my game. If I'm trying to create a story line, I'll cheat, make perhaps the father (or the mother, depending) have a good, financially stable job, and the mother (or father, again, depending) will the be stay-at-home parent to drive the children places. However, if I'm just free-playing, and there's no definite story-line to follow, both sims will have jobs (just like my parents and my friend's parents - I know maybe a few really wealthy kids whose one parent stays at home). I just play the way the cookie crumbles, if you catch my drift.

Anyway, questions? Comments?
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