Gender/Racial Locking in 2019

[JunkhogMakison]

Gender isn't the same as sex, though. And the animal kingdom doesn't even share the same values as human society does: Male peacocks are the ones with the long tailfeathers, male birds in general have more colorful plumage than females, some species of fish change sexes when the opposite one is unavailable, male seahorses carry the children and "birth" them, female lions take care of most things within the pride (not to mention the ones with the luxurious manes are the males)...

In humanity: 100 years ago, children of both sexes used to wear dresses until around the age of 10. Pink was a masculine color until 60-70 years ago. Men wore more make up than women less than 200 years ago (and wigs, let's not forget that). The high heel was invented for men (it was meant to secure the foot while horse riding). Long hair has switched between standard, fashionable, and distasteful on men over millennia. And for that matter, women didn't shave their body hair until razor companies shamed them into doing so around the 1940s, and MEN actually did in Ancient Greece and Rome (because it was considered unsightly, both men and women also removed it in Ancient Egypt, it was considered unclean).

So, a lot of the things we consider "male" and "female" are actually recent BS.

All the more reason to break the tradition.

The fact that many people dont see the potential profitability in this is just mind blowing. Never mind the fact that just having unisex universal to all clothes and armor would be a substantial breath of fresh air in general from a business perspective you would bring in so many new players and therefore bring in the money.

And putting all of that aside, people should never be against more options and flexibility. Yes it will take time and resources but you know what, I'd rather they work on this than making another pointless "limited class"

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

It's also a modern thing for people to get married past age 18, have kids in their 30s and 40s, accept other people for their differences.

Just a short time ago, people were married at 13-14, had kids by 16, and kings and queens married their siblings. Bringing "the times" into it is silly.

[Melichoir]

Gender locked races is pretty stupid.

But the gear thing, thats a bit more complicated.

When we argue "Hey, there should be no gender lock" then what about clothes that reveal a bare chest? While Im sure some people would be like "Ahh yissssssssss bewbs!" we have to actually be a bit real here and know that for the game to maintain its rating (and any semblance of respect) that wont be allowed. The armor would be modified you might say. But then thats a gendered armor set and the exact design aesthetic that would be available to male characters wouldnt be quite available to female ones for obvious reasons.

Im not saying everything should be gendered(as high heals were actually for men in France at first, as an example), its worth noting that saying "Just remove the genderlock on gear" wont exactly be so straight forward and probably wont yield the results people expect. There will still be gendered clothing.

[Lihtleita]

When we argue "Hey, there should be no gender lock" then what about clothes that reveal a bare chest? snip

gender neutral bras for everyone

[Dualblade]

gender neutral bras for everyone

There ARE some good battle ready armor out there.

[Gemina]

Im not saying everything should be gendered(as high heals were actually for men in France at first, as an example), its worth noting that saying "Just remove the genderlock on gear" wont exactly be so straight forward and probably wont yield the results people expect. There will still be gendered clothing.

Not disagreeing with you, but wanted to bring up some things about heels.

Heals for men are still around to this day, and perfectly acceptable for them to wear. They can be found on both boots and dress shoes in various fashion designs. The initial intention with them wasn't really to add height but actually had a utilitarian purpose revolving around equestrian. Latter down the road they took on to a more fashionable demographic, and today's dress shoes for men typically have a heel of some sort.

A little further is when women adopted them into their attire. Again, height wasn't the sole purpose and more and more women began wearing them because it made their feet look smaller. Over time, heels for women became more pointed at the toe, and higher at the heel. Today, 'high-heels' can't really be associated with men at all as they refer specifically to heels that are hardly functional outside of adding 3+ inches to a woman's height, making the foot look smaller, the legs longer, and the buttocks more raised and firmer. Even though many girls have learned to walk and even run to a certain extent in them; they are not practical by any means and are even detrimental over the long term. Girls whose feet absolutely hated them after a night of dancing will most certainly vouche for this.

In short. If heels like this ever make it into the game:



Devs will genderlock them and throw away the key. Heels for men are fine, if they are indeed designed for men.

[ern815]

I think that the devs probably felt that some outfits wouldn't fit the opposite sex too well and hence the gender locking came to light.
And I also think there may be additional resources involved in trying to design the gear to make it fit onto the toon. Didn't Yoshi P mentioned before that because of the new Viera they had to look into the headgear design to make sure that it looked good on a Viera's head? Hence it could take up some time and resources for that, which would have been better spent on developing new ideas or improving certain matters on hand.

[JunkhogMakison]

I mean, that only works in euro-centrist cultures, given how many African cultures were matriarchal until the colonisation, Native American (by which I mean on the whole continent) cultures were also pretty open on the whole sexual and gender identity until christianity was forced on them. I mean, if you want to get into it, women weren't believed to have souls in Ancient Greece, they didn't even have ages or birthdays since it was considered that a woman's life started at marriage (Greek culture may have been very forward in some aspects like sexuality and trans identities, but pretty lacking as to how it treated women). And again, if a woman chooses to NOT shave her body hair now she's called worse things than "SJW", but before the 1940s it wouldn't even have raised an eyebrow. Besides, saying men and women are "mentally" different from one another is... plain wrong, there's no peer reviewed study that proves that beyond going into a "nature vs nurture" debate (are women different than men because they're taught to be?).

I mean, just going by "men and women complement each other" erases homosexuality, which is present in the animal kingdom and is even given a biological reason (it helps keep the population growth under control). Really, the only ones I see calling for a "safe space" are specifically those either mocking the concept or that get "triggered" whenever confronted with anything that isn't completely heteronormative, not the actual people who only want to be treated with base respect.

Also, there are not only two sexes, that's invalidating intersex individuals who are born with both (and yes, before the inevitable "it's an exception, not the rule" then how do you treat them socially? it's not the same as being born deaf or blind, and we still have measures for them).

I want to like this multiple times so heres ☆☆☆☆☆

[JunkhogMakison]

Sure, but only one species wears clothes, which is what this thread is about.



Well, no. There's numerous chromosome strand variations i.e. Klinefelter's syndrome. It's not as simple as two sexes. Of course, arguing that with someone who resorts to pointless buzzwords like 'extreme left SJWs' is likely pointless.

To OP: I am totally okay with this. Some of the attire gendering is laughably stereotypical (see: WHM AF pants three times in a row), especially coming from a studio that tends to be more progressive than most. I'm saying this as a total girly girl that loves shorts and skirts and all things femme.

☆☆☆☆☆ stars for you too. And good point on the Whm pants that had completley slipped my mind as an example.

[Barraind]

It is the year of the Wombat, where everyone is the same and biological differences have been bred out of everything. What, do you think we're still living in the year of the wombat? FIE ON THE YEAR OF THE WOMBAT, I say! We must push forward into a time when...

Male/Female are still genders for most animals on this planet.

Oh. Carry on.

Gender isn't the same as sex, though.

In the overwhelming majority of places people use either of those words (even if one were to grant you that the 1980's definition is the correct one and that gender and sex are not implicitly linked), including this one, people use 'gender' when they mean 'sex'. And a lot of them use it because you can say gender and people are like eh, where if you say sex, people go "ermagerd sex".

Thats the case for things like "gender-locked" "gender-restricted" and so on. nobody is actually using the word "gender", theyre squeemish about using the word "sex" since it means the exact same thing if you arent following the "heres the feminist definition of "gender" that wasnt recognized until the late 2000's and still isnt recognized in most countries".