OpenGeofiction
This question has been bothering me for quite a while...
Posted by zhenkang on 13 July 2018 in English.I have been thinking, for the past few months, are there actually female users around? I mean, this OGF site has been pretty much dominated by males, and usernames don’t tell us much.
I am asking this not because I am one (I am not anyway), but just being curious if it is a fact that only men are interested in geofiction and mapping.
Bonus question: How are women treated in your country? Is there some huge gap between the genders such as access to jobs and education? Does gender inequality exist in your country and how are your governments trying to ‘bridge the gap’? (just a check on women rights around the OGF world)
Discussion
Comment from andrepoiy on 13 July 2018 at 13:03
I think women generally don’t visit the websites many men do. All the sites I visit regularly are all male-dominated.
Some male-dominated things I can think off the top of my head: video games in general ranging from AAA games (Forza) to web games (NationStates), pornography sites, forums of all subjects, and Wikipedia.
Comment from arberia on 13 July 2018 at 15:16
I’m a woman but I always loved making maps (I did it since I was child in my school notebooks) and discovering this page, two years ago, was awesome for me. It is true that I don’t enter here very often (because studies and work) but I enjoy a lot creating cities, countries, etc.
My country is a kingdom, whose current head of state is a queen (and there were several). The current president is a woman and the laws in my country are feminist, what it means, it exists de facto an equality between men and women, taught since the basic levels of education. Of course, it is also plural in diversity (LGBTQI+ rights, multiculturalism, etc). The respect is the basis of the country laws.
Of course, it exists right and left political parties but all of them are concerned that the feminism and the diversity are the basis of society in Illiria.
Comment from varnel_maiser on 13 July 2018 at 16:43
Bélice has seen many times of tension in the near past and only now has begun to enact progressive social policies, including the Women’s Suffrage in 1980 (To be fair, the nation was without elections until 1975).
Now, things are mostly starting to become equal, and tolerance of all races (even though the population is almost 80% homogeneous), religions, and gender is taught from an early age.
Back in the Autocratic days though, was a different story. The government made everyone equal, just equally poor and equally suffering. The Women’s Suffrage movement did not exist since voting was unheard of and protests were illegal.
Comment from Portopolis on 13 July 2018 at 21:38
I imagine, Hoppon being it’s own unique culture, never has had a problem with LGBT rights. Similar to Transgender in Thailand or Ottoman attitudes towards Gays/Lesbians. Although rights for Transgenders would likely be heavy debated. Lallemand being colonized by Ingerland would certainly have issues with LGBT (Gay Marriage is likely only legalized in the last 3 years or not at all), but Lallemanyan culture would lead to a society where Women have always been at the top with men. Hoppon would have more problems with Women’s rights/equality. For example voting would historically only limited to certain people in society and it would 100% be all men except maybe female members of the different Royal families. Modern voting would include women and men but women politically would be relatively rare, like 10% of politicians.
Comment from Ernestpkirby on 14 July 2018 at 00:29
I’ve tried to engrain gender equality into Freedemia’s culture. Freedemia’s first VP was a woman, second president was a woman, current and last presidents were women, and had large numbers of founding mothers as well as fathers. With other big things like barechested equality being national law (though that did see some early opposition by a vocal minority) and really all forms of gender equality mandated in the constitution, women’s rights shouldn’t be a major issue. I tried to do the same thing with race relations as well. I think if anything, class/income inequality in certain cities is probably the biggest issue and affects both genders fairly equally.
I will say Freedemia is undergoing a revamp and that Natura, the northernmost state (formerly part of the Autonomous Province of Nature mapped by Robert before he left OGF) has a very different culture than most of Freedemia, having been largely Castellanese-settled versus Ingerish-settled. I imagine if any state/area has any issues, it would be there, perhaps over things like barechested equality and issues with more rampant sexist sexualization in media and such. I may add more in to that and efforts to change it as I get further along revamping.
Comment from DematyMaps on 14 July 2018 at 01:19
Aháas never had any problems with gender equality or gay/lesbian rights. Transgenders are not recognized by the government, though, for cultural reasons.
Comment from Sarepava on 15 July 2018 at 10:27
Karolia is one of the more gender-equal nations in the world (and that includes trans as well). There is a theory that this is based in the language having no gendered pronouns and no grammatical gender, but in reality it’s mainly a social thing. The main motivation for this climate was that before the Social Reform of 1924, Karolia was a very unequal society, with a small male elite controlling nearly everything and very few female or working class figures in public life. After the first Labour government came to power, they set about initially on some basic social welfare reforms (new housing programs, education and healthcare, working rights and tax reforms to pay for all of this) which steadily grew in scope and began to have an effect on equality beyond simply workers’ rights and income. Karolia had its first female Chancellor in the 1960s which further drove gender quality, as did the pro-bicycle movement of the 1970s which along with the maintenance of generous funding for public transport, meant that access to good transport and thus work was very democratic.
There is practically free childcare and decent maternity/paternity leave rights, which means that couples can get back to work. Women’s sports are given equal coverage, funding and have a similar following to men’s, which Karolians like since they can go to football both days of the weekend.
Comment from zhenkang on 15 July 2018 at 10:31
Thanks for the comments. I wonder where this discussion could be placed on the wiki, but it is not really significant to have a page since it couldn’t be seen on the map. Maybe interesting enough for trivia.
@andre What I want to know is whether women are also equally interested in geofiction as men. But maybe that’s true about women not visiting such sites… Women I think only look at online shopping or K-dramas.
Comment from Eretra on 15 July 2018 at 11:09
We could see some differences on the map, for instance, in France, school was mandatory for young boys and girls, but at first they were separated, often resulting in two schools being build one next to the other. We could see some things like that in nations where gender equality isn’t a thing, or maybe remains of such policies in countries that embraced equality recently In continuation of my previous exemple, the boy’s school was my kindergarten, and the girl’s school was my elementary.
Comment from wangi on 16 July 2018 at 12:36
“Women I think only look at online shopping or K-dramas” Fantastic. Grab a spade and keep digging.
Comment from zhenkang on 16 July 2018 at 12:41
@wangi that is just my general comment on internet-surfing women… I really don’t know what they search online. In fact, I dont understand women at all.
Comment from wangi on 16 July 2018 at 12:48
Best option is to say nothing then.
Comment from zhenkang on 16 July 2018 at 12:48
ok
Comment from oneofbeatlefan on 17 July 2018 at 16:14
This was also a long-talked topic in the geographic community. Me and my girlfriend talked about this and speculate that most of the women are interested where men aren’t much interested, such as psychology, anthropology, art or studies that “minor” things. But this was just a speculation of generalization, doesn’t mean every woman does that. My girlfriend also helps me with writing articles for Wallea, usually in economic, laws and historical perspective.
Comment from tule00 on 18 July 2018 at 22:24
This might come off as controversial but I’ll say it anyway
I think I’m a transgender woman, I’m not 100% sure about it, but I guess you can count me in.
As for women being interested in geofiction less than men, I think this is a societal issue because there is an unwritten rule that some things are just for boys and some things are just for girls.
I have more opinions on this, but I’d rather not discuss real world politics here.