mr_orgue (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} mr_orgue) wrote in ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} gametime,@ 2007-03-12 11:56:00 |
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| Entry tags: | gender issues |
Dragon Magazine Covers (4) - Submissive Depictions
Depictions of women in a submissive aspect are part and parcel of the fantasy archetype - Sleeping Beauty needing to be rescued from her magical doze, Rapunzel trapped in the tower waiting for someone to clamber up her hair, and so on.
When classing an image as 'submissive', I looked for any sign that a figure was being dominated, beat down, restrained, deferential, intimidated, or meek. (This didn't necessitate there being another figure in the image in a dominating role.)
There are a few examples back in the intro post. Here are one or two more:
Issue 113, September 1986. The male figure is on his knees in a pose of supplication. Marked as submissive.
Issue 114, October 1986. The very next issue - this time a female figure in near-identical pose. Marked as submissive.
I went back and forth on this one several times. I eventually decided to classify her as submissive, on account of the nature of her work and her mild aspect. There is definitely an argument that this isn't a submissive depiction any more than a blacksmith performing his craft would be. If anyone wants to check whether I've been inadvertantly inflating my figures, this image is where you should start.
Findings
Keep in mind that the actual numbers here are quite low. This means that these results are less reliable than those in other categories. I think there are enough for the trends to be clear, however.
Important Note: On 15 March, after some useful discussion at the Paizo boards, I felt I had a better idea of what I should class as "submissive" and went back through my classifications to double-check them. As a result of this better understanding I changed 6 female and 2 male classifications to 'Neutral'. The following data and graphs have been modified to reflect this. Some summary statements have been changed to avoid undue implication that past trends are continuing, e.g. "got worse" to "been worse"; such evaluation should be made by the reader, and not be implicit in my comments.
Of 45 figures depicted as submissive, 29 are female and 16 are male (Fig 8).
Breaking this down across the 350-issue history of the magazine (Fig 9a has it in 25-issue blocks, Fig 9b in 50-issue blocks), it appears this gender disparity has actually been worse in the last decade than in previous decades.
As noted previously, the actual number of submissive depictions is quite low. However, when we plot them, it is clear that a gender gap is present in the last 150 issues that was not in the 200 prior; and look again at that big spike in the 250-275 period, just as was seen for suggestive images in the last post.
All of this indicates that women are over-represented in the submissive-figure stakes. The tough heroine breaking in to rescue the prince is still a very uncommon image.
Next: Appealing Avatars
