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,@ 2007-03-13 12:06:00 |
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| Entry tags: | gender issues |
Dragon Magazine Covers (5) - Appealing Avatars
Dragon is a magazine about traditional fantasy roleplaying, and trad fantasy roleplaying is about taking on an avatar character. D&D, the main focus of Dragon, is about kicking monster butt and gathering treasure.
I decided that I wanted to look at instances where a character is depicted as an Appealing Avatar. If, in my subjective opinion, a typical player would look at an image and say "yeah, I wanna be that!" then I marked down the figure as an Appealing Avatar. I did this with an explicit eye on the action focus of D&D and related games. If a character was shopping, or studying, or otherwise engaged in something not part of the core D&D experience, then I didn't count it. If a character was doing core D&D stuff but failing at it - getting beaten down, getting captured - then I didn't count it either.
Some examples, following on from those in the first post:
Dragon 58, February 1982. The first woman to appear on Dragon magazine's cover holding a weapon.
Dragon 77, September 1983. The focal dude in the front running away? Not an an appealing avatar. The beardy wizard in the back who just caused havoc? An appealing avatar.
Dragon 318, April 2004. This woman will totally kick your butt and she probably isn't even thinking about you while she does it. An appealing avatar.
Of 156 figures that are appealing avatars, 49 are female and 107 are male (Fig 11).
Breaking this down across the 350-issue history of the magazine (Fig 12a has it in 25-issue blocks, Fig 12b in 50-issue blocks), it appears this gender disparity has been stable throughout the magazine's existence (at least, this was the case after the first few years, when female avatars were completely absent).
This shows a stable ratio of about 2 male avatars for every female avatar.
I had also coded depictions of figures as either Focal or Non-Focal. I decided to check whether this bias was any different for Focal depictions. One suspicion I had was that female avatars were more likely to turn up in group scenes, as the 'token female', whereas the hero shot was more likely to be of a male figure.
Of 97 figures that are focal appealing avatars, 33 are female and 64 are male (Fig 13).
Breaking this down across the 350-issue history of the magazine (Fig 14a has it in 25-issue blocks, Fig 14b in 50-issue blocks), this gender disparity does show some variation, with a peak of focal female avatar representation around issue 100, a low point around issue 200, and a slow climb after that, but the variations are not massive overall.
This shows a relatively consistent ratio of about 2 male focal avatars for every female focal avatar. In other words, my suspicion proved completely groundless; whether the avatar was focal or not had no impact on gender representation.
All of this shows, not unexpectedly, that you are more likely to see a male avatar figure than a female avatar figure. This trend seems thoroughly embedded and shows no sign of changing.
Next: Submissive figures and avatar figures as a proportion of the whole
