[MUD-Dev] The Price of Being Male

[Marian Griffith]

In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Tue 01 Jul, Sasha Hart wrote:
> [Marian Griffith]

>>> - This is not a lower price for a product sold by a female
>>> seller.  Nor a lower price for the time spent by a female
>>> seller.

>> Nobody ever said it was.

> You said exactly that it was an opportunity to study the
> devaluation of a female's labour. You certainly feel that there's
> a 'devaluation of female labour' somewhere. And that it has some
> bearing on something important.

I may have expressed myself poorly, but since this is turning into
such a inflammable topic I will keep it brief and drop out of the
discussion afterwards.

The study as performed by mr. Castranova, found that female avatars
on EQ sold for significantly lower prices than comparable male ones
One of the possible explanations given for that discrepancy (and it
seems to be the one that the media jumped on) was that the differ-
ence was a reflection of the same mechanism that keeps women from
earning an equal wage for equal labour in the 'real' economy.  At no
point was ever a claim made that female avatars were valued less
because they were *played or created* by women.  The gender of the
seller was never an issue in the study. The phrase above that I
responded to, suggested however precisely that.

>>> Rather, it is a lower price for a commodity labeled 'female,'

>> Exactly. Hence the parallel that was drawn with the observed fact
>> that work done by women is valued less by companies than the same
>> work done by men.  The author of the article pointed out that
>> here the common explanations for that discrepancy did not apply,
>> and thus concluded that the difference in selling price for
>> female a- vatars was an indication by how much society
>> undervalued female labour.

[example of somehow comparing forklifts and oranges snipped because
I do not quite understand what it is supposed to mean.]

> I don't mean to be snide or dismissive, but only to point out in
> the clearest way possible that there is some kind of non-obvious
> auxiliary reasoning which is not being exposed, and which would be
> necessary in order to think that drawing the parallel was sane to
> begin with. But no one is exposing it, which you'd think they
> would if the case were as strong as suggested.

It probably is entirely my fault, but I am afraid that your example
was not very clear to me.  Then again, it is obvious that I also do
not manage to explain to you what I fell is important in this study.

> Suppose that one thing within the game is being sold, and gets a
> lower price than another thing, but that thing happens to be
> something for which there is no human 'parallel' in real life. It
> naturally follows that we cannot cry foul on behalf of the real
> beings who are similar to the items for sale (elf clerics), since
> there are no elf clerics to be discriminated against.

The important point to make here is that so far you are talking a-
bout hypothetical items, while the research being discussed here is
talking about factual items being sold that, from an technical point
of view, should be equal, but are valued quite differently.  Either
there is a real difference in *actual* value, in which case the
prices are fair, or there is not, in which case a discrimina- tory
mechanism is in place. (discriminatory meaning that distinct- ion is
being made on grounds that have no relevance to the perfor- mance or
abilities).  So far, several other hypothetical explanations for the
difference have been proposed, and these must be studied to find out
how they quantify in the difference in price.

> That leaves 'female' characters in the same place, albeit sharing
> a word with a real life group. But, once again, a toy duck is not
> a duck just because it shares a word and both have some kind of
> tail.

Yes, but I think it is fair to say that the difference betweem male
and female avatar is quite a bit less than between a toy and a liv-
ing animal.

>> In a game setting female avatars should be exactly equally
>> capable as male ones, and seniority is not an issue either (nor
>> is the possibility of maternity leave).

> This would be nice if female avatars were really female in any
> meaningful sense and we had a sensible model of wage
> discrimination within the world, which drew on the same
> independent variables. Instead we have female avatars (like toy
> ducks) selling for less than male avatars (like stuffed ducks).

>From within the context of the game there is *no* difference. Just
about every multiplayer game that I ever have heard of has made it
certain that male and female characters are identical for all in-
tents and purposes as far as game mechanics are concerned.  So the
only difference between the two is in the eyes of the beholder, or
player in this case. Given the demographics on these games the on-
ly possible conclusion you can draw is that men value male avatars
higher than female ones.  What is under dispute is how big exactly
this difference is, and what causes it.  One of the explanations
that have been forwarded is that it is caused by the same socio-
cultural mechanism that causes women to earn less for doing the same
work.  Given the importance of that possibility (at least if you are
a woman), and the fact that games offer one of the few si- tuations
where the mechanism can be studied in an environment that is free of
actual differences in ability or job history (in the sense that
female avatars don't interupt their game careeer to get pregnant and
care for children), is this quite significant from a viewpoint of
sociological and socio-economical studies.  However, continued study
may well proof that there is an economic reason for the observed
difference in selling prices, and that the potential to study gender
discrimination in a context free si- tuation does not exist after
all.


Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev