Oh, I'm sorry. "Science should be ignored when it disagrees with common sense". And your stance is that any man is stronger than all women. Both are patently absurd.

Bell curves, learn to love them. Exceptional women in terms of physical condition exist and can easily meet the needs of the military. Like I said, studies confirm this, including studies done by and for the military.


Exactly. So there's no reason the Dragonborn couldn't be such an exceptional woman. It's perfectly realistic.

What's the matter? Can't stand the site of a strong Nord woman?

This.

I've already invested into a variety of characters: a male, Argonian warrior; a female, Norde archer; a male, Khajiit mage.

I don't think it is sixist. I am male and I prefer to play male because I can relate better to the character, but that doesn't make me sixist.

You can turn it around how you want, the choice between male and female in Skyrim is purely aesthetics.
Look at the models. You can do a strong muscular male with the skin burnt by the sun and a thin porcelain female, their stats will be the same. It's absurd and there's no way you can back this up with experience of voluntary women in the army or historical figures. Who cares about history in Skyrim? Ever seen any army in history using two-hand swords? Nobody cares because it's just badass.

And that's it. It's fun/funny to have a contrast between your weak build female character and her awesome melee combat skills. She can be both very attractive, with make-up and nail polish, and drive a zweih?nder through the rectum of a troll. That is totally not realistic, as women who want to be stronger than the average male and in par with the male warriors will be muscular and bulky like their male counterparts. But that's great. In a lot of games it allows some reactions to belittling dialogs that wouldn't be as fun with a strongly build male.

Now that said, male Nords can be customized to be really badass and that's fun to create a huge barbarian who answers everything with "grrrrruh", is lost when words have more than two syllables and just smash things to make his world simplier. But eh, here's a secret : there's no male elf.

I like to play a girl when I play a Mage and a guy when I play a Warrior. This is due to me believing that the strongest guys are stronger than the strongest girls (not in game). I also believe this is not sixist at all, it's just reality.

Believing that girls should cook for you is sixist. Believing that guys are generally stronger is logic.

Then again its a fantasy world. Its quite believable that an Orc female is going to be stonger than most elf or human males.

Of course. It would all depend on race. A weak human female child would be stronger than most elf males. I would also believe that a male Orc would be stronger than a female one.. but it may not be the case. I don't know much about Orc anatomy.. If they worked in the same way as Humans though, I believe that the testosterone would cause them to build more muscle mass and be more aggressive..

Just to nitpick: There have been examples of it in history, like the Bidenh?nder of the http://www.landsknechtsrotte.de/portal/bidenhaender.htm, and the Dacian http://www.google.com/search?q=dacian+falx.

But yeah, just to re-iterate, there are exceptional individuals in both males and females, and who's to say that your character isn't one of those. Besides, you don't need to have much in the way of visible muscles to have substantial physical strength. I've seen a guy who looked scrawny beyond all belief bench press 100kg(220lbs) myself.

Plus... the whole "physical strength" thing is beside point. Swords are http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dki5sVPS5_s, very light. And people are fragile things. You don't need much strength to kill a person. Especially if you stab them with a thin pointy thing in the right spot. Which takes more skill than it takes strength. The image of buff dudes grunting as they slowly swing their implausibly huge and heavy swords at each other presented by this game among others tends to obscure this fact pretty thoroughly though. The first image that comes up with the Falx image search probably shows you a fairly unfit-looking dude splitting a roman shield with a Falx. Does that weapon look like a woman couldn't swing it effectively, to you?

I decided to respond so that you didn't misrepresent me. This is why I decided to end my discussions with you, you're so entrenched with such a ridiculous opinion that no amount of discussion will deter you. My contention all along has been apart from whatever our opinions may be, science and history supports what I simply call "common sense". These "studies" you keep mentioning have been unproduced and thus don't allow either of us to confirm the validity of the research done. Indeed, you've also misrepresented my stance that a physically fit man when pitted against a physically fit woman would demonstrate that in all cases the man is physically superior. In fact, in a response to what Pistolero stated - that above statement I made are the exact words of an enlisted woman I've been acquainted with.

I'll ask that any further responses to my posts are dealt with in an honest manner. Please don't make any further assumptions about what I believe or put words into my mouth. That way I don't have to post again and you can have the last word.

Some valid points, but trust me when I say that muscle mass has a massive affect on strength. I will explain in detail (I am a personal trainer) when I get back (like an hour).

The dalcian falx is hardly near the greatsword we have. And while two-handed sword existed and were tested, they were never kept. The only remarkable weapons were roman pilum & shield + spata to finish fallen soldiers, greek hoplites' dory, english longbows and swiss halberds.

And no, there's no way for a woman not to have visible changes when becoming warrior-strong. Dream on.

Oh, I know. I went to the gym regularly for 10 years or so at one point. I'm not saying that muscle mass does nothing, but the fact is that it tends to be "hidden" in some people by the fact that they've gotten their strength through physical labor and tend to have used muscles that don't necessarily get employed by the regular gym-going person that much, and the hypertrophy you get with weight training doesn't show up, since their body has adjusted to the physical labor over time. But yeah, I'm not a sports doctor, or a personal trainer, so I might have missed something.

The greatsword we have ingame isn't anything, really. It's a giant, awkwardly shaped, two handed club. A chair leg would be a more effective weapon, if the laws of physics worked in Tamriel anything like they do on our Earth. Granted, the swords TES series has are on the smaller and lighter end of the scale you tend to see in games.


Not much in history is ever "kept" in general. That's kind of the point. Things change. These weapons were effective for their time, and were discarded when they became ineffective. The Romans issued arm armor (Manica) for their troops when fighting Dacians for a reason.


"The only remarkable weapons"? What the hell does that even mean? No other weapons in nearly 6000 years of recorded history were noteworthy? Besides, since this seems to have devolved into Internet slapfight over minutia, Rome wasn't built with Spatha. During most of the expansion of Rome, the legionaries used Gladius Hispaniensis or it's variants. Spatha only came to widespread use during the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE. And it was originally a cavalry weapon anyway.


I've seen fit women in real life, TYVM. Of course they look nothing like the females in Skyrim. All the NPCs and the player use the same body, so it has to fit every possible type of character. That's why it's an average, if a thin, looking body, and not a gym bunny. That's a design decision that has nothing to do with your character's strength or lack of it. My point is not that you don't get physical changes when building strength, my point is that it depends on the individual what those changes end up looking like on the outside. And, we don't get shown those changes, since the game has a one-size-fits-all body, for technical reasons.

Fighting is not all about strength not by a long shot, a fighter with greater skill, intelligence and dexterity has a much greater advantage on a lumbering mass of muscles swinging a sword wildly.

While men do have more upper body strength, lower body strength is not all that different between the sixes. I did cadet training in my youth and in my squad there were only two girls and a lot of guys and all the guys towered over me. Guys had the advantage of greater strength, they could run faster then me and carry more equipment....however I had far more endurance and on long distance runs (carrying equal loads), even though they sprinted ahead at first, I passed them every single time and was always first at the finish line, even though my pace was slower. I was also the best shot with a rifle, by far, not just in my squad but in the entire base....

Who was the best fighter?

It is not all about who can lift a sword, it is about how they wield it. About the training the person has received and experience. Women can, given a chance, make very good fighters. Besides there are some very strong women out in Skyrim, strengthened by lifting heavy loads, wielding axes to chop wood all day, building, farming etc....

But in this game, it is your game, play whatever you want. There is no need for guilt, do whatever you want.

I always play as a female character, because I am a female and I roleplay as myself. I tried a male character but just couldn't really get into it. My petit breton wields a sword with strength and cunning. Granted, I changed her sword for a smaller one because the double handed sword she was swinging around was as tall as her! That is unrealistic. But what was really unrealistic was the way she just picked up a massive log that must have a 1 meter diameter.....yup, as someone who has actually moved tree logs etc...that is pretty unrealistic, I couldn't budge that thing in real life. lol

^ This

Nothing wrong in that. I personally don't think much about gender, but I'm happier when I play as a female. Mostly because the awesome armors out there are usually made for females (Triss Armor, for instace), and who doesn't like looking at beautiful female all the time?

Even the girls like staring at a handsome guy all the time

Can't realy see that there's a problem preferring to play as your own six and having no interest in playing the opposite six. I, personally, play as a female character in games every once in a while, but for me, as a writer and actor, it's more about having a good character idea than "getting something" out of playing as a female.

That being said, I don't often feel like playing as a woman most of the time. I also don't choose to dress in drag or spend hours doing make-up when I go to a club. That's not sixist.

Well, pretty much right. Everything depends on muscle type. A small person may be strong due to having a certain type of muscle, but if there was a bigger person with the same muscle type they would be stronger.. Different types of training build different muscle, some types are stronger than others and some types are bigger than others. The type, time and intensity of training dictates the muscle type.. pretty much. Also genetics.


Actually strength and size doesnt hurt in a fight if the muscle is functional muscle. Ie, a bodybuilder doesnt have a great bodytype to fight with due to the type of muscle, but if you put Mike Tyson against Juan Diaz in their primes, mike tyson would rock his world.

Also naturally females are actually not even close to males when it comes to lower body strength. Not going to explain why, but if you ever see a girl leg press over 2000lbs then email me with proof and I will literally fly to the gym and have a look.

I would also like to add that cadets isnt the real militay (no offence). When I was a soldier I did a lot of endurance training, and I never met a girl who could keep up with the infantry men. I'm talking 100km with 35kgs on your back + ammo + rifle. In addition, no female has ever passed the selection to our special forces, the NZSAS. Not due to being unable to try out, but due to not being able to finish the selection. There are females fitter than the unfit males, but there are no females even close to the fittest of the fit. At the end of the day, in general, as a combat soldier a female isn't as good as a male.

If I'm going to watch a character run around a virtual world for 200 hours, I would much rather it be a nice female figure.

The last time I played a male character in a video game where I actually had a choice between the sixes was my very first Morrowind character.

As a male I could never play a female character on my own free will. I can understand it if you are forced into it, like Tomb Raider.

Nothing sixist about it, it's just that I'm a male and prefer to stay that way in all things..... games included.

I wouldn't say sixist, maybe homophobic though.

Let me explain, it might be that the thought of you playing as a female makes you subconsceously think that you're playing in drag or that you're pretending to be a girl which in turn harm your ego's masculinity.

Who cares if it sixist? A lot of people care way too much about being political correct these days. Don't be so fearful about whether your opinions and preferences are socially acceptable or not.

And no, it isn't sixist. This whole thing has little to nothing to do with sixism.

Nothing worrying, but I didn't know you could enter the game. Isn't it dangerous? Personally I prefer to stay behind the monitor and send there a character instead me.

I don't know any men that can leg press over 2000lbs! You are citing exceptional cases which are pretty meaningless in this discussion. I would also completely disagree with you that females 'are not even close' to men when it comes to lower body strength. Especially when it is a proven fact.


I think you are being overly harsh on the female six, there are many exceptionally strong women and many not so strong, there are many exceptionally strong men and many not so strong. Maybe in your special forces there are no women, when I last looked women were not even allowed to try out for many of the special forces.

But point is...we agree that muscle size is not the main factor in a good fighter, which leaves no reason whatsoever why women can't be good fighters and are good fighters. Stop stereotyping each six, people are individuals with their own strengths and weaknesses.

People should play what characters they want without worrying about it. Their game, their perogative. So OP play whatever you want, this game is about living out fantasies.