I am a self-professed chauvinist pig and even in a fantasy world do not want to see ridiculous things as asskicking female warriors. Everytime I hear that tavern song (Ragnar the red?) I want to go punch the bard in the face for insulting men everywhere. I believe there is a serious agenda at work globally to displace males from their rightful place, the emasculation of males at work in media is overbearing. Portraying them as idiots, fools, weaklings and women as the leaders and tougher lot? Bah what rubbish. Anyhow I play a imperial babe with full makeup and cbbe body

Well, somehow "dragonborn" strikes me as a viking-like character, so im favoring males

Women arent weak to be Dragonborn, they are too weak to be fighters. It doesnt mean there arent any female warriors, or male mages. But is not immersive enough, because its unrealistic, like playing a clown. Which is what i believe the OP is asking. I suggest playing a role more suitable for the gender, mage or an assassine. And leave all this "is it sixist, "is it political correct" talk aside. Noone cares for your game but you.

I can't see anything sixist about wanting to play a female character. My very first character, which I played up until a couple days ago, was a male Dunmer. I fooled around with doing a female character for a few minutes, but eventually settled on a male Nord. It isn't because I'm against playing a female character. It's because a male Nord better suited the character I was inventing.

To each their own.

Yes

I started a female Altmer mage, but rerolled as a female Breton. I think I was being a little bit sixist, because one reason was that I didn't like that the Altmer was so tall. If I had wanted a male mage, I don't think that would have been an issue. But what can you do, I am not going to play the character to "prove a point" that I am not sixist. (The main reason was that I preferred the Breton racial bonuses anyway.)

But I have no problem with big female warriors. And I mean if you like the Conan movies, there's cool characters like Valeria or Red Sonja (that was supposed to be Conan in that film). There are guys that have a big chip on their shoulder about "political correctness", I tend to think they protest too much. But that topic will devolve into real-life politics which we are not allowed to talk about here.

Interestingly, Viking society was one of the rare ones in history where it was culturally acceptable for a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shieldmaiden.

Nothing wrong with that >.>

I never play female characters being male and I`m certainly NOT going to worry about it being sixist. I have a female avatar because I think they`re pretty.

Really, some of you people have to stop being guilt-ridden by people who have certain agendas. Do not be ashamed to be male.

Sorry, I can't hear you over all those feminists around here.

Just sayin...

I wasn't saying they were common. Just that it wasn't completely unknown, like in most other cultures.

How is it not realistic when there are historical precedents in the real world? To say nothing of how there are many precedents in the game world as well.

Similarly, where the heck do you get the idea that it is unrealistic for males to be mages?

And I'll counter with Joan of Arc. Evidence enough that women can not just be warriors, but a great warrior-leader as well. There are other examples of course.

Granted males have greater upper-body strength on average than females (one of the more significant sixual dimorphisms in humans), and while that can provide an advantage in combat, it is far from the only factor.

You won't know until you try playing the character!

Just give it a go and see how you feel after you've played around with it for a couple of hours.

Its not sixist. Its simply a matter of how your personality interacts with a game world. Some people see the character on the screen as an incarnation of themselves. These people almost never create a character that differs from their own gender. Others view the character as a sort of interactive movie. In these cases, people tend to play what they are attracted to, which is often the opposite gender. Either is a perfectly valid viewpoint. Do you feel uncomfortable watching the movie Red Sonja instead of Conan? Its all a matter of perspective and what role the player ultimately sees their character.

I'm male and I can't see myself playing a female character.

I have six characters that I bounce between; it's a 50/50 split with gender. In the end it boils down to "here's the character I felt like making at the time". The game play identically either way, and since I'm always in first person, "staring at butts" is kind of irrelevant.

I just do whatever I want.

My first character was a female Breton and she was awesome. Now I'm playing a male nord who will soon be just as badass as she was.. Why am I referring to her in a past tense? Because she had recently died in the hands of two giants and I had stupidly saved right when they charged at me. It was my fault, not hers.

I don't really care about people trying to guilt-trip me because I have a dangling thing between my legs. Wanting to play as a male Dragonborn doesn't mean you personally believe women are weak and inferior. It just means you want to play as someone who is the same six as you.

Thats sixist. You are being sixist.

Now thats the spirit.

It can't be disputed that history presents us with an impressive list of women who were strong and natural leaders, and I haven't suggested anything to the contrary. However, "upper-body strength" (I take it that you're implying this is the only physical advantage men have over women?) was a significant enough of an advantage to never qualify women as a practical military resource in times of war (as one example). Women like Joan of Arc aren't singled out by history because they were great or even passable combatants, they're singled out because of their charisma, leadership abilities and/or other variables you find in great people.

We had this discussion a couple of weeks ago and it ended up getting locked because it had nothing to do with Skyrim. Basically the two camps are if you think men have natural physical advantages where they are the only realistic choice for being a warrior, or if you think more women would be warriors if the social organization of society was different. It is in between, men have some advantages from testosterone, women are kept out of military professions for social reasons, but when it comes to a fantasy game it can be however the devs want.

I've never made a female character in Skyrim, or any TES game for that matter. I either make my characters into what I'm not (I always tend to give my character huge beards like Brett Keisel) or I make them look stupid. I guess I just don't see the appeal of playing a female character.

We really don't have much reliable information on how good famous people in history were at fighting on an individual level, quite frankly. To the extent that we do, we also have examples of women who were good. As one would expect for a variety of reasons, this number is far smaller than the number of men. But of course, the Dragonborn isn't composed of the average statistics of his gender and ethnic group so going by statistical norms is silly.

And yeah, upper body strength is the biggest factor. Were you trying to imply height was a big factor? Well, height IS a factor in combat, but the thing is, the variation in height between men and women is much smaller than the upper body strength variation. You can easily have tall women, so using that as a reason to not allow a player character be a women is quite weak. The same applies with upper body strength, but it the difference is bigger so more women are at a notable disadvantage here.

Studies regularly show that while the average women is less capable than the average man in this regard, there are still women who meet the necessary qualifications. One shouldn't confuse the differences between some averaged metric in two groups with the differences between individuals, otherwise you'll liable to say stupid things like "there are no tall women."

In general, 3 out of 5 of my RPG characters are female, entirely for eye candy purposes. (Though I admit that I tend my male characters get the deeper RPs.)
This is a game. I recognize that this is a game and does not represent real world situations. I can play as a female. I am not a female and never will be. I am attracted to females -> why not? I make a decent lady and have her swing a sword at bad guys. I also happen to fancy strong women (not the East-German-Shot-Putter type, rather the confident, independent type).

Don't take it too seriously. Whether you play as a human, elf, man or woman you are still playing a game so I recommend you make the best of it.