In Power of Story

Solving Gender Neutrality (at least at WisCon)

By Rachel Gold

Being on the “Solving Gender Neutrality” panel at WisCon over Memorial Day weekend got me thinking about gender more deeply than usual the past few weeks and two things occurred to me: 1. I want to alter my language more because “dude” just isn’t gender neutral like I want it to be. 2. Non-binary femme should be a thing. The first is pretty straightforward and I’m cheerfully accepting better synonyms for “dude,” which I generally use to mean: person I’m fond of in a co-player sense. Coming from a gaming context, I use it for both men and women, but then I realized that if you don't know that and you randomly hear me use it, it sounds just a gendered as people who think there's such a thing as using male pronouns as a universal. So far my favorite suggestion for a replacement has been, “Peep!” We’ll see if I can rock that. On to #2. Trying to describe my gender in an email to the other panel members for "Solving Gender Neutrality" in the week before the panel was a lot harder than I expected. (If you want the excellent list of resources put together by another panel member, it's online at:

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June 2, 2014
In Power of Story

Apocalypse as a metaphor for compassion

By Rachel Gold

This morning I woke up cranky and started thinking about apocalyptic stories, particularly the one in Mass Effect 3, and wondering if there's a way in which they allow us to deal with our own sadness for the suffering we can't fix in the world, and therefore open a path for us to become more compassionate. The game starts with Earth under attack from an alien machine race known as the Reapers, who have come to wipe out all sentient, organic life in the galaxy. Massive robots rain down from the sky. Billions are killed. In the midst of my bad mood, that felt comforting. I thought of Commander Shepard in the opening sequence standing in the open door of the Normandy and watching a small fraction of the evacuation, only to see the evacuation shuttles shot down a moment later. She must turn away from the destruction and go look for help for Earth. Here's a short video of it (even if you're not into games, I think you'll find it moving). This scene reminded me of a quote from the Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa: "Hold the sadness and pain of samsara in your heart and at the same time the power and

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September 4, 2013