Tropes vs. Women in Video Games Controversy

[Chrien]

I just read this thread to see Tyrus' avatar.

[ValorousBob]

the european commission makes the worst videos

Nothing to see here, clearly made by a misogynist, move along now.

[Shiroi Okami]

Haven't read the rest of the thread so I'm going to assume a lot of retardation went on There are a couple of things I would like to mention though.

First that while I won''t deny sexism exists in games, the main reasons I can see for that is that the majority of the target audience is male, and sex sells. It's a basic fact of life that sex and violence make the world go round, so it's not really surprising that sexualism features heavily in most video games, particularly those lacking in actual story or other aspects that make a game interesting. However it's probably not as huge a part as you'd think. Typically it is games from the asiatic companies that feature sexist stereotypes most frequently (All the armour-that-covers-nothing etc and useless damsel in distress tend to come from there). There are many games companies from both and east west however that do not conform to these stereotypes though, and though it mostly goes unnoticed it is there and thus not quite right to call the industry as a whole sexist. Examples from relatively well known games:


THat is in fact a woman


Main character from Beyond Good and Evil, not particularly sexualised (unless a midriff baring top is sexualisation), by no means a useless damsel etc



This one doesnt really require explanation

And by the same token that women are often sexualised in games with unrealistic portayals, men get very much the same treatment in a lot of games, being portrayed as barrel chested , ridiculously manly cigar smoking, sunglass wearing badasses with bulging muscles:





Dead or Alive, 4, a great example of sexualisation of both genders in a single video game

Now it is more prevalent for portrayal of women than men, and men tend not to suffer from the 'useless but there to look pretty' syndrome, but I'm still not convinced it is as big a problem as people seem to think in gaming in general. In the same way that feminiazis do not represent feminists as a whole, neckbeards and angry 14 year olds do not represent gamers as a whole

[Tyrus Tenebros]

I just read this thread to see Tyrus' avatar.

<3


also overlord manatee commands your attention.

[Cosmin]

Somehow related.

[Frug]

Now it is more prevalent for portrayal of women than men, and men tend not to suffer from the 'useless but there to look pretty' syndrome, but I'm still not convinced it is as big a problem as people seem to think in gaming in general. In the same way that feminiazis do not represent feminists as a whole, neckbeards and angry 14 year olds do not represent gamers as a whole

You make a fine post. I wouldn't argue with it. But we care different amounts about the same problem. Also, a lot of the problem is awareness itself. A day in this thread got deleted, an unfortunate loss to the universe to be sure. The truly sad part is that compared to a lot of the posts I'm some kind of feminist.

[Kransthow]

Somehow related.

[Shade Millith]

Call a man a cunt. It's a man being a man.

Call a woman a cunt. It's the end of the world.

Call a man a faggot. Men being men.

Cal a woman a dyke. OH MAH FUCKIN' GAWD!


Yeah, equality is good and all that, but you have to take the bad with the good.

[Devec]

Somehow related.

Jesus fucking christ that was horrible. The reference towards 1984 is obscenely skewed because it would then involve all forms of media and influence a person can undergo. Still the actions taken by the publisher are nothing more than new forms of censorship. But you do have to question yourself about what you are wanting to teach your kids as they can be extremely influential.

To relate this to games. Not all games should be idealized equality worlds, and I don't think anyone is doing so. Personality I don't care about how they wish to represent the genders in a game, although I have to say having a game with less flying tits, macho men and a story written on slaps of edam interest me less than a mature and well written story. Which does not mean that sex, violence and discrimination can't occur, they only make the game more realistic/less idealized.

Although I'm still a bit confused as to why a huge part of games community is so sexist and aggressive towards women. Although that might be a matter of perception and the influence of a smaller group of people who let their inner retard out when they get the least bit of anonymity. It is sad when you see it bleeding out towards real life though, with that fat neckbeard in some fighting game competition calling his female opponent a whore/slut and insulting her just because of her gender. Can't recall the name of the game or guy but his excuses was a kind of "because that's the way the community is".

[Cosmin]

Jesus fucking christ that was horrible. The reference towards 1984 is obscenely skewed because it would then involve all forms of media and influence a person can undergo. Still the actions taken by the publisher are nothing more than new forms of censorship. But you do have to question yourself about what you are wanting to teach your kids as they can be extremely influential.

I don't know about 1984, to my shame I haven't read it (yet). But the idea of the article is about new forms of censorship that skew (!) perception. Why not jungle and you need to call it rainforest? Why the hell is there no cake? About what we want to teach our kids... wouldn't they learn shit anyway from other people? Influence is not something you can control, especially when coming from the entourage. Seriously I'd rather have them learn at school or at home about stuff rather than an especially skewed perspective that other people their age might seed in their brains.

To relate this to games. Not all games should be idealized equality worlds, and I don't think anyone is doing so.

Yet. Yet you have ideal farms in browsers played by millions of brainwashed people. I always wonder, do they slaughter the pigs in farmville or they just breed continuously?

Personality I don't care about how they wish to represent the genders in a game, although I have to say having a game with less flying tits, macho men and a story written on slaps of edam interest me less than a mature and well written story. Which does not mean that sex, violence and discrimination can't occur, they only make the game more realistic/less idealized.

Personally I think that this thing is blown out of proportion. And it is only lately that this stuff is coming into play because of the extremely improved graphics (I think... dunno, nobody cared about Aida in Unreal 2 for instance). I also presume it's because only recently have women became interested in gaming, and, as always, they want to ruin it completely

Although I'm still a bit confused as to why a huge part of games community is so sexist and aggressive towards women. Although that might be a matter of perception and the influence of a smaller group of people who let their inner retard out when they get the least bit of anonymity. It is sad when you see it bleeding out towards real life though, with that fat neckbeard in some fighting game competition calling his female opponent a whore/slut and insulting her just because of her gender. Can't recall the name of the game or guy but his excuses was a kind of "because that's the way the community is".

I really believe that most of the gaming community (which is around 99% male and a major part of that is represented by virgins ) is really astonished and happy to welcome women among them. On a more serious note, one might argue that they fear that because of reasons I've sarcastically described in the previous paragraph.
The thing is this is not the first time nor the last in which a minority poses as a majority and manages to "represent" them.


Later edit, been browsing the pony thread and came up with this. Sounds reasonable? o.O See my previous post about cartoons...

[Frug]

Oh good, we found something that makes everyone mad. Not objectification of women or lack of empathy to young girls, no no no. Some extremists enforcing reversed roles and whitewashing textbooks. UNACCEPTABLE! This must be stopped. At all costs. It will break our children for sure. Oh how far we have fallen as a society that this could happen.

[Cosmin]

@Frug - I think you fail to see how the problems you mention stem down to lack of education. There was a quote (can't remember the author tbh) that said "he who treats his wife like a princess has been raised by a queen". Go ahead and flame me for disregarding gay couples now, please.


I find it ridiculously hilarious how nowadays society tries to treat the symptoms, not the causes.

[Frug]

@Frug - I think you fail to see how the problems you mention stem down to lack of education. There was a quote (can't remember the author tbh) that said "he who treats his wife like a princess has been raised by a queen". Go ahead and flame me for disregarding gay couples now, please.

*slaps forehead* oh my GOD you're right! If only I had seen it. It was right in front of me the whole time. If we could just give people more education.

Oh wow don't I feel dumb for clearly overlooking that in my posting.

[Chrien]

I just read this thread to see Tyrus' avatar.

<3


also overlord manatee commands your attention.

I didn't even realise that was some special animal, I just thought it was a hippo swimming underwater

[Paradox]

To be fair, that's pretty much exactly what a manatee is

[Ab Tallen]

[Lilalaunebör]

  Spoiler:

Jesus fucking christ that was horrible. The reference towards 1984 is obscenely skewed because it would then involve all forms of media and influence a person can undergo. Still the actions taken by the publisher are nothing more than new forms of censorship. But you do have to question yourself about what you are wanting to teach your kids as they can be extremely influential.

I don't know about 1984, to my shame I haven't read it (yet). But the idea of the article is about new forms of censorship that skew (!) perception. Why not jungle and you need to call it rainforest? Why the hell is there no cake? About what we want to teach our kids... wouldn't they learn shit anyway from other people? Influence is not something you can control, especially when coming from the entourage. Seriously I'd rather have them learn at school or at home about stuff rather than an especially skewed perspective that other people their age might seed in their brains.

To relate this to games. Not all games should be idealized equality worlds, and I don't think anyone is doing so.

Yet. Yet you have ideal farms in browsers played by millions of brainwashed people. I always wonder, do they slaughter the pigs in farmville or they just breed continuously?

Personality I don't care about how they wish to represent the genders in a game, although I have to say having a game with less flying tits, macho men and a story written on slaps of edam interest me less than a mature and well written story. Which does not mean that sex, violence and discrimination can't occur, they only make the game more realistic/less idealized.

Personally I think that this thing is blown out of proportion. And it is only lately that this stuff is coming into play because of the extremely improved graphics (I think... dunno, nobody cared about Aida in Unreal 2 for instance). I also presume it's because only recently have women became interested in gaming, and, as always, they want to ruin it completely

Although I'm still a bit confused as to why a huge part of games community is so sexist and aggressive towards women. Although that might be a matter of perception and the influence of a smaller group of people who let their inner retard out when they get the least bit of anonymity. It is sad when you see it bleeding out towards real life though, with that fat neckbeard in some fighting game competition calling his female opponent a whore/slut and insulting her just because of her gender. Can't recall the name of the game or guy but his excuses was a kind of "because that's the way the community is".

I really believe that most of the gaming community (which is around 99% male and a major part of that is represented by virgins ) is really astonished and happy to welcome women among them. On a more serious note, one might argue that they fear that because of reasons I've sarcastically described in the previous paragraph.
The thing is this is not the first time nor the last in which a minority poses as a majority and manages to "represent" them.


Later edit, been browsing the pony thread and came up with this. Sounds reasonable? o.O See my previous post about cartoons...

So still not getting what the big deal is. If the person in the op wants to change gaming by compiling a list of her grievances and send it to the King Of Gaming so he fixes things asap (or enact legislation), then let me just answer with a hearty laugh and/or shudder.
Basically, its ineffectual negative enforcement (?). She could, yknow, start up a female-friendly games company, or invest into one. If she ends up just complaining about all the unfairness in the world she might just as well have mailed a bag of her poo to as many devs as possible.

If she aims to point out the different ways in which she feels demeaned/margianilized in games so game creators can think about a better way in case they come across her video, hey go for it. Its basically free market research in case someone wants to cater more to a different audience, of their own accord.

Also gas thread ban op.

[Fallout]

Sexism seems like something that will go away when the older generations start dying off. I don't think the majority of young people right now have any negative opinions on women or don't think they should be equals in society. Unless they are 15 and on XBL but they will grow out of it.

As for gaming there's a lot of bad examples of women, but then a lot of good ones too. You can look at Lara Croft and say shes just eye candy but shes also a strong female character who doesn't take shit from anyone. Most of the bad examples come from shitty Japanese fighting games where the women wear nothing at all and that's because they come from fucking Japan which has more serious issues regarding women than how they are represented in video games.

There's also the fact that in my opinion if a man or woman is designing a character for a video game or w/e they are going to make them look attractive because people like to look at nice things and its the same with male characters, I cant think of any ugly men in video games off the top of my head.

[Qui Shon]

One thing that hasn't come up, is how some RPG's lately have women be the baddest badasses. Like Dragon age Origins, the toughest warrior (apart from my femshepwarden) swinging a gigantic two handed sword (iirc), is a woman (the one that arrests you after you save the queen). In Skyrim, if there's a a scripted NPC fight, for instance when you walk into the Companions house for the first time, you can bet your cupcake the woman is going to beat the man.

Now I've nothing against this, but how's that for "educating" women to be violent?

More seriously, this kind of unrealistic (due to biological factors obviously) equality portrayal is now and will be the norm for some time, at least in "blockbuster" games. Is this a good thing?


Also, all hail the awesome Goddess of Badassery!

[Wall]

Oh good, we found something that makes everyone mad. Not objectification of women or lack of empathy to young girls, no no no. Some extremists enforcing reversed roles and whitewashing textbooks. UNACCEPTABLE! This must be stopped. At all costs. It will break our children for sure. Oh how far we have fallen as a society that this could happen.

Every time I beat a woman, I think "This is what Super Mario would have done if Peach had gotten out of line".