Honestly, I'm just waiting for a female-led, if not all female, development team to make games.
Here you have stated that there never has been a development team composed entirely of or led by a woman. I can't confirm or deny the former, but I know the latter is absolutely false.
It'd probably some sort of 50 Shades of Grey/Twilight video game equivalent that features a harem of sexy romantic Fabio types (just picking from recent popular fiction)
Now you have stated that even if a female led/all female team existed (which they do), that they'd most likely make a game about men and relationships (which they don't).
Instead all we have right now is that silly Susan Wilson kickstarter cash grab.
While in reality, women have already had a pretty big impact on the gaming industry. Also, I don't know much about this Susan Wilson thing, but it sounds like a little girl wanted to go to a video game design camp, started a kickstarter about it and got way more money than she needed. Not really seeing a cynical cash grab here.
Maybe that's not what you meant, but that's what it sounded like to me. In order to avoid future confusion, might I suggest an alternative way you could have phrased your initial post?
"I long for a time when there are more development teams led by women or that are composed mainly of women. The barriers for entry into the industry are lower than ever and support for indie games is at an all time high so now seems like a good time for it. I definitely wouldn't mind seeing more stories, characters and even entire genres that are written from a more inclusive perspective."
While those are some very large breasts, I have a problem with treating large breasted characters as freakish. There are real women with very large breasts (for example, my cousin and her mother both had to have breast reduction surgery due to back pain), and calling them "Nightmare Fuel" seems insensitive to me.
It's one thing to say "there are far more big breasted characters in media than there are big breasted women in real life (and that they are that way to pander to the male demographic)", but it's quite another thing to say "those are some freakishly, inhumanly large breasts" when large-breasted women exist. Just because the media believes that male consumers want to always see large breasted women (or blonde women, or white women, or thin women, etc) doesn't mean it's okay to treat women who fit that description with scorn, and it certainly shouldn't be okay to act like they are freaks of nature. For example, I know thin women that have, for a lack of a better term, ample rear ends, yet I've also seen people make comments on similarly voluptuous comic book characters like "a woman's butt shouldn't look like two pregnant lady's stomachs side by side". Another example is the "real women have curves" slogan that I see every now and then; I know being treated differently because a person is overweight is bad, but that slogan implies that slender women should be seen as unattractive.
I know some people respond to things like I'm saying with "oh yeah, let's all feel sorry for the slim, stacked blonde girls", as if those statements are identical to someone saying "but white people experience racism too!". Conventionally attractive women unsurprisingly attract unwanted attention and comments (I've even read experiences from women who have put on weight that they enjoy no longer being subjected to catcalls, for example), so it's not like their looks only give them unfair privileges with no drawbacks (I'd also imagine it's harder for them to healthily accept the superficial realities of aging).
Hexmage-PA on
+5
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
women who are simultaneously large breasted AND petite are the majority in videogames and the vast minority in real life
you could sum up most of the problems in mainstream videogame female character design with the above sentence.
While those are some very large breasts, I have a problem with treating large breasted characters as freakish. There are real women with very large breasts (for example, my cousin and her mother both had to have breast reduction surgery due to back pain), and calling them "Nightmare Fuel" seems insensitive to me.
It's one thing to say "there are far more big breasted characters in media than there are big breasted women in real life (and that they are that way to pander to the male demographic)", but it's quite another thing to say "those are some freakishly, inhumanly large breasts" when large-breasted women exist. Just because the media believes that male consumers want to always see large breasted women (or blonde women, or white women, or thin women, etc) doesn't mean it's okay to treat women who fit that description with scorn, and it certainly shouldn't be okay to act like they are freaks of nature. For example, I know thin women that have, for a lack of a better term, ample rear ends, yet I've also seen people make comments on similarly voluptuous comic book characters like "a woman's butt shouldn't look like two pregnant lady's stomachs side by side". Another example is the "real women have curves" slogan that I see every now and then; I know being treated differently because a person is overweight is bad, but that slogan implies that slender women should be seen as unattractive.
I've seen some people respond to things like I'm saying with "oh yeah, let's all feel sorry for the slim, stacked blonde girls", as if those statements are identical to someone saying "but white people experience racism too!". Conventionally attractive women unsurprisingly attract unwanted attention and comments (I've even read experiences from women who have put on weight that they enjoy no longer being subjected to catcalls, for example).
I might agree with you more if people were looking at real pictures of women with large breasts and going "FREAKS! DAAAAAAAAMMMMN!", but this is artwork designed to be exaggerated to freakish levels. So much so that if any of the characters were suddenly brought to life with their exact proportions in tact, they would die. Furthermore, every second that preceded the sweet release of death would be an eternity of absolute agony. That is where the nightmare fuel comes from for me anyway.
EDIT: I should clarify that they were probably designed with sexiness/awesomeness in mind, but what they ended up with is horrifying to the rational human mind.
I might agree with you more if people were looking at real pictures of women with large breasts and going "FREAKS! DAAAAAAAAMMMMN!", but this is artwork designed to be exaggerated to freakish levels. So much so that if any of the characters were suddenly brought to life with their exact proportions in tact, they would die. Furthermore, every second that preceded the sweet release of death would be an eternity of absolute agony. That is where the nightmare fuel comes from for me anyway.
EDIT: I should clarify that they were probably designed with sexiness/awesomeness in mind, but what they ended up with is horrifying to the rational human mind.
This still sounds like wild hyperbole to me. With the sorceress in particular, worst case scenario she'd almost definitely suffer back pain and want to get breast reduction surgery as soon as possible.
If you're talking about the other character designs too, such as the dwarf's, I don't see why an artist choosing to use unrealistic proportions is wrong. Lots of artists depict human or human-like characters with unrealistic proportions. Do you dislike Peanuts because you think all the characters are hydrocephalic? Are you unable to enjoy Invader Zim because every character's feet are too small to work the way our feet do? Do Popeye's forearms and freak you out (not to mention that Olive Oyl appears to be some kind of humanoid worm)? Does a glance at the Powerpuff Girls send you shrieking into the night (because seriously, the Powerpuff Girls really do tiptoe the line between exaggerated cuteness and horrible freakishness)?
I don't think the "they're not real people" thing works well when a trait is pointed out like that.
I need an example. Lets say moustaches, and replace it with something more offensive in your mind.
You know what? No. Analogies suck. Even if they involve Yosemite Sam like this one. Delete.
When saying that people with large breasts are freaks, it may be about a fictional character. Like the Sorceress, here. So not intentionally saying that real people with large breasts are freaks. But if the fictional one is a freak because of that trait, and the trait is real?
On the other hand, being disgusted by things, even harmless things, doesn't seem like much of a problem by itself. This thing brushed my whiskers when Hexmage pointed it out, though. Shades of jeering at overweight students. Presentation, or something.
I don't think the "they're not real people" thing works well when a trait is pointed out like that.
I need an example. Lets say moustaches, and replace it with something more offensive in your mind.
You know what? No. Analogies suck. Even if they involve Yosemite Sam like this one. Delete.
When saying that people with large breasts are freaks, it may be about a fictional character. Like the Sorceress, here. So not intentionally saying that real people with large breasts are freaks. But if the fictional one is a freak because of that trait, and the trait is real?
On the other hand, being disgusted by things, even harmless things, doesn't seem like much of a problem by itself. This thing brushed my whiskers when Hexmage pointed it out, though. Shades of jeering at overweight students. Presentation, or something.
Thank you.
For another example, take Elly from Borderlands 2. According to the developers, she was intentionally designed to look unlike the typical female video game character, and posters here have said that they like her character design more than the designs of Dragon's Crown. By Levinsky's apparent "what would this character be like if she was made real" criteria you'd think more people would be disgusted by the character because of the real-world health risks of morbid obesity (which, as far as we know, might not exist in the world of Borderlands).
The problem people have with Dragon's Crown isn't that women with crazy titties or killer thighs are inherently gross - Christ, I don't think anyone is saying that
It's that the presentation of them in this game is a gross pandering to boners
I don't think the "they're not real people" thing works well when a trait is pointed out like that.
I need an example. Lets say moustaches, and replace it with something more offensive in your mind.
You know what? No. Analogies suck. Even if they involve Yosemite Sam like this one. Delete.
When saying that people with large breasts are freaks, it may be about a fictional character. Like the Sorceress, here. So not intentionally saying that real people with large breasts are freaks. But if the fictional one is a freak because of that trait, and the trait is real?
On the other hand, being disgusted by things, even harmless things, doesn't seem like much of a problem by itself. This thing brushed my whiskers when Hexmage pointed it out, though. Shades of jeering at overweight students. Presentation, or something.
Thank you.
For another example, take Elly from Borderlands 2. According to the developers, she was intentionally designed to look unlike the typical female video game character, and posters here have said that they like her character design more than the designs of Dragon's Crown. By Levinsky's apparent "what would this character be like if she was made real" criteria you'd think more people would be disgusted by the character because of the real-world health risks of morbid obesity (which, as far as we know, might not exist in the world of Borderlands).
You're right. I think your logic is kind of suspect, but I see what you're saying and I was having a knee-jerk reaction. I'll amend my position to say that the horrifying thing about the character design for that character is that it is an absolutely naked attempt to appeal to the male gaze. Do we have an accord on that?
EDIT: Also, after a quick Googling of "cartoon characters in real life"... well, if someone sees cartoon characters and for some reason they can't help imagining them in real life, they have every right to be horrified.
I've seen it posited that the Dragon's Crown designs are parody or satire or something. Which...I mean, it could be intentionally over the top but satire? Really? This is the defense people are trying? Satire has to say something about the thing it is satirizing, and all the Dragon's Crown designs seem to be saying is "bitches got rude titties, y'all"
Also, random thought I had earlier: Could the double standard of women being more expected to live up to depictions of beauty in the media (and the types of beauty depicted in said media) than men are be alleviated by getting rid of the "men are supposed to ask women out, and women who ask men out are either promiscuous or desperate" belief?
Please correct me if I'm wrong (and I really mean that) but I'm under the impression that one of the root causes of the expectation for women to pay more attention to their looks than men is because many of them are trying to attract a partner and, since society usually expects men to initiate romantic contact while women wait to be noticed, there is more pressure for a woman to make sure she can attract interest than there us for men. This societal expectation can even affect women who are married or otherwise aren't actively looking for a partner, as people in general notice the difference between women who go to great lengths to look more attractive and women who don't, dismissing the latter as not taking pride in their appearance.
While men also face pressure to look nice, this standard of maintaining an attractive appearance is not as pervasive as men are not expected to wait until they attract the attentions of the opposite sex and therefore only really have to make a greater effort to look good when they are already intending to engage a potential partner.
I've also read several experiences from men that, while they may have once had tastes in women that looked like how they are commonly depicted in the media, those of them who have had a partner with an appearance outside of the popular standard find themselves more attracted to women that look like their partner, even if they preciously would not have been.
To sum it up, my hypothesis is that if there was a greater acceptance of women asking potential partners out instead of being accepted to gussy themselves up according to how society expects them to look to attract a man's intention there would be less of an expectation for women to always look their "best" than there currently is, more men would find women outside of the socially accepted beauty standard attractive (as they have been in relationships with unconventionally attractive women who haven't been passive and attempting to look like how the media dictates), and male creators would be more likely to create female character designs outside of the current standard since they've had experiences with different types of women that have helped to reduce their acceptance of the media dictated standards of female beauty, which given time could create a more inclusive socially accepted idea of what feminine beauty looks like while simultaneously shifting some of the pressure to look good from women to men.
Please, please, please tell me if I'm horribly wrong here. I really am trying to understand feminist perspectives better and don't want to hold onto ideas that are problematic. I just thought of this because I was a Sociology major in college and thinking about the roots of social behaviors and the possible links between the social interactions of individuals and society as a whole is fascinating to me (also, I now regret not taking the "feminist perspectives" class my school offered).
The problem people have with Dragon's Crown isn't that women with crazy titties or killer thighs are inherently gross - Christ, I don't think anyone is saying that
It's that the presentation of them in this game is a gross pandering to boners
I agree. However, as I mentioned before, I also think an equally valid approach to fixing this problem is to make the male characters just as sexualized as the female ones are. The only problem in my mind is that the female characters are meant to pander to the male gaze while the male characters are not pandering to the female gaze.
Also, random thought I had earlier: Could the double standard of women being more expected to live up to depictions of beauty in the media (and the types of beauty depicted in said media) than men are be alleviated by getting rid of the "men are supposed to ask women out, and women who ask men out are either promiscuous or desperate" belief?
Please correct me if I'm wrong (and I really mean that) but I'm under the impression that one of the root causes of the expectation for women to pay more attention to their looks than men is because many of them are trying to attract a partner and, since society usually expects men to initiate romantic contact while women wait to be noticed, there is more pressure for a woman to make sure she can attract interest than there us for men. This societal expectation can even affect women who are married or otherwise aren't actively looking for a partner, as people in general notice the difference between women who go to great lengths to look more attractive and women who don't, dismissing the latter as not taking pride in their appearance.
While men also face pressure to look nice, this standard of maintaining an attractive appearance is not as pervasive as men are not expected to wait until they attract the attentions of the opposite sex and therefore only really have to make a greater effort to look good when they are already intending to engage a potential partner.
I've also read several experiences from men that, while they may have once had tastes in women that looked like how they are commonly depicted in the media, those of them who have had a partner with an appearance outside of the popular standard find themselves more attracted to women that look like their partner, even if they preciously would not have been.
To sum it up, my hypothesis is that if there was a greater acceptance of women asking potential partners out instead of being accepted to gussy themselves up according to how society expects them to look to attract a man's intention there would be less of an expectation for women to always look their "best" than there currently is, more men would find women outside of the socially accepted beauty standard attractive (as they have been in relationships with unconventionally attractive women who haven't been passive and attempting to look like how the media dictates), and male creators would be more likely to create female character designs outside of the current standard since they've had experiences with different types of women that have helped to reduce their acceptance of the media dictated standards of female beauty.
Please, please, please tell me if I'm horribly wrong here. I really am trying to understand feminist perspectives better and don't want to hold onto ideas that are problematic.
you're not entirely wrong, no. the age-old tradition of men being the only ones to take the initiative when it comes to romance is problematic in a lot of ways, and i believe it's one of the root causes of rape culture. encouraging folks of both genders to initiate equally - and raising the next generation to believe the same - would help a lot.
i'd discuss this more, but it would lead beyond the scope of this thread.
one thing you may want to try, though, is to get a bit further out of your own head on these things.
this part
To sum it up, my hypothesis is that if there was a greater acceptance of women asking potential partners out instead of being accepted to gussy themselves up according to how society expects them to look to attract a man's intention there would be less of an expectation for women to always look their "best" than there currently is, more men would find women outside of the socially accepted beauty standard attractive (as they have been in relationships with unconventionally attractive women who haven't been passive and attempting to look like how the media dictates), and male creators would be more likely to create female character designs outside of the current standard since they've had experiences with different types of women that have helped to reduce their acceptance of the media dictated standards of female beauty.
isn't necessarily bad or even untrue, but it's still couched in a perspective centered on the male gaze. it's hard to escape it at first, don't give up
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
This sounds wrong to me - there is pressure on women to be pretty to attract partners, sure, but that's largely an optional thing. If you're a woman who doesn't want to be asked out and you don't bother looking pretty, society doesn't just say "well that's fine for you." Society condemns you because you're expected to look pretty all of the time because no matter who a woman is (centuries old asari justicar, tomb-raiding archaeologist, nuclear physicist in a James Bond film, some sort of wizard in Dragon's Crown) they're always gorgeous and dressed to impress guys. Deviate from that and you're the one who's fucking up.
This sounds wrong to me - there is pressure on women to be pretty to attract partners, sure, but that's largely an optional thing. If you're a woman who doesn't want to be asked out and you don't bother looking pretty, society doesn't just say "well that's fine for you." Society condemns you because you're expected to look pretty all of the time because no matter who a woman is (centuries old asari justicar, tomb-raiding archaeologist, nuclear physicist in a James Bond film, some sort of wizard in Dragon's Crown) they're always gorgeous and dressed to impress guys. Deviate from that and you're the one who's fucking up.
yeah, and i want to highlight the difference here
hexmage is saying 'women feel the need to attract a partner, so they need to look pretty'
vs what you're saying, which is 'society dictates that the core role for women is to first and foremost look good to guys, and fuck what women actually feel, think, or desire"
it's a crucial distinction
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Honestly, I'm just waiting for a female-led, if not all female, development team to make games. It doesn't even have to be overtly complex and given how much people support indie games, this is exactly the time to do so. It'd probably some sort of 50 Shades of Grey/Twilight video game equivalent that features a harem of sexy romantic Fabio types (just picking from recent popular fiction) but I'll be okay with that.
Instead all we have right now is that silly Susan Wilson kickstarter cash grab.
There are a ton of these in Japan, the most noteable being The Prince of Song (Uta no Oujisama) franchise.
UrQuan is on the money with this, as dating cute guys IS a female fantasy and that's why this kind of product is successful. This kind of product makes a lot more sense than putting a female protagonist in a Modern Warfare game.
Honestly, I'm just waiting for a female-led, if not all female, development team to make games. It doesn't even have to be overtly complex and given how much people support indie games, this is exactly the time to do so. It'd probably some sort of 50 Shades of Grey/Twilight video game equivalent that features a harem of sexy romantic Fabio types (just picking from recent popular fiction) but I'll be okay with that.
Instead all we have right now is that silly Susan Wilson kickstarter cash grab.
There are a ton of these in Japan, the most noteable being The Prince of Song (Uta no Oujisama) franchise.
htp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoD0fgqkV6s
UrQuan is on the money with this, as dating cute guys IS a female fantasy and that's why this kind of product is successful. This kind of product makes a lot more sense than putting a female protagonist in a Modern Warfare game.
Something's prevalence doesn't make it any less sexist. Insisting that romance is all women care about is unequivocally sexist, especially since women play games without it.
Furthermore, given that congress has removed the ban on women serving on the line, it would actually make sense to have a female protagonist in Modern Warfare. Not that Activision cares for even the pretense of realism in Call of Duty.
This sounds wrong to me - there is pressure on women to be pretty to attract partners, sure, but that's largely an optional thing. If you're a woman who doesn't want to be asked out and you don't bother looking pretty, society doesn't just say "well that's fine for you." Society condemns you because you're expected to look pretty all of the time because no matter who a woman is (centuries old asari justicar, tomb-raiding archaeologist, nuclear physicist in a James Bond film, some sort of wizard in Dragon's Crown) they're always gorgeous and dressed to impress guys. Deviate from that and you're the one who's fucking up.
I like the examples you've brought up here, because they show that even seemingly 'feminist' characters (FemShep, Lara Croft, ect) still aren't really allowed to deviate from this. There's an excellent reason why you can feel perfectly comfortable playing FemShep but not feel comfortable playing as the Dragon's Crown lady, even though both are designed to be attractive and sexy. What society really wants is to demarcate women as an object to be gazed upon, while not bearing any of the guilt or responsibility for forcing her into that. So FemShep doesn't feel gross to play because it looks like her sexiness is not "on purpose", and you don't feel like you're being pandered to when you play her (even though you really are.)
It's pretty much the same thing as the classic makeup debate. If a woman doesn't wear makeup she's ugly by societal standards, but if she is ever seen applying makeup she's vain or trying too hard. The end result is that she has to wear makeup that makes it look like she isn't wearing makeup, essentially showing the results but hiding the process. That's pretty much how game character design has to work at the moment.
Also, it should be noted that putting sexy women into media isn't really about pandering to male audiences specifically. Even though the source of the energy might be from males initially (ie: the patriarchy), the actual practice of putting sexy women into media is something that both genders demand. Which is why Katniss still has to be attractive and look the prettiest in a dress in a story about children killing each other.
Different audiences (some of which are divided along gender lines) tend to be looking for different things among their sexy women. Some want that sexiness to be out in the open while some want it to be subtle so they don't feel guilty. The desire for sexy/attractive women in media is ubiquitous in itself, but how it's presented changes with the audience.
I fear I risk becoming the new "That guy", but... screw it, let's risk it.
This has always been an issue I've had with any and all equalist movements in... well basically everything. Now, I'm for it. The table is clearly and unfairly tilted to the right, and it needs to be changed. I get that. But is the answer to slam the table in the opposite direction and having it tilting full left now? An all female development team that creates and panders to women. Ok. But is that not fundamentally the same thing that was previously being fought against? You haven't really equalized anything. You just reversed the polarity. The weak have become the strong, the oppressed the oppressors. Makes for a great story and it seems like a happy ending. And maybe in the short term it absolutely is what the system needs. But secretly you just became that which you fought against, haven't you?
I hope this isn't some fucked up world view. But I guess I've kinda been a believer of "True absolute neutrality". Where "balance to the force" means a realization that the dark side isn't inherently evil and we need equal parts light and dark. Instead of Lucas's version of "Nope, dark side totally bad, 100% light side 4evR".
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
0
YggiDeeThe World Ends With You ShillRegistered Userregular
Having more women in prominent positions in the game industry isn't going to make the men already in the industry suddenly shrivel up and die. Also, I'd like to think that gaming that panders to women will be able to do so without damaging and degrading men. Characterizing what's been proposed in this thread as an attempt to oppress men seems disingenuous.
+3
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
only a few silly geese are arguing that the answer to objectifying women is to objectify men
only a few silly geese are arguing that the answer to objectifying women is to objectify men
Ok then. If anything that was more of a super general statement rather than a specific one directed to people here. If it's not the normal "group think", then that's good. Like I said, it's just been my general observation in all aspects covering everything.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
0
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I find the idea that the "solution" to the problem is to dehumanise men absolutely dispicable, if that helps.
only a few silly geese are arguing that the answer to objectifying women is to objectify men
Ok then. If anything that was more of a super general statement rather than a specific one directed to people here. If it's not the normal "group think", then that's good. Like I said, it's just been my general observation in all aspects covering everything.
Lots of people like to make "general observations" about "general aspects covering everything" when it comes to debates about sexism, racism, etc. and then they form opinions like yours, come into a discussion like ours, drop the wisdom, and then either disappear or immediately get shot down by people saying "we're not saying that." It sounds like a lot of your information about what feminists believe is coming from people who disagree with feminists, which is not usually a good way to get information - it's often full of mischaracterizations.
edit: for instance, few feminist positions can be summed up by saying "George Lucas is right." (Although I think everyone can agree that Princess Leia owns.)
only a few silly geese are arguing that the answer to objectifying women is to objectify men
Ok then. If anything that was more of a super general statement rather than a specific one directed to people here. If it's not the normal "group think", then that's good. Like I said, it's just been my general observation in all aspects covering everything.
Lots of people like to make "general observations" about "general aspects covering everything" when it comes to debates about sexism, racism, etc. and then they form opinions like yours, come into a discussion like ours, drop the wisdom, and then either disappear or immediately get shot down by people saying "we're not saying that." It sounds like a lot of your information about what feminists believe is coming from people who disagree with feminists, which is not usually a good way to get information - it's often full of mischaracterizations.
edit: for instance, few feminist positions can be summed up by saying "George Lucas is right." (Although I think everyone can agree that Princess Leia owns.)
You may be right on that aspect.
Lemme try and make it clear. They hyper feminist who's first and loudest opinion is "Fuck the Y chromosome". I'm not that dense to believe that's everybody's opinion. But in regards to her: Somebody who's opinion should be considered? Or hyper bitch we should avoid making eye contact with? 'Cuz I've always kinda felt it's the latter. Or rather I understand the general point being made, just that they're clearly taking it way too damn far.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
I fear I risk becoming the new "That guy", but... screw it, let's risk it.
This has always been an issue I've had with any and all equalist movements in... well basically everything. Now, I'm for it. The table is clearly and unfairly tilted to the right, and it needs to be changed. I get that. But is the answer to slam the table in the opposite direction and having it tilting full left now? An all female development team that creates and panders to women. Ok. But is that not fundamentally the same thing that was previously being fought against? You haven't really equalized anything. You just reversed the polarity. The weak have become the strong, the oppressed the oppressors. Makes for a great story and it seems like a happy ending. And maybe in the short term it absolutely is what the system needs. But secretly you just became that which you fought against, haven't you?
I hope this isn't some fucked up world view. But I guess I've kinda been a believer of "True absolute neutrality". Where "balance to the force" means a realization that the dark side isn't inherently evil and we need equal parts light and dark. Instead of Lucas's version of "Nope, dark side totally bad, 100% light side 4evR".
It's mostly not about turning the tables on sexism. It's about a complete paradigm shift. A reconception of gender roles themselves. For the most part this means throwing them out entirely.
So when people think that a more egalitarian society requires us to pander more to women, or objectify men, they've missed the whole point: we need to cater to people. Anything which might mostly appeal to women/men ought to appear in media as well, but we shouldn't think of those as things which ought only interest women/men.
We're all just people. What we think our genders might mean for us is largely indicative of the societies we grew up in rather than genetics or genitalia.
only a few silly geese are arguing that the answer to objectifying women is to objectify men
Ok then. If anything that was more of a super general statement rather than a specific one directed to people here. If it's not the normal "group think", then that's good. Like I said, it's just been my general observation in all aspects covering everything.
Lots of people like to make "general observations" about "general aspects covering everything" when it comes to debates about sexism, racism, etc. and then they form opinions like yours, come into a discussion like ours, drop the wisdom, and then either disappear or immediately get shot down by people saying "we're not saying that." It sounds like a lot of your information about what feminists believe is coming from people who disagree with feminists, which is not usually a good way to get information - it's often full of mischaracterizations.
edit: for instance, few feminist positions can be summed up by saying "George Lucas is right." (Although I think everyone can agree that Princess Leia owns.)
You may be right on that aspect.
Lemme try and make it clear. They hyper feminist who's first and loudest opinion is "Fuck the Y chromosome". I'm not that dense to believe that's everybody's opinion. But in regards to her: Somebody who's opinion should be considered? Or hyper bitch we should avoid making eye contact with? 'Cuz I've always kinda felt it's the latter. Or rather I understand the general point being made, just that they're clearly taking it way too damn far.
only a few silly geese are arguing that the answer to objectifying women is to objectify men
Ok then. If anything that was more of a super general statement rather than a specific one directed to people here. If it's not the normal "group think", then that's good. Like I said, it's just been my general observation in all aspects covering everything.
Lots of people like to make "general observations" about "general aspects covering everything" when it comes to debates about sexism, racism, etc. and then they form opinions like yours, come into a discussion like ours, drop the wisdom, and then either disappear or immediately get shot down by people saying "we're not saying that." It sounds like a lot of your information about what feminists believe is coming from people who disagree with feminists, which is not usually a good way to get information - it's often full of mischaracterizations.
edit: for instance, few feminist positions can be summed up by saying "George Lucas is right." (Although I think everyone can agree that Princess Leia owns.)
You may be right on that aspect.
Lemme try and make it clear. They hyper feminist who's first and loudest opinion is "Fuck the Y chromosome". I'm not that dense to believe that's everybody's opinion. But in regards to her: Somebody who's opinion should be considered? Or hyper bitch we should avoid making eye contact with? 'Cuz I've always kinda felt it's the latter. Or rather I understand the general point being made, just that they're clearly taking it way too damn far.
i don't think anyone's here to argue for MORE animosity between genders
the goal is to deconstruct the gender shorthand and focus more on the individual
moving from "oh hey a woman/black guy/asian/white dude/etc, i know what all of THEM are like, i'll act accordingly"
to "oh hey, a person, let's see who they are and what they're like, then i'll act accordingly"
the problem is as a species we're still not far removed from our tribal days, and what we know as modern civilization is a blip on the evolutionary time scale. we're fighting against the ways our brains evolved to survive back then, and it does take effort.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
only a few silly geese are arguing that the answer to objectifying women is to objectify men
Ok then. If anything that was more of a super general statement rather than a specific one directed to people here. If it's not the normal "group think", then that's good. Like I said, it's just been my general observation in all aspects covering everything.
Lots of people like to make "general observations" about "general aspects covering everything" when it comes to debates about sexism, racism, etc. and then they form opinions like yours, come into a discussion like ours, drop the wisdom, and then either disappear or immediately get shot down by people saying "we're not saying that." It sounds like a lot of your information about what feminists believe is coming from people who disagree with feminists, which is not usually a good way to get information - it's often full of mischaracterizations.
edit: for instance, few feminist positions can be summed up by saying "George Lucas is right." (Although I think everyone can agree that Princess Leia owns.)
You may be right on that aspect.
Lemme try and make it clear. They hyper feminist who's first and loudest opinion is "Fuck the Y chromosome". I'm not that dense to believe that's everybody's opinion. But in regards to her: Somebody who's opinion should be considered? Or hyper bitch we should avoid making eye contact with? 'Cuz I've always kinda felt it's the latter. Or rather I understand the general point being made, just that they're clearly taking it way too damn far.
If you look hard enough, you can find anyone on the fringes that makes a social movement look ridiculous. But, if you read some of the most prominent feminist thinkers, you will see that feminism is about equality, not misandry. If you're interested, take a look at some stuff by people like bell hooks and Patricia Hill Collins.
“As all advocates of feminist politics know most people do not understand sexism or if they do they think it is not a problem. Masses of people think that feminism is always and only about women seeking to be equal to men. And a huge majority of these folks think feminism is anti-male. Their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflects the reality that most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal mass media.”
― bell hooks
Lemme try and make it clear. They hyper feminist who's first and loudest opinion is "Fuck the Y chromosome". I'm not that dense to believe that's everybody's opinion. But in regards to her: Somebody who's opinion should be considered? Or hyper bitch we should avoid making eye contact with? 'Cuz I've always kinda felt it's the latter. Or rather I understand the general point being made, just that they're clearly taking it way too damn far.
This thread has gone an impressive amount of time without anyone saying "yes, it's all well and good that you're discussing an interesting and troubling societal problem and trying to get at the roots of it, but maybe what we should instead be talking about is how much of a hyper bitch the hyper feminists are and how much we should avoid eye contact with them." If you read back through this thread you'll notice we're either discussing the problem at hand directly (the #1reasonwhy tweets and the things that cause them) or we're discussing specific articles that people link or specific arguments that are advanced.
You, meanwhile, are coming in with no indication of having anything to say about anything we've had to say, and instead you have an agenda: you've got the hyper feminist bitch's number, and it's time to take her down by pointing out the flaws in her argument. There are a few issues with this.
The first is that it's kind of a non-sequitur. The hyper feminist bitch you're worried about is not just absent from this thread - she's absent from the #1reasonwhy tweets and from all the articles we've linked and mostly from the conversation in general, from what I can tell. The only time I ever meet the hyper feminist bitch is in posts like yours which are trying to take her down a notch and knock her out of the running. I suspect if you and others like you didn't always try to drag the conversation onto the hyper feminist bitch, nobody would ever have to worry about her.
The second is that it's not very interesting. Everyone disagrees with the hyper feminist bitch, at least when her arguments are as bad as the ones you give her. She's almost as bad ask spacekungfuman coming into this thread and telling us that morality is all well and good but really it's a fat load of bullshit if we can't come up with some sort of profit-centric argument for why sexism is wrong. It's dumb as hell and at best it just makes people angry that they have to deal with these arguments. So in terms of the spectrum of #1reasonwhy issues we could discuss, I don't think it helps that you're bringing up the dumb position.
The third is that it's a straw man argument, basically. There is no hyper feminist bitch, actually. There are radical feminists, some of whom are very radical, but they're not as dumb as you think they are and they don't say the things you think they say. They are certainly not bitches and they certainly aren't people who you ought to avoid making eye contact with. They aren't in the mainstream but that doesn't mean they're wrong. I consider myself something of a hyper feminist but I don't get most of my morality cues from the Star Wars prequels.
The fourth is that comments like yours are part of a pattern that we have seen repeated throughout this thread and throughout these kinds of discussions and throughout history. Women who speak up, and people who speak up for women, are "bitches." They're too radical, they're out of place, and they need to be shut down. This is a misogynistic way of characterizing things. Women aren't bitches for making arguments you disagree with - you'd never use that insult against a man making an argument you disagree with. You're only using that gendered insult because you think there's something about the fact that it's a woman making t his argument, because you're searching for a way to insult the woman with the stupid argument you've put into her mouth. This isn't okay.
Yes, none of us have reached the levels of insecurity demonstrated by some of the examples in this article here: http://acko.net/blog/storms-and-teacups/
Gotta vigorously massage my ego while the party is hot.
only a few silly geese are arguing that the answer to objectifying women is to objectify men
Ok then. If anything that was more of a super general statement rather than a specific one directed to people here. If it's not the normal "group think", then that's good. Like I said, it's just been my general observation in all aspects covering everything.
Lots of people like to make "general observations" about "general aspects covering everything" when it comes to debates about sexism, racism, etc. and then they form opinions like yours, come into a discussion like ours, drop the wisdom, and then either disappear or immediately get shot down by people saying "we're not saying that." It sounds like a lot of your information about what feminists believe is coming from people who disagree with feminists, which is not usually a good way to get information - it's often full of mischaracterizations.
edit: for instance, few feminist positions can be summed up by saying "George Lucas is right." (Although I think everyone can agree that Princess Leia owns.)
You may be right on that aspect.
Lemme try and make it clear. They hyper feminist who's first and loudest opinion is "Fuck the Y chromosome". I'm not that dense to believe that's everybody's opinion. But in regards to her: Somebody who's opinion should be considered? Or hyper bitch we should avoid making eye contact with? 'Cuz I've always kinda felt it's the latter. Or rather I understand the general point being made, just that they're clearly taking it way too damn far.
i don't think anyone's here to argue for MORE animosity between genders
the goal is to deconstruct the gender shorthand and focus more on the individual
moving from "oh hey a woman/black guy/asian/white dude/etc, i know what all of THEM are like, i'll act accordingly"
to "oh hey, a person, let's see who they are and what they're like, then i'll act accordingly"
the problem is as a species we're still not far removed from our tribal days, and what we know as modern civilization is a blip on the evolutionary time scale. we're fighting against the ways our brains evolved to survive back then, and it does take effort.
Agreed except for the bolded. Anthropologists have ample evidence from current hunter gatherer culture that "modern civilization's" concept of asymmetric gender roles aren't inherent to our species. Paleontological and archaeological sites further support this idea in the context of prehistoric human cultures. Most of what we think of Western gender roles (ie the nuclear family) are something established by colonial European societies and enforced in their colonies even today. There's even the whole "problem" of women captured by Native Americans opting not to return to the colonies due to women receiving better treatment among the "savages."
So the opposite is true, really. Historically, egalitarian societies are the norm.
Lemme try and make it clear. They hyper feminist who's first and loudest opinion is "Fuck the Y chromosome". I'm not that dense to believe that's everybody's opinion. But in regards to her: Somebody who's opinion should be considered? Or hyper bitch we should avoid making eye contact with? 'Cuz I've always kinda felt it's the latter. Or rather I understand the general point being made, just that they're clearly taking it way too damn far.
This thread has gone an impressive amount of time without anyone saying "yes, it's all well and good that you're discussing an interesting and troubling societal problem and trying to get at the roots of it, but maybe what we should instead be talking about is how much of a hyper bitch the hyper feminists are and how much we should avoid eye contact with them." If you read back through this thread you'll notice we're either discussing the problem at hand directly (the #1reasonwhy tweets and the things that cause them) or we're discussing specific articles that people link or specific arguments that are advanced.
The "hyper bitch feminist" is also increasingly troublesome given that studies have shown that feminists tend to get along with men better than women who subscribe to traditional definitions of gender roles. This is thought to be due to the fact that a lot of the non-feminists harbor subconscious resent for men and the roles women are forced to play.
only a few silly geese are arguing that the answer to objectifying women is to objectify men
Ok then. If anything that was more of a super general statement rather than a specific one directed to people here. If it's not the normal "group think", then that's good. Like I said, it's just been my general observation in all aspects covering everything.
Lots of people like to make "general observations" about "general aspects covering everything" when it comes to debates about sexism, racism, etc. and then they form opinions like yours, come into a discussion like ours, drop the wisdom, and then either disappear or immediately get shot down by people saying "we're not saying that." It sounds like a lot of your information about what feminists believe is coming from people who disagree with feminists, which is not usually a good way to get information - it's often full of mischaracterizations.
edit: for instance, few feminist positions can be summed up by saying "George Lucas is right." (Although I think everyone can agree that Princess Leia owns.)
You may be right on that aspect.
Lemme try and make it clear. They hyper feminist who's first and loudest opinion is "Fuck the Y chromosome". I'm not that dense to believe that's everybody's opinion. But in regards to her: Somebody who's opinion should be considered? Or hyper bitch we should avoid making eye contact with? 'Cuz I've always kinda felt it's the latter. Or rather I understand the general point being made, just that they're clearly taking it way too damn far.
i don't think anyone's here to argue for MORE animosity between genders
the goal is to deconstruct the gender shorthand and focus more on the individual
moving from "oh hey a woman/black guy/asian/white dude/etc, i know what all of THEM are like, i'll act accordingly"
to "oh hey, a person, let's see who they are and what they're like, then i'll act accordingly"
the problem is as a species we're still not far removed from our tribal days, and what we know as modern civilization is a blip on the evolutionary time scale. we're fighting against the ways our brains evolved to survive back then, and it does take effort.
Agreed except for the bolded. Anthropologists have ample evidence from current hunter gatherer culture that "modern civilization's" concept of asymmetric gender roles aren't inherent to our species. Paleontological and archaeological sites further support this idea in the context of prehistoric human cultures. Most of what we think of Western gender roles (ie the nuclear family) are something established by colonial European societies and enforced in their colonies even today. There's even the whole "problem" of women captured by Native Americans opting not to return to the colonies due to women receiving better treatment among the "savages."
So the opposite is true, really. Historically, egalitarian societies are the norm.
well, that's quite promising, but i wasn't speaking just to gender ideals....again, beyond the scope of this thread. still, that makes me feel a little better about humanity.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
I find the idea that the "solution" to the problem is to dehumanise men absolutely dispicable, if that helps.
As one of those geese, I just want to clarify that I don't think all characters should be sexualized all the time. Treating every male and female character like they're in DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball is not the goal.
What I'm saying is that if someone really, really wants to make a game with characters as sexualized as the Sorceress from Dragon's Crown then it is only fair that the male characters should be just as sexualized. Unless someone has a really good reason, this should be the only situation in which highly sexualized characters should be acceptable, as the clearly pandering nature of such a game would also make it absurdly comical and less likely for anyone to think it is an example of how real people should behave (this would also make such pandering designs less frequent, as they would only appear in games that don't take themselves seriously). I've never played Bayonetta, but since I've heard people say they recognize the main character's design as sexualized but don't mind it in the context of the game, I'm assuming it's an example of the sort of thing I'm talking about. To use Ninja Gaiden as another example, both Ryu and Nina should be dressed sensibly or dressed provocatively, not one sensibly and the other proactively.
In summary, if a bunch of women who are all attracted to fat guys decides to make DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball: Man Biobs Edition, then that should be their right, but pandering of this type should be uncommon.
The moment the conversation veers towards evolutionary psychology it's prudent to think really long and really hard about what is being said, because there is a lot of evo psych pseudoscience out there. It manifests itself in more nefarious ways in pick-up culture and gross shit like that, but even "known facts" that "women do x and men do y" are insidious, fucked up, and routinely go unnoticed and unquestioned.
At the end of the day, I think a lot of people like to believe they're completely outside the realm of social factors and social forces that exert pressure for us to behave in certain, gendered fashions. I think this is especially true in nerd culture where people prize critical thinking and individuality quite a bit, so it's natural for one to believe that they exist outside of patriarchy and that they're actually on the outside looking in. Any time someone makes claims as to universal gender roles, you're looking at easily disproven bullshit.
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Here you have stated that there never has been a development team composed entirely of or led by a woman. I can't confirm or deny the former, but I know the latter is absolutely false.
Now you have inferred that if women did make a game, they would be unable or unwilling to make it a complicated one.
Now you have stated that even if a female led/all female team existed (which they do), that they'd most likely make a game about men and relationships (which they don't).
While in reality, women have already had a pretty big impact on the gaming industry. Also, I don't know much about this Susan Wilson thing, but it sounds like a little girl wanted to go to a video game design camp, started a kickstarter about it and got way more money than she needed. Not really seeing a cynical cash grab here.
Maybe that's not what you meant, but that's what it sounded like to me. In order to avoid future confusion, might I suggest an alternative way you could have phrased your initial post?
"I long for a time when there are more development teams led by women or that are composed mainly of women. The barriers for entry into the industry are lower than ever and support for indie games is at an all time high so now seems like a good time for it. I definitely wouldn't mind seeing more stories, characters and even entire genres that are written from a more inclusive perspective."
While those are some very large breasts, I have a problem with treating large breasted characters as freakish. There are real women with very large breasts (for example, my cousin and her mother both had to have breast reduction surgery due to back pain), and calling them "Nightmare Fuel" seems insensitive to me.
It's one thing to say "there are far more big breasted characters in media than there are big breasted women in real life (and that they are that way to pander to the male demographic)", but it's quite another thing to say "those are some freakishly, inhumanly large breasts" when large-breasted women exist. Just because the media believes that male consumers want to always see large breasted women (or blonde women, or white women, or thin women, etc) doesn't mean it's okay to treat women who fit that description with scorn, and it certainly shouldn't be okay to act like they are freaks of nature. For example, I know thin women that have, for a lack of a better term, ample rear ends, yet I've also seen people make comments on similarly voluptuous comic book characters like "a woman's butt shouldn't look like two pregnant lady's stomachs side by side". Another example is the "real women have curves" slogan that I see every now and then; I know being treated differently because a person is overweight is bad, but that slogan implies that slender women should be seen as unattractive.
I know some people respond to things like I'm saying with "oh yeah, let's all feel sorry for the slim, stacked blonde girls", as if those statements are identical to someone saying "but white people experience racism too!". Conventionally attractive women unsurprisingly attract unwanted attention and comments (I've even read experiences from women who have put on weight that they enjoy no longer being subjected to catcalls, for example), so it's not like their looks only give them unfair privileges with no drawbacks (I'd also imagine it's harder for them to healthily accept the superficial realities of aging).
you could sum up most of the problems in mainstream videogame female character design with the above sentence.
I might agree with you more if people were looking at real pictures of women with large breasts and going "FREAKS! DAAAAAAAAMMMMN!", but this is artwork designed to be exaggerated to freakish levels. So much so that if any of the characters were suddenly brought to life with their exact proportions in tact, they would die. Furthermore, every second that preceded the sweet release of death would be an eternity of absolute agony. That is where the nightmare fuel comes from for me anyway.
EDIT: I should clarify that they were probably designed with sexiness/awesomeness in mind, but what they ended up with is horrifying to the rational human mind.
This still sounds like wild hyperbole to me. With the sorceress in particular, worst case scenario she'd almost definitely suffer back pain and want to get breast reduction surgery as soon as possible.
If you're talking about the other character designs too, such as the dwarf's, I don't see why an artist choosing to use unrealistic proportions is wrong. Lots of artists depict human or human-like characters with unrealistic proportions. Do you dislike Peanuts because you think all the characters are hydrocephalic? Are you unable to enjoy Invader Zim because every character's feet are too small to work the way our feet do? Do Popeye's forearms and freak you out (not to mention that Olive Oyl appears to be some kind of humanoid worm)? Does a glance at the Powerpuff Girls send you shrieking into the night (because seriously, the Powerpuff Girls really do tiptoe the line between exaggerated cuteness and horrible freakishness)?
I need an example. Lets say moustaches, and replace it with something more offensive in your mind.
You know what? No. Analogies suck. Even if they involve Yosemite Sam like this one. Delete.
When saying that people with large breasts are freaks, it may be about a fictional character. Like the Sorceress, here. So not intentionally saying that real people with large breasts are freaks. But if the fictional one is a freak because of that trait, and the trait is real?
On the other hand, being disgusted by things, even harmless things, doesn't seem like much of a problem by itself. This thing brushed my whiskers when Hexmage pointed it out, though. Shades of jeering at overweight students. Presentation, or something.
Thank you.
For another example, take Elly from Borderlands 2. According to the developers, she was intentionally designed to look unlike the typical female video game character, and posters here have said that they like her character design more than the designs of Dragon's Crown. By Levinsky's apparent "what would this character be like if she was made real" criteria you'd think more people would be disgusted by the character because of the real-world health risks of morbid obesity (which, as far as we know, might not exist in the world of Borderlands).
The problems women face in the gaming industry?
Are we not supposed to be talking about how women are depicted in the gaming industry?
I was just about to post about how women are depicted in the gaming industry.
It's that the presentation of them in this game is a gross pandering to boners
You're right. I think your logic is kind of suspect, but I see what you're saying and I was having a knee-jerk reaction. I'll amend my position to say that the horrifying thing about the character design for that character is that it is an absolutely naked attempt to appeal to the male gaze. Do we have an accord on that?
EDIT: Also, after a quick Googling of "cartoon characters in real life"... well, if someone sees cartoon characters and for some reason they can't help imagining them in real life, they have every right to be horrified.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Please correct me if I'm wrong (and I really mean that) but I'm under the impression that one of the root causes of the expectation for women to pay more attention to their looks than men is because many of them are trying to attract a partner and, since society usually expects men to initiate romantic contact while women wait to be noticed, there is more pressure for a woman to make sure she can attract interest than there us for men. This societal expectation can even affect women who are married or otherwise aren't actively looking for a partner, as people in general notice the difference between women who go to great lengths to look more attractive and women who don't, dismissing the latter as not taking pride in their appearance.
While men also face pressure to look nice, this standard of maintaining an attractive appearance is not as pervasive as men are not expected to wait until they attract the attentions of the opposite sex and therefore only really have to make a greater effort to look good when they are already intending to engage a potential partner.
I've also read several experiences from men that, while they may have once had tastes in women that looked like how they are commonly depicted in the media, those of them who have had a partner with an appearance outside of the popular standard find themselves more attracted to women that look like their partner, even if they preciously would not have been.
To sum it up, my hypothesis is that if there was a greater acceptance of women asking potential partners out instead of being accepted to gussy themselves up according to how society expects them to look to attract a man's intention there would be less of an expectation for women to always look their "best" than there currently is, more men would find women outside of the socially accepted beauty standard attractive (as they have been in relationships with unconventionally attractive women who haven't been passive and attempting to look like how the media dictates), and male creators would be more likely to create female character designs outside of the current standard since they've had experiences with different types of women that have helped to reduce their acceptance of the media dictated standards of female beauty, which given time could create a more inclusive socially accepted idea of what feminine beauty looks like while simultaneously shifting some of the pressure to look good from women to men.
Please, please, please tell me if I'm horribly wrong here. I really am trying to understand feminist perspectives better and don't want to hold onto ideas that are problematic. I just thought of this because I was a Sociology major in college and thinking about the roots of social behaviors and the possible links between the social interactions of individuals and society as a whole is fascinating to me (also, I now regret not taking the "feminist perspectives" class my school offered).
I agree. However, as I mentioned before, I also think an equally valid approach to fixing this problem is to make the male characters just as sexualized as the female ones are. The only problem in my mind is that the female characters are meant to pander to the male gaze while the male characters are not pandering to the female gaze.
i'd discuss this more, but it would lead beyond the scope of this thread.
one thing you may want to try, though, is to get a bit further out of your own head on these things.
this part
isn't necessarily bad or even untrue, but it's still couched in a perspective centered on the male gaze. it's hard to escape it at first, don't give up
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
hexmage is saying 'women feel the need to attract a partner, so they need to look pretty'
vs what you're saying, which is 'society dictates that the core role for women is to first and foremost look good to guys, and fuck what women actually feel, think, or desire"
it's a crucial distinction
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
There are a ton of these in Japan, the most noteable being The Prince of Song (Uta no Oujisama) franchise.
UrQuan is on the money with this, as dating cute guys IS a female fantasy and that's why this kind of product is successful. This kind of product makes a lot more sense than putting a female protagonist in a Modern Warfare game.
Something's prevalence doesn't make it any less sexist. Insisting that romance is all women care about is unequivocally sexist, especially since women play games without it.
Furthermore, given that congress has removed the ban on women serving on the line, it would actually make sense to have a female protagonist in Modern Warfare. Not that Activision cares for even the pretense of realism in Call of Duty.
I like the examples you've brought up here, because they show that even seemingly 'feminist' characters (FemShep, Lara Croft, ect) still aren't really allowed to deviate from this. There's an excellent reason why you can feel perfectly comfortable playing FemShep but not feel comfortable playing as the Dragon's Crown lady, even though both are designed to be attractive and sexy. What society really wants is to demarcate women as an object to be gazed upon, while not bearing any of the guilt or responsibility for forcing her into that. So FemShep doesn't feel gross to play because it looks like her sexiness is not "on purpose", and you don't feel like you're being pandered to when you play her (even though you really are.)
It's pretty much the same thing as the classic makeup debate. If a woman doesn't wear makeup she's ugly by societal standards, but if she is ever seen applying makeup she's vain or trying too hard. The end result is that she has to wear makeup that makes it look like she isn't wearing makeup, essentially showing the results but hiding the process. That's pretty much how game character design has to work at the moment.
Different audiences (some of which are divided along gender lines) tend to be looking for different things among their sexy women. Some want that sexiness to be out in the open while some want it to be subtle so they don't feel guilty. The desire for sexy/attractive women in media is ubiquitous in itself, but how it's presented changes with the audience.
This has always been an issue I've had with any and all equalist movements in... well basically everything. Now, I'm for it. The table is clearly and unfairly tilted to the right, and it needs to be changed. I get that. But is the answer to slam the table in the opposite direction and having it tilting full left now? An all female development team that creates and panders to women. Ok. But is that not fundamentally the same thing that was previously being fought against? You haven't really equalized anything. You just reversed the polarity. The weak have become the strong, the oppressed the oppressors. Makes for a great story and it seems like a happy ending. And maybe in the short term it absolutely is what the system needs. But secretly you just became that which you fought against, haven't you?
I hope this isn't some fucked up world view. But I guess I've kinda been a believer of "True absolute neutrality". Where "balance to the force" means a realization that the dark side isn't inherently evil and we need equal parts light and dark. Instead of Lucas's version of "Nope, dark side totally bad, 100% light side 4evR".
Ok then. If anything that was more of a super general statement rather than a specific one directed to people here. If it's not the normal "group think", then that's good. Like I said, it's just been my general observation in all aspects covering everything.
edit: for instance, few feminist positions can be summed up by saying "George Lucas is right." (Although I think everyone can agree that Princess Leia owns.)
You may be right on that aspect.
Lemme try and make it clear. They hyper feminist who's first and loudest opinion is "Fuck the Y chromosome". I'm not that dense to believe that's everybody's opinion. But in regards to her: Somebody who's opinion should be considered? Or hyper bitch we should avoid making eye contact with? 'Cuz I've always kinda felt it's the latter. Or rather I understand the general point being made, just that they're clearly taking it way too damn far.
It's mostly not about turning the tables on sexism. It's about a complete paradigm shift. A reconception of gender roles themselves. For the most part this means throwing them out entirely.
So when people think that a more egalitarian society requires us to pander more to women, or objectify men, they've missed the whole point: we need to cater to people. Anything which might mostly appeal to women/men ought to appear in media as well, but we shouldn't think of those as things which ought only interest women/men.
We're all just people. What we think our genders might mean for us is largely indicative of the societies we grew up in rather than genetics or genitalia.
Option 3) A Strawman.
i don't think anyone's here to argue for MORE animosity between genders
the goal is to deconstruct the gender shorthand and focus more on the individual
moving from "oh hey a woman/black guy/asian/white dude/etc, i know what all of THEM are like, i'll act accordingly"
to "oh hey, a person, let's see who they are and what they're like, then i'll act accordingly"
the problem is as a species we're still not far removed from our tribal days, and what we know as modern civilization is a blip on the evolutionary time scale. we're fighting against the ways our brains evolved to survive back then, and it does take effort.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Yes, the straw feminist that you have concocted (or someone else concocted and you parroted) is ridiculous, which is the point of any type of strawman argument: http://sites.duke.edu/develledish/2013/03/25/the-straw-feminist/
If you look hard enough, you can find anyone on the fringes that makes a social movement look ridiculous. But, if you read some of the most prominent feminist thinkers, you will see that feminism is about equality, not misandry. If you're interested, take a look at some stuff by people like bell hooks and Patricia Hill Collins.
“As all advocates of feminist politics know most people do not understand sexism or if they do they think it is not a problem. Masses of people think that feminism is always and only about women seeking to be equal to men. And a huge majority of these folks think feminism is anti-male. Their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflects the reality that most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal mass media.”
― bell hooks
You, meanwhile, are coming in with no indication of having anything to say about anything we've had to say, and instead you have an agenda: you've got the hyper feminist bitch's number, and it's time to take her down by pointing out the flaws in her argument. There are a few issues with this.
The first is that it's kind of a non-sequitur. The hyper feminist bitch you're worried about is not just absent from this thread - she's absent from the #1reasonwhy tweets and from all the articles we've linked and mostly from the conversation in general, from what I can tell. The only time I ever meet the hyper feminist bitch is in posts like yours which are trying to take her down a notch and knock her out of the running. I suspect if you and others like you didn't always try to drag the conversation onto the hyper feminist bitch, nobody would ever have to worry about her.
The second is that it's not very interesting. Everyone disagrees with the hyper feminist bitch, at least when her arguments are as bad as the ones you give her. She's almost as bad ask spacekungfuman coming into this thread and telling us that morality is all well and good but really it's a fat load of bullshit if we can't come up with some sort of profit-centric argument for why sexism is wrong. It's dumb as hell and at best it just makes people angry that they have to deal with these arguments. So in terms of the spectrum of #1reasonwhy issues we could discuss, I don't think it helps that you're bringing up the dumb position.
The third is that it's a straw man argument, basically. There is no hyper feminist bitch, actually. There are radical feminists, some of whom are very radical, but they're not as dumb as you think they are and they don't say the things you think they say. They are certainly not bitches and they certainly aren't people who you ought to avoid making eye contact with. They aren't in the mainstream but that doesn't mean they're wrong. I consider myself something of a hyper feminist but I don't get most of my morality cues from the Star Wars prequels.
The fourth is that comments like yours are part of a pattern that we have seen repeated throughout this thread and throughout these kinds of discussions and throughout history. Women who speak up, and people who speak up for women, are "bitches." They're too radical, they're out of place, and they need to be shut down. This is a misogynistic way of characterizing things. Women aren't bitches for making arguments you disagree with - you'd never use that insult against a man making an argument you disagree with. You're only using that gendered insult because you think there's something about the fact that it's a woman making t his argument, because you're searching for a way to insult the woman with the stupid argument you've put into her mouth. This isn't okay.
http://acko.net/blog/storms-and-teacups/
Gotta vigorously massage my ego while the party is hot.
Agreed except for the bolded. Anthropologists have ample evidence from current hunter gatherer culture that "modern civilization's" concept of asymmetric gender roles aren't inherent to our species. Paleontological and archaeological sites further support this idea in the context of prehistoric human cultures. Most of what we think of Western gender roles (ie the nuclear family) are something established by colonial European societies and enforced in their colonies even today. There's even the whole "problem" of women captured by Native Americans opting not to return to the colonies due to women receiving better treatment among the "savages."
So the opposite is true, really. Historically, egalitarian societies are the norm.
The "hyper bitch feminist" is also increasingly troublesome given that studies have shown that feminists tend to get along with men better than women who subscribe to traditional definitions of gender roles. This is thought to be due to the fact that a lot of the non-feminists harbor subconscious resent for men and the roles women are forced to play.
well, that's quite promising, but i wasn't speaking just to gender ideals....again, beyond the scope of this thread. still, that makes me feel a little better about humanity.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
As one of those geese, I just want to clarify that I don't think all characters should be sexualized all the time. Treating every male and female character like they're in DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball is not the goal.
What I'm saying is that if someone really, really wants to make a game with characters as sexualized as the Sorceress from Dragon's Crown then it is only fair that the male characters should be just as sexualized. Unless someone has a really good reason, this should be the only situation in which highly sexualized characters should be acceptable, as the clearly pandering nature of such a game would also make it absurdly comical and less likely for anyone to think it is an example of how real people should behave (this would also make such pandering designs less frequent, as they would only appear in games that don't take themselves seriously). I've never played Bayonetta, but since I've heard people say they recognize the main character's design as sexualized but don't mind it in the context of the game, I'm assuming it's an example of the sort of thing I'm talking about. To use Ninja Gaiden as another example, both Ryu and Nina should be dressed sensibly or dressed provocatively, not one sensibly and the other proactively.
In summary, if a bunch of women who are all attracted to fat guys decides to make DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball: Man Biobs Edition, then that should be their right, but pandering of this type should be uncommon.
At the end of the day, I think a lot of people like to believe they're completely outside the realm of social factors and social forces that exert pressure for us to behave in certain, gendered fashions. I think this is especially true in nerd culture where people prize critical thinking and individuality quite a bit, so it's natural for one to believe that they exist outside of patriarchy and that they're actually on the outside looking in. Any time someone makes claims as to universal gender roles, you're looking at easily disproven bullshit.