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Sexism in the games industry [#1reasonwhy]
Cambiata
Commander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
Commander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
The #1reasonwhy tag started back on November 26th of last year in response to a question: Why are there so few lady game creators?
The answers were numerous and troubling.
The movement continues to snowball with the #1reasontobe hashtag, offering reasons that women remain in the industry despite the rampant sexism they have to deal with, and leading to a panel at GDC (full video at the link) and, one would hope, continuing on to change the face of the games industry to be more inclusive.
This is the thread for discussing all of the issues pertainting to sexism in the industry, from the way female developers are treated at the workplace and interviews and cons, as well as the way games themselves can add tiles to the mosaic.
@EriktheVikingGamer kindly provided an extensive list of links for you to read for further information on these topics, as well as visual examples of "mosaic tiles" (all images spoilered and linked in case of NSFW).
Quick and easy reference if you have come to this thread to explain to us that men are just as sexualized as women:
The answers were numerous and troubling.
The movement continues to snowball with the #1reasontobe hashtag, offering reasons that women remain in the industry despite the rampant sexism they have to deal with, and leading to a panel at GDC (full video at the link) and, one would hope, continuing on to change the face of the games industry to be more inclusive.
This is the thread for discussing all of the issues pertainting to sexism in the industry, from the way female developers are treated at the workplace and interviews and cons, as well as the way games themselves can add tiles to the mosaic.
@EriktheVikingGamer kindly provided an extensive list of links for you to read for further information on these topics, as well as visual examples of "mosaic tiles" (all images spoilered and linked in case of NSFW).
EriktheVikingGamer wrote: »BEHOLD! - The BFP of things you might want to look at/read.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/29/1reasonwhy-we-are-all-responsible/#more-133548
http://digitalnoms.com/2012/12/03/i-am-a-woman-yep-i-said-it/
http://acidforblood.net/2008/06/vexation/
http://alivetinyworld.com/2012/11/27/too-many-reasons-why/
http://www.polygon.com/2012/11/28/3699422/sexism-gaming-twitter-discussion-1reasonwhy
http://dgaider.tumblr.com/post/36214913229/the-female-perspective-in-game-development http://gamishdesigner.blogspot.com/2012/11/1reasonwhy-comment-for-allies-and-such.html
http://alivetinyworld.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_gamer#The_figure_of_the_.22girl_gamer.22 http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/09/22/starfire-catwoman-sex-superheroine/
http://www.themarysue.com/so-maybe-including-a-shock-collar-wearing-female-slave-in-the-old-republic-wasnt-the-best-idea/
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/12/historically-authentic-sexism-in-fantasy-lets-unpack-that?et_cid=29968324&et_rid=88362949&linkid=is+historical+accuracy+really+a+fair+excuse+or+explanation http://fivewithflores.com/2012/12/words-mean-things-by-patrick-chapin/
http://madartlab.com/2011/12/14/fantasy-armor-and-lady-bits/
http://www.picanese.com/pbpics/italian-female-soldier-sxqw.jpg
http://gamingaswomen.com/posts/2012/12/1-reason/
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/182854/Marketers_start_caring_about_video_games_please.php#.UNAiwlOoH7E
http://www.themarysue.com/why-talking-about-character-gender-still-matters-even-though-it-shouldnt/
http://bitchmagazine.org/article/game-changer
http://blog.thephoenix.com/BLOGS/laserorgy/archive/2012/12/17/hotline-miami-and-america-s-narrative-of-masculinity-and-violence.aspx http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/02/19/an-interview-with-the-most-influential-women-in-mmo-development/
http://kotaku.com/5970474/partygoer-topless-women-at-gamelofts-holiday-party-says-a-lot-about-the-games-industry?utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Twitter&utm_source=Kotaku_Twitter&utm_medium=Socialflow - Example of the situation, CAUTION: Kotaku
http://beefjack.com/features/the-under-representation-of-women-in-gaming/
http://www.inthebasecase.com/?p=17
http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/27/stanford-bridging-gender-gap/
http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2012/07/21/women-in-comics-you-cant-keep-a-good-creator-down/#/0
http://clairehosking.tumblr.com/post/39546112838/playthings
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/25/game-theory-making-room-for-the-women/
http://psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/a0016239 http://voices.yahoo.com/racism-study-ending-television-racism-may-more-8453691.html?cat=7
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21033708
http://taterborn.tumblr.com/post/40960608245/ramblings-of-a-history-nerd-sexism-in-gaming-a
http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=10567
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/04/06/misogyny-sexism-and-why-rps-isnt-shutting-up/
http://www.gamespot.com/news/publishers-said-you-cant-have-a-female-character-says-remember-me-dev-6405550 - Example of the situation
http://kotaku.com/game-developers-really-need-to-stop-letting-teenage-boy-472724616 - CAUTION: Kotaku
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/04/12/dragons-crown-trailer-shows-a-bit-too-much-of-the-sorceress/ - Example of an appropriately attractive video game woman - Example of a sexually objectified video game woman for contrast
http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/why-your-games-are-made-by-childless-31-year-old-white-men-and-how-one-stud?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/03/19/negative-effects-of-sexism/12252.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120725150215.htm
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-big-questions/201008/sexualized-women-are-seen-objects-studies-find
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110810133015.htm
http://oregonstate.edu/terra/2013/01/sex-in-play/
http://www.army.mil/article/90697/Female_body_armor_named_among_best_inventions_by_Time_Magazine/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_of_Domination
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/28/dragon-age-iiis-gaider-on-the-impracticality-of-sexism/ http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12119-009-9050-5
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-007-9278-1
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273229703000133
http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/you-dont-like-breasts-you-must-like-men-the-disappointing-conversation-and
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/ChristianNutt/20130423/191078/Dragons_Crown_George_Kamitani_and_being_stupid_on_Facebook.php
http://www.feministfrequency.com/2013/03/damsel-in-distress-part-1/ - Highlighted for Anita Sarkeesian
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110810133015.htm
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/11/objectification-suppresses-womens-desire-to-engage-in-social-activism-study-finds/
http://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2013/03/on-eas-full-spectrum-event-aaa-devs.html - Example of Progress
http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2012/01/24/is-feminism-skeptical-or-are-ninjas-awesome/
http://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2012/06/02/penny-arcade-vs-rape-culture/ - TychoCelchuuu suggestion
http://fozmeadows.tumblr.com/post/24890426643/rape-culture-in-gaming - TychoCelchuuu suggestion
http://bakka111.wordpress.com/2011/05/04/portal-2-and-feminism/
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1018080/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/04/25/the-silence-deep-silver-hiding-from-torsogate/ - What Not to Do
http://www.pcgamesn.com/opinion-heres-what-i-think-about-deep-silvers-terrible-mutilated-zombie-breasts - Good Example of Design
All spoiler'd are images and videos on the topic at hand. Consider all of the above content tagged NSFW so as to avoid any problems, regardless of whether they're really NSFW.
Quick and easy reference if you have come to this thread to explain to us that men are just as sexualized as women:
"excuse my French
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
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Didn't see this linked in the new OP so I wanted to find that quote from the last thread and post it now cause I might forget tomorrow and I still need to watch it as well.
-Whoops is it up there after the last picture, I was checking with the link itself not a hotlink- carry on
Most of the ones I can think of are from Bioware games, but that's in part because Bioware games tend to be the ones I most play, and I don't own a Playstation so a lot of Japanese games that possibly have more female-gazey characters are out of my reach.
So the ones I can think of off hand are:
Fenris from Dragon Age 2
Anders from Dragon Age 2
Alistair from Dragon Age: Origins
Thane from Mass Effect
Kaidan from Mass Effect
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
Thane is so dreamy.
The intro cutscene where he helps you up I was like, I don't think this is for me.
I know I'm sort of playing leap frog with this thread, but when I was gathering the links up for my post I came across the picture of the four different versions of Cortana and came up with a way to give the study mentioned a little more impact than it being in the abstract.
A comparison between the evolution of the look of Master Chief from the Halo series and his AI counterpart Cortana:
While the study I am giving an application of is already in the quote I'll recite it here as well as you'll want to make sure to read it. For a timeline reference, Halo: CE was released 15/11/2001, Halo 2 was released 9/11/2004, Halo 3 was released 25-27/9/2007, and finally Halo 4 was released 6-8/11/2012. Also, so that when comparing different features we can appropriately contextualize the issue of graphical fidelity, Halo: CE and Halo 2 were released on the XBOX and Halo 3 and Halo 4 were released on the XBOX360.
Let's begin with Master Chief:
- In Halo: CE we see the Chief as your average, stereotypical space marine in armor. The coloring of his suit is a binary of matte green and black. His body is appropriately bulky given that he is in heavy armor. As to his framing in the picture, we see him put in the typical 'person with gun' stance. This motif does not change throughout the rest of the represented versions. Also, it's worth noting that without any previous knowledge of this character, there is no defining characteristic that alludes to a particular gender outside of preconceived gender notions.
- In Halo 2 his primary matte green is replaced with a more jungle green color, as well as adding some metallic highlights to the feet and knees. His chest plate is redesigned and made a little bulkier. More definition is added to his armor with the biggest change being to the musculature and design of his inner thighs. His codpiece is also redesigned and made a little bulkier; which also happens to give a definite indication of his gender.
- Halo 3 is little more than a graphical update from the design in Halo 2 due to the switch over from the XBOX to the XBOX360. That being said, he is made a little bulkier and his armor loses some of its definition.
- Halo 4 sees his armor get redesigned into looking less like actual body armor and more like football gear, with particular attention paid to the significant increase in the size of his shoulder armor. He receives another color swap into various gradients of gray with the main surface areas of his armor being a smooth metallic gray/green. (Which makes this version boring as all hell to look at in comparison to the other versions in my opinion)
And now Cortana:
- In Halo: CE we see a thin and slightly defined Cortana. Of course, the obvious thing to point out is that she is naked; though that in and of itself does not really constitute a critique of her appearance. Her visual scheme is a combination of dark but vibrant purple and transparent portions of her body signifying that she is an AI. While her definition is muted, we can still see a slight curvature of the hips and in the chest region. The most prominent characteristic of her appearance that also serves as an indicator of her gender is her head. Her face is angular and hard and in combination with her eyes. lips and hair gives off a humanistic feminine appearance. Given the diminished nature of her silhouette and if she were wearing any clothes her face would be the only way to guess her gender; and even then it would not be entirely clear. Her framing in this picture puts her in an assertive stance. Also, minor nitpick, her neck doesn't really look like a neck at all. At least not one that could support that head on top of that body.
- In Halo 2 Cortana is given a definite female appearance. Her silhouette is filled out but doesn't really reflect an 'hourglass'. Curvature in the hips and chest that were diminished before are now obviously defined but not too prominent. She is given a different, angular hair style and gray hair color. She still maintains her assertive stance. Her visual scheme, however, changes drastically from the dark, vibrant purple of her previous rendition to a soft light blue. She is also now less transparent overall. A plus, she now has a neck that fits with the rest of her body.
- Halo 3, unfortunately, does not see her as unchanged overall as Master Chief. Her hair color is changed, again. The features of her face are rounded and softened. She also now either has eyelashes or is wearing mascara. Her chest, which was merely defined before, is now very prominent in its definition. Her visual scheme becomes even less transparent and changes from a light blue to a slightly muted but still somewhat vibrant snow blue. Also, her framing is changed from an assertive stance to a neutral stance.
- Halo 4 sees more stark transformation of her features. Her hip-to-thigh ratio balloons into full-on 'hourglass' proportions. Her chest increases in size. Her hair color is changed to navy blue and the style is changed from its previous angular nature to a softer and slightly more voluminous conformity that matches her face; which has had its features rounded and softened even further as well. Her visual scheme is again changed from a snow blue to a completely soft and muted gradient of dark and light blue with small light patterns adorning what is now an almost completely opaque silhouette to maintain a sign that she is an AI. The framing she is put in for this last rendition is now a stance of reticence. Also, the orientation of her neck and shoulder region is changed from the angular, almost square silhouette that existed in her previous versions to a slender and sloping design.
FFXIV - Milliardo Beoulve/Sargatanas
It shouldn't be hard to find those stories, right? The nearest I've seen in recent days is the Crossassault thing, and the FGC just seems like an easy target.
Part of the problem is that it is just as hard to find people who are willing to relate their stories about their experiences in the game industry as it is to get people to relate stories of this sort of thing in any other facet of society. There is little in the way of a safety net when someone puts their name and face out there on a story that involves challenging what is generally accepted in society. We need to both have a person willing to do that and have a support system that is strong enough set up for when the inevitable backlash comes.
EDIT: Plus, yeah. It's not like the sort of stories you're looking for don't exist.
FFXIV - Milliardo Beoulve/Sargatanas
e: it probably goes deeper into what you think the games reporting media actually is. Are they bastions of Woodward-Bernstein journalism? Are they just mouthpieces to the industry at large to dump trailers and hype? Probably somewhere in between. When people visit Gamespot, IGN, et cetera., they're there for the reviews. The trailers. The games. Not only do some of these people are annoyed when confronted with Real Important Shit™ when they want pictures about vidjas, they get actively hostile. RockPaperShotgun got some nasty fucking shit because of this, which only caused them to double-down on it, bless their souls. Everytime Patrick Klepeck of Giant Bomb dares to talk about how, hey, women are treated kind of like shit, he gets bombed with accusations of hit-whoring and being a *gasp* feminist. People actually use that word as a goddamn slur.
You can't infer much from the mongaloids that inhabit any given comment section, but you know, at least, they're there at some populace. You wanna rile up your readership with Real Shit or just want to get some ad hits for your vidjas? They're not mutually exclusive, but it seems to me that video games in general has to grow up a little bit before more people are willing to put their necks out and bear the stings when they dole up some harsh reality, away from the latest killstreak videos.\
In the meantime, the smaller outfits, the blogs, the tweets, the ones that don't have much bridges to burn? They're the one barking the loudest.
90% of those are about how the fiction is sexist (the same old "chainmail bikinis lol" story) rather than examples of actual sexism towards people working in the industry. The second is what I'm interested in.
Once in a while you do see such a story, but it's pretty rare. So what's up with that?
EDIT: The near heroic John Walker has this to say: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/04/06/misogyny-sexism-and-why-rps-isnt-shutting-up/
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Well, I certainly don't expect that kind of reporting from IGN, but it would be nice to see more of it from PAR or RPS. They both seem like they've made commitments on some level to try to stop sexism in the industry, so shouldn't we be pressuring them to focus on the real issues instead of the bullshit?
I don't think an article about how "I went to this game company and talked to some people there, and heard some real sexist shit" would be out of place on PAR. You could even keep the people involved anonymous and just target the company. I think something like that would do a lot more to address industry sexism than another article on how lots of fighting game characters have skimpy outfits and we should all feel ashamed. For example, I think the CrossAssault series of articles probably caused a lot more change than an article on fighting game characters would have; I'd like to see a similar lense applied to the industry itself.
These are all real issues, dawg.
If you decided you wanted to write a series of articles about gun violence, would you give the same amount of time in your articles to fictional gun violence as you would to real gun violence? Or would you give a different amount?
Then it went more and more "look at my T&A".
Steam - Partizanka | Live - Partizanka
Also yeah, Cortana looks like a silly porn hologram in later games, I can't really think of a reason why that happened, if anything she should have looked less... ergh words, less I dunno, whole? As the series went on, not becoming slowly more and more boob focused.
So you literally don't see something as an example of sexism, unless it is a physical act perpetrated by a living human-being? Media can never be sexist, because it is intangible?
The issue arises because Deep Silver think of women as, rather than potential customers or fellow enthusiasts, bait.
That's both non-fictional, and reasonably representative of problems in the industry as a whole.
Obviously you talk about all facets of the problem.
Also, false equivalency yo. Like, straight up, I'll link this again which also talks about the very real link between sexual objectification in media and the harm it can cause; whereas the links between gun violence in media and real life gun violence are much more tenuous (or at the very least lacking in conclusive evidence).
And I know for a fact that we've gone over this before in the previous thread. I know as well that in the previous thread you were asked to read up and I'll politely ask you to go back to the previous thread and do so again.
FFXIV - Milliardo Beoulve/Sargatanas
That Dead Island torso from a while back? I think that whoever made it should be fired for gross incompetence. I don't know enough about the company to speculate what the roots of the idea were, whether it was part of a culture of sexism or just general all-purpose idiocy.
Which is why I was hoping the games media could tell me more about these companies and what they're actually like. If they want to write that article alongside "Chainmail bikinis lol" I'm cool with it.
I doubt ALL of Deep Silver think that, tho. SOMEONE there clearly does.
Serina (Halo Wars)
Roland (Halo 4)
As much as I like Cortana as a character, there's no need for her to be a naked blue woman in Halo 4. I much preferred her original look.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
90% of his interactions with her are just voice to voice
her design is to seduce the player, not the player character, and that's uh...pretty creepy
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
That article doesn't give any conclusive evidence of anything, it's a study that shows that sexuality in media has gotten more common since the 60s. We did have some sexual revolutions since then, so I don't think that should come as a surprise to anyone.
Say, how is the social status of women today relative to how it was in the 60s?
Leaving the issue that sexism in media is real sexism aside, the reason you don't see a lot of reporting about interpersonal sexism in the game industry, when compared interpersonal gun violence as a whole is that violence leaves a paper trail and other physical evidence behind. Police reports, hospital admissions records, and, you know, actual bullets make it harder for people to claim that nothing happened at all, everything is just fine, there was no violence, thank you.
Nice, thank you! I would love to see more content like that. Though I wish that it addressed some specific companies or even the root causes of the wage gap there. For example, is it because women aren't reaching high-end positions, or because they're getting paid less for the same positions? The RPS guy doesn't seem to know.
Still, good stuff.
Minor nitpick, but her original look has her naked as well.
FFXIV - Milliardo Beoulve/Sargatanas
There is a big difference, though. While she was naked originally too, she had less the appearance of a naked human, and was certainly nowhere near as sexualised as she appears in later games.
Put another way: If she was wearing clothes in all four instances, would the changes in appearance be any less of an increase in sexualization?
FFXIV - Milliardo Beoulve/Sargatanas
It's the texturing. The texturing in 1-3 make her appear like an ephemeral hologram. The texturing in 4 makes it look like a woman wearing a skintight jumpsuit.
Proportionally, Cortana 4 is the only one that looks like a real (albeit heavily sexualized) human being. The other 3 all have comic book proportions (super long legs that never touch, slightly curved back to emphasis breats, very high breasts, etc.). That might be partially why she looks so sexual in 4.
Seems to me the comic was more inspired by the attitude caused by the shitstorm, not the actual series at the center of it. It's replying directly to the idea that there is no sexism in the industry and guys are just as objectified. It doesn't actually call out or mention this other comic at all. The overall message is very very general. It would be different if names were named but they weren't. I can find hundreds of posts saying the exact same thing as the "fat/balding/unattractive guy". You know, the guy talking to the short dumpy woman with bad hair. Funny how they didn;t mention that either.