So I spent the morning reading through the entirety of the set of links that Erik posted above to try and educate myself on the topic, and last night I read every 3rd or 5th page of the thread here to try and get up to speed (I have a final tomorrow, meh.) So here's something I haven't seen addressed yet:
Say I'm a twenty-something guy who considers himself fairly socially liberal and I accept the critique of sexist culture that's discussed in the above links. People on both sides have dug in their heels and insist that sexist exists/doesn't exist/is a problem/isn't a problem, and I think the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Generally, though, I can accept that this is something that is happening and is bad. What kind of agency do I have to try and change this? What kind of agency is required of me to try and change this, since this seems to be something where if you're not with it, you're against it ?
Somewhere in reading all of those links, I stumbled across Hotline: Miami, which I hadn't heard of before, and then wound up watching maybe 30 minutes of gameplay footage on Youtube. It's incredibly violent, but stylized, and there's a scene where the protagonist carries a female hostage out of the build he just got done killing everyone in. I suppose that's a sexist action by itself under the viewpoint of the rest of the game i.e. if they were going for consistency the chicken-masked anti-hero too. So that's a fairly innocuous example of game sexism (if he had murdered her, people would presumably be upset, too.)
Then there's the Sorceress from Dragon's Crown, with a sexist depiction of a character that sits among other weird & distorted characters. Then there's something like Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball, which is pure sexist fan service.
If as a consumer of game media my only real agency is to vote with my wallet, do I have a moral obligation to refuse to purchase any of these games, or only refuse some of them, or? Is this the wrong kind of lens to be looking through, entirely? If game makers are only going to make games that they know will be financially successful, does censure of the worst offenders become de facto censorship?
Finally, while I know I'm going to hear "well, just because you don't find it attractive doesn't mean it isn't sexualized" / the male sexualization there is male power fantasy and not female sexualization, Dragon's Crown seems like a particularly bad example of a game for #1ReasonWhy followers to try and fight a battle over, because outside of the Sorceress the entire art direction is fantastical in nature. If the artist hadn't offered up an admittedly weak "you're gay, lol" in response to the criticism of his work, people would be fighting over a number of games that deserve a lot more criticism.
EDIT: I've spent....way, way too much time trying to read the appropriate material and then type this post . I think this'll probably be my only and last word on the subject at least until exams are over. I don't know how people posting in here make the time for it.
Only you can decide what you want to do about things. Nothing is required. Nobody is going to come and revoke any privileges for failure to act insufficiently anti-sexist or whatever. If you feel as though there are bad things going on, and the fact that those bad things are going on makes you feel bad, you need to figure out for yourself what you can do to make yourself feel more at peace. Maybe it's refraining from buying things you otherwise would have bought. Maybe it's participating in discussions like these to inform and educate yourself and your interlocutors. Maybe it's making more art. Maybe it's doing something not strictly related to this problem, but still making the world a better place, like volunteering at a local charity.
It's good that you're looking for ways to help, and brainstorming ideas with other people here could help you find some action that you personally find compelling, but it isn't as though there's one particular thing you can do that will definitely make things better. What we're up against are deeply entrenched and institutional biases towards conducting business and creating games in a particular way. That's not the sort of thing that's resolvable simply, quickly, or easily.
I'm glad you posted, because you made me notice something in Hotline Miami that had passed me by. I played it pretty avidly when it came out, but as I was going through the game it didn't occur to me that the few women depicted in the game had no agency. The player character was a man, and all of the enemies (IIRC) were men as well. I'm pretty sure the women were largely immobile set-dressing. And that's not great. I wouldn't say it's a huge deal or anything on its own, but it is one more piece in the mosaic.
Well, there probably ARE women out there who want to be. Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives certainly pop to mind.
The important thing to remember is they are terrible people and a minority.
And now we're slut-shaming again? Really?
No, of course not. A"slut" as far as I know, is a person who likes to have sex. Ain't nothing wrong with that; male or female. And don't confuse sexualizing with being found attractive, EVERYONE wants that, male and female.
But these people want power through absuing sexuality. And the men on those shows are no different; but we were talking about women.
I'm confused on a couple parts of this; hopefully you can help me out.
The first thing is that your post was responding to the "question" (it wasn't asked but was discussed) of whether there are women who want to be sexualized. That's what you offered as an example, so I took that to mean "indicative of the set of <women who want to be sexualized>." Do you indeed feel that the set of <women who want to be sexualized> (you can replace "women" with "people" there, but as you said, we're talking about women) is basically "terrible people" who "want power through abusing sexuality"? Or was that not intended to be a representative example, but maybe more of a joke?
Second, what exactly do you mean by <women/people> who "want power through abusing sexuality"? What constitutes "abuse" of sexuality in this scenario, and why is it bad? Is wanting the power what's bad? Is the power itself bad?
Thanks in advance for clarifications
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
Well, there probably ARE women out there who want to be. Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives certainly pop to mind.
The important thing to remember is they are terrible people and a minority.
And now we're slut-shaming again? Really?
No, of course not. A"slut" as far as I know, is a person who likes to have sex. Ain't nothing wrong with that; male or female. And don't confuse sexualizing with being found attractive, EVERYONE wants that, male and female.
But these people want power through absuing sexuality. And the men on those shows are no different; but we were talking about women.
I'm confused on a couple parts of this; hopefully you can help me out.
The first thing is that your post was responding to the "question" (it wasn't asked but was discussed) of whether there are women who want to be sexualized. That's what you offered as an example, so I took that to mean "indicative of the set of <women who want to be sexualized>." Do you indeed feel that the set of <women who want to be sexualized> (you can replace "women" with "people" there, but as you said, we're talking about women) is basically "terrible people" who "want power through abusing sexuality"? Or was that not intended to be a representative example, but maybe more of a joke?
Second, what exactly do you mean by <women/people> who "want power through abusing sexuality"? What constitutes "abuse" of sexuality in this scenario, and why is it bad? Is wanting the power what's bad? Is the power itself bad?
Thanks in advance for clarifications
No, I mean the people on reality shows are terrible people. Women who want to be sexualized? Dunno. I don't really know any for sure . I don't think by definition they would be terrible tho.
Power through abusing sexuality. Hmmm. Well, the thing I see is women (and men) who are defined by their sexuality and the use of that to get what they want, the "power". I guess you could just say money or fame for that. To these people, their sexuality is what pays the bills so they would want to be sexualized, yes? We may even go so far as to say they are defined by their sexuality and only that. The other roles like that I guess would be porn stars or strippers. Are these bad people? Lord no. Is stripping or doing porn bad? No, I don't think so. Is the stripping and porn industry harmful to women? It certainly seems so. So are they "bad" for engaging in it? Ehhhh....I guess stricitly by definition, yes. They certainly aren't helping matters anyway.
So, like, Anna Nicole Smith. She seems to be someone who abused her sexuality to get what she wanted; "abused" here meaning overused it. It was as if she felt it was literally all she had. And while she wasn't a bad person, she certainly didn't set a good example.
So, yeah, as cobbled and fractured as that is, that's the long and dirty of it.
Now that I've finally caught up on a good 500 posts since I last read through this thread (time consuming, but a good idea, I suggest everyone who wants to participate should at least give it a go), I've taken away two things;
1) Some forumers have simply astounding amounts of patience.
That I have actually read through all this is indicative that I truly believe it to be worthy of discussion, because there were long stretches where I was losing my will to live.
For a while it seemed like people were fulfilling a contractually obligated position to be yelled at for having terrible opinions (due to being ill informed or willfully ignorant).
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Well, there probably ARE women out there who want to be. Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives certainly pop to mind.
The important thing to remember is they are terrible people and a minority.
And now we're slut-shaming again? Really?
No, of course not. A"slut" as far as I know, is a person who likes to have sex. Ain't nothing wrong with that; male or female. And don't confuse sexualizing with being found attractive, EVERYONE wants that, male and female.
But these people want power through absuing sexuality. And the men on those shows are no different; but we were talking about women.
I'm confused on a couple parts of this; hopefully you can help me out.
The first thing is that your post was responding to the "question" (it wasn't asked but was discussed) of whether there are women who want to be sexualized. That's what you offered as an example, so I took that to mean "indicative of the set of <women who want to be sexualized>." Do you indeed feel that the set of <women who want to be sexualized> (you can replace "women" with "people" there, but as you said, we're talking about women) is basically "terrible people" who "want power through abusing sexuality"? Or was that not intended to be a representative example, but maybe more of a joke?
Second, what exactly do you mean by <women/people> who "want power through abusing sexuality"? What constitutes "abuse" of sexuality in this scenario, and why is it bad? Is wanting the power what's bad? Is the power itself bad?
Thanks in advance for clarifications
No, I mean the people on reality shows are terrible people. Women who want to be sexualized? Dunno. I don't really know any for sure . I don't think by definition they would be terrible tho.
Power through abusing sexuality. Hmmm. Well, the thing I see is women (and men) who are defined by their sexuality and the use of that to get what they want, the "power". I guess you could just say money or fame for that. To these people, their sexuality is what pays the bills so they would want to be sexualized, yes? We may even go so far as to say they are defined by their sexuality and only that. The other roles like that I guess would be porn stars or strippers. Are these bad people? Lord no. Is stripping or doing porn bad? No, I don't think so. Is the stripping and porn industry harmful to women? It certainly seems so. So are they "bad" for engaging in it? Ehhhh....I guess stricitly by definition, yes. They certainly aren't helping matters anyway.
So, like, Anna Nicole Smith. She seems to be someone who abused her sexuality to get what she wanted; "abused" here meaning overused it. It was as if she felt it was literally all she had. And while she wasn't a bad person, she certainly didn't set a good example.
So, yeah, as cobbled and fractured as that is, that's the long and dirty of it.
So am I thinking things wrong here?
It's a complicated issue for sure.
Personal experience: a good friend of mine was really into sexualizing herself. She adored make-up, colored her hair, dressed rather provocatively (including bunny lingerie for Halloween). She has since moved to another city and we've lost contact, but I know that she took a job as a stripper.
I wouldn't say she let this define her, though. She was also a total geek -- played D&D with us enthusiastically, adored video games, etc. She was also really into performance cars -- from an owning / driving standpoint, not from a "date the guy with the hot car" standpoint.
I got hints of her motivations from conversation. She was the awkward nerdy girl in school that was picked on by the other girls and ignored by the boys. When she finally turned that situation around after school, she embraced it whole-heartedly.
There's definitely enjoyment of the power of self-sexualization there, which depending on how she used it was sometimes a really good thing for her and sometimes a bad thing for her and others.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
Well, there probably ARE women out there who want to be. Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives certainly pop to mind.
The important thing to remember is they are terrible people and a minority.
And now we're slut-shaming again? Really?
No, of course not. A"slut" as far as I know, is a person who likes to have sex. Ain't nothing wrong with that; male or female. And don't confuse sexualizing with being found attractive, EVERYONE wants that, male and female.
But these people want power through absuing sexuality. And the men on those shows are no different; but we were talking about women.
I'm confused on a couple parts of this; hopefully you can help me out.
The first thing is that your post was responding to the "question" (it wasn't asked but was discussed) of whether there are women who want to be sexualized. That's what you offered as an example, so I took that to mean "indicative of the set of <women who want to be sexualized>." Do you indeed feel that the set of <women who want to be sexualized> (you can replace "women" with "people" there, but as you said, we're talking about women) is basically "terrible people" who "want power through abusing sexuality"? Or was that not intended to be a representative example, but maybe more of a joke?
Second, what exactly do you mean by <women/people> who "want power through abusing sexuality"? What constitutes "abuse" of sexuality in this scenario, and why is it bad? Is wanting the power what's bad? Is the power itself bad?
Thanks in advance for clarifications
No, I mean the people on reality shows are terrible people. Women who want to be sexualized? Dunno. I don't really know any for sure . I don't think by definition they would be terrible tho.
Power through abusing sexuality. Hmmm. Well, the thing I see is women (and men) who are defined by their sexuality and the use of that to get what they want, the "power". I guess you could just say money or fame for that. To these people, their sexuality is what pays the bills so they would want to be sexualized, yes? We may even go so far as to say they are defined by their sexuality and only that. The other roles like that I guess would be porn stars or strippers. Are these bad people? Lord no. Is stripping or doing porn bad? No, I don't think so. Is the stripping and porn industry harmful to women? It certainly seems so. So are they "bad" for engaging in it? Ehhhh....I guess stricitly by definition, yes. They certainly aren't helping matters anyway.
So, like, Anna Nicole Smith. She seems to be someone who abused her sexuality to get what she wanted; "abused" here meaning overused it. It was as if she felt it was literally all she had. And while she wasn't a bad person, she certainly didn't set a good example.
So, yeah, as cobbled and fractured as that is, that's the long and dirty of it.
So am I thinking things wrong here?
It's a complicated issue for sure.
Personal experience: a good friend of mine was really into sexualizing herself. She adored make-up, colored her hair, dressed rather provocatively (including bunny lingerie for Halloween). She has since moved to another city and we've lost contact, but I know that she took a job as a stripper.
I wouldn't say she let this define her, though. She was also a total geek -- played D&D with us enthusiastically, adored video games, etc. She was also really into performance cars -- from an owning / driving standpoint, not from a "date the guy with the hot car" standpoint.
I got hints of her motivations from conversation. She was the awkward nerdy girl in school that was picked on by the other girls and ignored by the boys. When she finally turned that situation around after school, she embraced it whole-heartedly.
There's definitely enjoyment of the power of self-sexualization there, which depending on how she used it was sometimes a really good thing for her and sometimes a bad thing for her and others.
She sounds more like she was embracing her sexuality rather than suddenly thinking it was the only thing she was good for tho. She sounds pretty together although I am iffy about stripping. I've had friends do it and I admit I would worry about them. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing tho.
Well, there probably ARE women out there who want to be. Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives certainly pop to mind.
The important thing to remember is they are terrible people and a minority.
And now we're slut-shaming again? Really?
No, of course not. A"slut" as far as I know, is a person who likes to have sex. Ain't nothing wrong with that; male or female. And don't confuse sexualizing with being found attractive, EVERYONE wants that, male and female.
But these people want power through absuing sexuality. And the men on those shows are no different; but we were talking about women.
I'm confused on a couple parts of this; hopefully you can help me out.
The first thing is that your post was responding to the "question" (it wasn't asked but was discussed) of whether there are women who want to be sexualized. That's what you offered as an example, so I took that to mean "indicative of the set of <women who want to be sexualized>." Do you indeed feel that the set of <women who want to be sexualized> (you can replace "women" with "people" there, but as you said, we're talking about women) is basically "terrible people" who "want power through abusing sexuality"? Or was that not intended to be a representative example, but maybe more of a joke?
Second, what exactly do you mean by <women/people> who "want power through abusing sexuality"? What constitutes "abuse" of sexuality in this scenario, and why is it bad? Is wanting the power what's bad? Is the power itself bad?
Thanks in advance for clarifications
No, I mean the people on reality shows are terrible people. Women who want to be sexualized? Dunno. I don't really know any for sure . I don't think by definition they would be terrible tho.
Power through abusing sexuality. Hmmm. Well, the thing I see is women (and men) who are defined by their sexuality and the use of that to get what they want, the "power". I guess you could just say money or fame for that. To these people, their sexuality is what pays the bills so they would want to be sexualized, yes? We may even go so far as to say they are defined by their sexuality and only that. The other roles like that I guess would be porn stars or strippers. Are these bad people? Lord no. Is stripping or doing porn bad? No, I don't think so. Is the stripping and porn industry harmful to women? It certainly seems so. So are they "bad" for engaging in it? Ehhhh....I guess stricitly by definition, yes. They certainly aren't helping matters anyway.
So, like, Anna Nicole Smith. She seems to be someone who abused her sexuality to get what she wanted; "abused" here meaning overused it. It was as if she felt it was literally all she had. And while she wasn't a bad person, she certainly didn't set a good example.
So, yeah, as cobbled and fractured as that is, that's the long and dirty of it.
So am I thinking things wrong here?
It's a complicated issue for sure.
Personal experience: a good friend of mine was really into sexualizing herself. She adored make-up, colored her hair, dressed rather provocatively (including bunny lingerie for Halloween). She has since moved to another city and we've lost contact, but I know that she took a job as a stripper.
I wouldn't say she let this define her, though. She was also a total geek -- played D&D with us enthusiastically, adored video games, etc. She was also really into performance cars -- from an owning / driving standpoint, not from a "date the guy with the hot car" standpoint.
I got hints of her motivations from conversation. She was the awkward nerdy girl in school that was picked on by the other girls and ignored by the boys. When she finally turned that situation around after school, she embraced it whole-heartedly.
There's definitely enjoyment of the power of self-sexualization there, which depending on how she used it was sometimes a really good thing for her and sometimes a bad thing for her and others.
She sounds more like she was embracing her sexuality rather than suddenly thinking it was the only thing she was good for tho. She sounds pretty together although I am iffy about stripping. I've had friends do it and I admit I would worry about them. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing tho.
Love that bolded sentence. Way too many people haven't been able to make it to that point, whether it's through repression and denial (my experience) or sexist oppression (see thread). It's a real balancing act to craft media that properly advocates that goal; slip up in presentation or detail, or approach it with just a little too much ignorance, and you go off one side or the other. That's why we have so few Isabellas and Bayonettas.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
If game makers are only going to make games that they know will be financially successful, does censure of the worst offenders become de facto censorship?
In the hypothetical far-flung future where this is the case*, it's market pressures, not censorship. If someone has a ~vision~ for a masterpiece of a game that happens to be super sexist, they can either go to a publisher, and probably get pressured to make their game less sexist, or they can follow their vision and make the game they want with no changes at all on their own terms and funding. And then there will be criticism of the game because people are allowed to have responses to things.
*Please note the output of all other aspects of our culture. This is not likely to be a problem anytime soon!
If game makers are only going to make games that they know will be financially successful, does censure of the worst offenders become de facto censorship?
In the hypothetical far-flung future where this is the case*, it's market pressures, not censorship. If someone has a ~vision~ for a masterpiece of a game that happens to be super sexist, they can either go to a publisher, and probably get pressured to make their game less sexist, or they can follow their vision and make the game they want with no changes at all on their own terms and funding. And then there will be criticism of the game because people are allowed to have responses to things.
*Please note the output of all other aspects of our culture. This is not likely to be a problem anytime soon!
This has always bugged me when people compare public outcry with censorship. I have as much right to complain about your art as you have to make it. Making art for art's sake is fine. No matter how much I hate it, I respect your rights to make it. But if you are making art for commercial purposes, then your art is no different than any other product brought to market. People not buying products they hate isn't censorship. It's just the way the market works.
I'd like to say thank you to the regulars for this thread. I'm not 100% aligned with you, but I am seeing things a lot differently after reading this and the torso thread.
I recently proposed a game as a capstone project to the CS students at my alma mater, and one of the girls in the class asked what I thought about the angle of making it a game to increase girls interest in STEM. I didn't really have an answer for her. How do you make a game that is focused on girls without being patronizing? Heck, the game is a puzzle game without any humanoid characters - how do you make a girl game without any girls? So, what I told her is that trying to make games for girls is the wrong angle - the challenge is making a good game that doesn't exclude anyone. Make that game, and girls will play it. I'm hoping her team picks my project, as I'd like to see what her ideas along those lines are.
It's as simple as asking a couple of lady's opinions on it and taking their opinions to heart. But you're wholly right that it is patronizing to some degree to make a game for a group when you aren't a member of that group--BUT that can be fixed by getting imput from that group.
It's as simple as asking a couple of lady's opinions on it and taking their opinions to heart. But you're wholly right that it is patronizing to some degree to make a game for a group when you aren't a member of that group--BUT that can be fixed by getting imput from that group.
Well, I meant more how do you indicate the game is "for girls" without making it all pink and cute? There's no people in it at all, so how do you gender it? And why would you?
(Girl Power, obviously - but can you solve prejudice with more exclusion?)
Lizards don't have breasts! Lizards come from eggs!
Argonians could be monotremes?
They still wouldn't have breasts.
0
Options
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Because of @Madpoet's query, I went and did a search on Portal, because for me that's a game that's definitely very welcoming for women, but I wanted to know if there were actual numbers that showed a large percentage of women played it (though I guess I don't know where you'd get information like that unless people volunteer their gender on a survey).
What I found instead was an article about Portal 2 and feminism, which I want to quote, because it really lays out something important in these discussions that doesn't always get directly addressed: the difference between interpersonal, institutional, and unconscious sexism.
They say that sexism (and other ‘isms’) operates at at 3 levels: Interpersonal, Institutional and Unconscious:
- Interpersonal Sexism: involves interactions (actions, expressions, etc.) between persons not governed by explicit or implicit rules (Cudd and Jones 109)
I think that most who are unfamiliar with feminism think of sexism or racism (and other ‘isms’) along an interpersonal or individual level. The model they have in mind is of a person who holds, and would endorse, explicit statements that negatively characterize women, racial minorities (etc.) and who would advocate unequal treatment on this basis.
Interpersonal (or individual) sexism is not the only kind of sexism that interests many feminists. Instead, they also talk about Institutional sexism and Unconscious sexism
- Institutional Sexism: explicit and implicit rules or norms that structure social institutions that function to exclude women, or place men above women. At some points in history these rules have been explicit, for example when women were explicitly denied the vote or prohibited from owning property. Other norms are implicit, rather than explicit. For example, while women are expected to do the majority of the work raising children and most people blame mothers rather than fathers for many child-related expectations, this rule is implicit because it is not written down anywhere as an explicit law (Cudd and Jones 109)
- Unconscious Sexism: psychological processes, tacit beliefs, emotions and attitudes that create, sustain or exploit sexual inequalities (Cudd and Jones 110-112). Cudd and Jones give a number of examples of unconscious sexism, if one is interested, one can also try the Implicit Association Test* developed by Harvard psychologists to test for the presence of some of these mechanisms.
*Note: It took me a bit to find the gender test from that link, so here is a direct link to the social implicit tests from that website, Gender-Science and Gender-Career can be found around the middle of the page.
This would be a much easier topic to handle if interpersonal sexism were the only one that needs conquering. Some very intelligent people seem to believe that the only kind of sexism under discussion is the interpersonal kind, and that when you criticise a piece of art as being sexist that you're labeling the artist as an explicit woman hater, so naturally they want to argue that point. But the much more likely culprits with that kind of art are institutional and unconcious sexism, which are much harder to fight, but just as important.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
It's as simple as asking a couple of lady's opinions on it and taking their opinions to heart. But you're wholly right that it is patronizing to some degree to make a game for a group when you aren't a member of that group--BUT that can be fixed by getting imput from that group.
Well, I meant more how do you indicate the game is "for girls" without making it all pink and cute? There's no people in it at all, so how do you gender it? And why would you?
(Girl Power, obviously - but can you solve prejudice with more exclusion?)
Seeing as most people have a problem with making things for girls pink and purple I don't know how you would gender it.
Gendering products is almost always completely arbitrary bullshit. For some reason somebody at some point thought that girls like pink and purple, an idea which inexplicably caught on to the point that lots of people (women included) believe it to be true and an innate feminine trait.
Unfortunately, whenever someone says "there's no reason for things intended for women to be pink and purple" lots of women will pipe up that they like pink and purple, just like some girls might say "but I like playing with dolls" or some women might say "but I like putting on make-up and wearing revealing clothing and shaking my ass around when I dance and inviting guys to drink body shots off my stomach".
I've known three young women who had nothing to do with each other and lived in completely different areas (urban, suburban, and rural) who all seemed to get a kick out of tittilating guys. In fact, one of them was a co-worker who got fired for flashing her breasts to two male co-workers in the break room (and I'm 90% positive she wasn't coerced; the very first day she started she was making sexual comments about herself to me and other guys she had just met out of the blue).
A lot of people, women included, buy into arbitrary sexist bullshit and would take offense if you said to them that the only reason they behave the way they do and like the things they like is because of patriarchal attitudes.
I guess I just see "male power fantasy" and "female sexual fantasy" as very often being the same thing.
A guy might be the quarterback of the football team and the perfect man, and all the other guys in the school might envy him and want to be him, and all the girls might want to get with him and fuck him, but it's the same guy in both scenarios. The guys want to be him and the girls want to fuck him.
But vsove and A duck! have a very good point: When a character in a game is molded specifically towards female desire in a video game, cis male gamers often complain longly and loud about how lame and terrible and "gay" that character is.
People are still on about how terrible Carth Onassi is, who I was absolutely in love with as a teenager playing the game.
Women seem to be mainly societal encouraged to like the sort of men who are "acceptably masculine." As if a man's opinion is the final word on what we can allow females to see. From what I've read, deliberately appealing to the "female gaze" is something that even the porn industry apparently avoids.
Sorry to bring this up from forever ago (in thread-time), but I was following on my phone today and wanted to comment. This little bit of conversation, specifically the parts about Carth Onassi, totally blew my mind. For some unexcusable reason, I had never played Knights of the Old Republic until a few years ago, but even before I touched it I knew that this Carth guy was annoying, because I had always heard as much from the internet. (read: video game playing dudes) And yet my girlfriend, and also one of her female friends, were always talking about how great he was. To hear it from them, this Carth guy was a reason that the game was great. To hear it from the internet (read: video game playing dudes) he was a target of ridicule and derision and I should ignore him as much as possible and certainly never use him in my party.
So when I finally played the game, I was surprised that my reactions to him were so tame, in both directions. Why did the internet hate this guy so much? I liked him, but why did I not find him as amazing as I was told I would? I didn't find him annoying at all, but I didn't love him either. I guess didn't hate him because I'm not an asshole, I think that explanation was always obvious. But why didn't I love him? At the time I didn't think much of it, but thinking about it now I guess its probably because he's not for me. And that's not only okay, its fucking awesome. I'm a young white male, fucking everything is for me already! KOTOR is I think the only reason that my girlfriend ever entered the world of gaming, and I bet Carth Onassi is a big part of it. More of that please.
Do women face persecution and hurdles in the game industry? Yes.
Is there a need for more women and social groups in the game industry to increase diversity? Absolutely.
Is everyone free to criticize aspects of games they dislike? Of course.
Are depictions of characters in games directly responsible for actions that hurt people? Of course not.
Are depictions of characters in video games part of a larger picture of entertainment media? Yes.
Does that larger picture have the capability to affect viewers? Yes, however it goes without saying that affect is not control or cause.
How does that sum of entertainment affect viewers? We don't know. There are no conclusive accepted studies that prove entertainment is a cause for certain attitudes or actions.
Even if it was proven that entertainment is a direct relation to some individual's actions or attitudes, would you be willing to modify or dictate what can or cannot be created?
These are the questions and answers I've analyzed and come to in my years of following this social phenomenon.
Having said that, I feel the reason many gamers (who are otherwise intelligent, reasonable, and open minded) feel threatened by and are aggressive towards sexism/feminism in gaming is because they view it as a personal attack on them. When you say "this game you like is sexist and harms women" you are NOT saying they are sexist and harm women, but the things they value and hold most dear (in many gamer's cases, their very lives) are. They will NOT allow anything to come between them and something precious that has been with them their entire lives, they will fight tooth and nail to protect what they see as an attack on them. When you call Dragon's Crown sexist, many gamers see it as "You are sexist" when they do not care, they would rather be sexist than to re-evalute morals and possibly lose something they view more valuable than their lives. So obviously their response is to dismiss or attack feminism... this does not automatically make them misogynists, they are just picking what they view as the more important of two choices then running with it.
Another reason many gamers feel offended by the movement is the self-righteous atmosphere and sentiment of many people who fight for equality in games. Many of them are feminists and social science experts who spend massive amounts of time analyzing the disparity between groups and become so grounded in it, they cannot comprehend the outlook of those unaffected by it. So when average people see someone on a moral crusade, they jerk back being apprehensive of someone so apparently biased as not to even acknowledge other points of view the uninitiated have. When you attach morals to an argument you are in danger of creating a black and white view that says: "this is always wrong" and "this is always right" when each situation needs to be examined individually to determine the aspects of it. You cannot always make the assumption that you are right and morally justified.
To conclude, my point is: If equality in games continues to be framed as a "battle" instead of a negotiation or a dialog, it will continue to meet resistance. You cannot force people to accept you and consider your point of view, you must be calm, patient, and understanding to generate empathy despite the indignations you have suffered or perceive.
Even if it was proven that entertainment is a direct relation to some individual's actions or attitudes, would you be willing to modify or dictate what can or cannot be created?
Nobody is asking for the ability to dictate what can and can't be created.
+1
Options
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
One wonders in what other subject "Say it nicely or I will refuse to learn anything" is acceptable.
"Hey, you better change your tone, or I will refuse to believe the world is round."
"You know, you'd get a lot further on this evolution theory you espouse if you weren't so bitchy"
"Well I happen to like being illiterate, so if you want to teach me to read then you need to stop acting so self righteous about how important reading is."
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
One wonders in what other subject "Say it nicely or I will refuse to learn anything" is acceptable.
The mere fact you are framing it as "teaching" others is part of the problem. You are taking up a position of superiority. You cannot force people to agree with you.
No, Logan, the fact that you're not willing to debate the point at hand, but instead want to fudge around until you're perceived as the superior one so you can lord your points from on high is the problem. The only way we're going to get anything done is if we manage to talk civilly about it as equals instead of screaming at each other like a bunch of loons about how we're arguing about it. Trust me, we've done that earlier in the thread and it's not productive at all.
These are the questions and answers I've analyzed and come to in my years of following this social phenomenon.
You cannot possibly be lecturing people about tone after this post. I just... man.
+4
Options
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
The funny thing is, if you pay attention to this thread at all, plenty of people have been patient and made eloquent descriptions of the problems we're facing here, to those who simply believe that they don't exist.
I didn't realize it while he was still active, but the recently banned forumer who came into this thread "trying to understand" is the same person who LadyM was replying to her in her now famous mosaic post.
And that guy still came into this thread wildly misrepresenting the opinions of the people he disagrees with and refused to read or understand the replies to him by people much more patient than myself.
Speaking softly and gently while stroking the opposition's head has been tried. It. doesn't. work.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Another reason many gamers feel offended by the movement is the self-righteous atmosphere and sentiment of many people who fight for equality in games.
You could apply this to any activist cause, even the ones that really are in the right. I'm sure there are plenty of perfectly reasonable feminists, just like there are perfectly reasonable environmentalists and animal rights activists and even Christians.
However, I assume that the more devoted you are to a cause that actively opposes a facet of society the more violently you react to others that don't share your point of view, which doesn't do any favors for your cause. Even patient activists eventually get worn down and bitter if they don't see any evidence that their cause is being progressed.
I've seen pieces on sites such as Jezebel that acted as if using the word "lady" in any context was a horrific slur, I've heard personal anecdotes from men who were publicly yelled at for holding a door open for a woman, and I've seen feminist analyses of television shows that seemed to go out of their way to try and characterize everything that happens in regards to female characters as misogyny (A male does something for a female? The man clearly thinks the woman can't fend for herself. The same woman does something for the same man? The woman clearly exists only to serve the needs of the man.). Those are rare, extreme examples, but they are often the ones that many people are most aware of and the reason that in the minds of the general public feminists (and environmentalists and animal rights activists and etc) are a bunch of crazy people who are constantly blowing up mole hills into entire mountain ranges of hysteria.
THere are few things I hate more than "I came to this conclusion on my own," which is next door neighbor to "I came to this conclusion through pure reason"
Unless you are a scientist or mathematician of rare genius, collaboration and conversation always yield better results than solitary reasoning
I've done street level activism. Tone helps, but not often enough to give credit to the idea that people just need to be nicer.
On the Internet even less so, because some asshole will inevitably throw you off track.
With feminism especially there's a gross expectation of cordiality and receptiveness that's not far removed from the stereotypical view that women need to be more docile.
If somebody thinks that speaking up for a persecuted groups is self righteous they can go fuck themselves. To paraphrase Cambiata, I think Dawkins is an asshole, but it doesn't stop me from agreeing with him on a lot of things.
Another reason many gamers feel offended by the movement is the self-righteous atmosphere and sentiment of many people who fight for equality in games.
You could apply this to any activist cause, even the ones that really are in the right. I'm sure there are plenty of perfectly reasonable feminists, just like there are perfectly reasonable environmentalists and animal rights activists and even Christians.
However, I assume that the more devoted you are to a cause that actively opposes a facet of society the more violently you react to others that don't share your point of view, which doesn't do any favors for your cause. Even patient activists eventually get worn down and bitter if they don't see any evidence that their cause is being progressed.
I've seen pieces on sites such as Jezebel that acted as if using the word "lady" in any context was a horrific slur, I've heard personal anecdotes from men who were publicly yelled at for holding a door open for a woman, and I've seen feminist analyses of television shows that seemed to go out of their way to try and characterize everything that happens in regards to female characters as misogyny (A male does something for a female? The man clearly thinks the woman can't fend for herself. The same woman does something for the same man? The woman clearly exists only to serve the needs of the man.). Those are rare, extreme examples, but they are often the ones that many people are most aware of and the reason that in the minds of the general public feminists (and environmentalists and animal rights activists and etc) are a bunch of crazy people who are constantly blowing up mole hills into entire mountain ranges of hysteria.
And what of your camp's loudmouthed misogynists?
No progressive movement is ever really monolithic.
Lets not forget that social movements tend to come from a place of justifiable anger. You're pissed because somebody else is talking in a way you don't like. Those groups are pissed because a fundamental wrong is being done on a very base level.
Stop and think which one of those should carry more weight.
Lizards don't have breasts! Lizards come from eggs!
Argonians could be monotremes?
They still wouldn't have breasts.
The Argonians are not an evolved species as you would think of the others. They are created by the Hist (specifically, the sap) and this sap gives them humanoid features. The extent to which they are imbued by the sap and the Hist magic varies, and thus so does the extent of their transformation into a humanoid.
Arguing whether or not they should have breasts misses the point entirely.
One wonders in what other subject "Say it nicely or I will refuse to learn anything" is acceptable.
"You know, you'd get a lot further on this evolution theory you espouse if you weren't so bitchy"
People really do get like this. I fully accept evolution and find it fascinating despite being surrounded by family members and acquaintances who think it's a lie from the pits of Hell, but even I think guys like Richard Dawkins sound like insufferable assholes who preach to the choir while going out of their way to scream insults at creationists on the streets.
Posts
Only you can decide what you want to do about things. Nothing is required. Nobody is going to come and revoke any privileges for failure to act insufficiently anti-sexist or whatever. If you feel as though there are bad things going on, and the fact that those bad things are going on makes you feel bad, you need to figure out for yourself what you can do to make yourself feel more at peace. Maybe it's refraining from buying things you otherwise would have bought. Maybe it's participating in discussions like these to inform and educate yourself and your interlocutors. Maybe it's making more art. Maybe it's doing something not strictly related to this problem, but still making the world a better place, like volunteering at a local charity.
It's good that you're looking for ways to help, and brainstorming ideas with other people here could help you find some action that you personally find compelling, but it isn't as though there's one particular thing you can do that will definitely make things better. What we're up against are deeply entrenched and institutional biases towards conducting business and creating games in a particular way. That's not the sort of thing that's resolvable simply, quickly, or easily.
I'm glad you posted, because you made me notice something in Hotline Miami that had passed me by. I played it pretty avidly when it came out, but as I was going through the game it didn't occur to me that the few women depicted in the game had no agency. The player character was a man, and all of the enemies (IIRC) were men as well. I'm pretty sure the women were largely immobile set-dressing. And that's not great. I wouldn't say it's a huge deal or anything on its own, but it is one more piece in the mosaic.
The first thing is that your post was responding to the "question" (it wasn't asked but was discussed) of whether there are women who want to be sexualized. That's what you offered as an example, so I took that to mean "indicative of the set of <women who want to be sexualized>." Do you indeed feel that the set of <women who want to be sexualized> (you can replace "women" with "people" there, but as you said, we're talking about women) is basically "terrible people" who "want power through abusing sexuality"? Or was that not intended to be a representative example, but maybe more of a joke?
Second, what exactly do you mean by <women/people> who "want power through abusing sexuality"? What constitutes "abuse" of sexuality in this scenario, and why is it bad? Is wanting the power what's bad? Is the power itself bad?
Thanks in advance for clarifications
No, I mean the people on reality shows are terrible people. Women who want to be sexualized? Dunno. I don't really know any for sure . I don't think by definition they would be terrible tho.
Power through abusing sexuality. Hmmm. Well, the thing I see is women (and men) who are defined by their sexuality and the use of that to get what they want, the "power". I guess you could just say money or fame for that. To these people, their sexuality is what pays the bills so they would want to be sexualized, yes? We may even go so far as to say they are defined by their sexuality and only that. The other roles like that I guess would be porn stars or strippers. Are these bad people? Lord no. Is stripping or doing porn bad? No, I don't think so. Is the stripping and porn industry harmful to women? It certainly seems so. So are they "bad" for engaging in it? Ehhhh....I guess stricitly by definition, yes. They certainly aren't helping matters anyway.
So, like, Anna Nicole Smith. She seems to be someone who abused her sexuality to get what she wanted; "abused" here meaning overused it. It was as if she felt it was literally all she had. And while she wasn't a bad person, she certainly didn't set a good example.
So, yeah, as cobbled and fractured as that is, that's the long and dirty of it.
So am I thinking things wrong here?
The people on Jersey Shore are bad people because they are DUMB.
I completely agree.
1) Some forumers have simply astounding amounts of patience.
For a while it seemed like people were fulfilling a contractually obligated position to be yelled at for having terrible opinions (due to being ill informed or willfully ignorant).
Personal experience: a good friend of mine was really into sexualizing herself. She adored make-up, colored her hair, dressed rather provocatively (including bunny lingerie for Halloween). She has since moved to another city and we've lost contact, but I know that she took a job as a stripper.
I wouldn't say she let this define her, though. She was also a total geek -- played D&D with us enthusiastically, adored video games, etc. She was also really into performance cars -- from an owning / driving standpoint, not from a "date the guy with the hot car" standpoint.
I got hints of her motivations from conversation. She was the awkward nerdy girl in school that was picked on by the other girls and ignored by the boys. When she finally turned that situation around after school, she embraced it whole-heartedly.
There's definitely enjoyment of the power of self-sexualization there, which depending on how she used it was sometimes a really good thing for her and sometimes a bad thing for her and others.
She sounds more like she was embracing her sexuality rather than suddenly thinking it was the only thing she was good for tho. She sounds pretty together although I am iffy about stripping. I've had friends do it and I admit I would worry about them. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing tho.
*Please note the output of all other aspects of our culture. This is not likely to be a problem anytime soon!
This has always bugged me when people compare public outcry with censorship. I have as much right to complain about your art as you have to make it. Making art for art's sake is fine. No matter how much I hate it, I respect your rights to make it. But if you are making art for commercial purposes, then your art is no different than any other product brought to market. People not buying products they hate isn't censorship. It's just the way the market works.
I recently proposed a game as a capstone project to the CS students at my alma mater, and one of the girls in the class asked what I thought about the angle of making it a game to increase girls interest in STEM. I didn't really have an answer for her. How do you make a game that is focused on girls without being patronizing? Heck, the game is a puzzle game without any humanoid characters - how do you make a girl game without any girls? So, what I told her is that trying to make games for girls is the wrong angle - the challenge is making a good game that doesn't exclude anyone. Make that game, and girls will play it. I'm hoping her team picks my project, as I'd like to see what her ideas along those lines are.
I agree that an action game will not sell as well if it has a gal on the boxart instead of the usual guy.
Well, I meant more how do you indicate the game is "for girls" without making it all pink and cute? There's no people in it at all, so how do you gender it? And why would you?
(Girl Power, obviously - but can you solve prejudice with more exclusion?)
What I found instead was an article about Portal 2 and feminism, which I want to quote, because it really lays out something important in these discussions that doesn't always get directly addressed: the difference between interpersonal, institutional, and unconscious sexism.
*Note: It took me a bit to find the gender test from that link, so here is a direct link to the social implicit tests from that website, Gender-Science and Gender-Career can be found around the middle of the page.
This would be a much easier topic to handle if interpersonal sexism were the only one that needs conquering. Some very intelligent people seem to believe that the only kind of sexism under discussion is the interpersonal kind, and that when you criticise a piece of art as being sexist that you're labeling the artist as an explicit woman hater, so naturally they want to argue that point. But the much more likely culprits with that kind of art are institutional and unconcious sexism, which are much harder to fight, but just as important.
Seeing as most people have a problem with making things for girls pink and purple I don't know how you would gender it.
Gendering products is almost always completely arbitrary bullshit. For some reason somebody at some point thought that girls like pink and purple, an idea which inexplicably caught on to the point that lots of people (women included) believe it to be true and an innate feminine trait.
Unfortunately, whenever someone says "there's no reason for things intended for women to be pink and purple" lots of women will pipe up that they like pink and purple, just like some girls might say "but I like playing with dolls" or some women might say "but I like putting on make-up and wearing revealing clothing and shaking my ass around when I dance and inviting guys to drink body shots off my stomach".
I've known three young women who had nothing to do with each other and lived in completely different areas (urban, suburban, and rural) who all seemed to get a kick out of tittilating guys. In fact, one of them was a co-worker who got fired for flashing her breasts to two male co-workers in the break room (and I'm 90% positive she wasn't coerced; the very first day she started she was making sexual comments about herself to me and other guys she had just met out of the blue).
A lot of people, women included, buy into arbitrary sexist bullshit and would take offense if you said to them that the only reason they behave the way they do and like the things they like is because of patriarchal attitudes.
Sorry to bring this up from forever ago (in thread-time), but I was following on my phone today and wanted to comment. This little bit of conversation, specifically the parts about Carth Onassi, totally blew my mind. For some unexcusable reason, I had never played Knights of the Old Republic until a few years ago, but even before I touched it I knew that this Carth guy was annoying, because I had always heard as much from the internet. (read: video game playing dudes) And yet my girlfriend, and also one of her female friends, were always talking about how great he was. To hear it from them, this Carth guy was a reason that the game was great. To hear it from the internet (read: video game playing dudes) he was a target of ridicule and derision and I should ignore him as much as possible and certainly never use him in my party.
So when I finally played the game, I was surprised that my reactions to him were so tame, in both directions. Why did the internet hate this guy so much? I liked him, but why did I not find him as amazing as I was told I would? I didn't find him annoying at all, but I didn't love him either. I guess didn't hate him because I'm not an asshole, I think that explanation was always obvious. But why didn't I love him? At the time I didn't think much of it, but thinking about it now I guess its probably because he's not for me. And that's not only okay, its fucking awesome. I'm a young white male, fucking everything is for me already! KOTOR is I think the only reason that my girlfriend ever entered the world of gaming, and I bet Carth Onassi is a big part of it. More of that please.
Is there a need for more women and social groups in the game industry to increase diversity? Absolutely.
Is everyone free to criticize aspects of games they dislike? Of course.
Are depictions of characters in games directly responsible for actions that hurt people? Of course not.
Are depictions of characters in video games part of a larger picture of entertainment media? Yes.
Does that larger picture have the capability to affect viewers? Yes, however it goes without saying that affect is not control or cause.
How does that sum of entertainment affect viewers? We don't know. There are no conclusive accepted studies that prove entertainment is a cause for certain attitudes or actions.
Even if it was proven that entertainment is a direct relation to some individual's actions or attitudes, would you be willing to modify or dictate what can or cannot be created?
These are the questions and answers I've analyzed and come to in my years of following this social phenomenon.
Having said that, I feel the reason many gamers (who are otherwise intelligent, reasonable, and open minded) feel threatened by and are aggressive towards sexism/feminism in gaming is because they view it as a personal attack on them. When you say "this game you like is sexist and harms women" you are NOT saying they are sexist and harm women, but the things they value and hold most dear (in many gamer's cases, their very lives) are. They will NOT allow anything to come between them and something precious that has been with them their entire lives, they will fight tooth and nail to protect what they see as an attack on them. When you call Dragon's Crown sexist, many gamers see it as "You are sexist" when they do not care, they would rather be sexist than to re-evalute morals and possibly lose something they view more valuable than their lives. So obviously their response is to dismiss or attack feminism... this does not automatically make them misogynists, they are just picking what they view as the more important of two choices then running with it.
Another reason many gamers feel offended by the movement is the self-righteous atmosphere and sentiment of many people who fight for equality in games. Many of them are feminists and social science experts who spend massive amounts of time analyzing the disparity between groups and become so grounded in it, they cannot comprehend the outlook of those unaffected by it. So when average people see someone on a moral crusade, they jerk back being apprehensive of someone so apparently biased as not to even acknowledge other points of view the uninitiated have. When you attach morals to an argument you are in danger of creating a black and white view that says: "this is always wrong" and "this is always right" when each situation needs to be examined individually to determine the aspects of it. You cannot always make the assumption that you are right and morally justified.
To conclude, my point is: If equality in games continues to be framed as a "battle" instead of a negotiation or a dialog, it will continue to meet resistance. You cannot force people to accept you and consider your point of view, you must be calm, patient, and understanding to generate empathy despite the indignations you have suffered or perceive.
Why must those feminists be so self righteous?
Nobody is asking for the ability to dictate what can and can't be created.
"Hey, you better change your tone, or I will refuse to believe the world is round."
"You know, you'd get a lot further on this evolution theory you espouse if you weren't so bitchy"
"Well I happen to like being illiterate, so if you want to teach me to read then you need to stop acting so self righteous about how important reading is."
But before I do that, I'm going to need you to calm down and stop raising your voice.
The mere fact you are framing it as "teaching" others is part of the problem. You are taking up a position of superiority. You cannot force people to agree with you.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
You cannot possibly be lecturing people about tone after this post. I just... man.
I didn't realize it while he was still active, but the recently banned forumer who came into this thread "trying to understand" is the same person who LadyM was replying to her in her now famous mosaic post.
And that guy still came into this thread wildly misrepresenting the opinions of the people he disagrees with and refused to read or understand the replies to him by people much more patient than myself.
Speaking softly and gently while stroking the opposition's head has been tried. It. doesn't. work.
You could apply this to any activist cause, even the ones that really are in the right. I'm sure there are plenty of perfectly reasonable feminists, just like there are perfectly reasonable environmentalists and animal rights activists and even Christians.
However, I assume that the more devoted you are to a cause that actively opposes a facet of society the more violently you react to others that don't share your point of view, which doesn't do any favors for your cause. Even patient activists eventually get worn down and bitter if they don't see any evidence that their cause is being progressed.
I've seen pieces on sites such as Jezebel that acted as if using the word "lady" in any context was a horrific slur, I've heard personal anecdotes from men who were publicly yelled at for holding a door open for a woman, and I've seen feminist analyses of television shows that seemed to go out of their way to try and characterize everything that happens in regards to female characters as misogyny (A male does something for a female? The man clearly thinks the woman can't fend for herself. The same woman does something for the same man? The woman clearly exists only to serve the needs of the man.). Those are rare, extreme examples, but they are often the ones that many people are most aware of and the reason that in the minds of the general public feminists (and environmentalists and animal rights activists and etc) are a bunch of crazy people who are constantly blowing up mole hills into entire mountain ranges of hysteria.
Unless you are a scientist or mathematician of rare genius, collaboration and conversation always yield better results than solitary reasoning
On the Internet even less so, because some asshole will inevitably throw you off track.
With feminism especially there's a gross expectation of cordiality and receptiveness that's not far removed from the stereotypical view that women need to be more docile.
If somebody thinks that speaking up for a persecuted groups is self righteous they can go fuck themselves. To paraphrase Cambiata, I think Dawkins is an asshole, but it doesn't stop me from agreeing with him on a lot of things.
I mean Hell if this is true I have some strong words to share with an eight year old who showed me the times table trick for 9s with your hands.
Joke's on her I still have her nose.
And what of your camp's loudmouthed misogynists?
No progressive movement is ever really monolithic.
Stop and think which one of those should carry more weight.
The Argonians are not an evolved species as you would think of the others. They are created by the Hist (specifically, the sap) and this sap gives them humanoid features. The extent to which they are imbued by the sap and the Hist magic varies, and thus so does the extent of their transformation into a humanoid.
Arguing whether or not they should have breasts misses the point entirely.
People really do get like this. I fully accept evolution and find it fascinating despite being surrounded by family members and acquaintances who think it's a lie from the pits of Hell, but even I think guys like Richard Dawkins sound like insufferable assholes who preach to the choir while going out of their way to scream insults at creationists on the streets.