Teenage boys will say anything they don't like(or aren't supposed to like) sucks dicks; From math to Justin Bieber to getting a speeding ticket.
I don't think you can make the leap from "They say it sucks a big fat dick" to "they find it sexually uncomfortable".
My point is I don't see what posting a picture of Taylor Lautner and going "see, THIS guy isn't a male empowerment fantasy, check and mate" demonstrates, since dudes never responded well to that character to begin with.
i think he was just demonstrating a case of a male actor who was sexualized for the benefit of a female audience and who had to take extreme measures to meet an unrealistic body image.
that a buff dude in a movie isn't always a male power fantasy, but sometimes kind of the opposite
maybe i got it wrong, but that's what i took from it
You do realize the film itself was almost entirely intended for a female audience, right? The point is that we're talking about general media and in particular videogames being almost exclusively marketed to men. It is not a male empowerment fantasy because those traits aren't part of the attractiveness of men, it is a male empowerement fantasy because the intended audience is mostly male and doesn't view those traits in a sexual way. It's portraying what they want rather than portraying what they want in another person.
A lot of women are asking for more games that portray women as awesome. Games that portray them as the star instead of being tied to whoever the actual hero of the story is. They are literally asking for the same experience that we already have right now. Nearly every game I pick the guy is the hero. He is the guy I totally imagine I am. The guy is sexualized the way I wish I was sexualized.
I personally reeeeeeaaaaally like customizing my avatar in games, including games where I'm the only person who sees it. Even in a way as limited as in Borderlands 2, where you have to unlock the best heads and some of the best color schemes, and those are the only two things you can change. (Kinda wish they'd spent some of that color coordination time on swappable bodies instead.)
So, on a positive note, I really love the trend towards allowing female protagonists in indie games. I am guessing I'm not the only one who is much more likely to buy an indie game if it allows me to play as a female.
For example, I just bought Guacamelee today based on this image:
And I played a bunch of Spelunky yesterday as this lady (green bow.)
She spent most of her time killing giant monsters with a whip, narrowly avoiding deadly traps, and sacrificing a whining damsel to a six-armed goddess of blood.
Both of these games still play to gender roles to some extent. There are "save the girl" storylines and helpless ladies, but I honestly can't bring myself to care that much. Just let me play a heroic good-looking lady character and I'm completely happy.
I'm not going to pretend that it's easy or cheap for developers to do this, even in sprite-based games. Everything about game development is hard, and sprite animation never comes cheap. But I'm glad that some developers choose to do it all the same, and I hope it's a trend that continues.
what if you put out a porn so good it had the power to normalize people's sexual expectations
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
So I normally play make characters in games, but after trying out the DC characters, I like all three female characters the best so far (based on play not necessarily character design). Maybe this is the best approach. Make female characters more powerful in games with a choice, and get gamers used to affirmatively choosing to play as a girl.
I'm a guy, but I nearly always play as female characters. Adult female characters, that is. Because I'd rather look at a character I find attractive if I'm going to be staring at them for hours.
So I normally play make characters in games, but after trying out the DC characters, I like all three female characters the best so far (based on play not necessarily character design). Maybe this is the best approach. Make female characters more powerful in games with a choice, and get gamers used to affirmatively choosing to play as a girl.
Chun Li was uber before everyone figured out how to play the more nuanced characters!
She's still the Street Fighter that a scrub can pick up, mash buttons, and win half the time infuriating more skilled opponents.
That is creepy as fuck. I thought they were supposed to put a saints bones in a reliquary.
-edit-
Going to edit some comments in here because I'm still thinking about Endless Space.
This is a game with no voiced dialogue at all. Turn based strategy, pretty classic. A lot of the "rulers" are represented by distinctly alien avatars who are (as far as we know) genderless, some of them not even vaguely humanoid, some of them machines who aren't even humanoid robots. That's perfectly fine.
But then there are three who are male, and one who is apparently male (beneath some masculine looking 100% covering armor). Of the three males, one is relatively androgynous and clones himself endlessly to create an entire faction, in the process making female versions of himself as well as male (he's completely psychotic).
No female rulers.
It wouldn't have cost them anything at all. Zero cost. Just make one of the three male rulers a girl.
It's really sort of mind boggling. 4x strategy games have pretty much had female rulers for like 10 years now. The sudden step backward is jarring as hell.
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I had to look up what that armor came from, and it actually doesn't appear it was commissioned by the actual saint, who died in Rome at the start of the fourth century whose armor would look like what you'd see in a gladiator movie.
Also since St Pancratius was martyred by beheading, and the head is still kept in a reliquary, that's probably not his skeleton?
That appears to be armor made specifically to show you how bitchin' skeletons are.
Peace to fashion police, I wear my heart
On my sleeve, let the runway start
+1
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
edited August 2013
Some armor maker from the 16th century is goth as fuck is what I'm saying.
Cambiata on
Peace to fashion police, I wear my heart
On my sleeve, let the runway start
I had to look up what that armor came from, and it actually doesn't appear it was commissioned by the actual saint, who died in Rome at the start of the fourth century whose armor would look like what you'd see in a gladiator movie.
Also since St Pancratius was martyred by beheading, and the head is still kept in a reliquary, that's probably not his skeleton?
That appears to be armor made specifically to show you how bitchin' skeletons are.
It actually gets worse if you look at the whole thing:
It's actually more contemporaneous with the American Revolution, which makes the commissioning of this suit of armor for a dead man's bones especially weird. Age of reason, I'd heard. Of course, that's 1700 years in which a relic could be faked. For either that head or this body. Not that the Church would own up to that.
But yeah, this armor is just asking to be stabbed, I mean, come on. If he were vulnerable to stabbing, I'd suggest firing his armorer.
I'm a guy, but I nearly always play as female characters. Adult female characters, that is. Because I'd rather look at a character I find attractive if I'm going to be staring at them for hours.
This always strikes me as weird and I am not entirely sure why.
I guess part of it is that for me, when I'm playing a game, the main character is usually an extension of myself. So while I like to play someone cute or attractive in some way, it's much less a "that avatar is attractive" sentiment and more one of "damn I look cute."*
Another part of it is that I usually forget the character is there. Even in third person games, I very quickly adapt to the main character being in the front, and kind of mentally block him/her out, leaving me only aware of the environment. So looks don't really matter unless I am dressing the character up.
*Being gay makes these kind of blend together, admittedly.
It's always fun to play as someone you would never actually want to be
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I'm a guy, but I nearly always play as female characters. Adult female characters, that is. Because I'd rather look at a character I find attractive if I'm going to be staring at them for hours.
This always strikes me as weird and I am not entirely sure why.
I guess part of it is that for me, when I'm playing a game, the main character is usually an extension of myself. So while I like to play someone cute or attractive in some way, it's much less a "that avatar is attractive" sentiment and more one of "damn I look cute."*
Another part of it is that I usually forget the character is there. Even in third person games, I very quickly adapt to the main character being in the front, and kind of mentally block him/her out, leaving me only aware of the environment. So looks don't really matter unless I am dressing the character up.
*Being gay makes these kind of blend together, admittedly.
See, I'm very preoccupied by it. In Saints Row the Third I can't go more than an hour without running to Image as Designed to tweak my female character's appearance because I'll get bored with one look and change my character to another. I usually avoid the center, which is the generic hottie ideal, in favor of the corners of the triangle. Sometimes I'll change my character to be rail thin, sometimes to be more muscular, and sometimes to be a bit chubby. I switch up the hair styles and facial features, too. It's really one of my favorite things to do in the game and I'm disappointed when didn't get more options (or even as many as we had in Saints Row 2).
In contrast, I played SR:TT for a short time as a male character and spent almost no time at Image as Designed.
I'm a guy, but I nearly always play as female characters. Adult female characters, that is. Because I'd rather look at a character I find attractive if I'm going to be staring at them for hours.
This always strikes me as weird and I am not entirely sure why.
I guess part of it is that for me, when I'm playing a game, the main character is usually an extension of myself. So while I like to play someone cute or attractive in some way, it's much less a "that avatar is attractive" sentiment and more one of "damn I look cute."*
Another part of it is that I usually forget the character is there. Even in third person games, I very quickly adapt to the main character being in the front, and kind of mentally block him/her out, leaving me only aware of the environment. So looks don't really matter unless I am dressing the character up.
*Being gay makes these kind of blend together, admittedly.
Depends on the game for me.
For instance I am not Commander Fucking Shepard. Commander Fucking Shepard (and therefore Jennifer Hale) is Commander Fucking Shepard. My role as the player outside of actual combat always struck me as more advisory than anything else.
MMOs? I'll play whatever. Usually a mix of both sexes since I suffer from severe twink/alt-itis.
Hmm.
Actually now that I think about you mentioning third person I can't think of a single third person game where I identified my character as me whether I created them from scratch or not. So like Skyrim I was a sneaky archer who abused the poor AI but in WAR Online my character (well, my main anyways) was a Marauder that was dyed in gaudy Christmas colors whenever possible.
I'm a guy, but I nearly always play as female characters. Adult female characters, that is. Because I'd rather look at a character I find attractive if I'm going to be staring at them for hours.
This always strikes me as weird and I am not entirely sure why.
I guess part of it is that for me, when I'm playing a game, the main character is usually an extension of myself. So while I like to play someone cute or attractive in some way, it's much less a "that avatar is attractive" sentiment and more one of "damn I look cute."*
Another part of it is that I usually forget the character is there. Even in third person games, I very quickly adapt to the main character being in the front, and kind of mentally block him/her out, leaving me only aware of the environment. So looks don't really matter unless I am dressing the character up.
*Being gay makes these kind of blend together, admittedly.
Oooh I'm like this. When I'm playing games I like to do it in a dark room so I can do the whole sensory-deprivation thing and zen out with my character. It gets pretty intense: games with good injury mechanics start to make me move or feel like I've had the wind knocked out of me.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I usually just go for character selection based on whose aesthetic style I like more. When it's an RPG with romance though I usually go male though. Not really because I'm uncomfortable romancing a dude, they just usually don't seem to be as well written or receive as much attention as lady-romances. Only game I can think of off the top of my head where the reverse was true was Dragon Age.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratorMod Emeritus
Lets talk about this male power fantasy thing. Why does it sell? Because there are a lot of men that are powerless in their everyday life. From my perspective a big problem with feminism in general has been that it looks at the men at the top of society, and then uses that to make generalizations about the state of society, and the male experience in general. It ignores the fact that under those powerful men at the top of society is a lot of men that are completely powerless to change anything about their life, much moreso than the average woman is.
Women as a group of people have little trouble getting positive attention from men. The inverse is not true. Life is a female power fantasy. If a woman wants to feel powerful all she needs to do is dress up and go to a place where men will be. For the average man to feel powerful, he must look at a version of reality that is completely alien to his current life circumstances.
Men need power fantasies. That's why it sells. I honestly do not think that games about empowering women in the same ways that men are made to feel empowered will sell. The social and dating dynamics of our societies empower women, men have no equivalent.
Lets talk about this male power fantasy thing. Why does it sell? Because there are a lot of men that are powerless in their everyday life. From my perspective a big problem with feminism in general has been that it looks at the men at the top of society, and then uses that to make generalizations about the state of society, and the male experience in general. It ignores the fact that under those powerful men at the top of society is a lot of men that are completely powerless to change anything about their life, much moreso than the average woman is.
Women as a group of people have little trouble getting positive attention from men. The inverse is not true. Life is a female power fantasy. If a woman wants to feel powerful all she needs to do is dress up and go to a place where men will be. For the average man to feel powerful, he must look at a version of reality that is completely alien to his current life circumstances.
Men need power fantasies. That's why it sells. I honestly do not think that games about empowering women in the same ways that men are made to feel empowered will sell. The social and dating dynamics of our societies empower women, men have no equivalent.
All that means is that the "female power fantasy" will involve the woman being empowered in the ways in which society currently disempowers women.
So a woman admiral or CEO ballbuster perhaps instead of a muscular dude who has women fling themselves into his orbit.
Unless your premise is that society only empowers women and disempowers men which would be retarded so I'm going to assume you meant it the other way that at least has some sliver of truth to it.
Women as a group of people have little trouble getting positive attention from men. The inverse is not true. Life is a female power fantasy. If a woman wants to feel powerful all she needs to do is dress up and go to a place where men will be. For the average man to feel powerful, he must look at a version of reality that is completely alien to his current life circumstances.
Edited for reality.
The idea that all attention from men is empowering to women is, frankly, like fifteen different flavors of fucked up and silly.
Because, you know, not all attention from men (or other women) is wanted or positive. Catcalls and insults and rape threats and threats of violence are certainly "attention" but they're not exactly empowering, are they?
Not to mention it implies that the only way a woman can or should feel powerful is by appealing to men.
Not to mention that it assumes all women, no matter their age, or race, or appearance, or sexual orientation, or ability, or any other aspect of their outward appearance or personality, can just dress up and parade in front of some dudes who will shower her with positive attention.
Men need power fantasies. That's why it sells. I honestly do not think that games about empowering women in the same ways that men are made to feel empowered will sell. The social and dating dynamics of our societies empower women, men have no equivalent.
Power fantasies aren't inherently bad, but they're not only needed (or wanted, to be more accurate) by one gender.
And the idea that society does nothing to empower men (or give them a sense of empowerment) is also, incredibly silly.
Lets talk about this male power fantasy thing. Why does it sell? Because there are a lot of men that are powerless in their everyday life. From my perspective a big problem with feminism in general has been that it looks at the men at the top of society, and then uses that to make generalizations about the state of society, and the male experience in general. It ignores the fact that under those powerful men at the top of society is a lot of men that are completely powerless to change anything about their life, much moreso than the average woman is.
Women as a group of people have little trouble getting positive attention from men. The inverse is not true. Life is a female power fantasy. If a woman wants to feel powerful all she needs to do is dress up and go to a place where men will be. For the average man to feel powerful, he must look at a version of reality that is completely alien to his current life circumstances.
Men need power fantasies. That's why it sells. I honestly do not think that games about empowering women in the same ways that men are made to feel empowered will sell. The social and dating dynamics of our societies empower women, men have no equivalent.
All that means is that the "female power fantasy" will involve the woman being empowered in the ways in which society currently disempowers women.
So a woman admiral or CEO ballbuster perhaps instead of a muscular dude who has women fling themselves into his orbit.
Unless your premise is that society only empowers women and disempowers men which would be retarded so I'm going to assume you meant it the other way that at least has some sliver of truth to it.
My general premise is that the average woman is empowered by society relative to the average man. Additionally, I think the actual fantasies that women have are very different than we imagine them to be. I think if you look at the women that actually fantasize about being a CEO, your looking at an extreme minority of women. Heck, even if were talking about men, your looking at a very small percentage.
Women are empowered by their gender, whereas men are, if they are at all, are empowered by their careers. The fact of the matter is our economy is pyramid shaped, for every man in a position that makes him feel even marginally empowered, there are 10+ men in a position that makes them feel powerless. I think your average power fantasy for women is going to be one that is very different from a CEO or admiral. I think those are fundamentally male power fantasies.
Women as a group of people have little trouble getting positive attention from men. The inverse is not true. Life is a female power fantasy. If a woman wants to feel powerful all she needs to do is dress up and go to a place where men will be.
Umm, what about women who don't fit cultural ideas of attractiveness? What about conventionally attractive women that get unwanted attention from men based on their looks constantly? I don't think sexualized statements and actions count as positive attention unless they are wanted.
I will agree that men can have it bad, too, but the degree of harm overall doesn't approach what women experience.
Posts
You do realize the film itself was almost entirely intended for a female audience, right? The point is that we're talking about general media and in particular videogames being almost exclusively marketed to men. It is not a male empowerment fantasy because those traits aren't part of the attractiveness of men, it is a male empowerement fantasy because the intended audience is mostly male and doesn't view those traits in a sexual way. It's portraying what they want rather than portraying what they want in another person.
A lot of women are asking for more games that portray women as awesome. Games that portray them as the star instead of being tied to whoever the actual hero of the story is. They are literally asking for the same experience that we already have right now. Nearly every game I pick the guy is the hero. He is the guy I totally imagine I am. The guy is sexualized the way I wish I was sexualized.
Wait... who's the blackfish in this metaphor?
It's not really a thing in the Navy afaik. Their outreach is primarily aimed at people stationed overseas.
For example, I just bought Guacamelee today based on this image:
And I played a bunch of Spelunky yesterday as this lady (green bow.)
She spent most of her time killing giant monsters with a whip, narrowly avoiding deadly traps, and sacrificing a whining damsel to a six-armed goddess of blood.
Both of these games still play to gender roles to some extent. There are "save the girl" storylines and helpless ladies, but I honestly can't bring myself to care that much. Just let me play a heroic good-looking lady character and I'm completely happy.
I'm not going to pretend that it's easy or cheap for developers to do this, even in sprite-based games. Everything about game development is hard, and sprite animation never comes cheap. But I'm glad that some developers choose to do it all the same, and I hope it's a trend that continues.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Chun Li was uber before everyone figured out how to play the more nuanced characters!
She's still the Street Fighter that a scrub can pick up, mash buttons, and win half the time infuriating more skilled opponents.
It was commissioned by a saint, too. Unfortunately his crucifix pasties were never recovered.
-edit-
Going to edit some comments in here because I'm still thinking about Endless Space.
This is a game with no voiced dialogue at all. Turn based strategy, pretty classic. A lot of the "rulers" are represented by distinctly alien avatars who are (as far as we know) genderless, some of them not even vaguely humanoid, some of them machines who aren't even humanoid robots. That's perfectly fine.
But then there are three who are male, and one who is apparently male (beneath some masculine looking 100% covering armor). Of the three males, one is relatively androgynous and clones himself endlessly to create an entire faction, in the process making female versions of himself as well as male (he's completely psychotic).
No female rulers.
It wouldn't have cost them anything at all. Zero cost. Just make one of the three male rulers a girl.
It's really sort of mind boggling. 4x strategy games have pretty much had female rulers for like 10 years now. The sudden step backward is jarring as hell.
Also since St Pancratius was martyred by beheading, and the head is still kept in a reliquary, that's probably not his skeleton?
That appears to be armor made specifically to show you how bitchin' skeletons are.
On my sleeve, let the runway start
On my sleeve, let the runway start
http://benjamindavidphillips.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/bones-in-a-suit-of-armor.jpg
Some elements being clearly sculptural. According to these dudes:
http://empiredelamort.com/skeletonoftheweek/skeleton-of-the-week-march-11-st-pancratius-of-wil/
It's actually more contemporaneous with the American Revolution, which makes the commissioning of this suit of armor for a dead man's bones especially weird. Age of reason, I'd heard. Of course, that's 1700 years in which a relic could be faked. For either that head or this body. Not that the Church would own up to that.
But yeah, this armor is just asking to be stabbed, I mean, come on. If he were vulnerable to stabbing, I'd suggest firing his armorer.
Doesn't that mean, somewhere, at some time, there is an American submarine that's playing Twilight?
Over and over?
On my sleeve, let the runway start
This always strikes me as weird and I am not entirely sure why.
I guess part of it is that for me, when I'm playing a game, the main character is usually an extension of myself. So while I like to play someone cute or attractive in some way, it's much less a "that avatar is attractive" sentiment and more one of "damn I look cute."*
Another part of it is that I usually forget the character is there. Even in third person games, I very quickly adapt to the main character being in the front, and kind of mentally block him/her out, leaving me only aware of the environment. So looks don't really matter unless I am dressing the character up.
*Being gay makes these kind of blend together, admittedly.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
See, I'm very preoccupied by it. In Saints Row the Third I can't go more than an hour without running to Image as Designed to tweak my female character's appearance because I'll get bored with one look and change my character to another. I usually avoid the center, which is the generic hottie ideal, in favor of the corners of the triangle. Sometimes I'll change my character to be rail thin, sometimes to be more muscular, and sometimes to be a bit chubby. I switch up the hair styles and facial features, too. It's really one of my favorite things to do in the game and I'm disappointed when didn't get more options (or even as many as we had in Saints Row 2).
In contrast, I played SR:TT for a short time as a male character and spent almost no time at Image as Designed.
Depends on the game for me.
For instance I am not Commander Fucking Shepard. Commander Fucking Shepard (and therefore Jennifer Hale) is Commander Fucking Shepard. My role as the player outside of actual combat always struck me as more advisory than anything else.
MMOs? I'll play whatever. Usually a mix of both sexes since I suffer from severe twink/alt-itis.
Hmm.
Actually now that I think about you mentioning third person I can't think of a single third person game where I identified my character as me whether I created them from scratch or not. So like Skyrim I was a sneaky archer who abused the poor AI but in WAR Online my character (well, my main anyways) was a Marauder that was dyed in gaudy Christmas colors whenever possible.
Oooh I'm like this. When I'm playing games I like to do it in a dark room so I can do the whole sensory-deprivation thing and zen out with my character. It gets pretty intense: games with good injury mechanics start to make me move or feel like I've had the wind knocked out of me.
/end shameless self promotion
that dude is wasted on the straight
as far as i can tell, none of us like him at all
To be honest I only know him from a certain cameo
Which I'm guessing meant that cameo could have been even more amusing but oh well
it was the air force. and it was danish civilians doing it.
so yes the danes are the foes of masculinity and civilization
I liked him in 21 Jump Street.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Women as a group of people have little trouble getting positive attention from men. The inverse is not true. Life is a female power fantasy. If a woman wants to feel powerful all she needs to do is dress up and go to a place where men will be. For the average man to feel powerful, he must look at a version of reality that is completely alien to his current life circumstances.
Men need power fantasies. That's why it sells. I honestly do not think that games about empowering women in the same ways that men are made to feel empowered will sell. The social and dating dynamics of our societies empower women, men have no equivalent.
Men have power tools.
All that means is that the "female power fantasy" will involve the woman being empowered in the ways in which society currently disempowers women.
So a woman admiral or CEO ballbuster perhaps instead of a muscular dude who has women fling themselves into his orbit.
Unless your premise is that society only empowers women and disempowers men which would be retarded so I'm going to assume you meant it the other way that at least has some sliver of truth to it.
Edited for reality.
The idea that all attention from men is empowering to women is, frankly, like fifteen different flavors of fucked up and silly.
Because, you know, not all attention from men (or other women) is wanted or positive. Catcalls and insults and rape threats and threats of violence are certainly "attention" but they're not exactly empowering, are they?
Not to mention it implies that the only way a woman can or should feel powerful is by appealing to men.
Not to mention that it assumes all women, no matter their age, or race, or appearance, or sexual orientation, or ability, or any other aspect of their outward appearance or personality, can just dress up and parade in front of some dudes who will shower her with positive attention.
Power fantasies aren't inherently bad, but they're not only needed (or wanted, to be more accurate) by one gender.
And the idea that society does nothing to empower men (or give them a sense of empowerment) is also, incredibly silly.
My general premise is that the average woman is empowered by society relative to the average man. Additionally, I think the actual fantasies that women have are very different than we imagine them to be. I think if you look at the women that actually fantasize about being a CEO, your looking at an extreme minority of women. Heck, even if were talking about men, your looking at a very small percentage.
Women are empowered by their gender, whereas men are, if they are at all, are empowered by their careers. The fact of the matter is our economy is pyramid shaped, for every man in a position that makes him feel even marginally empowered, there are 10+ men in a position that makes them feel powerless. I think your average power fantasy for women is going to be one that is very different from a CEO or admiral. I think those are fundamentally male power fantasies.
Umm, what about women who don't fit cultural ideas of attractiveness? What about conventionally attractive women that get unwanted attention from men based on their looks constantly? I don't think sexualized statements and actions count as positive attention unless they are wanted.
I will agree that men can have it bad, too, but the degree of harm overall doesn't approach what women experience.