Dear Internet: Grow Up

[Blacklightning]

You'd be surprised. While this dude's views are admittedly a bit extremist among the rest of them (but really, the fact that many of his peers and other people in the community stuck up for him in post kinda says something), the fighting game community is definently one of the most unwelcoming communities in the medium, as it stands right now. I'm not even talking about their obviously skewed view of the opposite gender, either - when you give any concession to a gamer that hasn't been playing the genre long enough to be able to count individual frames, they go absolutely fucking nuts about it. It's a very broad issue as far as that one community is concerned, and I'd argue it's the main reason the genre has become increasingly niche over the years too. It goes without saying that not every fighting fan is like this, but you'd be lying to suggest it's not a noticable issue with them.

But I digress. I only really brought up that article to one-up the grumpy man's expectations - I'm pretty sure the topic at hand concerns a lot more than just fighting game fans. Hell, shooters probably take up the other half of the problem, if nothing else.

[Pelly <3's U]

First I think it might be handy for people in this topic to take a look at the sexism in video games bingo, to see if their arguments are hitting in kind of a bad spot.

.....

Ok I think we've crossed off a few of those.

The problem with your argument turbojet is you're using a pretty classic apologist argument for how women aren't being exploited, they're being empowered.

The whole issue with this though is similar to depictions of straw feminist characters being blatantly silly because the world is beyond that, it relies on the false premise of total equality in the media portrayals and the motives behind them.

To say that catwomen is not a sexually exploited character because she also has badass qualities, and her sexual self is just another aspect of the the character development, ignores the fact that catwomen is not sexy because she wants to be. Catwomen does not run around in skin tight clothing and no bra because she feels more empowered that way, or because of some justifiable reason in her story. Catwomen does this because she is being used to sell a sex fantasy, aimed at young men. And as soon as you take away that crucial concept of her character, it's not empowerment. It's just sexploitation.

This is a pretty classic debate that's happened in comics, and to say a bit more I'll quote from the article "The big sexy problem with superheroes and their "liberated sexuality" (and I would suggest reading it, though it's not exactly how I would have argued it, it still brings up some good points).

"

Why is she contorting her body in that weird way? Who is she posing for, because it doesn't even seem to be Roy Harper? The answer, dear reader, is that she is posing for you. News flash: Starfire isn't being promiscuous because this comic wants to support progressive notions of gender roles. Starfire is being promiscuous so that you can look at pictures like this:

If you really want to support Starfire's "liberated sexuality" like she's somehow a person with real agency, what people should really be campaigning for is more half-clothed dudes in suggestive poses to get drawn around her, since I'm sure that's what she'd like to see. But people don't really want that, do they? Because it's not about what Starfire wants. It's about what straight male readers want. And they want to see Starfire with her clothes falling off. And hey, hey -- there's nothing wrong with that specifically, but let's be honest about what's happening and who we're serving (or not serving) and at whose expense. And let's be honest about the fact that this treatment happens almost exclusively to women, which is a huge part of what makes it so problematic.

.....

've heard people citing everything from Starfire's cultural background to her recent experiences with slavery(?!) as reasons for her promiscuity, the same way I've heard that it is totes cool for the debut issue of Voodoo, the first black female character to get her own DC ongoing series, to open with her stripping on her knees while men throw money at her, because she has a previously established history of being a stripper. But let's be honest -- they didn't make her a stripper because they really wanted to create a positive and well-rounded portrait of sex workers and how they exist in our culture. And you want to know how I know that? Because this is not what that looks like:

This is not the picture of that. And honestly I don't care if the final art next week reveals that she's reciting the Vagina Monologues or long excerpts from books by Gloria Steinem; it is not going to change the way looking at the image makes me -- or a lot of women -- feel, or the message it sends about how that comic regards ladies.

Female characters are only insatiable, barely-dressed aliens and strippers because someone decided to make them that way. It isn't a fact. It isn't an inviolable reality, especially in a comic book universe that has just been rebooted. In the end, what matters is what you choose to show people and how you show them, not the reasons you make up to justify it. Because this is comics, everybody. You can make up anything.

So the basic fact is no, no matter if the women is "badass" or "sexually liberated" or however it is justified.......it does not make it any less sexist.

Now you might ask if there's anyway catwoman could be just as "sexy" and have it be justifiable, have it be done in a way that's empowering to women and not exploit her sexuality for the presumably heterosexual male audience....and honestly I think the answer is that it would be very hard. I suppose it could be done, but in the social context of our society I would find it hard to find a depiction of a highly eroticized and sexualized woman who wasn't created or used with the intention of selling her character with sex. This is why I mentioned before that one of the fallacies in this argument rests on the false premise that we are on a blank slate of equality, and every depiction is judged solely by it's own merits alone. If that were the case then maybe catwoman would stand a chance against the accusations of sexism by being able to cry out for her right to sexual liberation, but the staunch truth is she's just a character created in an industry designing women to appeal to young, straight men.

But I do think even so there is room for women like catwomen and other characters created and designed around sexual appeal. The problem, like I have stated before, is that they are the status quo for women in the media. We spend so much time analyzing and trying to find the exceptions to the women who are in work only to have their characters revolve around men or what men want, that we miss that the simple fact that they have to be looked at as the exceptions is the problem.

[Sami]

In regards to the current argument about Catwoman, we might as well just drop her name from the debate entirely, considering she's nothing more than your token femme fatale character. It's a character trope I'm sick of seeing, considering every time there's a female character in anything ever, there's practically a 50% chance she's going to end up "empowering" herself by seducing someone and acting mysterious at some point or another.

[Emmett L. Brown]

They'd mock it and say it's weird. It'd be the equivalent of that ending to Dead or Alive (or was it Tekken) with the huge sexy men in the thongs.

Edit: Here it is.

[media=]

Oh wow, that really is the shoe on the other foot.

Gotta love those wacky Japanese developers

Anyway, thanks to you and Diogenes for being the only ones who answered the question. I agree with you both, I do think the community would be bothered, being sadly still mostly male-centric in their outlook and their idea of the target audience. Fanservice will always be sexist when it's only aimed at one gender (with exceptions).

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Women are not exempt from depicting sexualization and even sexism in media (seriously, one of the most offensively idiotic manga I've ever read was actually by a female artist, which shocked me since it presented an abusive dominating relationship to be a romantic, admirable one),

I might be guessing the wrong manga, but was this manga by any chance called "Hot Gimmick"?

but having way more female writers and directors would help a whole lot and it'd be a step closer to better representation of women. I honestly can't think of any female directors off the top of my head compared to all the famous male ones, same applies to creators of work in general.

I think that's the thing in general when it comes to not only writers and directors, but also the characters.

I've been exposed to many female characters, primarily those who were more sexualized, and yet I always found the least-sexualized characters to be the more memorable ones, kinda like a diamond in the rough out of all the others. But the sad irony is that, before coming into this topic, I completely forgot about most of them and the main ones that came to my mind where the more sexualized ones. The Boss as Masaru brought up was the one that hit me, because of all characters I ended up forgetting about her.

On a broader picture, there's not a lot of memorable female protagonists out their that make you think of her as a character first and sexy second. And even the ones you might think so, like say Chun-li, would make others see her as sex appeal first before her character. You'd have to do some serious digging to find those more respectable females compared to the more fanservice-y ones you can come up with off the top of your head.

But enough of me stating the obvious.

First I think it might be handy for people in this topic to take a look at the sexism in video games bingo, to see if their arguments are hitting in kind of a bad spot.

While I think that women being portrayed as nothing but sex objects is a bad thing, some of those spots on that bingo card made me ask "what's wrong with a woman looking sexy?" which is obviously one of the spots on the card.

This may not be the case, but I think that goes back to the point that one person's oppression/sexism/etc is another woman's freedom and because it easily gets me thinking that "sexy = bad" and I'm sure that's not the point you're trying to make. Obviously not every woman likes to be seen as nothing more than eye-candy, and I don't blame them, but I think the debacle get so complex to the point of being stalemated, because I don't think there's much of a middle ground.

So let me see if I can get this straight, obviously characters like such as the girls from DoA aren't the best way to make a female character, but couldn't a female character still be looked at as eye-candy in someway regardless? I mean, take Chun-li for example, she doesn't look like she's dressed to be sexualized, but that's obviously not the case with how some male fans tend to look at her.

Tell me how off the mark I am, because I've read your post up and down but as far as being aware of the issue goes, it's kinda hard to find a solution other than "don't (over-)sexualize women so much" and that's just where I'm finding a mess.

Edit: okay so I re-read your post for the fourth time and I COMPLETELY misread what you said at first. It's not the character being sexy that's the issue, it's the male audience the character is made to be appealing to and how female characters are centralized more on their looks than the character. Still easy to twist that into a different argument, but it's not saying sexy = bad.

Edited June 13, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[SuperStingray]

Wow, this thread has grown fast. Seriously, though- I don't really follow competitive gaming, but that Cross Assualt thing is just appalling. Defending that level of harassment and discrimination by saying it's simply part of the culture isn't an excuse for the behavior- it's a sign your culture needs to change. Really, that's the kind of reasoning that perpetuated Jim Crow laws. And I always have to laugh when someone thinks the First Amendment lets you get away with saying anything scott free. The First Amendment only protects you from the government's judgement, it doesn't mean America is protected by a magical barrier that makes words uttered within its borders not have consequences.

[LunarEdge]

Wow, this thread has grown fast. Seriously, though- I don't really follow competitive gaming, but that Cross Assualt thing is just appalling. Defending that level of harassment and discrimination by saying it's simply part of the culture isn't an excuse for the behavior- it's a sign your culture needs to change. Really, that's the kind of reasoning that perpetuated Jim Crow laws. And I always have to laugh when someone thinks the First Amendment lets you get away with saying anything scott free. The First Amendment only protects you from the government's judgement, it doesn't mean America is protected by a magical barrier that makes words uttered within its borders not have consequences.

Edited June 14, 2012 by LunarEdge

[Sean]

I might be guessing the wrong manga, but was this manga by any chance called "Hot Gimmick"?

I never read Hot Gimmick, but I heard it was equally asinine. The one I did read (can't remember the title) involved this clumsy "Hollywood ugly" girl who hires this bishounen tutor with the pointiest fucking chin ever, and the shit he puts her through is unbelievable, such as forcing her to strip whenever she gets a question wrong and then forcing himself onto her. And the sad part is that this was portrayed to be a dream-like, romantic situation, like oooh, the hottest guy from high school is forcing himself onto you, that's just sooooo romantic. It's only a few chapters long, but it was painful to sit through - it wasn't a hentai by the way, it was a shoujo manga published in a shoujo magazine. One of my friends read a longer manga by the same artist that had similar themes.

But yeah now I'm just straying off topic. Point is is that it's kind of shocking to read stuff like this by a female artist, but at the same time it isn't when you think about it, due to many people not really being aware of the implications of what they portray.

[Agent York]

On the issue of women characters in games, I think this all would be less an issue if there just wasn't so much of it. This might sound wrong, but there are characters, both female and male, who are purposely objectified for whatever reason. It's all context sensitive, and some games aim for the character to be so for its intended audience.

I think the issue here is that there are a LOT of female objectifying in games, and often put in environments where they don't fit at all and are only so because they're female. What I think is worse is how many female characters over time seem to degrade more and more into it. The example I will use is Jill from Resident Evil 1. Resident Evil 1 was a great example of having male and female characters that were equal, and Jill herself wasn't sexualized in that title. It was AFTER THAT where she progressively got more and more sexualized in each game she appeared in. (one could argue it isn't exactly sexist, if only because the males also sort of got the same treatment in Resident Evil. I still laugh that Wesker, a fangirl favorite, gets inexplicable shirtless before the final boss battle in Resident Evil 5).

I just want more female characters that feel like they're actually very engaging and interesting characters without having to be sexualized or objectified. It's very tiring to see. Again, it shouldn't be completely ridden of, I mean there are male characters that basically do the same thing, just they aren't in surplus as the female ones.

Back on the topic at hand, I agree the treatment is terrible but frm what I've put together it's being done less because of the issue itself and more who it is who's tackling the issue. I don't think the reasoning is acceptable, I still think it's a terrible thing to do with an equally terrible excuse, but the reason it's getting so much backlash is since the woman in question is apparently the type of feminist who hates men. The project is interesting, though I likely wouldn't fund it (on the fact I don't really fund video projects), but I think it's dumb that people are attacking her over this. Some things that parts of the internet does is just incredibly dumb and close-minded.

Edited June 14, 2012 by Agent York

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Back on the topic at hand, I agree the treatment is terrible but frm what I've put together it's being done less because of the issue itself and more who it is who's tackling the issue. I don't think the reasoning is acceptable, I still think it's a terrible thing to do with an equally terrible excuse, but the reason it's getting so much backlash is since the woman in question is apparently the type of feminist who hates men.

Is she really the type of feminist who hates men? I mean really, what can you tell me about her?

I'm asking that because I just watched 5 of her videos on the subject of women in media, and I'm definitely not seeing the "man-hating" aspect. The stuff she's talking about is the stuff I whole-heartedly agree (okay, I'll admit that I happen to be someone who likes fan-service from time to time) but not a single one that I've seen says anything a typical misandrist would be saying.

If anything, the stuff she's talking about are the very things people need to pay attention to, such as the deal with Kanye West's Monster music video. Her tackling gaming is her trying to reach an audience who seems to highly over-defensive over things that they see as an attack over them being men, which only goes to highlight the problem of how some people see feminists and think "man-hating feminazi" as a default perception enough to make comments and vandalize her wikipedia page about her being a c**t (I mean fucking really?).

Really, the backlash is completely unjustified…no, downright immature and only goes to show that many people on the internet do indeed need to grow up. Even worse is that these are grown as men doing this.

Point is is that it's kind of shocking to read stuff like this by a female artist, but at the same time it isn't when you think about it, due to many people not really being aware of the implications of what they portray.

Kinda like that debate we had in the Tomb Raider topic about how you thought the game as misogynistic and I failed to see why until it was made clear that it was showing victimization whereas I thought of it entirely different.

Come to think of it, maybe that's something worth bringing up: how people end up seeing two different things on the subject... Maybe?

Edited June 14, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Agent York]

Is she really the type of feminist who hates men? I mean really, what can you tell me about her?

I'm asking that because I just watched 5 of her videos on the subject of women in media, and I'm definitely not seeing the "man-hating" aspect. The stuff she's talking about is the stuff I whole-heartedly agree (okay, I'll admit that I happen to be someone who likes fan-service from time to time) but not a single one that I've seen says anything a typical misandrist would be saying.

If anything, the stuff she's talking about are the very things people need to pay attention to, such as the deal with Kanye West's Monster music video. Her tackling gaming is her trying to reach an audience who seems to highly over-defensive over things that they see as an attack over them being men, which only goes to highlight the problem of how some people see feminists and think "man-hating feminazi" as a default perception enough to make comments and vandalize her wikipedia page about her being a c**t (I mean fucking really?).

Really, the backlash is completely unjustified…no, downright immature and only goes to show that many people on the internet do indeed need to grow up. Even worse is that these are grown as men doing this.

Not the videos, and I agree about it being completely unjustified. She is very professional about her videos, but there's a bit topic about this on NeoGAF and it's been brought up multiple times about what she does outside of her videos. BUT, she knows how to focus on actual core issues in videos and goes about it professionally enough that I really think it's a non-issue as much as the video series is concerned. And really, I just feel it's a lame excuse to be hating on her.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Not the videos, and I agree about it being completely unjustified. She is very professional about her videos, but there's a bit topic about this on NeoGAF and it's been brought up multiple times about what she does outside of her videos.

Which is what?

Come to think of it, send me the link to the topic so I can see what they're talking about. I think a misandrist would very much give herself away if you listened to her closely, and I don't think Anita is unless I see some good evidence proving it.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Okay, sorry for the double post and the massive bump, but I felt this is relevant.

So, Anita Sarkeesian engaged in an interview with Destructiod in regards to her project and the disrespect she got from it. But while I think that the response she got was disgusting and misogynistic, she severely disappoints me in her view of women in gaming. What disappoints me about her is that she picks out games that are the complete opposite of what she's trying to make a point of, and pretty much bashes the way women are presented there, most notably games like Assassin's Creed which is far from misogynistic and is one meant to be historical.

If anything, her game examples are very shallow. Here's what I'm talking about.

Rayman Origins is one of the best platformers I’ve played in years. It was a fun, challenging, and gorgeous game but I was frustrated that I had to repeatedly save the "busty" Nymphs in Distress. On the indie side of things, I really enjoyed Bastion, but the only female character in the game doesn’t have any depth (to put it mildly); basically, her whole characterization was "The Female."

This week I've started playing Gravity Rush and I'm really loving it, though I have to say it’s a little ridiculous that our hero Kat flies and tumbles through the city at tremendous speeds, lands upsidedownways on various building or structures and fights Nevi monsters all while wearing high heels and without any armor (or even pants). Can you imagine what her knees are going to look like? Someone needs to get this woman some protective motorcycle gear and a pair of hefty boots!

I really appreciate the gameplay and some of the complexities of the Assassin’s Creed series, but I've been regularly disappointed with the female characters for a whole host of reasons that we don’t have the space to get into. I am, however, looking forward to Assassin's Creed: Liberation for the Vita which is (finally) going to feature a woman, so we’ll see how that goes *fingers crossed*.

This could basically be read as "there are no women in the roles I like", especially when she talks about Assassin's Creed finally having a woman in the lead role which could very easily be read as being shallow. Really? Out of all the games she could have chosen she picks Assassin's Creed, Rayman Origins, Gravity Rush, and Bastion? I would expect Dead or Alive, Soul Calibur, King of Fighters, and maybe Bayonetta.

And here's a response to that interview that picks out the flaws of her choice of examples.

Now, I honestly think people need to be aware of the portrayal of female characters and not have them around as sex toys for male players to ogle, but it's disappointing to have an issue with female characters be put in roles that you don't like and fail to make an accurate argument over them or even worse criticize the characters by reading into something that isn't there.

Edited July 8, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[MegaMan_EXE]

I think I posted here already, but I'll post here regardless.

Well, everyone's different. You have people that are smart, use good grammar, and are generally nice. Then you have "those" people that are the opposite. Youtube's comments are quite bad due to some idiots on some videos.

You also have those that pretend to be someone they aren't. Like a 14 year old girl could be a 40 year old man wanting to do "certain" things to that person.

I think I should leave it at that.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I think I posted here already, but I'll post here regardless.

Well, everyone's different. You have people that are smart, use good grammar, and are generally nice. Then you have "those" people that are the opposite. Youtube's comments are quite bad due to some idiots on some videos.

You also have those that pretend to be someone they aren't. Like a 14 year old girl could be a 40 year old man wanting to do "certain" things to that person.

I think I should leave it at that.

Um...what?

Did you even read the OP dude?

[Nepenthe]

I've played the shit out of Rayman Origins and I've also wondered why the Nymphs had to be that scantily clad, curvacious, and big-busted. I even cringed when my mom came in one day and saw me rescuing one, figuring I was going to have a rant on my hands about the inappropriateness of such imagery. It was outright embarrassing to me, and that's why it's good for her to call out games that don't hold the obvious examples of sexism on their faux pas. Yeah, anyone can take a stick to Dead or Alive all day due to how blatant it is because there's no doubt that the developers are exploiting their female characters on purpose. But that's actually small potatoes. It's the less blatant examples that are the most apt of continuing negative social trends that we ought to address with just as much fervor, if not more, because they're just as harmful yet harder to combat.

Edited July 8, 2012 by Nepenthe

[Diogenes]

Out of all the games she could have chosen she picks Assassin's Creed, Rayman Origins, Gravity Rush, and Bastion? I would expect Dead or Alive, Soul Calibur, King of Fighters, and maybe Bayonetta.

Sexism can be more subtle than Mai Shiranui's big bouncing tits, y'know. And it's worth talking about the stuff that's less blatant. Arguably, it's more important to discuss the stuff that would normally just slide by, either because they don't even recognize it or because it's not "really" a problem because there's more blatant stuff out there.

And this? Yeah this...is kind of a problem.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I doubt that the nymphs in Rayman Origins are less blatant considering their looks. And that's pretty much the only one you can't make an argument against her about.

However, combating the less blatant ones could come off very easily as nit-picking, and as good as the intentions may be I'm not sure that would be a wise thing. In fact, that's probably why it's so hard to combat. In the case of the Nymphs, they're way too curvy and I can understand calling that out. Criticizing a character for not having depth and just being "the female" or a character fighting monsters in heels and a dress? I find that going too far in pointing out sexism, although we could go back and forth on the latter example.

Regardless, that doesn't take into account her other examples of Gravity Rush, Assassin's Creed, and Bastion. Find me the less blatant stuff that goes on in there that relates to the appearance of Rayman's nymphs, and let's see where we can work with this.

Edited July 8, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Nepenthe]

It's less blatant in the fact that most people will not naturally go to Rayman Origins as the first example of sexism in games, preferring more obvious fish instead.

And all of her examples appear valid even on paper. The fact that her criticisms aren't even trying to be met with reasoned rebuttals citing content from the games themselves, but rather "she sounds nitpicky so she probably is" screams of people getting overly defensive and thus turning a blind eye to a problem because they're not part of the social group it affects.

[Diogenes]

Well I've never heard of Gravity Rush. Let's GIS the game and...

uh...

hm...

[Solkia]

Humor aside, while she does have a good point targeting obscure objectification while still being on topic, I can't help but feel, as Nepenthe put it, that she's being nitpicky.

Rayman Origins is probably the LAST thing I think of when it comes to the objectification of women.

[SuperStingray]

What makes gender politics a particularly messy field is that even as we seek equal assessment and treatment, nature granted men and women many core biological and psychological differences. To me, the worst brand of feminism is the kind that seeks equality by simply ignoring these fundamental discrepancies. For instance, each sex has different general criteria for beauty, so acting as if women have to dress and be built like men or, worse yet, androgynously, to be seen as good female role models is shortsighted and inadvertently devalues natural feminine traits. There's a difference between creating a woman who has large breasts (at least within reasonable genetics) and creating a woman whose breasts are the entire depth of her character and focus of the camera.

And there's not even an argument to be made against Assassin's Creed- complaining about why there aren't enough major female roles in a game that takes place in historically patriarchal societies is like complaining about how Madden doesn't represent paraplegics enough.

[Nepenthe]

Solkia, I didn't call her nitpicky. Rather, I denounced anyone calling her nitpicky on the grounds that she's not going after the big fish, but instead a wide array of examples across games. Expanding the scope of the issue is something that needs to be done, because it will better serve to move this dialogue forward beyond:

"Women are objectified in games all the time."

"Nuh-uh, not all the time!!! D<"

@ Stingray: Are you implying western society is not patriarchal?

Edited July 8, 2012 by Nepenthe

[SuperStingray]

@ Stingray: Are you implying western society is not patriarchal?

a game that takes place in historically patriarchal societies

Are you implying I implied it wasn't?

Edited July 8, 2012 by SuperStingray

[Diogenes]

And there's not even an argument to be made against Assassin's Creed- complaining about why there aren't enough major female roles in a game that takes place in historically patriarchal societies is like complaining about how Madden doesn't represent paraplegics enough.

But aren't the assassins fictional? Why does a fictional group, and one that (to my limited knowledge of the series) is some secret underground organization that doesn't follow the rules of the dominant society, bound to follow the same sexist practices?