Does sexist tropes in video games influence behavior? Violence =/= Sexism?

[Obama's Dad 420]

as a recovering misogynist i must say i never really felt sexist until i played mario kart for the first time. i found a visceral rush in forcing my turtle shells on peach, causing her to flip into the air, powerless as her large breasts are prominently displayed as a cheap thrill to the male players who actively try to traumatize her. it's easy to say that video games don't affect you, but we all know they often fall victim to the pitfalls of the rape culture us men have consciously and subconsciously built into our culture.

i think a lot of video games appeal to man's subconscious, particularly the part that wants to rape, and it's easy to defend it when you're not a victim yourself. i think everyone in this thread should take a deep breath, check our privilege, and start to put the victims before our own desire for silly games that, for the most part, have no real intellectual value.

 

[Lightknight]

The issue if often strawmanned as "You play a sexist/violent game, it makes you a rapist", which is of course absurd.

However, people are greatly influenced by the culture and society they live in. Video games are part of that, along with eveyr other form of entertainment. On the whole, a much smaller part than say, movies, but it's still there. People pick up lots of messages without realising it, especially if lots of things are repeating the same message. Not just the sort of people that claim they know it all because they watch movies or play games, this sort of thing happens to everyone to some extent.

To put it another way, Coke, for example, spends lots of money on advertising and product placement, to get people to want to drink (and thus buy) more Coke. Watching an ad for Coke won't automatically make you go out and buy Coke. A (successful) ad campaign will result in more people buying Coke, though.

Advertising generally plays off of desires that are already there. Do you get thirsty and enjoy sugar? Great, we can give you that so why not buy from us since you're going to anyways?! Do you like having sex with attractive people? Great, our body spray will make all your sexual dreams come true. Do you like tech? Great, we have this device you should know about!

Advertising doesn't change your ideology. If you see a negative campaign demonizing a democrat for being "pro-choice", it doesn't make you more "pro-life", it's a commercial reaching out to people who are "pro-life" to provoke them to actually go out and vote for something they believe in. So it's all about reaching intended markets who it is already relevant to. If you're a pro-choice individual then you seeing that commercial may even make you mad at the creator of the commercial, for example.

This isn't saying that watching a movie where a knight rescues a woman magically translates into one more grain of sand on the side of the scale that will lead to you thinking something negative about women.

What you need to present is evidence that we as human beings have failed to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Essentially, you have to prove that we are all schizophrenics (people who can't tell the difference between real and fake) who are also bigots that make wide sweeping generalizations about all women or any group based on fictional characters and situations in games.

But, in reality, the readily available information that the internet has provided has made us a lot more individualized and capable of self thinking than we've ever been in the past where everything you knew about the world came from what people told you or what you read in a book. I can play Duke Nukem one moment (God help me if I ever wanted to waste my time with that) and watch Hilary Clinton giving a press conference the next and get that she isn't a sexual plaything and is an entirely self-sufficient and competent human being regardless of my political leanings. This sort of argument is insulting and dehumanizing of our capacity to think for ourselves. Are all of you arguing on the side that "it makes you more sexist" not also gamers?

 

[Vigormortis]

No one is saying video games cause sexism. They are saying the depictions of women feed into an already harmful culture, reinforcing backwards notions about women. They propagate sexist attitudes, and those attitudes are clearly reflected in the community.

I would argue that this is only true within those whom already hold those sexist tendencies. But even so, it doesn't quite validate the argument.

Consider it this way. Let's say, "Bleeding out is bad. And the gash in my inner thigh is causing me to bleed profusely. Therefore the gash in my leg is bad." Our first inclination should be to mend the gash in our leg, yes? We'd be addressing the situation at the core of the problem.

However, concentrating all of these critical efforts on the video game industry only, while saying sexism is a cultural issue and that video games "feed into" that culture, is like saying, "Bleeding out is bad. The gash in my leg is bad because it's making me bleed. However, the paper cut on my finger is also making me bleed, so it's bad too. I currently have only one Band-aid. Therefore, I'm going to spend all of my healing efforts attempting to repair my finger first." It's ignoring the main problem with the intention on dealing with a more readily available, if less crucial, one.

Yes, we need to address the paper cut. And yes, you can argue that we currently only have the tools to address the paper cut. But while we're spending our time on the paper cut, the gash is worsening. The same goes for the issue of sexism.

Sexism in video games does exist and needs to be addressed. But all of our efforts are for naught if we fail to address the core of the issue at a cultural level and across all media industries. Not just video games, but film, music, etc. But, more importantly, the "mending" should begin at bettering education on the matter rather than censoring artistic, or "artistic", expression.

 

[Lightknight]

No one is saying video games cause sexism. They are saying the depictions of women feed into an already harmful culture, reinforcing backwards notions about women. They propagate sexist attitudes, and those attitudes are clearly reflected in the community.

They propagate sexist attitudes but don't make you sexist?

Let me replace propagate with a synonym to show you the mistake you just made.

Propagate = breed/spread/promote

They spread sexist attitudes.

How does having a sexist attitude not make you sexist? Are you claiming actions are not caused by your thoughts/feelings?

Look, if something makes you more sexist, you're going to behave more sexist. If something actually makes you more violent, you're going to behave more violently.

Otherwise, why would it matter? If it doesn't make you sexist then that's book closed, story ended. Because if it doesn't make you sexist then there is no harm in it.

So which is it? Is it harmful or is it not harmful?

 

[Lightknight]

Sexism in video games does exist and needs to be addressed. But all of our efforts are for naught if we fail to address the core of the issue at a cultural level and across all media industries. Not just video games, but film, music, etc. But, more importantly, the "mending" should begin at bettering education on the matter rather than censoring artistic, or "artistic", expression.

Seeing as you're the reasonable sort (and always have been from our previous interactions), maybe we can get somewhere productive here.

What things do you specifically consider to be sexist that need to be addressed in gaming?

 

[Lieju]

If one sees rape frequently in fiction, one becomes desensitized to real rapes as they might be considered "not as bad". Consider Judge G. Todd Baugh, who sentenced a teacher to one month in jail for raping a student, or Judge Michael Metyear, who gave a rapist a light sentence due to him not being a "classic rapist."

I'm not terribly familiar with this case, but isn't that more about how rape is usually presented as an evil ugly villain hiding in a bush and jumping some woman they don't even know?

So then people's perception of what 'real' rape is is affected and they don't recognise something that doesn't conform to their view of what rape is 'supposed' to be as rape?

(If the victim is a man, or the rapist and victim were married, or if the rapist was attractive etc)

 

[visiblenoise]

I don't see how the two couldn't be similar things in this argument. We are arguing about the effects of violence in videogames on real life versus the effects of sexism in videogames on real life, right? The effect of ______ in videogames on real life?

 

[Ron Mexico]

Yes, research on this topic is important for really answering this question.

I have not read any research which purports to draw a straight line between sexism in games and sexist behavior, i.e., if you consume X media you will behave in Y ways. What I have read and find persuasive as I apply this stuff to my own life (I am a straight white male btw) is that our media shapes our conceptions of what is normal and abnormal behavior.

 

[Loonyyy]

I'm pretty sure they did a study on advertisements where they found the people who believed they were not affected by advertisements were the ones who were most strongly influenced by them. That's not to say people are brainwashed to go buy that product, but they show an unconscious preference for it. So when women are overwhelmingly being portrayed a certain way in media, why couldn't it have a similar biasing effect?

It's tempting to say "I play video games and they haven't made me sexist!" For one, if you're not sexist why are you dismissing off hand the masses of women explaining that female portrayal in video games often makes them feel uncomfortable and excluded. And two, if you were being influenced, what makes you think you would even realise? Think you have some amazing insight the participants in that study didn't?

That's a great post, seriously. Actually, it reminds me tangentially of this "Let's just play videogames" or "I just want to play games" thing that's been floating around with the Vivian James bit. It's not like the people who aren't comfortable with certain videogame narratives or themes aren't playing videogames, they've just thought about them in a different way, and saying that they just want to play games isn't some sort of a neutral position, it's an attempt to silence people who don't agree with them, or who have problems or criticisms (Whether valid or not) that they don't want to hear, and aren't interested in debating on their own merits. And they don't want those people to be listened to, so despite pretending their hardest that they don't want to, they're dictating their own version of how games should be, and it's pretty close to the current status quo.

 

[Vigormortis]

Seeing as you're the reasonable sort (and always have been from our previous interactions), maybe we can get somewhere productive here.

What things do you specifically consider to be sexist that need to be addressed in gaming?

Without really getting into specifics, I would say one of the primary issues is a general lack of diversity, primarily in the triple-A industry. Namely in the form of female protagonists and general female character designs. I suppose, too, in the general presentation and usage of female characters in the narratives. ('course, this would also apply to male characters in some instances, but I suppose that more a lack of good writing)

It's not that I think these kinds of things should be removed from game design. It's that I think more diverse designs should be added into it.

I've never thought that censoring artistic creation is ever a good thing, unless literal harm is being done. I've always been of a mind that you don't bring everyone down to the same level, but rather that you bring everyone up.

Thankfully, though, there is far more diversity in design in the indie industry. I just wish the triple-A industry would catch up.

 

[DrOswald]

Lets put it this way:

The real theory behind the Jack Thompson line of thinking is not that any individual exposed to violent media will become a violent offender. It is that on average, by and large, people exposed to violent media will be pushed more towards the violent end of a continuum.

Non-Violent|-------------------------------------|Violent
Violent games push you right. >>>

People already on the edge between violent thoughts and violent actions will be pushed towards violent actions, and those prone to violent actions will be prone to more violent actions. That is the theory. Not that everyone who plays GTA will be a murderer.

As far as I have ever been able to tell, the same basic argument is used against sexism in games. It is not that everyone who experiences sexist games will become sexist, but that it will push people more towards the sexist end of a continuum.

Non-Sexist|-------------------------------------|Sexist
Sexist games push you right. >>>

People already on the edge of sexist actions will be pushed towards sexist actions. Those already sexist will become more sexist.

The structure of the arguments against violence and sexism are identical in every way that matters. They have the same basic flaws. They make similar unproven assumptions, assumptions largely based on a gut negative reaction to something seen as offensive (that the offensive thing must necessarily have a negative result.)

That doesn't mean the situations are identical. But similar logic should be applied to each theory. The same kind of tests should be made to test each. If we choose to evaluate sexism in gamed differently than we evaluate violence in games we better have a damn good reason. Anything else is just petty prejudice.

Important note: If we evaluate sexism and violence differently without good reason we are being prejudiced in someway. But we must take into account the possibility that we were wrong the first time around, that our prejudice is not in evaluating sexism but was in our evaluation of violence.

No argument I have ever seen has led me to believe that sexism in games deserves different treatment than violence. But the overall discussion has led me to question the way I evaluated violence in games in the first place.

The comparison is entirely valid.

 

[Loonyyy]

I like how Dan Olson (the Folding Ideas webshow) put it. I don't think fiction is very good at influencing our actions. However, it is good at influencing our emotions and our opinions. In the case of sexism, sexist video games might not make you a rapist or abuser but it does affect how you emotionally react to rape or abuse. This can be a problem if said person is on the judge or jury for rape or if he is asked for help from a rape victim.

Foldy is my hero. I think that anyone who wants to get a better grip on the sexist portrayal narrative should watch his "Man media movie month" series. Particularly his episodes on Sam Witwicky and 300 really go into great detail about things like objectification, scope, and how media influences culture, and vice versa. And it's neat to see that the same thinking can apply to men, and there totally are critiques of how the media represents men, but you can think about it in exactly the same terms that other groups used. And that when you consider that often "minority" groups are given even less representation, and often limited to specific tropes and stereotypes, how it may feel to be portrayed that way.

 

[manic_depressive13]

They propagate sexist attitudes but don't make you sexist?

Yeah, because they don't exist in a vacuum. By the time people are old enough to play video games they are already being influenced by a sexist culture. Video games don't initially make you sexist but they reflect, normalise and spread sexism.

Sexism in video games does exist and needs to be addressed. But all of our efforts are for naught if we fail to address the core of the issue at a cultural level and across all media industries. Not just video games, but film, music, etc. But, more importantly, the "mending" should begin at bettering education on the matter rather than censoring artistic, or "artistic", expression.

Who are these people critcising video games to the complete exclusion of everything else? Even Anita Sarkeesian had already been doing book, film and music criticism before she reached games and everyone's shit collectively hit the fan. So no, it's not like a gash vs a paper cut. It's like a cancer that needs to be removed, and people for some reason are arguing over which one is the biggest tumour.

Furthermore, this is education. Criticising the problematic aspects of the media's (video games included) depiction of women is how you educate people. The people crying about censorship are the ones who don't want to be educated. That's why they constructed such a massive strawman.

 

[crypticracer]

If we are told we have to save someone trapped in a castle, most of us are going to default to princess unless otherwise told. To say this is not influenced by the media we consume is stupid. The belief has no basis in reality. Princesses are not kidnapped that often in real life. But most don't believe when someone is captured in real life that it's a princess. IT's a subtle difference, but the defaulting to princess does create a mindset that affects our idea of kidnapping in real life.

Saying media doesn't affect our thoughts and feelings is delusional. By that thought all our thoughts and feelings our there from birth. But from birth we don't know what a princess or kidnapping is.

We learn from media. We don't believe everything we learn, but we sure as hell don't believe anything we don't.

It DOES influence our thoughts and feelings, and those influence our behavior (among other things.) The real question is how much it does.

 

[The Lunatic]

People claiming video games makes you sexist.

Same people claiming a man can't be abused by a woman.

(Especially if that women is Zoe Quinn.)


Okay then.

I'm not sure if that's projection or not.

 

[Timpossible]

If your only source of "social interaction/influence is from videogames/movies/music/books/pictures that show violence and/or sexism a persons tendency towards sexism and/or violence can be nurtured. That's what I think.

Videogames won't make a decent human beeing into a genocidal monster. This Jack Thompsen stuff is pure bullshit.

But if a kid and even an adult is 12 hours a day inside a fantasy-world (games, books, music or movies) full of killing as problem solution, rape and objectification of women/humans he or she will be influenced.

I don't mean just "makes you feel something". Everything should make you feel something otherwise why enjoy it? sometimes it's anger, hate, agression, fear, love, sadness etc. That's why we have entertaiment.
But to deny any longterm effects if violent /and or sexist media are your only sources of experiencing social interaction is naive in my opinion. And if this assumption would be wrong propaganda wouldn't work.

If you tell a person he's worth nothing all the time and no one else tells this person otherwise this person will be sure he/she is worth nothing. That's also how Mobbing works.
So if a Person ONLY sees "I can solve problems by killing a bunch of guys" or "Treating a Women like an object is right and okay", said person will start to see this behaviour as normal and okay.

But you can easly counter that by simply saing to said person that behaviour is not okay before they completly vanish into a very bad fantasie. Thats is especially true for kids and teens.

I love Videogames as Entertaiment and as Art. But I believe that some games just aren't for kids and every parent who thinks it's okay for it's 10 year old to play CoD is in my opinion a bad parent.

 

[Lightknight]

Seeing as you're the reasonable sort (and always have been from our previous interactions), maybe we can get somewhere productive here.

What things do you specifically consider to be sexist that need to be addressed in gaming?

Without really getting into specifics, I would say one of the primary issues is a general lack of diversity, primarily in the triple-A industry. Namely in the form of female protagonists and general female character designs. I suppose, too, in the general presentation and usage of female characters in the narratives. ('course, this would also apply to male characters in some instances, but I suppose that more a lack of good writing)

It's not that I think these kinds of things should be removed from game design. It's that I think more diverse designs should be added into it.

I've never thought that censoring artistic creation is ever a good thing, unless literal harm is being done. I've always been of a mind that you don't bring everyone down to the same level, but rather that you bring everyone up.

Thankfully, though, there is far more diversity in design in the indie industry. I just wish the triple-A industry would catch up.

Well then, we're mostly on the same page on a lot of desires there.

Do you think the lack of diversity in triple-A games is due to industry sexism, or do you think that it's due to significantly more males in the AAA consumer market pool?

In 2010 we learned that even though the ESA put men and women at a 60/40 ratio in games, that 80% of female console owners had a wii as their primary console whereas men were far more evenly spread out amongst consoles. If we take the inflated ESA ratios that include all kinds of "gamers" and even assume that women are exactly as likely as males to buy a console, then that still leaves us at only around 18% of the combined ps3 and 360 owners to have been female. That also assumes that women are just as likely to buy an action game as males which isn't true across other media where men like action films significantly more than women. If we look into all these assumptions we would likely find a much lower target market there too.

So if the face of the market is markedly male. Do you think it is unethical of for-profit businesses to give additional attention to the largest demographic?

I think the indie market allows for a lot more niche catering for smaller market segments. This will attract females and members of other less common demographics into gaming and will influence AAA development as that number rises. Companies aren't generally sexist, they're in business to make money and if they thought they could make money off of something they would. I mean, if I had a business that would be my goal. If I'm a panty hose manufacturer I'm not going to alter my line of pantyhose to be more ball-friendly just because I learn that 10% of my consumers are male. I may create a smaller secondary line to cater to them or may not make the change at all. But if I find that a smaller line exhibits huge demands then I'm going to expand that because I, as a business owner and human being, enjoy profit.

I really like where protagonist customizers come into play nowadays. It's an easy way to cater to a lot of diverse tastes without pissing any one group off. I would consider customizable protagonists as every bit as legitimate in catering to women because the team still went through the effort to make sure that playing as a female was possible.

I wonder if the future of gaming is going to have a wider range of games than the standard action games we see for almost all AAA titles. The issue is that gaming as a medium really lends itself to action far more than other genres. We've seen action elements thrown into what would otherwise be legitimate dramas or romance storylines because that's the easiest way to get from point a to point b whereas not using that method often leads to a boring game in most people's eyes.

People really need to figure out how to cater to drama and romance and other traditionally female-preferred genres or we may never really have the critical mass needed to draw mainstream AAA attention. As more women join the games industry, I believe we're going to have more attention drawn to succeeding at that where possible. We may, admittedly, fail at this endeavor. The need for games to be interactive may significantly detract from these things and that's also something we have to be prepared for.

 

[Vigormortis]

snip

You're making an awful lot of claims. Can you verify them? I'd genuinely like to see a study on the age-to-influence ratio for sexist culture and it's influence on people that play video games.[footnote]This is not sarcasm. I would actually like to see one as I've heard many make this claim and, if true, I'd like to amend my point of view on the matter.[/footnote]

And no, complaining about things on Twitter and yelling at people isn't educating anyone. Nor is making Youtube videos with a mixture of genuine and fallacious claims.[footnote]For the record, I didn't bring up Ms. Sarkeesian. You did. Also, I'm referring to both sides of this "debate".[/footnote] Educating people on the ills of sexism begins in the schools and must extend from there into the general culture.

You also seem to have missed the point of my post entirely. However, I'm not sure I have the wherewithal to type out a lengthy explanation at this point.

 

[Lightknight]

They propagate sexist attitudes but don't make you sexist?

Yeah, because they don't exist in a vacuum. By the time people are old enough to play video games they are already being influenced by a sexist culture. Video games don't initially make you sexist but they reflect, normalise and spread sexism.

... so then your claim is that they make you more sexist or what?

Also, do you have any kind of sources to verify the claim that games actually do spread sexism?

 

[DrOswald]

They propagate sexist attitudes but don't make you sexist?

Yeah, because they don't exist in a vacuum. By the time people are old enough to play video games they are already being influenced by a sexist culture. Video games don't initially make you sexist but they reflect, normalise and spread sexism.

Sexism in video games does exist and needs to be addressed. But all of our efforts are for naught if we fail to address the core of the issue at a cultural level and across all media industries. Not just video games, but film, music, etc. But, more importantly, the "mending" should begin at bettering education on the matter rather than censoring artistic, or "artistic", expression.

Who are these people critcising video games to the complete exclusion of everything else? Even Anita Sarkeesian had already been doing book, film and music criticism before she reached games and everyone's shit collectively hit the fan. So no, it's not like a gash vs a paper cut. It's like a cancer that needs to be removed, and people for some reason are arguing over which one is the biggest tumour.

Furthermore, this is education. Criticising the problematic aspects of the media's (video games included) depiction of women is how you educate people. The people crying about censorship are the ones who don't want to be educated. That's why they constructed such a massive strawman.

Most of the actual criticism I see of Anita is that what she says is wrong.

Consider a situation: A teacher believes that a mile is shorter than a kilometer. This teacher is teaching students this "fact". Parents complain. Not because the parents don't want their children educated, but because they don't want their children taught something that isn't true.

This is the objection most people bring. That Anita is wrong. That the education she provides teaches incorrect principles and spreads, for lack of a better term, lies (the word lie implies deliberate deception, what Anita is accused of is mostly non-deliberate deception).

People who cry censorship are often drawing parallels in their mind to religious censorship - censorship based, at best, entirely on unproved assumption.