CriticKitten said:
But that aside, the notion that males are somehow "default" because they don't get an obvious gender signifier is nonsense. Pick any AAA title with a voiced male lead character out of a hat, and I guarantee he has at least one of the following:
1) Large muscles
2) Scruffy facial hair
3) A "witty"/"gruff" persona which shows in their dialogue
What you're expressing isn't a problem exclusive to women, it's a problem with character writing in AAA games in general. Namely that for all of the supposedly "different" characters out there, they're all the bloody same.
I think the issue is that rather than a female charachter wearing something like full covered armour she'll instead wear a chainmail bikini or boob plates for no other reason than to remind everyone she's sterotypically feminine even when its irrelevant
all that aside we tend to as a society veiw the male as defult and anything else as "other" anthromorphic animals are an interesting look at this, female cartoon animals seem to have all kinds of crap shoves on them (human hair, eye make up ect) to let the audience know they are female where as the male counter parts look more "normal"
its like we NEED to place people in gender boxes...if theres any doubt whats so ever that angers people
similar thing when people ask why the Japanease draw themselves as white in Anime/Magna...the thing is though they don't, they see them as Japanease because they assume everything as Japanease...we see them as white people and without signifiers (slanted eyes) we assume theyre white
]I always hate to say this because people always take it the wrong way, but here goes:
Stereotypes don't just "poof" into being. They always have origins in truth. Certain traits are "stereotypical" for female characters because there are actual females who still portray those character traits. Contrary to what people seem to believe, there are still stereotypical "prim and proper" white guys, hillbillies, valley girls, "dumb blondes", etc walking around in society even today.
the problem is in media we are presented with a VERY narrow veiw of what women are/can be...a lot of women on TV have the same body type and look the same, men get more leeway in general (not as much in games but in general)
for example a while ago I read a comparison of two women centric TV shows..."The L word" from 2003 and Orange is the new black from 2013
The L word is centered around mostly gay women...white thin conventioanlly attractive Gay women, the "Butch" charachter was shane...tomboyish conventioanlly attractive Shane, I'm not cirticsing this charachter or women who are "conventionally" attractive while presenting that way, but what I am saying is it was a narrowish view of both women and lesbains
now lets fast forward to Orange is the new black...who is our Butchest Lesbain? why thats Boo...she's overweight, she's mannish, she's a stone cold butch and proud of it, THIS is the kind of woman you don't see often unless shes the butt of jokes, the fact that Boo is who she is is not cause for any jokes at her expense....but aside From Boo there's a whole corss section of women of different races and dispositions
of coarse OITNB is set in a woman prison with an ensemble cast of charachters so not a lot of shows would go that far, but my point is thease kids of female charachters with charachterisation and stuff is not something you often see
[quote/]And yes, there are even young ladies who wear scantily clad outfits designed to catch men's eyes. Heck, just go visit your local public high school if you want proof of that.[/quote]
why would you assume they are doing it for guys attention? it could be the need to fit in, to follow trends...girls playing dress up really