I'm super depressed about sexism in gaming...

[Ninjamedic]

Okay, actually now that I think about it I've never really encountered 'ageism' within the gaming community. Is that a problem? I'd like to know - inclusivity is important and if the problem becomes a point of discussion again I'd really like to know more about it so I could discuss it properly.

Very rare, but you can find it if you look, (though I emphasise the very rare part).

My overall point is that when it comes to the "sexism on gaming" debate, a lot of basic concepts of the internet (GIFT being the main example) seem to be ignored. I can understand thinking that there is an issue given your experiences, but you have to admit it is exaggerating to jump from "this one group people in this game are just arseholes" to "There is a major issue of misogyny in this community" especially when there are just as many (if not more) people who can point out that they haven't had this issue.

It's not the issue itself as its the overall attitudes towards the topic. As I've previous;y said, the issue has become less and less problematic in recent years, I doubt this discussion will be even remotely relevant in the near future.

(I'm not saying your points are invalid, don't get me wrong. Just a little overblown)

 

[Ninjamedic]

Anyway.

You do have a point about attitudes within the topic, too. I talked about that with Devil a bit (over PM). A lot of times in discussions like this you have people who have personal agendas backed by a lot of built up rage, and they use the discussion as a chance to pick a fight and vent without giving heed to the actual discussion nor to common sense. This happens on both sides, and it makes both sides look terrible. Like I said to Devil, any group is defined in the public forum by its extremists.

This is primarily why I'm pessimistic of the "Tropes vs Women" project, she seems to have already made her conclusions and is now looking only to prove them as opposed to making an objective analysis of the topic.

That's how it happens that when I discuss the presence of a certain problem in the community, it seems like I'm actually taking a much more extreme stance than I truly am. I don't think devs are all misogynists. I don't think the majority of gamers are misogynists. I don't even really thing the misogynists are all misogynists - I understand and accept that the GIFT exists. A lot of 'back in the kitchen' jokes are made by average people being stupid. If I didn't believe that I wouldn't think talking would do any good, because I know you'll never change the mind of an actual misogynist.

Well as I've said the issue is becoming less and less problematic, I just think that we should be more optimistic about it. We have overcome most of these issues by and large and I doubt we will have any major problems in this area in the future. Also there has to be a lot more of a reserved reaction to the "sexist comment" articles that pop up every now and again, people jump straight to the shouting matched without looking at the full context of it.

But I do think conversation is important. I think, as well, that the people who debate this topic on either side are a lot closer to compromise than they sometimes realize. We shouldn't be fighting over the extreme points of view - we should instead be discussing compromise, and how these issues affect us, and how we can move forward.

I'd honestly just ask for a more neutral OP and title in this specific case. Maybe just state you opinion as an opinion and viewpoint then discuss it. Of course I'm not saying it's a bad OP or anything, just start from a more neutral standpoint. A lot of threads have gone badly because of misinterpretations and arguments over assumed "facts".


Anyway, this got a little too serious. Time for a random video!

 

[wookiee777]

Perhaps I don't get out enough...okay I KNOW I don't get out enough, but nobody I know cares about the gender of gamers. They just play the fucking games. And no woman I have ever played with has ever been "put off" because of a character's outfit or role in the game's story. Their usual response is "lol, good luck fighting in high heels". This is not the biggest issue out there, and I really wish people would focus less on it (no, I'm not saying it doesn't exist, just that it is over blown to the extreme) and more on paying attention to the market and dealing with all those companies whose business practices affect and screw over everyone, regardless of sex.

As for the issue in proper proportion. A game that has an all male or mostly male cast is not sexist. I seriously doubt that when it was designed the developer was specifically thinking about the gender of his characters. And don't forget that there are strong female characters out there. Quite a lot if you would look around. If a game has a female lead, great. I don't care. If a game has a male lead, great. I still don't care. It doesn't matter because no one I know looks to see their gender "represented". They just pick a character (if they can) and play. It's that simple and it should be that simple. I consider sex to be an arbitrary factor. It's useless to point out or base much of anything on.

 

[Ninjamedic]

Okay, starting from neutrality is a good idea, yes. In this case, it was Moonlight talking specifically about how she felt, though, so that's not ever going to be neutral. We had to get through her initial feelings of depression before we could achieve a more neutral tone. I don't know how to correct that one, exactly. I don't think it's fair to tell Moonlight she shouldn't feel depressed or talk about her depression. I dunno - I guess the ground rule is post when you're calm?

I'd maybe go for a more open approach, point out the usual reactions to sexist comments as a reminder of how the arseholes are in a sharp minority. As I said, more optimism.

Ack, it's a Gribble!

Crackheads and debyataunts!

 

[rob_simple]

The thing I've never understood about the whole attitude to women in gaming in regards to the 'get back to the kitchen' comments is that the same people who make those comments are the ones who shout 'suck your mothers cock, jewfag' when they get killed by other guys in CoD. I don't think gender even comes into the issue in that respect; it's just that a lot of gamers are really, really immature. That will change, though, as the medium continues to mature and games begin to get taken seriously by the rest of the world.

Other than that, in terms of games content, I'm curious what people think a 'female-friendly' game would look like? Because every time the industry tries to install a powerful female lead they are invariably criticised for either creating more supercilious badass action girls or vulnerable, put-upon princesses.

Again, this is reflective of the maturity of the industry bear in mind gaming is still in it's infancy compared to other mediums; try watching some older films and see how gender roles were considered in that industry forty or fifty years ago.

Women are becoming a far bigger demographic in games, and games and gamers will have to change to reflect this otherwise the industry will be weakened for it. It just takes time.

 

[Ninjamedic]

Crackheads and debyataunts!

Seriously I think that video broke my brain.

Watch "Hank of the Hill". Boggle?

Its delicious in its randomness.

 

[Aurora Firestorm]

I'm guessing this is a "time" thing, overall. It's like how we can't really expect serious social changes until the oldest generations die so that there isn't much protest for what the youth all have been wanting for a long time. So when gaming becomes a multi-generational thing, and all the current trolls have become middle-aged folk and the young people are taking over, eventually we'll see this literally start dying off.

 

[Matt9102]

No. No to this entire thing. Girls are skimpy in games, be angry about that. You are not special because you have tits. There is nothing different about you except you can make kids and feed them. Some people would not agree, but still, the facts stand. You are a girl, congratulations, you're acting like everyone on the forum should know you because you are a girl. You are not special. I realize I will likely get warned or b& for this post, but I don't care.

 

[Gladys Knight]

snip

Again you are acting like gaming is some kind of sacrosanct male space, it isn't, when I play TF2 online for example I have every right to be there as much as a guy.

The truth is men are welcome at geek girl con so saying it makes men only lan parties okay is silly.

Nobody should be excluded from what they want to do for either gender or race.

Also acting like Anita Sarkeesian is Jack Thompson is a bit illogical as she is basically saying 'We want our sex to be treated with more respect within this medium' not 'Video games are bad and make people kill each other m'kay' which has no grounding in reality.

If women didn't care about video games we wouldn't be complaining. Someone else on these forums said over-sexualisation is 'the icing of the cake' for male gamers. Well for me it's like someone took a big shit on an otherwise perfectly good game.

The Witcher for example is really fun to play but I can't play it because of how it treats women.

This is the kind of nonsense I'm talking about. Look at the ridiculous wording. "You are acting like video gaming is just for guys." Literal creation of a problem out of thin air. All that's being proven is that Moonlight Butterfly is super thin-skinned and not very good at comprehension. You don't get to just jump to whatever conclusion happens to fit your theory based on garbage reasoning.

You repackage Anita's campaign in which she profited on demonizing games as "a call to just have women treated equally." Could you not say Jack Thompson's campaign was merely "a call to lower the violence levels in video games?" You certainly could. And that's what he and his constituents did. But no one fell for it. Like no one is falling for Anita's BS. All of the same ridiculous cause and effects he claimed would come to pass are just as ridiculous as Anita's and many of the same counter-sentiments apply. There are plenty of options as to what you play for a video game and you're more than welcome to start creating your own and marketing them to those you (don't really) feel are being oppressed out of the hobby.

I mean we LITERALLY just had a woman get 250K to write about what's IN games. Where's the kickstarter to make one that does it "right?"

I mean listen to yourself "it's icing on the cake for males but for me it's like they took a big crap on it." That's not victimhood. That's you having tastes that don't match up with what the game is trying to appeal to. That's not a problem. That's a preference.

And with preferences and options (both of which you have) comes responsibility. The key element missing in your everything. The part where you take any responsibility to help yourself. Design some games. Give people ideas. Don't condemn what's already there and ask for it to be change (the opposite of "making video games better.") Seek out avenues that allow your preferences to be ADDED. To contribute ADDITIONALLY. Rather than tell people what they're doing is wrong because you don't like it.

Who cares about mean comments or sexualization directed at you in all of your convenient anecdotes. I'd address the issue of children being exposed to such things before I'd worry about the feelings of grown women.

Responsibility. Take it. Someone just raised 250K to TALK about what's in games. Go design some. Or find someone who knows how and shares your sentiments. There's no shortage of people who seem to think this is an 'issue' (again, 250K). Why is it all they can do is try to change existing franchises and limit things? The internet is nigh unrestricted. We accept, with that benefit, the fact that people can suck.

Why do so many people lose all the knowledge that they apply to their every day off-line life? We make it a point to primarily interact with people we know and trust. We form groups of like-minded individuals or at least people we know don't suck. 15 years ago, when online gaming wasn't as prevalent, we gamed with people and had fun because those people were our friends.

Now here comes the internet and because it can connect the world we suddenly expect the world to be a better place now that everyone can communicate anonymously? And when it's not, we cherry pick, turn blind eyes to many facts and isolate particular occurrences, target specific words used rather than the underlying reasons they were said and call it 'rampant sexism.'

Real cool.

 

[Vegan_Doodler]

This right here is what is at the core of the communication problem, what a person subjectively likes dose not equate to objective quality. People like different thing, and telling someone that something that they like is bad is the absolute worst possible way to get your point of view across. This applies to your point about constructive criticism, something that never seems to come up when discussing female characters, the majority of the time people just shout about how it's terrible and the entire industry must be sexist misogynistic pigs.

And asking someone to not be defensive when it comes to their own work is in fact asking way too much, especially when the criticism always seems to be get accused of being sexist when the vast, vast majority of Game Devs aren't.

Okay, perhaps that was badly worded.

But!

In any medium wherein characters are depicted in stories there are certain fairly objective measures of quality. These are things like character depth, design aesthetic, continuity and consistency of mythos, and so on and so forth. When the depiction of a female violates one or more of these in favor of becoming eye candy for a male, that can be considered (and is considered by many) as sexist - but it is 'bad' in another way, because it has compromised the artistic merit of the work in order to engage in a form of cheap pandering.

I agree with you that it compromises the artistic merit of the work in the same way that having a song and dance routine in the middle of Predator(while hilarious) would just be stupid, but I have to say I disagree with the idea that it would automatically be sexist because sexism, like all forms of discrimination, suggests hostile intent and by extension that the person or persons involved in the creation of the piece are themselves sexist.
I also refuse to buy the idea that something being made specificity to be eye candy for a male audience is a bad thing, I have never heard anyone even try to emplane why it apparently is, I've also heard too often the conflicting points, 'Why can't women have eye candy?' and 'Eye candy for men is bad'.
For the record I think everyone should get eye candy and quit trying to stop others from making it just because it isn't the kind they like.

An example, off the top of my head - sex scenes in the God of War series. They added absolutely nothing of worth to the character or the narrative, they just existed to pander to the supposed necessity of sex to punctuate violence in the stereotypical male mindset. They were frankly pretty insulting to men in that regard, and pretty terrible even if you didn't bother to point out the ways in which they were sexist. Contrast them to the sex scenes in Mass Effect, which had everything to do with building on the characters and relationships involved - whether they were successful in that regard or not, they still had purpose within the narrative other than 'dur hur sex!'

I haven't actually played any of the GoW games my self but from what I've seen they did have a purpose and they added to the character. They where for portraying Kratos as an unlikeable, evil bastard, when you look at the scenes in that seance they do add to the game.

As for Game Devs - I have agreed and will reiterate that the sexism accusation gets flung about prematurely in most cases. Not all of them, mind you - there are plenty of cases where the sexism flag is warranted - but many of them don't deserve snap judgments. The thing is, they still make a lot of stuff with severely unfortunate implications, and they need to be more cautious about it.

I'd go further and say that seeing as most of the people making the accusations haven't even met the people they are accusing of being sexist, and are basing there assumption on playing a game that the person had a part in making then they probably need to to stop making snap assumptions, sorry if that comes across as hostile but its true, people tend to take one thing not just out of context of the game it's self but out of context of the fact that the majority of the people on the planet aren't sexist and so the odds are that this random person isn't sexist and has no intention of being hostile to any one, they just want to make what they want to make.

Again, sorry if that last part sounds aggressive, it really wasn't my intention, I just couldn't think of another way of wording it right now, I'm sure that as soon as I click post I'll think of at least ten.

 

[rbstewart7263]

Ok heres my question. why cant we just ask for other people or ask ourselves; to make the games we want? Like say for example one game company well call em scrotumX loves making games where you smack women around? instead of gettin onto em why not just play other games and inform them that thats why they lost your business? Even if they dont change you can still just play something else?


I like how guild wars handles the "armor" issue. Slut and prude armor choices for males and females ALLLLLL!LLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!

Tera? meh

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

Well firstly Anita Sarkeesian didn't force people to donate to her kickstarter. Ironically it was people like you who made her idea more popular as they attacked her and showed up that there is actually a problem with sexism in gaming.

People react like she is trying to destroy gaming but she is just trying to make it better. I can imagine if Yahtzee or Extra Credits made the exact same kickstarter they wouldn't get the same flak because they don't have ovaries and an unpopular opinion.

As for victimhood yeah I do have a problem with games being SEXIST. It has nothing to do with preference and everything to do with abuse of my gender. Would you be alright if the made racist games? I don't think so. Most people would be outraged so why is sexism okay? It's not a matter of preferences its a matter of saying to games developers 'Hey maybe not treat women like shit and fap material in your next game?' Why is that such a fucking problem for some men. I really don't understand it. Do you like women being represented as just there as objects for you to gaze at and fap over. Go and look up PORN on google and maybe we won't need that shit in videogames any more.

As for 'doing something myself' I write reviews on which a dev has thanked me before and decided to implement that feature (co-op) in the game if they get enough interest. I interview devs for the site that I work for and I am also studying gamification through the university of Pennsylvania.

But even with all that in mind, people who don't make video games should be allowed to criticise them. Guys criticise say, Portal, on some aspects and I don't jump up and say OMFG A WOMAN DESIGNED THAT YOU AREN'T ALLOWED TO SAY ANYTHING!!! MAKE YOUR OWN GAMES FFS.-.-

It's a really childish attitude. I'm sorry but it is.

 

[Furrama]

So umm yeah, this deserved a thread? Yeah, we get it. I think we ALL get it by now, I could have sworn I've seen this posted so many times.

You're probably going to see it until things change in the industry. If people shut up then game makers tend to think the problem is over, or that we'll at least stop wining about it.

As for the OP, yeah, I feel ya. It irks me how entitled _some_ men can be, especially online when it comes to this issue. I hope one day there will be more games that we can all enjoy, instead of pretty pink suck princess games and mighty men boobs guts blood games. Slowly things are getting better, but things can still be pretty sexist in smaller ways, what with stereotyping and the Smurfette Principle.

I think the community bothers me far more than the game creators though. Either they don't see a problem, or they're actively trolling and making it worse. The "getinthekitchenmakemeasammich" jokes are just oh so fresh and witty.