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

[Treblaine]

Too true. So why is it a bad thing to ask that females be more developed than sex-dolls in skimpy clothes? Stereotypical cardboard cutout characters should be avoided across the board. Shouldn't we be avoiding simple placeholders? Shouldn't we be moving towards developed character and narrative and away from mindless stereotypical crap?

Of course, I never said it was a bad thing. Are you saying it's a bad thing? To clarify, I'm certainly not.

Moonlight makes the clear allegation of sexism when both male and female characters are superficial and stereotypically depicted.

I did touch on briefly the issue with games as a storytelling medium was mainly spacial but didn't expand on it much. See it's hard to relate to character's much and integrate them into the story much as a game, without resorting to just making everything scripted in which case it then becomes a motion picture with gameplay in between, not a game narrative. That's like stopping your movie every 20 minutes and telling people to read a novel, and prose is very effective at translating thoughts and feeling and ideas but poor at spatial storytelling.

Half Life 2 tries real gameplay storytelling, yes it's scripted and you are railroaded quite a bit but that is necessary as you can't have one thing (like meeting a character) happen before the other as the game isn't smart enough to figure out how it would go differently. If you

The oft complained example with Half Life 2 is Alyx having a romance with the player who might be a straight female. Except that isn't the case, she's having a romance with Gordon Freeman and you are playing his role. Gordon Freeman was chosen to be a male over half a decade prior in the prequel, the odds were about 95-5 that if there was a romance it would be a heterosexual one.

Character interaction will always be haphazard when it is tried to be approached like a game, rather than a fixed story.
Snip

Also true, and also a valid reason to expect that gaming start to grow up a bit more and learn to handle these things better. Designing more realistic female characters is a necessary step in that regard, yes?

It's not that simple. Games are about player choice, freedom. Yet that freedom is incompatible with a well structured story, you can meet and talk with characters in the wrong order or get into logical paradoxes, trying to program this is almost impossible.

Games are highly limited to spacial storytelling, where you are in space and what is going on and moving through it, not the inner thoughts and feelings. You couldn't make The Great Gastsby as a game. Arguably even the attempts at filming it have completely failed. Some books really are unfilmable, some storytelling ideas we are used to in film can never work in games except by mimicking them totally

Look at the disaster of Reservoir Dogs, The Game (yes, such a thing exists). It could never have worked. That was a film that entirely worked by character and subtle exchanges.

The Stories of Books are about thoughts
The stories of Films are about dialogue
The stories of games are about experience

Now Books can do dialogue, films can do action and games can do thinking, but they are not playing to their strengths.

Books can give interior thought and perception, films (also theatre and TV and so on) excels in people interacting with each other.

Games allow the character to reach out into an environment and give you a personal connection with a character's experience more like a book than any film or theatrical production could but in a visceral way.

You try to be more dialogue focused in your book you end up writing a screenplay. Focus too much on internal thought in a film and you end up as if the Narrator is like reading from a a book. Too much focus on the experience and it may be more suited as a game.

We don't need more realistic character in games with unrealistic 800lbs radioactive scorpions and loved precisely because of that. Characters can be unrealistic, what is needed is characters that FIT with the narrative of games. And I do not think that lies in dialogue trees, that's trying be be a choose your own adventure book.

But I can see why developers shy away from female characters because every time they do ANYTHING someone cries wolf on sexism.

I don't buy it. There are plenty of female characters who were never accused of being sexist tropes trotted out for male fantasy wish-fulfillment.

The girls of Chrono Trigger spring to mind. Marle, Lucca and Ayla were all valid, well rounded, interesting and fun characters, who kicked all sorts of ass and never pandered to anybody. Samus Aran used to be the baddest assed badass who ever badded an ass, before Team Ninja drowned her in unfortunate implications. Jade from Beyond Good and Evil, April Ryan and Zoe Castillo from The Longest Journey and Dreamfall, Veronica from Fallout NV (perhaps the least sexualized lesbian ever), and so on and so forth. Good female characters can be done, and are done on a regular basis. Developers aren't afraid of doing them because of backlash. I cry shenanigans on that one.

I'm mainly talking about protagonists here, and the tragedy of Other M and abandonment of BG&E 2 by Ubisoft for Assassin's Creed 3.14159's Desmond (*snooore*) with a female assassin getting a handheld-only release. Chrono Trigger was 17 years ago. Mirror's Edge had potential but wasn't given a chance by EA, DICE was pulled from developing a sequel to make macho-fest Battlefield 3.

Here's the thing, I'm a male and I want female characters AS PROTAGONISTS as a wish-fulfilment BUT IN THE SAME WAY AS A MALE CHARACTER!!! Not to appeal to me sexually, but an EMPOWERED woman, just like all the empowered males of video games from Solid Snake to Gordon Freeman to Marcus Fenix.

The problem is empowered women are constantly denigrated. Lara Croft attacked for her breasts of all things.

 

[Phasmal]

Snip.

If you claim it's nothing to do with gender, I do wonder why you posted that here.

As for the `paying your dues` whatever. I have paid my fucking dues.
You got bullied for liking games? So did I.
You were an outcast for playing games? So was I.
I can't count how many times I got called a freak and a lesbian and gender confused for liking a `boy thing`.
And when I turned to the gaming community for a sense of... I dunno community, I got `Fuck off, you don't belong here`. Because I'm female.
I've been gaming since I was four. Yeah, I may not have been gaming in the 80's, but I wasn't born, so please excuse.

We're supposed to know what it's like to be outcast and shit upon and now we're gonna turn around and do it to others because we're not entirely happy with our little treehouse getting invaded?
Fuck that

 

[Treblaine]

Secondly gaming does not belong to men.

Excuse me but...

Why not, exactly?

Now follow along here, I want you to think back to when gaming as it is now (Read: Just after the Atari Era, prior to that games were made exclusively by code-monkeys with no creative input) was in it's very infancy. I want you to think of that era and name me one development company that was founded or co-founded by a woman, or even one that simply employed one. There was NOTHING stopping them from doing this, most developers in that era were people programming independantly in their basements that could only only barely be called "Companies" anyway. Why did no women make video games? The industry wasn't even really an industry at this point, the only real requirement to getting in the door of game development was the resolve to stick with it, and the skill to put out a quality product.

King's Quest, 1983 by Roberta Williams, the very FOUNDATION of adventure games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberta_Williams

Just one example.

 

[ElPatron]

Is that an admission that you think gaming is inherently sexist?

Does that mean, by extension, that you think it's perfectly fine that gaming is sexist?

Does that mean, by extension, that you think it's perfectly fine to be sexist?

Only if silly g-string armor and PVC nuns fighting is inherently sexist.

If you don't agree with those things, don't play those games. If someone thinks that "all", "most", "90%" or whatever of gaming has those things (it doesn't), then that person should probably stop playing games and take his generalizations somewhere else. The things everyone is arguing about are easily ignored accessories. If this whole spiel is supposed to demonize what devs decide to put on their games, making small things even more important than the actual interactivity (the most important part of the videogame) - then gaming is 100% PURE SEXISM. At least in their minds.

Alternative way of dealing with that post: it's a huge strawman fallacy so don't expect me to take those implications seriously.

Edit: To further extend the metaphor - it is not unreasonable to ask the burger joint to hold the horseradish.

The analogy fails here because it's also reasonable to have the owner "asking" you to leave. That doesn't extrapolate to gaming.

snip

>implying implications

Your post actually explained my point a lot better than I could have. Specially the part about the "core" and the "accessory".

 

[Charli]

Actually, women are pretty under-represented in the industry. There's a lot of women playing games, but not so much making them. Needless to say, there should be more.

Working on my degree (well a second one) for this one.

And yes, the influence starts from those working to change it. So... yeah.

Preaching to either the wrong crowd/already agreed here. Talking about it I've found is very empty, plenty agree, but unless you ARE a woman, no man is going think to change it, not for any malicious reason, just that it doesn't occur to them, it's the norm, it's comfort, and in an environment populated by alot of other males, it really doesn't dawn until much later when someone MIGHT point it out to them.

Again this is NOT a dig, there are exceptions who write and design very strong female leads, but they're so rare that hundreds of other developers try to pick apart the formula to this lady/girl and ultimately fail to reproduce the same effect and end up with another scantily clad/sassy/tough cut-out-doll because it's not worth the effort in their eyes.

It's going to take a few women to write stronger women and hopefully (not necessarily me, but I will give my best) a few will manage to penetrate the industry and fight tooth and nail to see their vision to the green light.

I have ideas. In-fact one I have a great deal of faith in, but I don't want it to get ripped apart by people who don't think it'll work unless I'm appealing to the demographic of 'tits or gtfo'. So I'm not giving this idea up to anyone for a long time... but one day. One day.

 

[Overusedname]

I am super depressed by you fighting straw-men on this site that, mostly agrees with you, when you could be out fighting the real enemy you describe on an Xbox Live Forum. You complaining here doesn't do anything other then stir fires for issues that we need solutions for and not more pointing them out.

So she should jump into the shark's hunting ground covered in chum?

I do get your point but this cite really is one of VERY few places where this discussion can even have a chance. I think that's part of why things got so saturated here; where else can we talk about this at all?

Again, I've met like...2-3 people I would call sexist on any level on this entire cite. I get your point. Just not sure what to do about it anymore besides try to lead by example, make gals feel just a bit more welcome and don't generalize intelligent women with the idiots.

I'm part of an indie game dev team that tries to make well-developed female leads. I can't think of anything else I can do at this point XD

 

[Treblaine]

This obsession with her breasts is TOTALLY UNWARRANTED!

Totally unwarranted, indeed. And yet, not a thing that started with feminists. A thing that started, if you recall, with teenage boys.

Surely you have heard the story about how her bust came about? It was a geometry error on the part of the designer. They thought it was funny so they left it in, and countless hormonal teenage boys bought the game because of it. So they began to emphasize it. And yeah, they emphasized the guns and the glare too, but they still put her in a very tight top and shorts even in freezing cold weather. Also, neither of those tops come up to her neck. Edit: okay, I guess one of them comes within an inch or two, so half right.

Also, you didn't bother to address even a single counterpoint I made. Not one of your arguments is anything but a valid reason to see better developed females in games, and there is no evidence at all that devs are incapable of making females out of fear of backlash.

Hmm, I call BS on that. As if us teenage Tomb Raider fans only cared about Lara's breasts, why did we buy and play through her games that were 20 hours long and you could only see her from behind the entire time!?!?!??

Yeah I heard the story about her breasts, it's obviously bullshit. Have you even PLAYED the original Tomb Raider? This was what she looked like:

"countless hormonal teenage boys bought the game because of it."

I find comments like that extremely insulting. Not even the most hormonal and sexually frustrated teenager would ever be turned on by those turquoise triangles. It doesn't make a bit of sense that an error would make triangular breast larger, or that that would be a selling point.

This is THE female protagonist of video games and you hugely denigrating her by saying her only appeal THE ONLY REASON ANYONE BOUGHT THE GAMES SHE WAS IN was her tits. You are also calling all her fans utter morons, buying a $50 game to get fap material rather than a $5 mens magazine.

Why OH WHY was the more photorealistic Lara in Angel Of Darkness mostly ignored by the fans? It was because the gameplay was crap! Because they got rid of her iconic dual wielding weapons!

"they still put her in a very tight top"

How could you have flowing material with 1990's 3D graphics??? Duke Nukem was in a tank top as well. Solid Snake also in tight clothing.

"Even in cold weather"

She rarely went to cold places but when she did she wore suitable attire when she had the opportunity. She crash landed in the Himalayas where she wore a coat but the only trousers she found would be relatively clown sized and blood stained from the slain foes.

All you have demonstrated is that you are harshly and negatively criticising games you have not played and know VERY LITTLE ABOUT!

This is what I am talking about of female characters getting unfair criticism, why there weren't many female characters after Tomb Raider. It's because of charlatan complaints.

 

[ElPatron]

Implications about violence against women

*COUGH COUGH SELF-DEFENSE COUGH*

Welp, let's ban the entry of women in the military and police because they might be victims of violence!

and treating women purely as objects

Examples, pl0x. Japanese games don't count.

And the point of my extrapolation wasn't to build a strawman

But you built one. All of those claims were irrelevant as I had never said those things.

Saying that if someone doesn't think sexism is okay then they shouldn't play videogames is just, well, ignorant.

Hint: that's totally not what I said.

So, if asking for no horseradish is equivalent to asking that females not be sexist pandering cartoons, does that mean the owner asking you to leave would be game devs saying girls shouldn't be playing games?

I said it doesn't extrapolate. A dev saying something holds absolutely no value.

A owner kicking you out of his restaurant means you're effectively trespassing private property. Now THAT holds some value.

All you have demonstrated is that you are harshly and negatively criticising games you have not played and know VERY LITTLE ABOUT!

+1

 

[estoria-etnia]

Anyways, being a guy wouldn't be any easier I don't think, that way you'd be subjected to all the crap and instead of having an army of white knights and others fighting for you people would belittle you for minding such treatment on top of treating you like crap.

AHAHAHAHAHAHA. What even is this comment?

I often don't post very much in this forum because it's so hostile towards women. I get treated like crap because of my opinions and whenever I mention that "yeah, I don't like that" or "that makes me uncomfortable," I get shut down. I get told I'm whining or I just don't understand gamer culture (or whatever) because I'm a woman. I'm pretty much treated like an outsider solely because of my gender, that my opinions, thoughts, and feelings don't matter because I just happen to be a woman.

Notice how whenever a woman comes out with an article or an opinion that is critical of gamers and their culture, they're immediately swamped by men telling them that they're wrong, to shut up, and hurling slurs at her because HOW DARE SHE SAY SOMETHING BAD ABOUT US WE'LL SHOW HER. Then they tromp out the tired "what about the men" arguments and I just can't anymore. Women get shut down in these discussions whenever they have some complaint about how games portray women or the problems in gamer culture because OH MY GOD EW CHANGE.

I don't get white knights flocking to my defence about how gaming is a cess pool of misogyny and homophobia. Instead, it's the people I'm arguing against who get white knights who start attacking me for my opinions and problems with gaming and its culture. They start throwing slurs at me and demeaning me because GASP I had an issue with how games portray women and the rampant misogyny in gamer culture.

Stop feeling persecuted because people are picking on you for saying or doing misogynistic or homophobic things. If someone tells you that something that you said is offensive? You apologize and don't say it again. Maybe you'll LEARN something if you actually listen to what they have to say instead of shutting them down.

 

[wulf3n]

Also there is some sort of reaction of 'Why don't you go off and make your own games! Instead of asking men to do it for you.' This works on the assumption that all developers are male and the only people who are allowed to have an opinion about games are people who make them (if that was true forums like this wouldn't exist.

I believe it depends on what type of games people are claiming you should go off and make. Wanting women to be portrayed as realistic characters should not require a large number of females to be present in the Industry. I'm assuming, beyond stereotypical doubt, that male developers have girlfriends, wives, mothers, sisters etc, so they should have the necessary reference material to create believable characters...

however, there are some things that will require a stronger female presence in the industry if they are to be done right, some experiences that women will have that men can't even begin to comprehend, and that will need to be done by women if you want it done right.

 

[Treblaine]

snip

It's like, I agree with you across the board. Which makes me wonder if we are even arguing?

I mean, I guess the point you're making is that we really shouldn't be bogged down in this petty sexism discussion when it would effectively go away if the medium just matured a bit artistically. Which is actually perfectly valid and something I find myself agreeing with totally.

It's just, the discussion is so immediate that it's really easy to get involved and, in turn, incensed about it.

But yeah, totally with you on every point. Though I think maybe I'm a little bit more optimistic about the way storytelling is handled in videogames currently - I mean, yeah, it's not a perfect integration, but it's got some merits. We've had some great stories in games, even if they are still only something that happens between the shooty bits.

Yeah, kind of.

You know there is no metric for "maturing artistically". It's almost an oxymoron as art is all about the intangible and maturity is very much about tangibly comparing relative advancements.

I think the best we can hope for is that we keep trying new things and that we recognise when things work and when they don't.

I don't think cutscenes should be verboten from video games, but that they should not become THE narrative.

Novels start to breakdown when you get into heavy dialogue (which is like a film), films suffer under incessant narration, screen text and exposition to camera (which is like a book). And it is a problem when games feature too much of cutscenes or monologue.

Cutscenes in games, the key is in the title CUT-scenes, it's just something to quickly cut away to then back to the experience.

Games are about experience, how do you experience a character? You can have any type of character, the most fanciful type, the most fantastical. When it becomes a compelling and personal experience then it matters.

I was very young when Metal Gear Solid came out, I couldn't play it then, but I did watch through the cutscenes of the finished game save file that my brother did, almost the entire story of the game was in the cutscenes. If you skipped the cutscenes there was not story, if you watched just the cutcenes the whole story was there.

But what made Metal Gear Solid special to me when I played through the game were the spontaneous and spatial codec conversations. Depending on where you were, what you were doing, what you were holding, or were looking at you could trigger completely unique codec conversations. This is the experience, I pick up a landmine and I call an old friend the weapons specialist and we talk about landmines, a poignant conversation about their use in warfare and the moral implications of their use. But I had to seek out this conversation, it wasn't just thrust upon me.

That was my experience. Exploring this strange battlefield and initiating conversations with this motley crew about it, means Shadow Moses will always be profound place for me and make me confident that video games are a truly unique and compelling art form.

And I think there is always going to be consternation with video games as long as people are trying to make introspection or dialogue more important to the narrative than the experience. You're going to struggle to get "real" characters whether male or female, and I don't mean real as in like the world you see around you, I mean characters you won't accept.

A really well told story will make you like a character you normally wouldn't like.

 

[ex951753]

I don't think it's sexism in gaming, it's the player base. You could argue that there are girl gamers out there, but the male gamer populace will always out number the female populace.

Put yourself in the developers shoes. When you are planning a game what is the biggest, most important factor? Money. The almighty dollar. Which demography are we selling to to make the most profit? Who is most likely to buy video games? Who are the easier targets? The answer, in most cases, is hormone raging teenage boys. These are the main questions the developer considers when developing a game. I'm sure questions such as "Is this game too sexist, racist, etc." are only considered to a point where they wouldn't be sued. If the scales of female gamers ever outweigh the males, I'm sure the developers will immediately jump ship and start making games that appeals more to female gamers instead. Making non "sexist" (I use the term really loosely here, since i don't believe it's sexism) just to cater to the few is bad business practice and shouldn't be expected of them. They have the right to make whatever they want just as you have the right to not buy games that you don't agree with. If you disagree with the current gaming industry so much, then go out and develop you own games since you believe there's such a large female gaming community(another sentiment that I don't agree with).

You could argue that there's no need to have over sexualized characters in the game to sell well, why "insert-game-name-here" and "here" are perfect examples. Well, that may be true, but games like that usualy needs something in place of the over sexualized characters, such as a good story, gameplay, etc. but the latter will always have more work involved, and often more risky.

I'm not saying the current situation is correct nor incorrect, but I do feel that the "need of the many outweighs the needs of the few". Hell, just look at the movies coming out now adays. 99% of them are based on "over-sexualized" characters. if you could live with that, why not video games?

 

[DevilWithaHalo]

We could ask, I suppose, if we had more direct contact with developers. As we don't usually get that kind of direct contact, we have to satisfy ourselves with discussion amidst those with whom we do have contact - i.e. this forum, and others like it. Ergo, all the incessant yammering.

Perhaps I?m just personally irritated as the assumption that developers are misogynist for whatever reason certain militant feminists decry. Can?t really expect much from that camp though, so meh.

That said, when someone's artistic vision is being called into question, of course their artistic intent is the most important thing - but, neither they nor we can analyze that intent without turning an eye to the greater societal framework within which it lies.

I can accept this. However, we should not confuse the framework of our society as various oppressive regimes as they are sometimes represented as.

Having no clue at all where the demarcation between Original and Extra Crispy Modern Wonder Woman lies (having only followed DC intermittently over the years) let's just say the argument applied where it was valid. It still makes that character design suspect knowing that its origins were primarily due to the author's intents and had little to do with how the character was meant to be portrayed.

She actually has quite the interesting history. You can see various forms of progressive and conservative feminism altering Wonder Woman?s character and her representation over time to suit the needs of the camps that utilized her. Quite fascinating to be honest, but in depth enough where it might warrant it?s own thread.

I assume because that is an obvious result when you present images of nearly naked women to heterosexual males? Especially when you don't bother to delve too deeply into why those women are nearly naked (or otherwise fetishized).

Fallacious reasoning though. The outcome does not determine the intent. Those who choose to view things in certain perspectives aren?t interested in the reasons for it; they?ve already crafted their own.

Somewhat true, I guess, but also not entirely fair - because, again, author intent must be taken into account, and given that, in fighting games in particular, sometimes characterization is terribly sparse, chances are author intent is the only thing we have; further, without any particular intent explicitly stated by the author, and with hardened penises as a tangible result, it's not a vast logical leap to say that maybe the half-naked girls are there for the benefit of the male gaze.

I think most characters, especially player characters are designed with the intents of being aesthetically pleasing to players. Even the ?ugly? ones still have desirable characteristics. Reptile from Mortal Combat still had a muscular build and tended to keep his hideous features hidden until various moves. So to, I think ?Seleena? IIRC, was gorgeous and wore skimpy clothing, until she took her mask off, then had the mouth of reptile. The desire to be visually appealing is not a female centric issue.

Well, for one - where do we stop considering a trend 'statistically significant'? 10%? 25%? 2.3%? I mean, wherever the number of bad examples actually lies, there are still enough of those bad examples that a lot of people consider it a pretty big problem - inside and outside the industry.

Good question. I?d like to know how they determine it?s a ?big? problem without statistical evidence to support it. It?s seems more like making mountains out of molehills to me. Perhaps they are of the opinion that if it happens once, it happens too often. Or if they even realize the media isn?t reflective of the overall trends of the gaming community. I mean, how often to people still have to prove being a gamer isn?t a poor stereotype?

For two - my personal opinion is that the inherent misogyny is an element of online gamer communities being populated by assholes, whereas the industry merely suffers from a lack of female representation, and it's trends merely reflect that. It's kind of an unfortunate consequence that the latter tends to feed the former, but I don't think game devs are at fault for this, per se - it's just that they need to be more thoughtful of how and why they depict people the way they do, and what their audience takes from that.
I don't think that's unreasonable. Is it?

I think it?s perfectly reasonable. Asking someone to be mindful of others is certainly a reasonable request. But I hope you can see how saying; ?Would you mind considering others?? is different than saying; ?You need to change this because it?s offensive.? One normally gets a reasonable reaction while the other? well? it gets us where we are today.

Okay, fair enough. Roman gladiators often had very localized bits of armor. Its just, there are lots of vital bits in the midsection, you know? These are honking big swords and such. Suspension of disbelief is all well and good, but it gets harder to maintain when you know that girl would be mostly destroyed with one good hit to the stomach.

Yes, and most of these women depicted in these game would last mere seconds against the males depicted in these games. We often have to suspend our disbelief in games. I guess that?s why a lot of people enjoy them and get upset when real world issues begin creeping their way into them.

I'll take you at your word, cause like I said I dunno the character nor the controversy surrounding him, if it can be called such. And yeah, quality is always subjective - but even subjective things tend to have certain standards that most people consider reasonable.

Yah, but our standards do tend to change based on the paradigm at the time. Shout out to Wonder Woman again.

So I guess I get your point and agree that no one character should be taken as representative of the whole, because Peach got a pretty fair deal by comparison to some others. That said, I still think it's true that nothing exists in a vacuum, and you have to take each character in light of the greater whole - and that means, to a large extent, analyzing how characters are represented by and in turn represent certain common tropes, narrative devices, and attitudes, including gender dynamics.

I agree completely. Now if certain ?feminists? would stop using these ?tropes? to support the notion they are inherently harmful to ?women?, we may be able to get on with our lives.

It is really hard to debate that without doing a massive amount of research I am just not prepared for. But, I am going to brave the shitstorm and point out that Anita Sarkeesian proposed doing exactly what you suggest, and she was subjected to a concentrated assault of assholery the likes of which I have never before seen, threatened with violence and rape, made a target of fetishized videogame violence, accused of being simultaneously too stupid to have any valid opinion and smart enough to both manipulate 4chan and bilk dimwits out of their money, and so on. Take that as you will.

Ignoring the vitriol she received for her position, I don?t personally believe her intellectual credibility, her ability to remain non-bias or that she isn?t doing it as a matter of confirmation bias. I?ve read her thesis, are quite frankly, it?s riddled with inconsistencies and hypocrisy. I simply don?t expect much rational or critical thinking from a gender studies major, especially one whose position rests on the idea that tropes are inherently harmful. They?re tropes for god sakes. That?s like saying the definition of fat is inherently offensive to the obese.

Fair enough. I will counter that with the opinion that most if not all of the viewpoints that oppose feminism (which is to say, the view that men and women should be equal under the law) are also entirely unreasonable.

I agree completely. The issue is that most men and some women don?t oppose the general pretense of feminism from an ideological sense; they merely oppose the current paradigm of the feminist agenda. (Worth its own thread if you?d like to continue this part of the discussion)

I don't make that argument. I don't think most reasonable people should, because it's ad hominem. But, it's an unfortunate truism that many people who argue that sexism isn't a problem often do so in a way that makes them appear sexist. Not because of what they say, but because of the way they say it. You yourself posted a video not too long ago that was a prime example - it was full of blatant misogyny, and while you said, I believe, that it was a parody of those attitudes, it parodied those attitudes in such a way as to be indistinguishable from the real thing. It did not cast you in a particularly good light with some posters, as I recall - though I confess I didn't really linger in that thread for very long.

Wait, I posted two videos. One where a person professed their perspective on how the current culture of feminism was harmful to the gaming community, and the other that was a parody of the misogynist attitudes women claim are prevalent in the xbox live community. The problem of course was that I was attributed with the ideas expressed in the video (former) when I merely wanted to discuss them.

Slightly related tangent, there is a youtube blogger I enjoy that was kicked off a feminist forum. There was a discussion started where certain groups were starting to interview rapists, his position was this was a good thing because we could learn more about the inherent problems and their reasons/motivations. He was swiftly called a Rape apologist and banned because of the prevailing emotional reaction to the very notion that we would want to learn more about these people. If we can?t even have an academic discussion surrounding the source of the problem, how are we ever going to do anything about it?

It is doubly difficult, I imagine, to argue your side of this issue. People on my side tend to think their position is one that is inherently right in some way; it seems to me, for instance, that any reasonable person would accept that a well-developed female character is always better than a female character whose main traits are large breasts and skimpy clothes. I want to understand your side of things, because that's the only way we will ever find middle ground, but it feels like saying 'oh, this isn't really a problem' is kind of ignoring the concerns of a good number of your fellow gamers. And then people on both sides start to get belligerent, assuming that the other side is just being obtuse or making shit up to support a bunch of bullshit points for some cheap semantic victory and the whole thing devolves into a vitriolic flamewar and nobody comes away from it having learned anything. Which is just sad, for everybody's sake - and probably the reason everybody hates these threads.

Indeed. If people stopped to have a decent conversation without throwing out buzz words, we?d be having civilized conversation like the majority of this thread has been (once again ignoring the people who are only here to comment on how they don?t want to continuing seeing these threads, but feel the need to participate in them? /snicker).

I personally agree that a more developed character is a stronger character. However, I disagree with the notion that a character is ?better? than another character merely because they?re presented in ways which we find appealing. When several characters are developed poorly through a fighting game, each one is paid in lip service equal to a peck on the cheek; so focusing on the visual representation because we don?t find the characterization of these characters as developed enough to satisfy their visual representation? seems needlessly nitpicky to me.

The fact that developers actually did put ?some? effort into the back story of each character is commendable, when the basis of the game is to just beat the shit out of each other. Ivy has a back story, but it never details *why* she is visually the way she is, and why should it? Does each character require a history that details why they enjoy wearing black over red? Or leather pants without a shirt? What value does that really serve in a game where you use unrealistic weapons in unrealistic fashion to unrealistically dismantle your opponent unrealistically? We really find fault in a single, or few, characters sexualization? Really?!

Again, hard evidence taken across the board from every game ever is going to take a long time to compile and organize and present in any understandable fashion. And when examples are presented, they tend to be written off immediately as 'not taking into account the way the character feels about how they are dressed' which is rarely if ever expressed in the narrative and kinda feels like a cop out argument when the creator's intentions are immediately and inevitably dismissed as irrelevant. But that's just me feeling jaded by past experiences in this discussion.

My only issue is that hard evidence hasn?t been provided yet, and that?s why I take the discussion as more an opinion piece than anything else. Given the histories of how feminists have provided ?evidence?, I?m extremely skeptical of their credibility. I?m certainly in support of anyone who decided to take it upon themselves to do these research, but I certainly reserve the right to cross examine it and question their methodologies for accuracy and consistency.

Again, Sarkeesian is doing the research you want, and she's going to make videos telling us all about it. But I don't think anyone can claim she's not doing her research.

I can imagine her research methodology; ?What games can I use to support my positions?? Confirmation bias is poor research. I?m not accusing her of not doing her research; I?m accusing her of being a shitty researcher. There?s a difference.

Working on my degree (well a second one) for this one.

Mind if I inquire the specific degree? What area of expertise?