I'm tired of the anti-feminist circlejerk here (and every where else on the internet)

[Austin Manning]

Almost all games with dialogue pass the reverse bechdel test. Name one game that passes the Bechdel test. Not passing the bechdel test not not make media sexist. It just proves that media is androcentric.

The Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Bethesda Fallout, and Elder Scrolls games all pass the Bechdel test.

 

[Giftfromme]

I love these threads, it's like a train wreck: it's terrible but I can't look away.

Ah yes the best posts to generate discussion.

step 1. User sees what may become a controversial thread.
step 2. Gets super excited
step 3. Doesn't read a single post and declares sarcastically "thread will go well etc"
step 4. Feels better about himself

I mean have you read a single post in this thread? There is some good discussion going on, but if you feel it isn't good, you should address those issues, not make a post to make you feel better about yourself.

I'll let you in on a secret: controversial threads can generate discussion!!! Amazing! Mind blowing! And that is exactly what is happening here.

I'm sure 4chan likes your kind of posts. Take them there please.

 

[CommanderL]

Here's the thing, at this point, I for one honestly don't care anymore.
As with politics, religion, and every other heated debate there's always the argument of "yes the problem exists with a small portion of the group, but that's not me." Ok it's great to know that not all feminists are of the crazy variety and are of the minority, but sadly they are the vocal majority.

And honestly the whole rallying to the cause, especially to the cause of feminism has really been tainted due to no one else's fault but their own. Instead of appealing to people in a rational manor, most arguments of feminism get put out there and the crazies run with it. Oh so there's a problem with women in videogames that causes women to stray away from it. That would be an interesting problem to fix, it's great to see more people brought into the videogame community. What are your points? Hmm I don't agree with X,Y, and maybe Z...oh what's that just because I disagree with your I'm a misogynistic troglodyte and I shouldn't dare to disagree because apparently being a white male basically equates me to being responsible for everything wrong with the world.

Sorry but I don't care what the argument is about anymore and certainly don't care about the cause. It doesn't make me an antifeminist, it makes me human. Very few people are going to rally behind a cause, no matter how good it is, if the methodology behind it sucks. I personally think this is the greatest pitfall of feminism, it alienates potential supporters and even turns some people against it.

You said what I was going to say and to be honest they last few months on this forum have been horrible remember when it was about the games I used to care but I am just over it all

 

[Darken12]

I have to say...wut about the Assassins creed 3, Darksiders 2 and Borderlands 2 I would say those three are FAR from being sex objects, I would also say the Deadspace 3 one is not so sexual either but the one girls shirt is just a little low cut, but it makes the cut as it were.

The problem is that if we add the restriction "must be strictly sex objects" on top of what the poster already laid out, then I will obviously not make it to 10 examples when the pool of valid games to choose from was already pretty damn slim in the first place. When you say "give me examples, but they must be from this tiny, deliberately chosen sample that deliberately leaves most games that would prove your point outside", it becomes very difficult to prove a point.

Except the ones I called out were not sex objects, they are just decent looking women.

What he asked for was

I want to see 10 women portrayed as sex objects in videogames that came out in the past 3 months.

Notice the "sex objects" part? Which those characters are not (Well, Asscreed 3 might, but I havent played that one, but from the picture you posted she isnt exactly a sex object)

I am going to assume that by "decent" you mean the old usage of decency as sufficiently clothed.

Personally, I consider that a lot of those women are inconsequential to the game itself and are only there because they were put on a dress with cleavage. In the case of the AC3 multiplayer, the rest of the characters are male (I think. I thought I saw a female native american, but she was also sexualised). The way I see it, developers don't want to work on female characters unless they fill a very specific role within a story (such as a male character's mother, sister, daughter, wife or girlfriend, or the elderly lady that gives cryptic advice), so when they have to work on female characters without a specific reason to exist, they tend to be shelved in the "sexy eyecandy" box. This, I think, is a throwback to the old adventure, horror and romance literature of the Victorian era. Tolkien, for example, was a great example of paying tribute to old legends, sagas and stories from his youth, and he created a world where practically all the heroes were men and the women were either prizes to fight for or secondary characters who had a key scene or two and then left the book without doing anything of consequence. Alan Quartermaine said, too, that women were nothing but a distraction in his adventures. Back in the day, practically all adventures involved male characters doing the things that needed to be done while female characters were always put in a very secondary role.

The current entertainment industry knows it can't do that anymore but still doesn't know what to do with women, so they get put into sexualised outfits so that their role is to look sexy. Other male characters in the same position might get deeper backstories, or fleshed out personalities, or just more overall care during design, but the female character often gets effort in the form of "how sexy/beautiful can we make her?" and that's pretty much it.

 

[PhiMed]

snip

Privilege is not the same thing as advantage. Whoever told you it was was lying to you.

So, let me get this straight. Even if nearly every single facet of public life (which is not exactly the case... yet... but we're moving in that direction) were to be intentionally skewed to give females the advantage, even if males are judged to be almost universally treacherous when encountered out of context, and females are judged to be almost universally "safe" if met under the same conditions, if some private interactions, somewhere, unfairly fell in males' favor, then all males would still be privileged?

Hmmm...

If that's the case, then I think that my initial impression of this word was correct. I first heard it used in this context in college by someone who was attempting to argue with the Western Civilization professor, and at that time I thought it was just a word feminists use without really having a set meaning in mind, its meaning changing to fit that which is most needed for whatever argument being made. Since it has no actual meaning, it cannot be disputed. It's just a verbal bludgeon used a trump card. It's just a coded buzzword the devoted recognize immediately, with no real-world connotation or application. Saying "male privilege" is a hackneyed truism. Nothing more.

Sure there are situations where its use is quite appropriate, societies where being male is truly an advantage, but its overuse by the zealots cheapens it to the point where using it in these appropriate contexts would understate the actual problem, causing most listeners to tune out due to sheer hyperbole exhaustion.

 

[Quadocky]

I wish I had an exact answer as to why misogynistic men on the internet is such a trendy thing, but pretty much only have some vague answers.

I mean, not much beyond me blaming annoying internet libertarians and conservative reactionaries.

If anything the only thing MRAs have accomplished is making Feminism relevant and a much more common point of discussion across the internet. Another thing they accomplished is showing how awful MRAs are.

 

[Vault101]

[snip.

Maya from borderlands 2 I think is acceptible,

yes shes shown to be sexy or attractive but shes not a sex "object" her ourfit is form fitting but doesnt show much skin AND is actually somwhat practical (not a high heel in sight thank fuck)

she also playes an essential role in the story both canonwise and if you play as her alone (havnt finished BL2 yet...no spoilers)

shes an example of "attractive" but not "bash my head against my desk this is so fucking retarded" levels of fan service, again attactive charachters in games are not the same as sexism/ojectification

HOWEVER I am all for even more "practical" female charachters in games....but maya I think is a good female protagonist

EDIT: and as somone pointed out Lilith the original siren is more sexualised than Maya

 

[Darken12]

[snip.

Maya from borderlands 2 I think is acceptible,

yes shes shown to be sexy or attractive but shes not a sex "object" her ourfit is form fitting but doesnt show much skin AND is actually somwhat practical (not a high heel in sight thank fuck)

she also playes an essential role in the story both canonwise and if you play as her alone (havnt finished BL2 yet...no spoilers)

shes an example of "attractive" but not "bash my head against my desk this is so fucking retarded" levels of fan service, again attactive charachters in games are not the same as sexism/ojectification

HOWEVER I am all for even more "practical" female charachters in games....but maya I think is a good female protagonist

EDIT: and as somone pointed out Lilith the original siren is more sexualised than Maya

To be honest, I have no idea who the women in the photo are, or who are the people you and the other poster are talking about. I do admit that the characters I'm showing are definitely dressed far more tamely than what would qualify as sex object, but if I was allowed to bring Duke Nukem to replace it as an example, I doubt anybody would complain. Alas, the excessive constrains forced me to go for things that I wouldn't have gone for if I had 3 years of gaming instead of 3 months.

 

[Quadocky]

Wuh... I'll put this nicely. Mate, I don't think you're good at first posts, because that first post is a jumbled mess of assertions and half-points.

Every time this sort of thread gets made, the first thing I think is that it's far less productive to just make a thread for you to have your own soapbox (even if it's for one post) instead of finding one of the offending posts and replying to that person. "Boy, you lot are this and that" is a pretty meaningless and masturbatory way to have this discussion.

I don't have patience enough to decode your OP, nor the inclination to, but sort of on topic - I think most of the points made by feminists in these sorts of discussions are rather thoughtless and inane, and the non-stop outrages really grate my nerves. In a nutshell, I'm all in favor of actual women's rights, equal pay, all of that stuff, but talking about gaming (or any sort of art form) as something that has to meet a quota of equality (equality here being approval from equality advocates, which isn't quite the same) is really kind of ludicrous to me.

There is no quota, if its misogynistic or racist or problematic or otherwise, its just that. Its not like some crazy metascore based upon whether or not the piece of media has achieved a high enough equality rating to be considered a wonderful piece of pure and true equality media.

And, if you must know, there is quite a bit of problematic media out there. The concerns are justified in many cases.

 

[Vault101]

To be honest, I have no idea who the women in the photo are, or who are the people you and the other poster are talking about. I do admit that the characters I'm showing are definitely dressed far more tamely than what would qualify as sex object, but if I was allowed to bring Duke Nukem to replace it as an example, I doubt anybody would complain. Alas, the excessive constrains forced me to go for things that I wouldn't have gone for if I had 3 years of gaming instead of 3 months.

well thats kind of point then..western games are not that bad in terms of sexualised females, belive it or not alyx vance is actually not the only bastion of practical clothing in a sea of T&A mabye she was in 2004 but times move (I could name a bunch minor-ish charachters)

its having them as main charachters we have trouble with

 

[Quadocky]

You wanna know one of my biggest annoyances when talking to feminists online?

Patriarchy and rape culture.

Their definitions are vague, unfalsifiable and most of the time I've seen them used is as a cop out to justify double standards, or just as a way to make whatever they're complaining about sound extra terrible (example: these ads are patriarchal in nature, this game supports rape culture).

Patriarchy in particular just seems like it's used as a giant boogeyman scapegoat for all the world's woes.

Patriarchy is just once subset, there are more. Its just the most relevant.

Rape culture is pretty much anything that supports the removal of sexual sovereignty. Whether it be making light of rape, or justifying it through terribly misguided thinking (blaming the victim, etc)