Is There Gender Discrimination Against Male Cosplayers?

[Areloch]

Exterior element can easily negatively impact any community. I'm not saying males will be totally excluded from cosplay, but I am seeing a trend of it becoming less accepted as cosplay gets more attention. You brought up fursuits, which I think is a good analogy, but not for the reason you stated. My point here would be that there always always going to be people who participate in such things, no matter how badly the act is perceived by the public at large, the problem is that these people are always in the minority.

I know plenty of ladies who gave up gaming because of exterior opinions, like female friends that would shun them for being gamers, so there's that too. These problems don't always come from within, they generally come from both sides. That probably a point I could have made better on the subject.

Yeah, fair enough I suppose. I guess my main point is, while these sorts of influences CAN happen, I'm not yet convinced it IS happening in a broad scope.

Well actually neither am I, but I believe that there is the potential for it to starting to be moving in that direction. Still without proper statistics it's impossible to tell. At least with cosplay that's how it is.

For female gamers, they've really never been a driving force in the gamer community, you can easily tell this with how few games tended to be marketed to female gamers. That's changing, but it seems that the casual market is where people expect female gamers, which I think is woefully misguided. While there are plenty of female gamers I wouldn't say they've represented the community "en force". Though that's mostly because female gamers tend to be more, or less "invisible" to avoid harassment.

Ok, so yeah, we're in agreement there then. It may not happen yet, but it's a possibility if people roll along with it.

Also, when I say 'in force' I mean that there are a LOT of girl gamers now. Because there are. Even in more "hardcore" circles, girl gamers are rapidly becoming a normal sight to see. And this has happened in the face of a whole lot of external negative stereotyping about it not being 'for' them.
Most of the girl gamers I know personally play Destiny, MMOs, hardcore pokemon, do D&D and other more 'hardcore' gaming, so it's not like the girls that do play hardcore games are still a freak outlier. They're definitely less than the girls playing in the casual market, but they're not really a rarity either. Again, maybe I just happen to live in "everything is pretty cool here" Valhalla land, but my gut says it's not as rare as people think it is.

 

[wulf3n]

The leniency to express one's self still comes from a rather fetishistic approach towards women, regardless of whether the individual choose it. Were it not for that approach, the leniency, and their choice would likely not exist.

If the leniency given to female cosplayers were solely due to fetishistic attitudes you would expect that leniency to extend only to cosplay that satiates that fetish. However based on this article it would suggest that is not the case.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

Just remember gentlemen.

If you're going to go out and dress like a male stripper then you've at least got to keep up the barest pretense of the illusion that you've got a full time job apart from stripping professionally.

 

[Something Amyss]

Wow, that's pretty lousy. I know how to do cooking, I help clean, and I know how to sew(made my own costumes for the cosplaying stuff I've done for the most part), and while those could ostensibly be considered 'feminine', I don't think anyone that knows me would consider me that or look down on me for it. Again, obviously I lucked out in here I live, but still that's pretty lame to hear :/

I don't really know how it plays out in cosplaying circles, because I'm mostly just sort of tangentially friends with people who do it (some have tried to get me into it, being freakishly tall means even making your own stuff is ridiculously expensive), but this seems to be a fairly common American perception of the way things work. And yeah, it absolutely sucks, part of that being that it's so common.

[quo9te]Also, what you must do is first convince him to cosplay Slenderman. THEN take him camping. Inform no one of the cosplay.

Then sit back and watch magic happen.[/quote]

I texted him earlier and told him he should dress up as Slender Man and just walk around where he lives, filming the results. He was like "I don't know what that means, but count me in!"

...I've not yet followed up because I got busy, but still. lulz for all.

 

[Lady Larunai]

I've cosplayed several times, maybe crossplayed once been to several conventions before the irrational fear of candid photographers set in and I can say there is a large split in liking it or hating it, I have often heard groups of male non cosplayers trying to "guess the guy" and several women that will do wide circles around anyone crossplaying, whether its more or less stigma than any guy in spandex gets I cant say for sure but its up there on the level of disdain you see for "fat sailor moon" though over all there is general distaste for male cosplayers unless they are topless, females definitely have ten fold more freedom when cosplaying but that comes with the privileges they hold

 

[McElroy]

For female gamers, they've really never been a driving force in the gamer community, you can easily tell this with how few games tended to be marketed to female gamers. That's changing, but it seems that the casual market is where people expect female gamers, which I think is woefully misguided. While there are plenty of female gamers I wouldn't say they've represented the community "en force". Though that's mostly because female gamers tend to be more, or less "invisible" to avoid harassment.

My personal mindset on this changed on the day I saw this picture with the lead designer and the ceo of Colossal Order.

Spoiler

If you would've shown me this picture without any context and put a caption saying they were making a city simulation game I probably would've laughed. Now it's different and I think I can take a lot of typical grrl gamer bullcrap before cynicism would get the better of me again. Inb4 "doesn't mean anything", well, five out of eight emplyees at Colossal Order are men, and up until a year ago the "most hardcore" game any girl I know played was Skyrim... on a console. Then I heard one recommending The Binding of Isaac to her friend. That was pretty cool.

Just wanted to share that. After all it's something that should be shared if we want to diminish the "boy's club" mentality, shouldn't it?

OT: I'm a simple man... all of you memers can fill in the rest. I have bias, but preference is not discrimination. I'm also a bit on the "costumes are for kids" -side, but y'know, it's not too uncommon to want to be like a kid again for a little while. Then again one might ask if I tolerate more "childlike" behavior from hot girls than guys. The answer is simple, 'cause I'm a simple man...

 

[And Man]

This wasn't touched on in the article, but as a man that has worn shirtless and other more revealing cosplays, I can personally testify that the stigma on catcalling and the "cosplay is not consent" rule tend to get overlooked when the cosplayer in question is male.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

For female gamers, they've really never been a driving force in the gamer community, you can easily tell this with how few games tended to be marketed to female gamers. That's changing, but it seems that the casual market is where people expect female gamers, which I think is woefully misguided. While there are plenty of female gamers I wouldn't say they've represented the community "en force". Though that's mostly because female gamers tend to be more, or less "invisible" to avoid harassment.

My personal mindset on this changed on the day I saw this picture with the lead designer and the ceo of Colossal Order.

Spoiler

If you would've shown me this picture without any context and put a caption saying they were making a city simulation game I probably would've laughed. Now it's different and I think I can take a lot of typical grrl gamer bullcrap before cynicism would get the better of me again. Inb4 "doesn't mean anything", well, five out of eight emplyees at Colossal Order are men, and up until a year ago the "most hardcore" game any girl I know played was Skyrim... on a console. Then I heard one recommending The Binding of Isaac to her friend. That was pretty cool.

Just wanted to share that. After all it's something that should be shared if we want to diminish the "boy's club" mentality, shouldn't it?

OT: I'm a simple man... all of you memers can fill in the rest. I have bias, but preference is not discrimination. I'm also a bit on the "costumes are for kids" -side, but y'know, it's not too uncommon to want to be like a kid again for a little while. Then again one might ask if I tolerate more "childlike" behavior from hot girls than guys. The answer is simple, 'cause I'm a simple man...

Well for the off-topic part, that's pretty neat and a good indicator, that despite the "dude-bros" and exclusionary misogynists, that gaming is becoming more inclusive.

On-topic part: Does that mean men and less attractive women should be forbidden from indulging in childlike behavior and recapturing their childhoods?

 

[McElroy]

On-topic part: Does that mean men and less attractive women should be forbidden from indulging in childlike behavior and recapturing their childhoods?

Pfft, well of course. That's just IMMATURE. Okay really, I don't go out of my way to judge people and I certainly won't scold people over their harmless hobbies. Childlike behavior and recapturing one's childhood can be anything depending on the person. However, I also don't think people should get away with everything without any reaction from others, and thus while I might admire a beautiful lady cosplaying as Ahri, upon seeing an overweight lady do the same I might laugh a bit (both of which I did when I browsed through the Pool Party cosplay gallery on LoL's website).

 

[Something Amyss]

For female gamers, they've really never been a driving force in the gamer community, you can easily tell this with how few games tended to be marketed to female gamers.

Except that's not really true. Unless by never you mean 'recently' or if you're young enough "in my lifetime."

It's interesting hearing this sort of stuff coming from an age group where games weren't considered a "boys" product. And, I might add, when I was young women programmers and game designers were in an upswing until there was a specific and deliberate pushback against "feminism" in the tech sector. Women had to be made unwelcome for the current environment to exist. Which is kind of like gaming.

I sometimes forget this, because most of my gaming-related interactions come from this website, where I'm probably more than a decade upward of the average age range.

Point being, there was a time in my own lifetime where women were valued as both creator and consumer.

Rather, this whole "girls don't play games" thing is cultural pushback from men who felt they were losing their place in the world.

...my, how times have changed.