Inspired by posts in the recent Skullgirls controversy, I was wondering how many many people standing against sexism in games are female in comparison to male. Answer then state your opinion and gender, keeping in mind that this is about video games in general and not just Skullgirls.
Poll missing just state if you find video games to be sexist and your gender.
I do get pretty annoyed over 'warriors' in most RPGs being fully clad and protected when male and skimpishly dressed with only decorative armour if female. At least gimme some sexy male skin to look at as well while you're at it, silly developers!
The thing is, is every type of media is going to have something a bit sexist in it somewhere - against women or even against men - because it's such a broad and complex issue it's really hard to be careful enough not to step on anyone's toes.
Heck, I realised yesterday that there's an anti-feminist episode of the Powerpuff Girls. THE POWERPUFF GIRLS. How can a cartoon about three kick-arse little girl superheros be anti-feminist?
On a personal level I've never found a game sexist (well, it used to be a tad annoying in games where your personality-less character HAD to be a guy before they started realising that girls actually really like playing Pokémon and Harvest Moon too, but probably no more annoying than it was for the black kids who still have to overlay their identity onto a pale skinned character) but of course when you start looking at subtext and detail you can find something iffy.
Lara Croft's ridiculous waist to bust ratio, for instance, portraying the impossible body-type as a desirable female even before magazines started putting models' faces on fake bodies. And those magazines are trying to sell an ideal to women, which is bad enough, but as Croft's main fanbase is male the outcome is that it is the men who are being trained to want women to be thinner and bustier.
But playing the game I just felt like an empowered woman.
I guess what I'm saying is... I don't think games (well, any games I can think of off the top of my head) are sexist, more that they are following the same trends and mistakes that everyone makes that people need to be more careful about, as the consequences can be negative. Perhaps not hugely negative but it all builds up to allow divides between men and women, stereotypes and impossible ideals to continue, when they need to be shut down.
Games depicting women with barely any clothes on, large breasts, slim waists, and other aspects that attract the male audience is simply for that, attracting men. It's quite sad but as everyone knows, sex sells. It truly does; a commercial about whipped cream would instantly become a major selling point if it had a woman eating it in a sexy way.
Now in terms of how I stand on it: I don't believe that women should be portrayed with very little armor while men have armor that covers their entire body or any sort of form like that. Unless the character is very into sex and is open about her sexual endeavors, there is no purpose. Although I don't think that the industry is all about the women; in fact, the game I always cite as a way to attract women is Devil May Cry.
Take a look at the third game: Mary is a powerful, independent woman who deals with situations on her own but finally accepts help in the end but not in a "I need a man to save me!" sort of way. Dante's outfit screams out "Women love me!" by having no undershirt, showing off his muscles and they have Vergil, the quiet yet handsome villain that many women apparently love.
So in the end, there are games that have aspects to attract men, more so than women, but there are games that have women in mind.
I'm against sexism in games in that I'm against crappy character design in general. I have no interest in idealized, one-dimensional characters of either gender, but I also believe that most characters in general are unfortunately designed to appeal to the male audience.
Of course it's possible to design female characters that are attractive without sex appeal being the main focus, but when I read discussions about this subject you'd think that there's no grey area between utter fanservice and a frumpy lesbian hag. What's stupid for one game might be perfect for another, but I think that there's a lot of potential for attractive, memorable and interesting female characters, but it's not usually explored.
I feel pretty strongly about this topic, more so as a game developer working in the industry that makes these characters, and as an artist who appreciates good art, than as a woman.
male here an honestly don't care about sexism. sex sells thats the way it is.. I think it is just an excuse for people to get whiny and complain. besides I don't think anyone wants to play a game with ugly looking characters.
Ok, when I play games I don't play to look for sexism, I just play for the fun of it. That being said, if I notice something that is just plain sexist, it kinda peeves me. For example, I was playing a game a few days ago, and one of the female characters said something along the lines of "It's dangerous out there, wouldn't it be better if we brought a boy along?".
That being said, and though I don't enjoy games that pretty much only let my female character wear a bikini, I would rather play as a girl dressed in something pretty, than as a girl that looks like a man. Otherwise, there may as well not be a female option.
pretty sure theres more sexism against females than males, but you know, ive seen it towards everyone, including creatures of myth and legend so does it really matter anymore? i know ive stopped giving two shits.
there was an ad that would often show up here...for some mech type MMO thing, it had a heavyly armour lady on it
WHY THE FUCK IS HERE MIDRIIF SHOWING??? THERE IS NO NEED FOR THAT AGGHHH!!
Ragnarok185 said:
male here an honestly don't care about sexism. sex sells thats the way it is.. I think it is just an excuse for people to get whiny and complain. besides I don't think anyone wants to play a game with ugly looking characters.
I don't think games in general contain deliberate sexism, but rather just marketing techniques. I can't say I am proud of it, but let's be honest, a little sexiness in games can be an enjoyable touch. For the most part it doesn't seem like a problem, it's just when games like Duke Nukem come along that I sigh and shake my head. I don't hate them for it and I think there is a place for them in the world, I just prefer not to associate myself with them.
I'm not bothered by sexism in games because I don't go looking for them and if I happen to see it I will shrug it off and move on. But if it's really obnoxious I will either finish the game and not touch it ever again, or I will stop playing it and not make a fuss about it since I think that game doesn't deserve any attention. Even if it's negative.
Depends if you find it sexist to have females wearing hardly any clothes in games while men wear huge bulky pieces of armor... But then it's just to attract the male audience. If I saw a game where the woman weren't included in the fighting or something like that then I would consider it sexist, not the way they are presented however.
M
male here an honestly don't care about sexism. sex sells thats the way it is.. I think it is just an excuse for people to get whiny and complain. besides I don't think anyone wants to play a game with ugly looking characters.
First, I'm a girl.
Second, you mean sex, not gender. Sex is what you are physically, gender is what you are mentally and emotionally.
Third, I really don't see anything really wrong with Skullgirls, but I do wish there was more strong, nonsexualized female leads. Like Chell. I don't really mind if a girl is shown in revealing outfits as long as she's not portrayed as just that, a girl in sexy clothes. I want depth of character and a personality. I want a reason for her to be in those clothes aside from "Well, it's what guys want." That doesn't really cut it for me. But that might just be cause I'm not "the demographic".
Well this is going to be kind of lopsided isn't it because most of the people on this site are male.
I don't really have a problem with sexy looking women as long as they have a character as well. In a lot of games the female characters are just there for men to look at while the male characters have all the characterisation.
It's possible to make a pretty female character design that also reveals her personality and lifestyle.
It's also a shame when a good female character say, for example, Lara Croft is essentially overwhelmed by her own sexuality. She was pretty much seen by the media as nothing but a sex object when in the actual game she was intelligent, bad-ass and actually didn't give men the time of day. (Although that could be attributed to not wanting to make the male player 'jealous') She was a female Indiana Jones yet if you looked at the media storm around her at the time you would think she was nothing but eye candy.
Then there's games like the Witcher 1 which pretty much went all out to alienate it's female audience. I loved playing that game but I couldn't stomach finishing it because female characters were nothing more than pokemon cards for the main character to bed and collect. Despite the game having many female characters central to the plot they were only there for sex appeal not as characters in their own right.
There is sexism in the game industry and it needs to be addressed. However men need to understand that it's not the amount of clothes on the female character more that sexuality is the only dimension to said character.
There seems to be a strong confussion here between sexism and sexual objectification. These are seperate issues. If there is a trend to objectify women sexualy in video game art, (which I believe there is) that is an indication of instatutionalized sexism but not the same as. However objectification in any particular case couldn't necessarily be considered to be so in and of itself.
It is even harder to accuse a game of being sexist if you accept the games as art theory. In which case sexist like behaviors could be considered inturpitations of real sex based conflict in our world and exploring that conflict. Indeed in order to truly and clearly sexist a game would need to strongly imply that one sex was better than another and would need to make generalization along the lines of all X are Y and not just that all X in this game are Y. Further the fact that there is a single character who is sexist, does not make the fiction sexist. For example a game or story where the man character was confronted by a sexist character in some way and either overcame it or acknowledged it as sexist, or even just wasn't sexist themselves wouldn't be sexist or at least probably wouldn't.
Heck a game or other work of fiction could have strong sexist themes without being sexist as a whole. That being said, many games are extremely superficial and what appears to be a sexist theme in not a part of a larger message and probably does imply some sexism on the part of the creaters.
That being said and moving away from the term confusion. I certainly think woman get sexual objectified in a whole lot of games for no reason other than to appeal to male audiences or evoke jelously in female audiences. However, I do not think this is unique to gaming as a media. All media have a tendancy only to show attractive members are either sex and woman in particular are often shown to be or posed to be sexually suggestive. Media other than Gaming at least throws a bone every now and then by having a person who doesn't fall into the attractive and/or overly sexualized catagory, but gaming has far fewer examples.
I can't think of box art for a game that features a female character but doesn't show off primary or secondary sexual characteristics either by vastly over exagerating those characteristics or by possing the character in such a way as to sexualize their body. (Actully syberia and syberia II, and TLJ just came to mind, but the point still stands. If you think of a game that has a female on the cover it is likely that her boobs will be big, or the focus will be her ass and if it isn't, she'll be arching her back, cocking her hips, or bent over something.
Male characters tend to suffer from just as much sexual steriotyping, but not necessarily in a sexual way.
There I've said my piece. Oh and I only have one X in my gene structure. (at least as far as I know)
*EDIT*
Just for the fun of it I went to find box art for the games I mentioned to see if my memory served me they are here
And I think my memory served pretty well, but while I was looking for this, I found 3 different version of the box art for another game that served as a good example of how box art can be displayed in differnt ways to sexualize a character
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