Poll: Sexism and your gender

[Muspelheim]

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!

Female here.

My thought exactly. Having unrealistic armour is a design choice, but it makes even less sense when it isn't evenly spread.

Of course, skimpy gear wouldn't be any problem if they pretty lads and lassies could be given som actual depth to their character, make them feel less like a throphy or something.

Male here, WTB moar pex on display.

 

[TehCookie]

I like how sexism in games means fanservice rather than women are inferior sexism.

I'm not against sexy women in games, but I want equality so that means there should be just as many sexy men! I've actually been trying to think of male characters that are sexualized for women. The only ones I could think of were Snake, Raiden and Dante. It's not hard to think of female characters that are thrown in for fanservice, but seriously try to think of some male examples right now. Also it annoys me when people claim the steroidbeast men are sexualized in games. They might be. The only problem is they are sexualized for other men and it still ignores the female gamers.

In case you couldn't guess I'm female.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

This is what women have to put up with everyday in games, movies and comics. Female characters are put on display for men while male characters have relevant character based poses. It's pretty indicative of the attitude towards female characters.

(particularly love Iron Man in the usual Samus pose...)

Spoiler: Look at Black Widow's pose in the original...

 

[Divine Miss Bee]

female, and i do find a lot of characterization in games to be sexist when i think about it, but i rarely (if ever) the one to bring it up in discussion. of course games are sexist, everything else kind of is too and there are enough characters on all sides of the spectrum that it doesn't really matter.

(also, judging by the number of "poll missing" OPs recently, i'm guessing the escapist is feeding them to the new layout. we need to harness this technology to solve the alternative energy problem.)

 

[Lilani]

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.

Female, and I really think it's subjective. A "video game" in general is as inherently sexist as an avacado. But there are certain things video games can do that I find sexist. Moviebob worded one well: the way male characters on box art tend to be on poses which tell something about their character (brave, steadfast, confident, powerful, evil, etc.) the way many women are set to pose in games are as if there's a mirror just out of the frame that they're checking themself out in. They're posed to flaunt their assets, not to actually seem like a person.

Also, I don't really mind skimpy clothing on its own, though when armor in the game is considered important and all the males are getting full body armor and the females are getting little metal bikinis I do get rather annoyed. Also, when the skimpiness gets five miles passed ridiculous (see X Blades [http://www.msxbox-world.com/assets/article-images/585c.jpg], which is also a good example of the "mirror just out of the frame" effect").

Sexism is the belief that one gender is inherently superior to the other, which is inherently inferior. Skimpy clothing is not inherently sexist because it does not inherently make the claim that the woman is inferior to anything. But when you put her in a fighting game where everyone else is stronger (see early fighting games, and a few modern ones), or when her only reason for being there is to be eye candy, that becomes a problem.

 

[spartan231490]

Male here.

I see no problem with games as far as sexism is concerned. Why? Because while yes, many of them are sexist, they are just reacting to their audience in a way that will get them the most sales, and that is their purpose, really. Is it fair? No, but neither is life.

Someone earlier mentioned clothing in fighting games and skimpy "female armor" and wondered why there wasn't an equivalent amount of revealing male armor, and I would suggest that is because young women tend to be more tolerant of sexy/slutty dressed women in their games than young men would be. Lets face it, a large portion of young men are borderline homophobic, skimpy clothing on the guys would probably totally kill those sales for the developers, whereas skimpy female clothing makes people mad, but they still buy the game.

It is my opinion that sexism in games is a simple result of things like this, where the developers are trying to squeeze out a few more sales by appealing more to the less tolerant gender: Men.

If that didn't make any sense, I apologize, I just pulled an all-nighter. If that's the case, I'll fix it once I get some sleep in me, whenever that will be. Damn you finals week!!!

 

[Thaluikhain]

I see the dreaded eater of polls hasn't been dislodged by the new layout.

 

[babinro]

There certainly are games that are sexist against both men and women.

Male here.

Male - This is very true. The sexism shown doesn't actually bother me much. I don't put any real thought towards it except when the outfits are so revealing that it takes you completely out of any immersion the product was trying to create.

In most cases, I consider this to be a sad norm to sell sex to men and woman that exists in all visual mediums.

 

[Batou667]

Usually I'd be first in line to tediously point out that both men and women in games have unrealistic physiques, needlessly figure-hugging costumes and in all probability are found appealing by women and men respectively (and gay men and lesbians, natch).

And then something like the above picture comes along and reminds me that actually a lot of female portrayal is fanservice while male characters are adolescent wish-fulfilment. For shame

I think comic books are even more guilty of this kind of thing than games, though - the fact that they're a static medium lends itself more readily to sexy posing.

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!!

Yeah... I think the idea is that any anthropomorphised male/female will still feature sexual characteristics. That's why you get Gundam robots with huge pectoral armour and thrusting, phallic codpieces while even armoured females have contoured, figure-hugging armour such as metal bras (which you can sometimes even see their nipples through, as if it was a light T-shirt - wtf?). Sometimes they just give up the pretence at subtelty and make the "important" female areas (breasts, midriff, ass and thighs) completely unarmoured while "balancing" it out with chunky boots or gauntlets. It's laughably impractical, but hey, the 12-year old boys love it.

 

[Whatthe]

This is what women have to put up with everyday in games, movies and comics. Female characters are put on display for men while male characters have relevant character based poses. It's pretty indicative of the attitude towards female characters.

(particularly love Iron Man in the usual Samus pose...)

Spoiler: Look at Black Widow's pose in the original...

Is there a reason that this is considered sexist? I know that you say that this indicates the attitude toward female characters but that does not mean it has the quality of sexism. Female characters are posed in a way that is most appealing to the demographic but does that indicate inferiority?

By the way I only ask this to see if you have a good reason for this belief not because of my belief that this is or is not sexist. I just want to know why people genuinely think this is wrong.

 

[AdmiralMemo]

Male who thinks games are sexist, but getting better.

 

[SeanSeanston]

Thing is... if you look at a game like Golden Axe as an example that comes to mind, people might mention how impractical and revealing the only woman's armour is, while the fact that the tall burly warrior is wearing even less in the form of skintight blue speedos would probably go comparatively unnoticed.

Mind you, I can't think of many semi-nude male heroes nowadays... but it was relatively common in the past which, TBH, is also when semi-nude female heroes was most common.

I mean... wut?

 

[MagentaMask]

Male here.

I study game development and oddly enough this question -still- very rarely comes up. Although one trend I have noticed is designers creating more and more gender neutral worlds, meaning fantasy or sci-fi where men and women are exactly as capable in every aspect and no roles are considered out of the ordinary for either sex.

I can see how those people are thinking, but it I just find it boring. It seems like a lazy way to avoid a subject that is "too hard" to handle well. Jeanne d'Arc and Boadicea wouldn't have been as extraordinary if women used to lead armies every day.


And also, this:

Spoiler: (Saving space here)

Where did you find this? This picture is worth a thousand words

 

[lord.jeff]

Well this is going to be kind of lopsided isn't it because most of the people on this site are male.

I'm aware of that, the poll was to show that a large number of people who took arms in this are female in a direct response to things like this

I know it's kind of petty.

I do not care if something is sexist against women or men... If it is not ment to be sexist, it is not sexist. People just needs to relax or they can very well be offended but shut up about it.

Man here.

That statement doesn't work how many racist/sexist would classify themselves as racist/sexist? Very few, most of them would say they are just letting them know there place or whatever failed logic they want to use.

 

[Yuki_Seele]

I think the higher majority of sexism in games is definetly more so to women than it is to men. But also i think some people may confuse something like an outfit being sexist when its really just fantasy. I think sexism comes in more when its the personality of characters. Like if a female character was dipicted to be incredibly fragile and innocent in a game that has her fighting and killing ect, i think that is were for me personaly i find it to be sexist, as its the male developers overlooking what someone would actualy act like to be able put there "ideal woman" in a situation they find cool. It undermines the realism aspect, also it makes you not really take it seriously and ultimatly it just feels dissrespectful.

Male here.

 

[Erttheking]

Never bothered me that much, but I do have to scratch my head at some points. ME in particular seems to be here and there, with people like Tali, Ashley Kasumi and Liara who are good at avoiding this, and Samara and Miranda who...not so much. A catsuit with high heels? Really? And Samara, do all ancient warriors have a clevage window? Oh yeah Jack...enough said.

Male here.