Poll: What do you think is Offensive to Women in Games?

[CaptainREBell]

I voted for submissive and beautiful. Games aren't real life, and all the characters are designed to look 'beautiful' (other than the villains, in most cases). So beauty in a female game character isn't too bad.
It's just where every female character always needs to follow you and cries out for your help and constantly needs rescuing that we get exasperated.
Escorting a whiny little blonde girl around a mansion is not fun for either a guy or a girl. But it can happen so much it can have a serious influence on how we expect women to behave (ie. like they're made of CHINA).
Rape porn is also not good, but probably not as offensive if the girl was a prostitute.
Meh, sexism is boring. Let's just shoot some zombies (which are always male, for some reason ).

 

[Arrers]

too many threads on why things are offensive to women is offensive to me.

You can blame them, it's a topical issue.

 

[LewsTherin]

Everything ever offends somebody sometime.

 

[Naeo]

All I can think of would be rape porn. All else could have a valid plot explanation or be part of the world in which the game is played. E.G. a traditionally structured game could just be set in the 50's or 40's or something. The thing about women being beautiful, unless to the point of "you exist only as a sex object in this game", has absolutely no offense in it. If/when it crosses into the "just a sex object", though, I can see how women would be offended. But if it's just one character out of several who is like that, or if, say, the character happens to be a whore by profession and you're in a god damned brothel, then no, nothing inherently offensive about that.

But the rape games I see as rather inherently offensive. Committing a crime that is committed almost exclusively against women for the sake of getting off...let's not. Unless it's got a "girl rapes guy" mode for equality, this would be it.

 

[Grype]

Meh, sexism is boring. Let's just shoot some zombies (which are always male, for some reason ).

Aha I had never noticed! Great, now I have a horrible craving to shoot female Nazi zombies.

 

[goddessofblueberries]

It's hard to put apples and oranges into a spectrum. Various things on the list can be offensive for different reasons and in different situations, depending on the context in which they are presented. I considered the strong/independent women being inherently evil as the most offensive, and some of the other ones on the list can be offensive in certain contexts. However, I don't find rape porn offensive at all. I think it's important to remember that no one is actually raped in the making of rape porn games. Likewise, I know that some people have rape fantasies (way more common than you'd think) and some people have rapist fantasies. Since I consider it completely acceptable for adult couples who are so inclined to safely, sanely, and consensually role-play out those fantasies with each other in real life, I could hardly object to people making and playing video games that allow adults to virtually role-play those experiences in the privacy of their own homes.

Personal sexual fantasies, fetishes, and preferences aren't offensive. I'd say that its the more subtle forms of sexism in games that is the most insidious: placing women exclusively in stereotypical roles within regular games that are supposedly meant to reflect the real world/normal human society and interaction.

 

[high_castle]

I'm curious to know how many people responding to this are actually women.

For the record, our gender doesn't think any more uniformly than the male. Not all women will be offended by the same thing. And even something that might normally be offensive can be done well if the dev team acknowledges the meaning. Taking the GTA route, you wouldn't expect these hardcore gangsters to really respect women, would you? They don't in RL, why should they in a game? It's an acknowledgment of the setting and the people who inhabit it, so it doesn't really offend me as much as you might imagine. I think it's a shame that line of thinking exists, but the fact that it's included in the game makes it more accurate. If that makes sense to anyone, of course.

Now, if you were to apply that same line of thinking to a fantasy or SF game set in a world entirely of your making...then you can get into some unfortunate territory. When you're creating a culture, it's only natural there should be some inherent prejudices and such. A good game will touch on issues that matter to us in the real world. But there needs to be some sensitivity to it. Games that feature women purely for eroticism or sexual fantasies can be offensive. But they're also geared towards an immature male audience. I just don't play the Witcher and I'm fine.

Really, I think you have to work hard to get offended by a lot of this. It annoys me on some level, but women get a surprising amount of eye candy in games, too. Most male protagonists are quite attractive, and feature proportions you wouldn't see on anyone but a GI Joe doll (action figure, sorry). And very few games have malice behind the portrayals. So I shrug most of it off. I've yet to be seriously offended by any game in particular that it stands out in my mind. And I consider myself a feminist, so make of that what you will.

 

[The_Deleted]

But who are we, as men, to say what is or isn't offensive to women. Surely that's a patronizing attitude in itself that we feel women need to be safeguarded or protected and in effect we are not treating women as adults, where warranted, and free thinkers.

What's offensive to one person may not be offensive to another regardless of sex.

 

[RelexCryo]

I voted for women being shown as beautiful and submissive. That's where I say the line is drawn, and the point in which I consider the game sexist.

Traditional social structure isn't wrong. Could you possibly imagine a Victorian era game (if such a thing exists) in which women are more powerful than men? It would kill the historical accuracy.
What if Oscar Wilde had envisioned women to be exactly equal to men? Lady Windermere's Fan would have been pretty dull, then.

I think a perfect example of a game that is NOT sexist is the new Prince of Persia. Both characters, being of different genders and different races (and I'm saying races in the fantasy sense of the word), have different skills and abilities. The prince can use his agility and strength to perform great acrobatics and fight. What Elika lacks in strength she makes up for it in her magic. While the Prince wallruns using his gauntlet and body, Elika uses magic to attach herself to the wall.

Also, whenever the Prince fails, Elika saves him from death. She rejects his lecherous comments, sometimes so wittily that she shuts the Prince up for good. She's driven, determined, pretty while not having epic boobs, is definitely smarter and more well-read than the Prince, and is also very indepedent (to the point where she

Spoiler: DLC spoiler

totally legs it at the end of the Epilogue

Would you say that a Dominatrix "harem" game in which all men are cute studs who are submissive to women is inherently sexist towards men and wrong?

Technically, yes, it'd be sexist and wrong, but to be honest, I wouldn't actually feel really offended by it. Since sexism towards men is rare, I suppose I'd consider that game to be a one-time thing, which is different to sexism towards women: they have to put up with it in at least 50% of all games, accross several genres, so obviously every new iteration of the "Women are weak, beautiful and promiscuous" clichè will be met with anger, and understandably so.
Excellent question by the way.

Thank you! Personally, however, I feel the only way we will stop discriminating, is to simply stop discriminating. Therefore, anything which is technically sexist should be treated the same in my book.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Whats offensive to women... ugh... probably Macguffin princess with no personality, hypersexual women, and worlds where women's only jobs are wife, daughter, and mother(exclusively).