Sexism in the industry

[JimB]

There's this phenomenon that probably has an official name, but I know it as the Blue Volkswagen Phenomenon. It's when you buy a blue Volkswagen, and you suddenly start seeing blue Volkswagens all over, everywhere you go. There aren't actually more blue Volkswagens than there ever were, but now you notice them more because you have one of your own, because that's how people are. Like some old saying or another goes, we only empathize with pain when it's our own.*

People are realizing how much sexism some people have to face in their daily lives, and to those people, sexism is a blue Volkswagen: Now that they've seen it in their own lives, they see it everywhere. I don't say they're wrong, either, but I do think the newness of their realizations causes a certain lack of perspective on the matter. If video games are your passion, then by all means, pursue the sexism of not having a female protagonist in Grand Theft Auto V; I won't tell you what your priorities are required to be. Let's not forget, though, that we live in a world where an underaged girl can be sexually assaulted by multiple boys who record the assault and publish it online, and then the girl's community will attack her for being the victim of a criminal assault while dismissing the boys' participation in it.

Why is it that sexism in gaming is inherently wrong, while things like violence, glorification of crime and racism (certain nations always being villains, even in games not based on real world conflicts) are not?

There is no way to answer this for all people, but for my part, it's because violence and glorification of crime are not generally accepted or excused in real human society, while sexism generally is.

--

*In all fairness, I may have cribbed that from a fortune cookie. I don't actually remember.

 

[Fox12]

To demonstrate this: consider how many games are made to appeal to women, minorities, trans persons, homosexuals, etc.

-

Some games are made pure fan service because that is what the target audience wants. Other's just to cater to them and get extra. You might not find any purpose doesn't translate to it being sexist, nor having no worth.

Making a game for a target audience does not justify sexism. The developers have every right to make a sexist game, or a game that has fanservice, because of freedom of speech. However, that does not make it morally right, regardless of their motivation.

Lets break this complex issue down, and explore what fanservice actually is, and several reasons why it would be bad. First of all, what is fanservice? At it's most simplistic, it is merely service to the fans. There are many types of fanservice. This could mean action fanservice, with lots of violence, or perhaps military fanservice, where insane levels of detail are portrayed in the depiction of a gun. In this case we are obviously talking about sexual fanservice. But why would this be bad?

First of all, if it interrupts the flow of the story then it is a liability and not an asset. For instance, there can be a sex scene in a story, like King Arthur, that is important to the plot. The actual act of sex has a massive impact on the story. In this instance it is not fanservice. Another show can have an equally explicit sex scene for no reason, in which case it hurts the flow of the story. In some cases it may even hurt the character development and story instead of supporting it. The scene is superfluous, and is only present to appeal to the libidos of the audience. It can also hurt the general tone of the story. For instance, if a story is trying to be serious and realistic, but the female characters wear bikinis into battle, then the general tone of the story is going to be inconsistent. In this case fanservice would be bad because it hurts the quality of the story by damaging the pacing and derailing character development. However, this does not explain why fanservice would be sexist.

Fanservice is sexist when a characters primary role or personality trait is to be sexually attractive, and her entire personality revolves around this one trait. If her only personality trait is that she's attractive then it devalues her as a human being, because it suggests that her only worth is her physical value to the male audience. Her value is tied directly to her attractiveness, and if the character lacks any personality than she is little more than an object to be ogled. When a persons value is tied to something this subjective it hurts the value of people as a whole. Unfortunately in some cases, though not all, the fanservice becomes borderline misogynistic or turns into objectification. A common trope in anime is a woman losing her clothing, or being caught naked, in which case she is embarrassed or enraged. This is often played for comedy. And yet there is something inherently sick in taking pleasure from the mortification and humiliation of another persons physical and psychological exposure. This is dehumanizing. At best fanservice is distracting, and at worst it is disturbing.


Here's an interesting article about the nature of fanservice:

http://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/the-problem-with-fanservice/

Here's an excerpt I found interesting, if you don't want to read the full article:
"Here?s what saddens me about anime: that shows like Samurai Girls pass the Bechdel test at the same time as their visuals undermine everything that it stands for. So do Full Metal Panic, Azumanga Daioh, Lucky Star, Love Hina and just about any other shonen-oriented, slice of life or female harem story you care to name ? but all while upskirting, side-boobing, cleavage-enlarging, skintight-wearing, fetish-enabling, proportion-warping artwork creates a visual dissonance with characters whose dialogue, friendships and personalities would otherwise stand on their own merits."

 

[AperioContra]

Not seeing how this is a problem. Sub market within the male gaming market prefer this and thus the game industry caters to the group them. Not seeing why it's a problem that the gaming industry caters to different group based on their preference. Groups wants Tit's and asses, and thus the game industry says we shall oblige, make the product and sells to them. So what?

All apologies, but I do not believe you got the point of my thesis. My problem isn't that they are catering to a specific group, but rather, they are catering to a specific group, at the exclusion of any other. This conversation would be a moot point if there were plenty of examples of fair representation in gaming for women. But there aren't. There are examples, but most of them are few and far between. The fact is there are very few groups catering to the, "I want women who are real fucking human beings," Demographic against the, "I like girls with big fat titties," Demographic. The gulf between these numbers is extraordinarily disconcerting.

The reason this conversation even exists is not because videogames are catering to the latter demographic. It's that they aren't catering to the former at all. When you add on top of that a long history of sexual inequality, you have the formula for a giant shitstorm.

DFTBA

 

[wulf3n]

It's not so much a "first world problem", as an issue of less relevance. Less sexism in the gaming industry would be great, but let's not kid ourselves that it has the same weight as cutting down on wage slavery, war crimes, or political corruption. Every issue has a weight of importance. Putting all your energy into X detracts from more pressing concerns.

You provide an example of another logical fallacy I wish would go away. [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as]

I'm curious as to what makes this a logical fallacy?

fal·la·cy
/ˈfaləsē/
Noun
A mistaken belief, esp. one based on unsound argument.
A failure in reasoning that renders an argument invalid.

It is neither a mistaken belief nor a failure in reasoning. It's simply an observation.

 

[Netrigan]

I think what's happening is the number of female gamers have grown to the point where they're starting to influence things, and they're starting to get vocal about what they do and don't like in games. The industry has to learn how to appeal to the growing demographic and some of that means shedding a lot of casual sexism which tends to accumulate in any Boy's Club.

Same thing is happening over in the sci-fi/comic scene where female convention goers are on the rise thanks in no small part to the cosplay scene and their presence is too often met with a "you're doing it wrong" attitude. Think of the knee-jerk reaction to Twilight, even though there's no shortage of equally vapid male-centric genre trash out there.

And, quite honestly, the criticism of video game sexism is fairly light on the ground.

 

[Caiphus]

Snip

Might it be this?

http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/you-are-not-in-control-how-a-game-about-tourettes-syndrome-can-make-us-re-e

Edit: Substituted better link

 

[Verlander]

Because violence is an action, and sexism is a representation.

Example - Would American History X have been such a great film if it was concerning two white street gangs, and without the neo nazi element? No, I don't think so, even if the violence didn't change one bit. This is an example where a negative representation is used to great effect, and is central to the whole story.

Sexism, racism or other "-ism"s in game are not central to the story, nor to the plot. They are lazy devices used by unimaginative elements of industry because they can get away with it. It should be in the interest of every gamer to ditch these bad habits, if for no other reason than to raise the quality of the medium by making writers try harder.

As for everyone else, I can only imagine how the heads of little white "conservatives" would blow if they were moved to areas of Africa or Asia, where they don't get their given entitlements. The beauty of the west is that no one should be given substandard treatment or representation for whatever arbitrary designation they were given at birth. I invite these pricks to try to preach their nonsense in Somalia, or Saudi Arabia.

 

[wulf3n]

It's not so much a "first world problem", as an issue of less relevance. Less sexism in the gaming industry would be great, but let's not kid ourselves that it has the same weight as cutting down on wage slavery, war crimes, or political corruption. Every issue has a weight of importance. Putting all your energy into X detracts from more pressing concerns.

You provide an example of another logical fallacy I wish would go away. [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as]

I'm curious as to what makes this a logical fallacy?

fal·la·cy
/ˈfaləsē/
Noun
A mistaken belief, esp. one based on unsound argument.
A failure in reasoning that renders an argument invalid.

It is neither a mistaken belief nor a failure in reasoning. It's simply an observation.

A logical fallacy is a form of reasoning that leads to false results. In this case, they are suggesting you are guilty of a logical fallacy because you are attempting to make an issue appear better or less deserving of attention, because there is another issue that can be considered worse. "A isn't worth attention, because B and C are worse."

It's often used when talking about privilege or "first world problems." For example: "The Boston Bombings aren't a big deal. Worse bombings happen all over the world every day."

I'm still not seeing how this is a fallacy though. Sure it can be disingenuous when used by those who aren't tackling the other issues, but why shouldn't we be dealing with issues in the order of their severity?

It's like someone trying to put a band-aid over a scratch while the person is bleeding out from a missing limb.

 

[Caiphus]

I'm still not seeing how this is a fallacy though. Sure it can be disingenuous when used by those who aren't tackling the other issues, but why shouldn't we be dealing with issues in the order of their severity?

It's like someone trying to put a band-aid over a scratch while the person is bleeding out from a missing limb.

Only if the amount of energy we are expending by talking about sexism in video games were to take away from energy we would otherwise be using to help starving children in Africa.

Just as, yes, if someone across the road was screaming for an ambulance and I ignored them because I was putting a band-aid on my finger, then someone could very well say "You should prioritise". Although that person could probably get an ambulance themselves, but whatever.
But if there's no person dying nearby, then it would be absurd to not put a band-aid on my finger because someone somewhere in another country is dying instead.

Although there are some parts of sexism in video games that get wholly too much attention, it's not as though we'd be off doing charity work otherwise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_relative_privation

The fallacy of relative privation is an informal fallacy which attempts to suggest that the opponent's argument should be ignored because there are more important problems in the world - despite the fact that these issues are often completely unrelated to the subject under discussion.

Besides, when was the last time you were playing video games? You could have been out taking care of the homeless, man

 

[wulf3n]

Only if the amount of energy we are expending by talking about sexism in video games were to take away from energy we would otherwise be using to help starving children in Africa.

I wonder what would happen if the amount of energy used by the internet to debate trivial nerd topics was put into help starving children?

But if there's no person dying nearby, then it would be absurd to not put a band-aid on my finger because someone somewhere in another country is dying instead.

It's a question of whether or not effort is being directed to the most needed place with regards to what it can achieve.

Although there are some parts of sexism in video games that get wholly too much attention, it's not as though we'd be off doing charity work otherwise.

Perhaps we should?

Besides, when was the last time you were playing video games? You could have been out taking care of the homeless, man

Never, but I accept I'm a heartless self-indulgent monster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_relative_privation

The fallacy of relative privation is an informal fallacy which attempts to suggest that the opponent's argument should be ignored because there are more important problems in the world - despite the fact that these issues are often completely unrelated to the subject under discussion.

The only people this argument really silences are those who try to delude themselves.

 

[wulf3n]

They assume that we can't focus on sexism in the game industry because of the existence of greater problems.

To me it's a result of the vehemency of the arguments not reflecting the severity of the issue in relation to other issues.

The issue being that they ignore it's more efficient to have multiple people working on multiple problems instead of everyone focusing on one problem and impractical to put off solving some minor problems because of the existence of more major problems.

Is it though? I mean if that's how we're doing things now, it's not really working.

It has the effect of saying "no, she wouldn't ever consider dealing with sexism in gaming. At all. Ever."

Only if you believe there will always be bigger issues, which is kind of depressing.

 

[Caiphus]

Snip

Um... I'm not entirely sure how to respond to any of that. Especially the part about "deluding".

I guess I should try and put the fallacy in formal terms? Maybe that would make it better. Although I'm not all that good at it.

Premises:
X is a problem worth discussing
Y is a worse problem
Conclusion:
X is no longer a problem worth discussing

The conclusion is not supported by the premises. Therefore fallacy.

Unless your argument is that everyone should only ever exert themselves in the most productive manner possible, then there's no delusion.

Although one could also say that sexism in video games is not a problem worth discussing in and of itself, although that's a subjective opinion, and you're not going to convince a lot of people of that.
Especially when a) people do seem to care, judging by the insane number of topics/posts we get on the subject, and b) like half of your own posting history is devoted to sexism in nerd culture/video games.

Edit: Struggling to type at midnight.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppealToWorseProblems

The bottom has examples of when the fallacy does not apply:

Looks like this fallacy but is not:
When dealing with limited time or resources, and discussion or debate of the lesser problem is impeding the parties from solving or addressing the greater problem ("Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic").
When the worse issues are directly related to the subject in question (complaining that your car is wrecked when your loved ones are in critical condition because of the accident) or when it's used to rebut a deliberate attempt to lump together or equate both issues.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Maybe after the sexism/feminism stuff dies down, racism will be the next big thing. Better representation for Russians!

The Russians are not a race, bro. They are Caucasians, like you and I. They are represented adequately.
Other than that, I agree with you. It's a fad, and it will go away soon enough.

Caucasian is a race and it does not with any reasonable certainty apply to "you and I". Unless you're from Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western, Central or South Asia. And even that doesn't make you Caucasian.

Caucasian does not mean "white".