Should Feminism and Gaming Mix?

[carnex]

My niece, daughter of another of my brothers which stayed on the front, was so shell-shocked that while she stayed at my house after they escaped Croatia, we were very careful not to create any make any loud banging, crashing or exploding noises. If she heard such noise she would grab her doll and run under the massive dinner table telling her doll it will be all right over and over and over again. She did that from some 19 months of age when she came to my house to age of roughly 6 years when finally she managed to control her impulse and finally managed to socialize.

Your family cared enough about your niece not to make loud noises and such. That's all trigger warnings are. A decency you afford to others because you care about their well being. There's no blaming going around and you do the best you can.

I'm out of this conversation. If you don't understand now then there's no helping you.

You are missing the point. We were carefull and protective. We didn't project it on others. We didn't demand from others to hold our guard up. We didnt task the whole world to prepare everything on asilver platter for us. If you cant understand the diffenrece, then it's really beyond my capability to explain.

 

[DracoSuave]

So long as there are people making rape threats to people for stating their point of view, so long as strangers are told to 'tits or gtfo' in public games, so long as people at conventions are derided for not conforming to some misogynists idea of what a normal gamer should be, so long as there are men in our culture trying to derail progress to include women on the level in the community without marginalizing them as women, then yes, feminism IS necessary within the community.

The problem here is that you're taking bigger issues and seem to claim that when it happens to women it's just misogyny. That ignores the idea that said people who may be misogynists in your eyes may just be pricks who also act like pricks towards women. Take Anita for instance, a lot of people are hell bent on thinking she only got crap because she's a woman. WRONG. Men who made absurd claims about VG's also got a lot of flack. You may say that it wasn't as bad. Well she also went out of her way to rub her crap into people's face by advertising her kickstarter on 4chan of all places. I think if Jack Thompson did the same and advertised himself on 4chan he could have expected some really really nasty shit too. Thunderf00t for instance is a man who also got lots of nasty crap thrown at his face (and he didn't even crap on VG's like Anita). Is that misandry?

While some of the behavior you mention is 'toxic asses being toxic', some of it is toxic towards women because they are women, and is specific in its toxicity.

Regardless, targetting the toxic behavior as the higher concept is, of course, productive and I certainly agree doing so will alleviate the problem. But saying that misogynistic assholes are saying other things that make them assholes and therefore it is not misogynistic is like saying the Joker isn't a thief because he also kills people in his robberies.

While there is no doubt there is misogyny you aren't going to fix people who are just dicks by treating them like misogynists just because they also acted like dicks towards women. What you need to fix is general dickness on the internet. You'll already see a lot of what you think is plain misogyny go away.

Not disagreeing there--but you're not going to do that by saying 'Oh, that Timmy, he's not a misogynist when his telling women to get the fuck in the kitchen causes women to not say anything or reveal their gender because of the negative backlash because of assholes like Timmy, he's an asshole to everyone so it's okay.'

No, Timmy's a misogynist AND an asshole. He's both.

Good question. Now you're talking about strategy, and this is where different types of feminists differ on their approach and ideas on how to do so. My standpoint is on a man who's grown tired of the immature nonsense, and of people excusing it as 'it's just the 14 year old COD players' or turning a blind eye to threads complaining that a woman who streams is some sort of 'attention whore who isn't actually there to play the game' or nonsense like that.

If I point it out, it's just lost in the noise, you'll compartmentalize it as someone making noise about it. The point is for YOU to look for it, and see it happens for yourself, and to stop excusing it. And so on. That's one thing we can do as men--actually LOOK for it instead of pretending it's not a problem and trivializing the experiences of our community's female members.

I think the issue is more a matter of people knowing how pointless this fight is. As long as there is anonymity and consequently social impunity there is little you and I can do to change the behavior of dicks on the net. People usually don't excuse it, they just see it as a hopeless fight and thus rather just ignore it instead of torturing themselves by hopelessly trying to do anything about it.

And that is the point where I am forced to disagree, and where I am forced to throw out a 'citation needed' or 'bring evidence.'

In this instance, there haven't been a lot of studies on means to combat gaming community toxicity. The usual practical response is to ban as many outcomes as feasible and hope that has an effect. But in really large communities, that becomes impractical in terms of manpower in order to manage.

The only company that's been trying alternatives [publishing peer-reviewed work in the process] is Riot, as far as I am aware, so there's really not a lot of practical research done in this field--certainly not at a level considered acceptable to make any conclusion about impossibility.

The research is actually very positive, however--Gaming culture CAN change despite the anonymity. The problem turns out that there's no reward for good behavior more than the punishment for bad behavior. As well, communities are not empowered to do something about behavior they do not desire in their community. This leads to the situation you describe--where people are unwilling to be a positive influence because they don't see a point to it, nor do they have an outlet for dealing with the negative influendes. Remember, in most games' communities, if you encourage others to be good, if you stand up for people against toxic individuals, the best you get is the game allowing you to continue getting what you pay for, which is what happens if you say nothing at all.

 

[carnex]

1) I think you are seeing asshole/misogynist relationship in false premise. Being asshole is condition and misogyny is just one of the symptoms. It's like tuberculosis and cough. You might treat the cough but that won't heal the patient. Behind lashing our rarely that is fear or hatred of women. Actually I don't know any person that fears of hates women. Scared of social contact, yes, and maybe even one that thinks that in most tasks women are inferior but never real fear and hate.

And let's not forget that in MP games most people who lash out at females targeting their gender are more than likely to target others by any other characteristic that differs that person from him. Gender, Sexual Orientation, Nationality, Race, Religion... Only way to really know someone targets women because they are women is to witness several instances of such behavior with no discernable reason.

2) I'm against rewarding for being normal human being. Next we will reward people for breathing. Rewards are for being better than normal and punishment for being worse than normal. You don't get paid for throwing the trash into a bin. You get rewarded for collecting trash from places it doesn?t belong (at least some types of trash like metals, glass and other recyclable materials) and get punished for throwing trash outside bins.

 

[nuttshell]

The research is actually very positive, however--Gaming culture CAN change despite the anonymity. The problem turns out that there's no reward for good behavior more than the punishment for bad behavior. As well, communities are not empowered to do something about behavior they do not desire in their community. This leads to the situation you describe--where people are unwilling to be a positive influence because they don't see a point to it, nor do they have an outlet for dealing with the negative influendes. Remember, in most games' communities, if you encourage others to be good, if you stand up for people against toxic individuals, the best you get is the game allowing you to continue getting what you pay for, which is what happens if you say nothing at all.

Do you think a little behaviour psychology will change a (percieved) group of people that consists of individuals who have almost nothing in common? What is "Gaming culture" anyway? If you want a nice group of people, you have to keep it small and almost isolated.

 

[DaViller]

Hideki Kamiya needs to open up a training camp for future developers. The camp however will not focus on development itself but teaching devs how to properly not give a fuck.

I like developers with confidence in theyr design and art choices. I also believe that the best games made are uncompromising. The top 2 of the 4 best singleplayer games of this generation (to me at least), darksouls and bayonetta, have this in common(bayonetta maybe to a lesser extend). These games do not care whom they might offend or alienate through theyr design or art choices and thats what makes them awesome(among other things of course).

Therefore I dont think feminism and gaming should mix just as much as I dont want any other ideology firmly integrated into gaming. Wether someone wants to design a scorceress with ridicoulus knockers, a woman fighting in a metal bikini or a realistic female lead overcoming the odds it's cool with me if the artists confident about it (im not ok with everything of course but thats personal).

Someone posted a gearbox community article before. The article contained a quote that goes pretty much like this "You do not specifically state women are welcome in your game therefore we think we aren't. This would be easy to fix.". This has to be one of the most idiotic things I have ever read. It's is like me saying I dont visit restaurants if they dont have a "Half indian/german men are welcome here!" sign in front. I can only imagine what dark souls would have looked like if from soft had similary idiotic design values"Oh we have to make absolutely sure we get a recognisable gay guy in there just because"(I dont mind gay characters but I cant stand a game that actively tries to pander to everyone).

Well thats it for my for my first post here i hope it's not a structural mess, wrote it on my wii u.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Hideki Kamiya needs to open up a training camp for future developers. The camp however will not focus on development itself but teaching devs how to properly not give a fuck.

I like developers with confidence in theyr design and art choices. I also believe that the best games made are uncompromising. The top 2 of the 4 best singleplayer games of this generation (to me at least), darksouls and bayonetta, have this in common(bayonetta maybe to a lesser extend). These games do not care whom they might offend or alienate through theyr design or art choices and thats what makes them awesome(among other things of course).

Therefore I dont think feminism and gaming should mix just as much as I dont want any other ideology firmly integrated into gaming. Wether someone wants to design a scorceress with ridicoulus knockers, a woman fighting in a metal bikini or a realistic female lead overcoming the odds it's cool with me if the artists confident about it (im not ok with everything of course but thats personal).

Someone posted a gearbox community article before. The article contained a quote that goes pretty much like this "You do not specifically state women are welcome in your game therefore we think we aren't. This would be easy to fix.". This has to be one of the most idiotic things I have ever read. It's is like me saying I dont visit restaurants if they dont have a "Half indian/german men are welcome here!" sign in front. I can only imagine what dark souls would have looked like if from soft had similary idiotic design values"Oh we have to make absolutely sure we get a recognisable gay guy in there just because"(I dont mind gay characters but I cant stand a game that actively tries to pander to everyone).

Well thats it for my for my first post here i hope it's not a structural mess, wrote it on my wii u.

Hhm... Your post reminded me of this quote.

Stephen Fry
?It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what.?

And it's not a bad first post, though I'm pretty much fresh meat still too so...

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Misogyny actually exists, it is a clinical condition between a really small amount of people that have irrational fear of women: http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/m/misogyny/

I thought you liked Wikipedia.

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

Or perhaps dictionary.com

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/misogyny

Or is Websters more your speed?

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misogyny

Origin of MISOGYNY
Greek misogynia, from misein to hate + gynē woman ? more at queen
First Known Use: circa 1656

So yeah. Misogyny "actually exists". It's a word. It means hatred of women.

Even your rightdiagnosis states "irrational fear or dislike of women".

I'm sure I'm just misunderstanding your point here. I know you're very particular about words being employed properly.

 

[Kenmoo]

I have to confess, I still don't understand half the so-called feminist reactions to that Tomb Raider reboot.

Not only is wanting to save someone from rape bad - somehow - but the old Tomb Raider (who quite clearly was shamelessly marketed on her tits) was talked up as some kind of bad-ass.

Logic!

Read this.

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Trigger_warning

Knowledge!

EDIT: There's one particular scene where Lara is caught by the bad guys. That's totally a trigger for some women. It hits way too close to the mark.

I'm interested as to why we don't just go ahead and use these trigger warnings too.

Pictures of missing limbs and explosions (for military veterens)
Images of drugs and parties (for addicts and recovering addicts)
Passages about child abuse (for the abused)
Bible quotes (for atheists)
Pictures of meat (for vegans)
Pictures of any food at all (for anorexics)
Comments about break-ups
Pictures of attractive people (for the ugly)
Self-harm
Pictures of people smiling (for the depressed)
Song lyrics (for the deaf and tone-deaf)
Pictures of cats (for people who are allergic to cats)
Any mention of straight relationships or default gender identities that isn't negative
Any passage of text (for the illiterate)

Anyway, moving past my indulgence in a little bit of juvenile humor.

I've tried several times to try and type up a proper response to this asinine crap. If someone knows they are speaking with a rape victim then yes, watching what you say is good. If you are going into a place where there are likely to be people that were victims of rape (Like a forum for people to discuss it or what have you) then you should watch what you say or bring. But purchasing an M rated game and then having a fit of indignation when it shockingly has mature themes is on the head of the person purchasing the material.

As much as that list I posted is a joke, there are people that are victims of torture or survivors of public shootings and we don't have people get outraged over things that could trigger them to have flashbacks.

I don't want to come off as some sort of insensitive ass that doesn't care about the problems of other people, but what do you expect people to do? To never have anything that could possibly trigger someone to have a flashback to something horrible that happened to them?

Do you really have such little empathy for others? Do you really not understand the point being made? I'm not sure what you are blathering about. The Mature rating has nothing to do with it.

Let me explain...

Crystal Dynamics: We're reinventing Lara as a women who's more than just an adolescent sexual fantasy. Women will have a protagonist they can identify with and feel empowered by.

Some Women: That scene where Lara almost gets captured [and strangled to death if you fail] didn't make me feel empowered. In fact, it reminded me of a time when I had no power. Not a good way to go about empowering women.

EDIT: Yes, if you cared about the feelings of other you would use trigger warnings. It's really not that hard.

wow. you're talking about gameplay mechanics oO so what? Women can't be: shot at, beaten up, strangled, choked anymore in any context of entertainment?

 

[Kenmoo]

Having been a victim of sexual assault it does help. It really does. I can just skip over topics/posts that contain such content. Do you really think the warnings have no affect at all? Are you really claiming you have no idea what might trigger people?

Well having suffered intense emotional trauma myself (I am not going to divulge what for personal reasons) I can tell you that no, warnings don't help at all, all they do is cover the problem and not fix it. The fact that people have flashbacks to traumatic experiences is better solved by counselling, trigger warnings are like 'painting over the cracks' as they say.

Trigger warnings help me but not you so they're pointless? This is exactly what I mean about lacking empathy.

counceling would probably help you better than "trigger warnings"

Misogyny actually exists, it is a clinical condition between a really small amount of people that have irrational fear of women: http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/m/misogyny/

I thought you liked Wikipedia.

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

Or perhaps dictionary.com

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/misogyny

Or is Websters more your speed?

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misogyny

Origin of MISOGYNY
Greek misogynia, from misein to hate + gynē woman ? more at queen
First Known Use: circa 1656

So yeah. Misogyny "actually exists". It's a word. It means hatred of women.

Even your rightdiagnosis states "irrational fear or dislike of women".

I'm sure I'm just misunderstanding your point here. I know you're very particular about words being employed properly.

to add to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gynophobia

gy·no·pho·bi·a audio (gn-fb-, jn-, jn-) KEY

NOUN:
Fear of or contempt for women.
Behavior based on such an attitude or feeling.

 

[Yuuki]

Do you really have such little empathy for others? Do you really not understand the point being made? I'm not sure what you are blathering about. The Mature rating has nothing to do with it.

Let me explain...

Crystal Dynamics: We're reinventing Lara as a women who's more than just an adolescent sexual fantasy. Women will have a protagonist they can identify with and feel empowered by.

Some Women: That scene where Lara almost gets captured [and strangled to death if you fail] didn't make me feel empowered. In fact, it reminded me of a time when I had no power. Not a good way to go about empowering women.

EDIT: Yes, if you cared about the feelings of other you would use trigger warnings. It's really not that hard.

wow. you're talking about gameplay mechanics oO so what? Women can't be: shot at, beaten up, strangled, choked anymore in any context of entertainment?

He's simply asking for all that stuff to be properly listed on the front of the box for any women who may have suffered any of those things.

So typically you would see a massive label on the box along the lines of:

Rated M17+
Contains violence, blood, gore, sexual themes, women getting shot, women getting beaten up, women getting strangled, women getting choked, women getting sexually assaulted, and a whole lot of other bad stuff happening to women.

And then for the sake of equality we can have a similar label for male gamers:

Rated M17+
Contains violence, blood, gore, sexual themes, men getting shot, men getting beaten up, men getting strangled, men getting choked, men getting sexually assaulted, and a whole lot of other bad stuff happening to men on a GENOCIDAL SCALE THAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING THROUGH GAMING FOR THE LAST 20 YEARS.

Makes perfect sense.

 

[Oirish_Martin]

Wasn't Lara Croft more than just sexual fantasy prior towards the reboot though?

Seeing as how she was a fully controllable protagonist playing as an adventurer/explorer seeking historical artifacts, solving puzzles, and defeating countless enemies/bosses on the way...I would say yes, she was more than a sexual fantasy even prior to the reboot

Those who classify Lara as "only" a sexual fantasy (and nothing else) can be safely ignored.

Hang on, isn't HUGE TITS OMG the argument against the design of the Sorceress in Dragon's Crown? Isn't she a fully realised PC regardless of her boobage?

So why the furore about that, but not Lara Croft, who was also intentionally crafted with huge boobs?

 

[DataSnake]

For me its open world games (see GTA, Sleeping Dogs and Dead Rising) not having a women protagonist (or just one women character) I can identify with. Do I even need to mention Damsel in Distress?

In that case, I highly recommend the Saints Row series, at least from Saints Row 2 onwards.

Penny Arcade put this best: http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/04/24/character-selection

It?s very weird to pull up a story about a game with frankly visionary art and hear why it shouldn?t exist, or to hear what I supposedly fantasize about, or what kind of power I supposedly revere, and any attempt to defend oneself from these psychotic projections or to assert that creators may create is evidence of a dark seed sprouting in the heart. It?s an incredible state of affairs. They?re not censors, though - oh, no no. You?ll understand it eventually; what you need to do is censor yourself.

Funny you should mention that, here's the comic that goes with that article, which illustrates what dudes being treated the same by the art style would ACTUALLY look like:

 

[Oirish_Martin]

I have to confess, I still don't understand half the so-called feminist reactions to that Tomb Raider reboot.

Not only is wanting to save someone from rape bad - somehow - but the old Tomb Raider (who quite clearly was shamelessly marketed on her tits) was talked up as some kind of bad-ass.

Logic!

Read this.

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Trigger_warning

Knowledge!

EDIT: There's one particular scene where Lara is caught by the bad guys. That's totally a trigger for some women. It hits way too close to the mark.

First time I've heard this argument - most of the argument centred around how the notion of saving Lara from rape was perceived as sexist because it involved appealing to a primarily male audience to save a female character from rape. Again, encouraging people to protect people from rape is a massive improvement on:

1. Tits
2. ????
3. Profit

Again, I don't pretend to understand any of the logic behind this palaver, and it may well be charitable to assume there is logic on behind it in the first place.

 

[carnex]

Funny you should mention that, here's the comic that goes with that article, which illustrates what dudes being treated the same by the art style would ACTUALLY look like:

Actually no, there are women with huge breasts. Like Tanya Song for example

Spoiler

or my fiancee (no, I'm not gonna upload image).

 

[Yuuki]

Hang on, isn't HUGE TITS OMG the argument against the design of the Sorceress in Dragon's Crown? Isn't she a fully realised PC regardless of her boobage?

So why the furore about that, but not Lara Croft, who was also intentionally crafted with huge boobs?

She is, but in Dragon Crown's case most of the noise is coming from people who aren't familiar with the developers' art style and how they illustrate pretty much everything as extreme/hyper-exaggerated throughout all their games.
I'm fine with people criticizing Vanillaware's general art style, but singling-out the Sorceress for her big boobs and ignoring everything else is nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction from people who couldn't miss the point harder even if it danced naked in front of them with it's tits out (no pun intended).

Apparently there is something holy/sacred about female body proportions which an artist simply isn't allowed to tamper with, unlike male proportions where the artist can do whatever they like and hear no criticism about it. It's funny/comical/awesome/etc when a male with fucked-up proportions shows up, but the moment it's done with a female then holy shit, ring the sexism/misogyny alarm! Videogame feminism in a nutshell.

Two scoops of double standards with a healthy sprinkling of irony, coming right up

Funny you should mention that, here's the comic that goes with that article, which illustrates what dudes being treated the same by the art style would ACTUALLY look like:

Pretty sure the point of that comic was to illustrate that sexualization between males and females isn't freely swappable/comparable due to different genders being different. It was in response to people who were demanding that the male characters should be sexualized in the same way, despite it being a case of apples & oranges.

I'll explain what I mean, say that comic strip was to be extended for 1 more panel and we were to copy-paste the "sexy" parts of that Warrior back onto the Sorceress. So we would basically end up with a Sorceress with tons of body hair, GIGANTIC biceps/shoulders, tiny legs, a massive camel-toe vagi...ok I'm going to stop there, you get where I'm going with this. She would look like something out of a horror movie because sexy bits can't be so easily "converted" between genders. That's what the comic was getting at.

I hear some retorts of people saying "no actually that comic was showing what female gamers feel like when playing the sorceress", in which case I have to seriously ask which woman finds that sorceress utterly hideous and that warrior sexy (referring to the ones in the comic). She was drawn cute n' curvy on purpose, I don't even have to be a male to see that.

 

[DataSnake]

snip

She however does say that games that don't fit her ideas of womanhood shouldn't be made. If saying something shouldn't be made because it doesn't fit your moral standards ain't a veiled way of censorship, then... what do you think it is?

Are you familiar with the quote "I disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"? It's pretty relevant here. I, for instance, think that Medal of Honor: Warfighter shouldn't have been made because the resources wasted on it could have been used to make a good game instead. However, if someone were to try and ban it, that someone sure as hell wouldn't get my vote. There's a difference between "you shouldn't do/say/make that" and "you shouldn't be allowed to do/say/make that", and only the latter qualifies as censorship.

 

[Riotguards]

to OP's question no that isn't feminism, that was someone being an asshole on the internet

feminism in general is just a loose term i no longer consider it a representation of what feminism was in the 1920's, the many bad apples in feminism often scream that "the patriarchy is present in the western world and men are all wrong and evil"

now i have nothing against women's rights activist or anyone who is fighting for equality, hell if i had my way i'd go out and try and convince them all to turn into equalist

an example of these bad apples http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO_X4DkwA_Q

i'm in no way a MRA but if you detest against another persons views you don't scour them, scream and then call them all sexist because they are talking about gender equality issues

all in all, the western world has an equal amount of gender issues but i feel that feminist are far too concerned on the minor if not non-existent female discrimination compared both male and female gender discrimination


by the way, i absolutely hate Anita Sarkeesian, she's blowing a lot of hot air over something she clearly has no grasp on, she doesn't even play the games but rather steals them from other people's videos

 

[Tanakh]

Are you familiar with the quote "I disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"? It's pretty relevant here. There's a difference between "you shouldn't do/say/make that" and "you shouldn't be allowed to do/say/make that", and only the latter qualifies as censorship.

And here is the thing, she says neither of the two clearly in that video, it's up for our interpretation. She however does say that:

- "Even though most of the games we're talking about don't explicitly condone violence against women, nevertheless they trivialize and exploit female suffering"

after just stating:

- "It's especially troubling in-light of the serious real life epidemic of violence against women facing the female population on this planet."

And it is very clear in the context of the sentence:

- "Games don't exist in a vacuum and therefore can't be divorced from the larger cultural context of the real world."

That she is sure that videogames are having an influence to increase violence on women.

Now, a subset of a hobby that increases the violence on women? That increases crimes against a vulnerable population?... yeah... the only logic posture would be to ban that kind of games.

And here's the thing, the part that REALLY GRINDS MY GEARS, she proved shit! She build upon speculations over speculations, showed no research, linked no sources, quoted no studies at all, ... and for some reason people think she is not talking out her ass... this kinda crap wouldn't fly in fact based science at all. Now if she however have studies correlating violence against women with video games, by golly I need to read them, would love links to those; till then however I will think she has good intentions but zero cred and is just saying baseless moral judgments trying to pass them as objective truth.