The ism's in gaming

[Bowstring]

My oh my. She's still got it. I like a woman with fire in her heart, and handcuffs in her bedroom door.

Alas; I tend to avoid debates involving excruciatingly long replies, and this is no exception. ...

But I don't think game developers ever intended to degrade women. They're just trying to make a game that will sell. By conforming to certain stereotypes it may be easier to achieve that very task.

No handcuffs--I kept losing the keys, and rope is a lot less likely to leave bruise-marks in the morning. But, hey, enough about my personal life...

I said this above, but it bears repeating: I don't think anyone wakes up in the morning and says to themselves, "Ooh, I think I'm going to go out and oppress people today!" No one does that and no one has to do that in order for the -isms to keep on going. We inherited a lot of really screwed-up cultural stuff from the last 500 years and the only thing that is required for it to keep happening is for us to keep doing the same things we've always done and thinking the same ways we've always thought, without questioning any of it. There was actually a logic to the holding of doors for a lady 150 years ago, and that was because long skirts, especially with petticoats, tend to get stuck in doors otherwise. However, even though women no longer wear such skirts, but culturally we still act as though they do. We are still carrying on with an inherited standard of proper male behavior that makes no sense, and that is just one of many examples.

So I don't think developers are sitting over their keyboards, gleefully perpetuating the subordination of women as sex objects. They are just making games just like the games that came before them. That's not a sexist conspiracy, it's just inertia. Inertia and lazy design and, in an industry that supposedly lives on innovation, not terribly smart from a business perspective either.

So men trying to be nice to women is bad?

Talk about reading between the lines, Bulletinmybrain.

Edit: To the above, I was going to write something similar. I'd be pretty ashamed if you had me 'worked out' in under 30 minutes. I'd have to be pretty two dimensional, and/or be a Halo fan. You make women sound especially complicated Bullet, without realising we're all kind of the same species.

(Also: I'm sure you'd get quite a few burns using rope. There's kinky and then there's getting kidnapped.)

I did not say there whole core I was specifying being able to tell the difference between her and the 4 billion other on the planet.

We're all different. One guy may gladly shake your hand, another may recoil in horror, another may punch you in the face due to making an insulting gesture.

 

[Bulletinmybrain]

So men trying to be nice to women is bad?

No, but if I was going to try and be nice to you, wouldn't it be better for me to do so in a way that made sense and provided an actual benefit to you?

But opportunity's to be 100% useful don't come every moment. Add in the fact that a person may not like you trying to help that means trying to be useful can come back and kick you right in the nads, and uh lady parts for women?

 

[Bulletinmybrain]

My oh my. She's still got it. I like a woman with fire in her heart, and handcuffs in her bedroom door.

Alas; I tend to avoid debates involving excruciatingly long replies, and this is no exception. ...

But I don't think game developers ever intended to degrade women. They're just trying to make a game that will sell. By conforming to certain stereotypes it may be easier to achieve that very task.

No handcuffs--I kept losing the keys, and rope is a lot less likely to leave bruise-marks in the morning. But, hey, enough about my personal life...

I said this above, but it bears repeating: I don't think anyone wakes up in the morning and says to themselves, "Ooh, I think I'm going to go out and oppress people today!" No one does that and no one has to do that in order for the -isms to keep on going. We inherited a lot of really screwed-up cultural stuff from the last 500 years and the only thing that is required for it to keep happening is for us to keep doing the same things we've always done and thinking the same ways we've always thought, without questioning any of it. There was actually a logic to the holding of doors for a lady 150 years ago, and that was because long skirts, especially with petticoats, tend to get stuck in doors otherwise. However, even though women no longer wear such skirts, but culturally we still act as though they do. We are still carrying on with an inherited standard of proper male behavior that makes no sense, and that is just one of many examples.

So I don't think developers are sitting over their keyboards, gleefully perpetuating the subordination of women as sex objects. They are just making games just like the games that came before them. That's not a sexist conspiracy, it's just inertia. Inertia and lazy design and, in an industry that supposedly lives on innovation, not terribly smart from a business perspective either.

So men trying to be nice to women is bad?

Talk about reading between the lines, Bulletinmybrain.

Edit: To the above, I was going to write something similar. I'd be pretty ashamed if you had me 'worked out' in under 30 minutes. I'd have to be pretty two dimensional, and/or be a Halo fan. You make women sound especially complicated Bullet, without realising we're all kind of the same species.

(Also: I'm sure you'd get quite a few burns using rope. There's kinky and then there's getting kidnapped.)

I did not say there whole core I was specifying being able to tell the difference between her and the 4 billion other on the planet.

We're all different. One guy may gladly shake your hand, another may recoil in horror, another may punch you in the face due to making an insulting gesture.

And thats why a 30 minute talk is so goddamn useful nowadays

 

[CancerDog]

Its really hard to give a black and white description of sexism in media and that's what I see quite a few people on here trying to do. Either opposing sides seems to argue on and on about whatever with their own self satisfied logic, Wonderful.

The only problem I see with that is that complaining about stereotypes often pushes another stereotype. Take a look at this sentence, I'll try and make it as plain and simple as I can:
Woman: "I dislike how Females are represented in the media, the men at media corporation X create a fantasy stereotype about all women being pieces of meat, only intended to look attractive."

Great, wonderful, but do you see what I mean? Her opinion about how Females are treated in the media is fine, infact I would agree with that, but the second part, which is the common flaw I speak of is that she assumes that "all males" propagate said stereotype. By saying that she is being a massive hypocrite, because that is creating a stereotype in it self, that all males only think of women as pieces of meat etc. And while it may be easy to just say that and be on your merry way with your arguement, its not true.

I consider myself to be a man, if only slightly, I'm 17 and currently lack a job so.. I try not to say that I'm a "man", male works better. I don't consider women to be merely something to look at, so do I fit that stereotype? Am I just like "any other male"? Nope. So whats to say Guy A and Guy B on the street couldn't fit the same bill? What about Guy C and Guy D who work at Epic Games, or Soul Project?

What I'm trying to convey with these three paragraphs is that all of this isn't so cut and dry, and in reality, although these stereotypes are common, they are not propagated by everyone, and if you think they are then your stereotyping. I'm not saying any of your are wrong with your opinions, because they are that, just try and remember not to stereotype when your talking in a situation like this. Not all the women in this forum are going to spit a bunch of anti-male bullshit at you, and not all men are going to say the same incoherent sentence about women all being the same and only caring about X number of things.

People are unique and their opinions and beliefs don't always relate to whether they have a Y chromosome or not. Give a little credit to who the person is, not their Sex.

 

[Alex_P]

I just want to get this right, if a game has swearing, blood, "disturbing imagery," etc and some politician wants to get it snipped for whatever reason we all band together and cry censorship...which we should. But then we turn around and decide to censor each other based on our own personal preferences and perceived offenses? If the KKK/black panthers want to make a game chock full o' racial supremacy or Alpha Male 3 and Final Fantasy: Girls Gone Wild get released then I say more power to em because that just means that the first amendment is still in order and I can say or think whatever I want.

Political Correctness is a farce designed to make society censor itself in the arrogant mentality that everyone else needs to be protected by you, because they are so weak and you can help them speak out against the "injustice" that YOU see. Before you know it we'll be burning our own constitution because what rights and freedoms that we still cling to are just too darned dangerous for our own good.

Censorship is preventing the creation or distribution of a work. Speaking up about why you find a work objectionable has nothing to do with "censorship."

And if you think it's "political correctness" (bullshit concept that it is) that's causing the erosion of individual rights in America, you haven't been paying attention.

-- Alex

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

O.k. i will tell you why feminism is over in the united states.

(a whole bunch of minimum requirements for not treating women like cattle)

Now go to a African/middle eastern country and test these out i dare you

with love,heartless

Just because there are other places in the world where the lives of women are utterly devalued doesn't mean that we can't still do better here. By your own argument, you and your entire extended family should be more than happy to live in a one-bedrooom apartment with a working toilet down the hall because that is better than what 90% of the rest of the world gets.

What im saying is be happy for what you do have because some people die everyday for nothing while Americans/Europeans complain about pointless shit.Try to have a more worldly view.

I never said I was unhappy with what I do have, and believe me, I am excruciatingly conscious of the conditions people live with in the rest of the world, probably more so than you are. That wasn't the topic here, though, so I won't go into the dire need for surgeons trained in fistula repair to treat the women in Darfur whose bodies have literally been ripped open from being raped with gunpoints, not just at gunpoint. I am sitting here, typing on a computer that was built in part by a woman who will be functionally blind by the time she reaches 40 because she spends 10 hours a day staring through a microscope, welding ciruit boards, and I am aware of the fact that factory owners flat out say that they only hire women for such jobs because they can control them more easily and pay them less.

I could go on and on in this vein, but I don't because I have this bad habit of trying to stick to the topic, and the original topic was isms in gaming, which is a first-world concern. If you want to start a topic about the social conditions in the third world for women or anyone else, I will be there with fair-trade, ethically manufactured bells on. But just because I didn't go entirely off topic into oppression of women in say, Saudi Arabia, doesn't mean I don't know or care. You need to seriously consider the possibility that you know nothing about me, about the depth of my concerns, or the breadth of my political views. I have been studying social justice, global social justice, for longer than you have been alive. Don't you dare tell me to have a more worldly view.

If you genuinely care about the plight of the billions of suffering people around the world, show them the respect of not simply using them to try to shut up other people who are talking about things that make you uncomfortable.

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

So men trying to be nice to women is bad?

No, but if I was going to try and be nice to you, wouldn't it be better for me to do so in a way that made sense and provided an actual benefit to you?

But opportunity's to be 100% useful don't come every moment. Add in the fact that a person may not like you trying to help that means trying to be useful can come back and kick you right in the nads, and uh lady parts for women?

Yup, people will insist on acting like individuals, even when we try to put them in tidy groups based on their genital configurations. No one expects you to be 100% usefully helpful every moment, and best-intentioned attempts to be helpful can come off wrong in any number of ways to any type of person, which is why abandoning gendered ideas of what "being helpful" means probably makes more sense in the long run, though it will no doubt lead to a lot of misunderstandings in the near term.

 

[Bulletinmybrain]

So men trying to be nice to women is bad?

No, but if I was going to try and be nice to you, wouldn't it be better for me to do so in a way that made sense and provided an actual benefit to you?

But opportunity's to be 100% useful don't come every moment. Add in the fact that a person may not like you trying to help that means trying to be useful can come back and kick you right in the nads, and uh lady parts for women?

Yup, people will insist on acting like individuals, even when we try to put them in tidy groups based on their genital configurations. No one expects you to be 100% usefully helpful every moment, and best-intentioned attempts to be helpful can come off wrong in any number of ways to any type of person, which is why abandoning gendered ideas of what "being helpful" means probably makes more sense in the long run, though it will no doubt lead to a lot of misunderstandings in the near term.

Thats why some people would call me anti-social

 

[deleted_by_strongbad]

I just want to get this right, if a game has swearing, blood, "disturbing imagery," etc and some politician wants to get it snipped for whatever reason we all band together and cry censorship...which we should. But then we turn around and decide to censor each other based on our own personal preferences and perceived offenses? If the KKK/black panthers want to make a game chock full o' racial supremacy or Alpha Male 3 and Final Fantasy: Girls Gone Wild get released then I say more power to em because that just means that the first amendment is still in order and I can say or think whatever I want.

Political Correctness is a farce designed to make society censor itself in the arrogant mentality that everyone else needs to be protected by you, because they are so weak and you can help them speak out against the "injustice" that YOU see. Before you know it we'll be burning our own constitution because what rights and freedoms that we still cling to are just too darned dangerous for our own good.

Censorship is preventing the creation or distribution of a work. Speaking up about why you find a work objectionable has nothing to do with "censorship."

And if you think it's "political correctness" (bullshit concept that it is) that's causing the erosion of individual rights in America, you haven't been paying attention.

-- Alex

Speaking about anything isn't anything other than speaking, right gotchya, Alex. But how is saying that something should not have X in it, (ie games should not have women in skimpy outfits, racial violence, square-enix concepts, etc) not suggesting the "preventing the creation/distribution of a work?"

For your second point, no I don't think that censorship or political correctness is eroding individual rights, that would be a little absurd, concepts don't do anything its the people who wield them so to spell it out for you, WE are the ones eroding our personal freedoms for a pat on the head and a good safe cage, PCism is just one of many excuses we have for it.

 

[Alex_P]

Speaking about anything isn't anything other than speaking, right gotchya, Alex. But how is saying that something should not have X in it, (ie games should not have women in skimpy outfits, racial violence, square-enix concepts, etc) not suggesting the "preventing the creation/distribution of a work?"

That's like saying boycotting a company you don't like is "censorship." At that point the word loses its useful meaning.

For your second point, no I don't think that censorship or political correctness is eroding individual rights, that would be a little absurd, concepts don't do anything its the people who wield them so to spell it out for you, WE are the ones eroding our personal freedoms for a pat on the head and a good safe cage, PCism is just one of many excuses we have for it.

But "PCism" is not a significant part of the equation! There's pretty much one mechanism, and it's fear. All the other stuff is trivial.

American "political correctness" isn't even a real movement. It's a manufactured meme. Some people took a Marxist word, gave it a silly definition, and claimed that their political opponents were using it to silence dissent. Now the idea just floats around without anyone actively trying to promote it.

-- Alex

 

[Abako]

I just want to get this right, if a game has swearing, blood, "disturbing imagery," etc and some politician wants to get it snipped for whatever reason we all band together and cry censorship...which we should. But then we turn around and decide to censor each other based on our own personal preferences and perceived offenses? If the KKK/black panthers want to make a game chock full o' racial supremacy or Alpha Male 3 and Final Fantasy: Girls Gone Wild get released then I say more power to em because that just means that the first amendment is still in order and I can say or think whatever I want.

Political Correctness is a farce designed to make society censor itself in the arrogant mentality that everyone else needs to be protected by you, because they are so weak and you can help them speak out against the "injustice" that YOU see. Before you know it we'll be burning our own constitution because what rights and freedoms that we still cling to are just too darned dangerous for our own good.

Im still laughing at Final Fantasy: Girls Gone Wild. Oh man Id love to see a yahtzee review of that game. Would he hate turn based stripping? Ok sorry that was completely off topic but I wanted someone to see my weird train of thought

 

[deleted_by_strongbad]

Abako, I give it a couple years before Square gives that a shot...but only a couple of years.

 

[Kraj]

It always amuses me when men try to pull out stereotypes and say they're "victims" as well. It only happens in threads like this. I mean, I've never seen a "men's group" ally to say they refuse to buy GeOW2 because they're tired of being dressed up in armor and stubble and shoot things or refuse to watch Family Guy because Peter is such a fat, boorish jerk, and there's no way Lois would put up with that. "That's just not who we are!"

You know why there's not some male outcry? Because the "men's groups" are the ones making the games and the TV shows. You know it, and I know it. So when women control the gaming industry and make games about grizzled space marines or TV sitcoms with boorish males, then you get to say you're being stereotyped, then you get to say you're being trivialized or reduced to a gigantic penis for someone else's thrill even though a giant penis has absolutely nothing to do with the game and would be considered a huge liability in a fight if it were real.

Yeah, I'm a woman, and I have issues with female characters who are dressed only to fulfill male sexual fantasy. (I'm sure someone will pop in to mention such attire pleasing the lesbian gaming crowd, but we all know that while that group might benefit as well, that is not why the women in Soul Caliber VI are dressed like they are.)

Gaming is about fantasy and idealization. It's just that only one fantasy ever gets fulfilled. Men get to kick butt, take names, save the world and get the girl (or be the classic loner. "You don't want to get mixed up with a guy like me, Dotty. I'm a loner, a rebel.")

Woman might get to kick butt, take names, and save the world, but only if undressed to a certain degree. There are a few exceptions, of course, but only one real success, I think: Samus from Metroid. But then guys didn't even know she was female until the game was over.

.. if you haven't, you should probably take a few semesters of sociology and then look around the leading plot writers and editors of the gaming industry. Men are steryotyped as women are, the only difference is women have social groups to support them. Men are very alone in the social/ legal world :because: of the steryotypes of being an loner who is built for violence and sex.

If you :have: taken a few semesters of sociology and looked around the leading plot writers and editors of the gaming industry, then i apologize. But from your text, Its difficult to believe you're well informed on this topic, and easy to believe your simply touting misplaced and overly-boring-easy-to-repeat symptoms of society that everyone and their mom are allowed to toss off without fear of serious argument. "mostly because individuals who actually have researched and are willing to argue, ignore such foolish and biased opinions"

as for stereotyping and discrimination in the gaming industry, of course its there, but as its been said several times, money is the bottom line product of games, the games are a product of the times, and the times are a product of the people. Our social world as Americans is built to work on an unequal level as far as race, gender, and intellect go, and that is the way it will work until its just as automatic to picture a baby boy in pink as it is to picture a baby girl in blue.

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

Im still laughing at Final Fantasy: Girls Gone Wild. Oh man Id love to see a yahtzee review of that game. Would he hate turn based stripping? Ok sorry that was completely off topic but I wanted someone to see my weird train of thought

But that would be sexist! Because it doesn't allow the guys to strip too! And if they do strip, that just reinforces negative stereotypes about dick-size and masculinity! ;->

[Debate ensues regarding whether women like to look at naked men and whether inclusion or omission of male strippers is "gay" or "homophobic".]

 

[UsefulPlayer 1]

Hey mscherbatshaya, good work. I think your magic is taking effect on me.

 

[The Wooster]

Im still laughing at Final Fantasy: Girls Gone Wild. Oh man Id love to see a yahtzee review of that game. Would he hate turn based stripping? Ok sorry that was completely off topic but I wanted someone to see my weird train of thought

But that would be sexist! Because it doesn't allow the guys to strip too! And if they do strip, that just reinforces negative stereotypes about dick-size and masculinity! ;->

[Debate ensues regarding whether women like to look at naked men and whether inclusion or omission of male strippers is "gay" or "homophobic".]

Men watching a stripper are creepy. Women watching a stripper are terrifying.

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

Hey mscherbatshaya, good work. I think your magic is taking effect on me.

Oh, no! Whatever mischief you are getting up to, don't blame it on me!

Im still laughing at Final Fantasy: Girls Gone Wild. Oh man Id love to see a yahtzee review of that game. Would he hate turn based stripping? Ok sorry that was completely off topic but I wanted someone to see my weird train of thought

But that would be sexist! Because it doesn't allow the guys to strip too! And if they do strip, that just reinforces negative stereotypes about dick-size and masculinity! ;->

[Debate ensues regarding whether women like to look at naked men and whether inclusion or omission of male strippers is "gay" or "homophobic".]

Men watching a stripper are creepy. Women watching a stripper are terrifying.

Every female stripper I have known (how often do you see that phrase thrown around here, huh?) has really enjoyed performing for other women, because they feel their dancing is appreciated as much as their boobs. But I'm getting off topic so let's get back to discussing African zombies in bikini armor.

Now, there's a disturbing image...

 

[X3heartless]

O.k. i will tell you why feminism is over in the united states.

(a whole bunch of minimum requirements for not treating women like cattle)

Now go to a African/middle eastern country and test these out i dare you

with love,heartless

Just because there are other places in the world where the lives of women are utterly devalued doesn't mean that we can't still do better here. By your own argument, you and your entire extended family should be more than happy to live in a one-bedrooom apartment with a working toilet down the hall because that is better than what 90% of the rest of the world gets.

What im saying is be happy for what you do have because some people die everyday for nothing while Americans/Europeans complain about pointless shit.Try to have a more worldly view.

I never said I was unhappy with what I do have, and believe me, I am excruciatingly conscious of the conditions people live with in the rest of the world, probably more so than you are. That wasn't the topic here, though, so I won't go into the dire need for surgeons trained in fistula repair to treat the women in Darfur whose bodies have literally been ripped open from being raped with gunpoints, not just at gunpoint. I am sitting here, typing on a computer that was built in part by a woman who will be functionally blind by the time she reaches 40 because she spends 10 hours a day staring through a microscope, welding ciruit boards, and I am aware of the fact that factory owners flat out say that they only hire women for such jobs because they can control them more easily and pay them less.

I could go on and on in this vein, but I don't because I have this bad habit of trying to stick to the topic, and the original topic was isms in gaming, which is a first-world concern. If you want to start a topic about the social conditions in the third world for women or anyone else, I will be there with fair-trade, ethically manufactured bells on. But just because I didn't go entirely off topic into oppression of women in say, Saudi Arabia, doesn't mean I don't know or care. You need to seriously consider the possibility that you know nothing about me, about the depth of my concerns, or the breadth of my political views. I have been studying social justice, global social justice, for longer than you have been alive. Don't you dare tell me to have a more worldly view.

If you genuinely care about the plight of the billions of suffering people around the world, show them the respect of not simply using them to try to shut up other people who are talking about things that make you uncomfortable.

Wow this will never end.I know that i have no idea on where your political and social standings are im just saying it could always be worse.Think of it as the old saying about people seeing the glass half empty,and now back to games...I do agree to a extent that the costumes in video games are a bit revealing but feminist shouldn't get involved.It's a male dominated market so fighting a on a forum is pointless,and you have told your expressed your views to us so...you have kinda taught me more about women in other countries so thank you...i guess bickering has a point if you learn =P,and it's quite cool for you to sit her and defend yourself against douche bags like myself lol...while entertaining me.