The opposite of feminism in gaming?

[Toxic Sniper]

ended up destitute and homeless (like virtually only men do)

Yeah, I think I just started laughing when I read this part. What a load.

This entire Serkeesian thing has really revealed some ugly sides to the people arguing in it.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Spoiler: For space.

"This topic is discussed too much. We shouldn't have to talk about it!"

While there are some people who do it in the *Puts fingers in their ears and go "lalalalalala" kind, most of the time the reason people do this is because the vast majority of discussion on this just descend into flame-wars and name calling. It becomes tiresome to see a topic brought up, and have to walk on egg shells because it's so easy for somebody to try starting an argument over the most innocuous things.

The option to simply avoid those topics is a better solution really, but to be honest the kind of person who says a topic is over discussed isn't limited to the discussion of sexism and/or feminism. You see it for all kinds.

"The video was horrible!"

I don't see why that wouldn't count as a good reason. Unless you are saying that it's a fact that it's a good one. Or I am missing what you mean.

"These problems don't exist any more/are not as bad as you think!"

The suggestion that they don't exist at all? I agree, that's a stupid argument.

That they are not as bad as some think? Again, I don't see why that doesn't count as a good reason. There are many women who are not unhappy with the role of women in games. The "feminist" perspective is not a universal fact, it is an opinion. The amount of gamers in the world is in the hundreds of millions, if it was such a big issue, I'd have thought the general media might say something about it. Instead the general consensus of the non-gaming world is that gamers are still by and large neck-beard virgin males who live in their mothers basements.

People are making it out to be a much bigger issue than it is. They are computer games. When it comes down to it, they are extremely unimportant. I see people get more worked up over crap like this than the fact there are women forced to marry when they are children, suffer genital mutilation and are unable to work/vote/drive/learn due to the men in their society.

It's not that these things are not concerns, it's that people are making them out to be a hell of a lot more important than they really are.

"Men are just as objectified."

I tend to see this one get misused. While there are some people who think men are objectified, Jim Sterling has already countered that particular argument, so there is nothing for me to add.

What people are normally trying to say is not that men are objectified in the same sense as women. But that the representation of males is just as unrealistic as the representation of women. This is not used to suggest that women's issues therefore "don't matter", it is used against those who take the particular stance that women are being singled out.

To use a "real world" example:

Two people apply for a job, a man and a woman. They both do not get the job.

The woman says: "I didn't get the job, it's because I am a woman".
The man replies: "It's not because you are a woman. I didn't get the job either".

The man isn't suggesting that it doesn't suck that she didn't get the job, he is saying that the reason behind it is not because she is a woman. She wasn't being singled out because of her gender, so the fact that she is acting like a victim is baseless.

The point people normally try and make is that people should stop acting like it's a gender issue, and instead look at it as a problem with character writing overall. That better writing is what is needed in general, not better representations of women alone.

Is long. I sorry....
1."This topic is discussed too much. We shouldn't have to talk about it!"

Spoiler: One.

While I agree with you that one can become very tired of any topic, it does not excuse them of going into a thread about a topic just to complain that we should all stop talking about it.

Like you said, they can just avoid it.
(note: if they complain(about being tired, not that the thing shouldn't be talked about), but them start talking, and making good arguments(not just yelling at everyone to shut up) that's alright. We all complain on the internet, but it's a bit rude if all you go in to say is "stop talking about it".)

2. "The video is horrible!"

Spoiler: Two.

Second verse, about the same as the first. If you didn't like the video because of it's quality, okay. However, if a person just goes in and says it was horrible, but doesn't really get into why. Again, a bit rude. Plus, they could still talk about the things the video talked about, after they say they thought the quality of the video could have been much better.

Too many people are not putting detail in their posts.They just seem to be putting the whole thing down, or yelling at people to stop talking.

3."These problems are not as bad as you think!"

Spoiler: Three.

If anyone is saying that badly written female/male characters is the worst thing to happen to the human race, then yes.
However, Anita and others are not saying that this is the worse problem. They are saying it IS a problem. One that we can do something about.

You said the most right thing ever when ya said; "there are women forced to marry when they are children, suffer genital mutilation and are unable to work/vote/drive/learn due to the men in their society." However, just because there are worse problems in the world, doesn't mean we shouldn't also address the smaller problems when we can.

You may remember Jim talking about this a bit ago when he gave his views on when people us the phrase "first world problem". Yes, there are worse things in the world, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't change in little ways too.

As for games not mattering? If you mean they don't matter as much as say making sure your next door neighbor isn't beating their spouse, yes, of course. If you mean they don't matter at all? I can't disagree more.
This is not an opinion. Games do matter. They matter just as any other stories matter to people who know of them.
Are better written characters going to make the world a better place overnight, and stop all other problems? HELL NO. That said, games like other media do affect those who consume them. No, they won't immediately make us change, and in fact they are completely avoidable if you so wish, but they are not meaningless.

You say; "if it was such a big issue, I'd have thought the general media might say something about it". Thing is, they have. For years. And not just games journalist talking about people wanting better written women(and men) in games. The inaccurate or unrealistic portrayal of men and women in media has been talked about in the "General Media" for decades. The specific topic of how women are written in games is not new. We are not just talking about it right now. We are STILL talking about it, and have been for a good long while, because for a lot of people it is a problem.
The over all problem being talked about is how both genders are often poorly represented in all media. That includes video games.

4."Men are just as objectified."

Spoiler: Four.

As you said, Jim also covered this topic. Women get objectified, men get idealized. As he and Anita have said, both of these representations are bad for their perspective genders.

That said, these are gender related issues. You(Jim, Anita, and most people who bring up this topic) are right, the source of the problem comes from bad writing, not sexism on the part of the writer/designer.

However, how these characters are written(badly) is too tied to their gender for me to agree that we should ignore it.
The women and men in question were not written badly because of sexism, but they were written badly in specific ways (the tropes) because they were a specific gender. (Ex: The man was written violent because he's male; The woman was written weak because she's female.)

Bad writing is bad writing, but it does have direction behind it. Perhaps not on purpose, but it is there. Ignoring these things can lead to letting institutional discrimination continuing to shape media. Even if only in "subtle" ways.

I apologize for the size. In truth, I don't much like having these discussions in text form. Too long to write something I could have said much faster.

I thank you(or anyone else) for being patient and reading what I wrote.
May you have a good day, and a better coming rest of the week.
Also, for no reason. This.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

The opposite stance is that the feminists I assume you're referring to are making a mountain out of a molehill. Debating as if the patriarchy is some sort of pervasive force in all things and characters are designed specifically to diminish women as people if missing the point, because those on the other side don't actually think any of that is true.

Which is great, since that's rarely the point being argued. In fact, I'd bet most feminists would come down on the side of that not being true. That's kind of the thing. Feminism is largely met by strawman arguments, intentional misrepresentations of the position that are easier to attack.

However, I would argue that Patriarchy is a pervasive force. It's also a very passive one. Much of this occurs without people thinking about it. There is no grand conspiracy and I doubt there's any active movement. Personally, I even balk at the notion that groups like the Republicans are actually trying to control women or whatnot. I may think their policies are anti-woman, but that doesn't imply conspiracy or whatever.

The problem is less intent and more the end result. Women are treated like shit in gaming, disproportionate to the general public. Looking at why helps people understand, but the why doesn't change the root problem.

I'm not making a strawman argument. I'm making an argument against the strawmen who actually exist. I don't have a problem with the majority of feminists, and from real life experience, I would say most of them don't believe in the patriarchy either. At most, there are individual bigots in positions of power, and male-dominated workplaces causing what amounts to an uncomfortable social atmosphere for women by virtue of there being mostly males there, in the same way a group of sports enthusiasts talking about sports might be uncomfortable to someone who doesn't follow sports. As far as I'm concerned, no-one who is not outwardly sexist is somehow passively participating in anti-woman practises by going about their lives. As for women being treated like shit in gaming, what exactly do you mean? As in player interactions? Or poor characterisation?

OT: And to address the idealisation thing. The general consensus seems to be that women and men are both designed for men to enjoy. Sexualisation and idealisation, and therefore, since male characters are designed for men, the male side of things isn't a problem and can't be complained about. What I see is both male and female characters conforming to their roles. Females want to be attractive to males, and males want to be seen as useful to females. Straight from evolution. How does it help males that all our in-game proxies are muscle-ridden and will recklessly travel by foot across entire countries to rescue a female? Is that a realistic representation? And where this is subverted, for example Link in the Legend of Zelda, or Mario, is that a power fantasy for the player? No.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

No they're not. The wage gap is a myth that's explainable by personal choices people make.

Which is not in any way influenced by what we see as possible roles for men and women?

(There are also plenty of studies that show that women make less than men at the same jobs. Here's something recent: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/09/women-earn-less-than-men_n_3046461.html )

Feminists aren't claiming that the oppression of women is a conspiracy; we just acknowledge that it's caused by attitudes internalized by both men and women as to what men and women can do. This is why so much of your replies to me are nonsense, you're not replying to my views at all, but to an imaginary version of feminism that 'values women more then men' or whatever.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

This "patriarchy" thing is starting to remind me of the Devil. An intangible, unproven entity which acts as a source of all the world's evil.

What on earth? Patriarchy is easy to identify, tangibly, in every day situations. It's a scrabble word for arbitrary and limiting roles that apply to men and women, commonly prescribing dominant and controlling qualities to men and submissive qualities to women. If you can't identify gender roles, I'd be thrilled to live in your utopia.

The term 'Feminism' has some extremely negative connotations due to radical feminists (Or rather, bigoted man-haters masquerading as feminists)

The bit in parentheses is exactly the point. Radical feminists tend to find themselves outside of even the broad definition of feminism (for example, a lot of them don't even believe in gender equality) and they're definitely subject to widespread criticism by mainstream feminists. So judging a mainstream group by their radical or fringe elements is a bit skewy. It's like saying that the Westboro Baptist Church are representative of modern Christianity.

I find it funny that you say that, because 'radical feminism' actually means something as a discipline. 'Radical feminism' is not a derogatory term for 'extremists', it refers to feminists who appropriated the concept of hegemony to explain how gender roles (patriarchy) is maintained and how it can be changed. It's pretty much what I consider feminism to be.

(I also don't like the label 'extremists' or 'radicals', generally. Mainstream or middle of the road opinions aren't automatically right. Nearly everything that we see as right and just now was at one point an 'extreme'. I'm not saying that as a nihilist: we (some of us) finally recognize that it's wrong to own people, that those with different skin color are as human as people from our tribes, and that homosexuals shouldn't be lynched. Being labelled as 'extreme' when everyone else is backwards doesn't make backwards right.)

 

[NeutralDrow]

Except that's not actually true. Gender-stratified roles through history have been almost exclusively the domain of the upper classes, who tended to either keep upper class women down or at least misrepresent them afterward (those in power get to write the histories). What we know of most periods of human history for everyone else (<url=http://sandradodd.com/sca/womenandwork>including some with stereotypes in the other direction), not to mention currently existing hunter-gatherer societies, is that human relations tend towards egalitarianism and separate "men's and women's" work is <url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Division_of_labor.aspx>fairly recent.

I'm also trying to think which mammal species leaves violence exclusively to males, unless you're referring only to intraspecies competition for mates. I can't think of any when it comes to hunting or defense, except maybe wild pigs.

I wasn't really specific enough on this - I wasn't referring to how humans want to be in society, I was referring to how humans had to be before society, and how that is believed to impact on our behaviour today.

Like I said, I'm not talking about this from a sociological perspective, but from a biological one.

That's precisely what I was objecting to, yes. If we're really to explain patriarchal gender roles "before society" through biology (as opposed to culture), it would have to have been that way from as close to the beginning as we know. <url=http://home.freeuk.com/secularsites/Patriarchy.html>That wasn't really the case, at least before humans started settling (and even after that, by my earlier links, it's been off-and-on since then).

Everything I've read has said the complete opposite about nomadic tribes today, wherein men fight and hunt, whereas the women gather and protect the children, and to my knowledge, it is still believed that this is how the primitive, prehistoric human animal lived.

That's not really egalitarian, is it? It's clearly defined roles and jobs divided between the two species.

It's <url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer#cite_ref-8>the other way around, actually. Nomadic tribes are the most egalitarian, while settled tribes tend to become gender-stratified. "Hunter-gather" by itself doesn't imply anything about the sharing of those tasks, just that they're the main form of subsistence (as opposed to agriculture or trade). The most common social arrangement is men hunting and women gathering, but there are <url=http://books.google.com/books?id=eTPULzP1MZAC&pg=PA120&dq=Gathering+and+Hominid+Adaptation&hl=en#v=onepage&q=Gathering%20and%20Hominid%20Adaptation&f=false>exceptions. And even then, that's only subsistence; the social structure childcare is subject to much wider variance (whether it's primarily women or totally shared, within kin groups or within the whole group, and the like).

Also, "species?" Freudian slip? ^_^

In mammals, lone males and females will obviously hunt, but as a 'family' unit, a male, his mates, and their offspring, the hunting - and dying - is usually left to the males, whereas the females care for the offspring.

In family units females will sometimes hunt, but, again, as in chimpanzees, it is usually the male that hunts and gathers food, providing a share of this to the female.

There are notable exceptions, but not usually in anything close to primates - again, I wasn't really specific enough there.

"Usually" is kind of a bad word to use, since Bonobos are the major exception among primates (along with lemurs and baboons). Also, limiting it to social mammals...chimpanzees and gorillas are the only ones I can think of with that kind of male-dominated hunter stratification. Lions and hyenas are female-dominated in that regard, and wolves and dolphins are egalitarian.

I am not saying that prehistoric man and woman did not share activities, and I understand that even in early societies, of course men and women worked together in agriculture, but primitively speaking, in 'biological gender roles' stereotypically males hunt, whilst females gather - 'hunter-gatherer' doesn't mean equal sharing of those tasks. What primate could possibly send its females out on violent hunting excursions and still expect to survive as a species? Primitive man was not the apex predator - things fought back, and they fought back hard. It would take far fewer female fatalities for the community to collapse than it would male fatalities - that's kind of the whole point of this. Men are genuinely far more disposable - not utterly so, but far more so than females.

That's not really a biologically-defined thing, though, it's a cultural one. That's a huge problem with biological essentialism, particularly when trying to use it to push a point about contemporary behavior and imply that a certain thing is immutable. How do you tell if some behavior is a biological imperative, rather than simply someone 25000 years ago saying "hey, why don't we try things this way? ...hey, it works!" and that behavior being carried through millennia via cultural osmosis? You're essentially limited to thought experiments ("because females dying at the same rate as males would be disastrous"), which can still have counterarguments (some primates do send their females out on violent hunting excursions, including humans).

I never suggested that these roles are what people wanted, nor am I saying there were never exceptions in human society, but generally speaking, the pregnant female remains safe, whilst the male attempts to provide and protect the mate and potential offspring. We still have the attitude of 'women and children first' today, so I'd say we're still very much influenced by our instincts, even though we don't want to be.

The very presence of exceptions calls biological causes into question, though, especially in a species confirmed to rely so much on learned behavior versus instinct. If something is biologically determined, it should be universal, or at least not have any confirmed organized exceptions. There certainly are things that seem to be human instinct, but once you start chalking things up to biology, you tend to start making assumptions and stop asking questions (like, for example assuming that <url=http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2012/08/chivalry_is_a_myth_in_shipwrecks_it_s_every_man_for_himself.html>"women and children first" is universal[footnote]In fairness, I should note that while "women and children first" is hardly the norm (for many reasons, not just the original saying), <url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-myth-of-the-panicking_b_837440.html>generalized altruism apparently is.[/footnote]). Or at least, the right questions; the right question is usually "why is it like this here and now?" The answer is almost always rooted more in politics, sociology, culture, history, and environment than it is in simple biology.

My point (if I still remember which one I was trying to make) is that "even though we don't want it to be" holds no weight. If we don't want it to be, it doesn't have to be, because it's not always that way. In the context of...whatever this thread is about, I guess, it's kind of hard to tell, it's that society is not inexorably drawn to patriarchy, and social change is possible because it's social norms that are being challenged.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

At most, there are individual bigots in positions of power, and male-dominated workplaces causing what amounts to an uncomfortable social atmosphere for women by virtue of there being mostly males there, in the same way a group of sports enthusiasts talking about sports might be uncomfortable to someone who doesn't follow sports. As far as I'm concerned, no-one who is not outwardly sexist is somehow passively participating in anti-woman practises by going about their lives.

As a guy, there was a time when I didn't notice the arbitrary distinctions our society made between men and women. I could be ignorant because, hey, I was more wrapped up in shit that directly and immediately affected me.

Check out this mashup video. It's short, just a minute and a half of toy commercials, without commentary. Take a peek. It's an eye opener. (And it's also funny.)

http://vimeo.com/8268124

 

[Dragonbums]

Having talking to an extreme Misandrist on Kotaku, she stated that feminist( or woman in general) should be more than satisfied with having feminine male characters as opposed to female ones.
She also went on to talk about how games shouldn't cater to women, because games are all about the male space.

This revolved around the discussion about her claiming that FemShep was a "Feminist Empowered Construct" as opposed to me saying that she is a simple Avatar for a unspecified character that goes by the name Commander Shepard, and saying that would also extend to saying that all female avatars in games like Skyrim, Dragon Age, WoW, etc. are technically "Feminist Empowered Constructs"

After a very long argument, the end result landed me with the label "Culted Feminist"

 

[Dragonbums]

I made a fairly lengthy post about this in the other thread, so I'm going to quote myself here. It also has a less relevant, but short paragraph about Anita. Sue me.

Spoiler: Trigger Warning; Evolution, biological imperatives, and gender roles within

This actually isn't a remotely new idea - it's just not something that's really ever talked about.

We live in a society that is, in times of emergency and immediate danger, decidedly "Women and children first!". We are also mammals, that, with very few exceptions, leave the violence entirely to males - it's their biological role, their niche, and it's not really something we can do anything about.

Whilst none of us really want or like them, we do have these prescribed gender roles, but it isn't society that prescribed them - it's neurology, not sociology. The very large parts of our brains that are still chimps and lizards expect the females to squeeze out ickle babbies, and the men to die protecting those bundles of joy.

Feminism has always quite rightly pointed out that women have never had the same rights or freedoms as men, but it's not really for the reason they seem to think it is. It's not even really about the woman - it's about her precious womb.

Whereas modern Feminism especially portrays women as being caged in barbed wire, I'd say it's more accurate to say they've always been smothered in cotton wool and pillows - definitely trapped, definitely not free, but completely protected from that big, bad, outside world. Not something they ever necessarily wanted, but again, it wasn't really about what men or women wanted, it was about that special baby factory in the woman's stomach. Similarly, a man always typically been expected to 'own' his woman and child, but that also entailed providing for and protecting what was 'his' - he's always been legally obliged to do so in all circumstances, even if she was no longer his wife or mate; after all, he's the man, and that's what the male is supposed to do.

Where I personally take issue is when people tell me that I am somehow privileged because of this. No thanks, I'd rather not work and die for a womb. We can argue who has it worse all day, but ultimately we've all been screwed over in some way by the part of our brain that's still bestial.

It does highlight one of the conflict points, though. It might be argued that women are more valued (hence not being canon fodder, or ever put into games as canon fodder) but at the exact same time feminists like Anita are saying 'why'? What makes women so special that they shouldn't be mowed down alongside the men? Why are wives and daughters threatened instead of brothers or sons? (And that being so valued is just a flipside of inequality.)

And that leads to my problem with Anita specifically - I don't believe she acknowledges it at all. I don't think she believes women can ever be seen as 'special' by men, I don't think she recognises that side of things at all.

She has tunnel vision - she only sees the cases in which women are victims. All of those video responses she got, outlining this exact point, and all it really got was a thirty-second acknowledgement that, yes, maybe bad things happen to men in video games too. Maybe they die by the thousands for every one damsel in distress, maybe you valiantly mow them down to save that damsel, but, really, isn't the princess the real victim, here? At the end she dies, you know!

My point isn't that men have it bad, or worse than women - my point is that we're all fucked either way, we're either denying the part of us that's a human, or the part of us that's a lizard, and either way it's going to cause confusion on gender roles.

The part of us that's smart, the part of us that can build and invent things, knows that, really, men and women should be able to do the same things when they want to.

But the part of us that lived in caves still thinks there's a wolf at the door and if we don't stop bitching and do what we're supposed to do, then we're all going to disappear.

For me personally, the other 'side' of this, the 'male side', is somewhat close to what Sterling initially pointed out in his video; for every disproportioned, heavily-sexualised mammary monster, there's a ridiculous space marine, a moronic, grunting, feral individual that is somehow meant to represent a 'real man'.

Sterling rightly pointed out that there is a difference between objectification and idealisation, but I fail to see how one is somehow worse than the other. They both utterly misrepresent the gender they 'belong' to and have nothing in common with the average gamer. Just as the average woman probably doesn't see herself in Bayonetta, I have never seen myself in Marcus Fenix. How is it better that I am supposed to want to be Marcus Fenix, but want to bang Bayonetta? I don't want to do either of those things. Neither of these things are desirable to me.

He also failed to mention that, beyond the protagonist, males are utterly disposable, pretty much worthless in video games. The huge majority of human enemies you kill in the huge majority of video games are entirely male. You have killed thousands upon thousands of anonymous male drones, and are most likely surprised when you find yourself mercilessly slaughtering female NPCs. No one gives a shit about all those male deaths, but when one damsel is kidnapped and killed, somehow there's a gender war going on, and 'The Patriarchy' wants to brainwash your feeble gamer mind.

How is it different? Because the damsel doesn't have a choice? Neither do the enemy NPCs, they're video game characters. Because damsels are powerless? So are the NPCs when the protagonist comes knocking with shotguns and grenades or swords and fireballs.

You think being a damsel seems pointless? At least her death has meaning in the plot. Most male supporting characters get killed off for the sake of action and explosions, not emotion. Anita talks about the exceptions of good female characters, but relatively speaking, for every thousand male NPC that dies in a video game, only a handful usually make an impact on the gamer.

I would also like to point out, however, that I do not believe this is an issue for either gender. Despite what others may claim, these characters were never intended to represent their genders. These are fictional characters, they are pixels, without genitalia, they are cave-drawings, no one is designing these characters as paragons, as ambassadors for their genders, no one is telling you to be like them or to act like them.

I am merely stating that a bad character is a bad character, and an unrelatable character is unrelatable regardless of their gender. My assertion is that the majority of video games are poorly written, with poorly written characters, and this has nothing to do with whether or not you have a vagina.

That is a very interesting point you made. I have heard this myself a few times honestly.
What saddens me as a female gamer wanting to get perspectives like this is that this point only comes up in RESPONSE to a feminist or any other critic bringing up sexist stereotypes.
It never occurs on it's own.
A guy never comes in and says- "What about the tropes and Stereotypes that affect men?" that have no relation to a recent feminist article.

Honestly, if I could "like" a comment right now, I sure as heck would like yours.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

This revolved around the discussion about her claiming that FemShep was a "Feminist Empowered Construct" as opposed to me saying that she is a simple Avatar for a unspecified character that goes by the name Commander Shepard, and saying that would also extend to saying that all female avatars in games like Skyrim, Dragon Age, WoW, etc. are technically "Feminist Empowered Constructs"

You're ignoring the fact that everything commander Shepard can say, and actually says, was constructed and written. Every significant choice you can make is literally constrained; you can't decide to make any commander Shepard say something that the designers didn't anticipate and add to the game. We have yet to reach a point in artificial intelligence where games will allow players to insert their own characters meaningfully into stories, as avatars of themselves or otherwise.

The commander Shepards absolutely have characterization. There's just more than one of them floating around.

 

[Dragonbums]

This revolved around the discussion about her claiming that FemShep was a "Feminist Empowered Construct" as opposed to me saying that she is a simple Avatar for a unspecified character that goes by the name Commander Shepard, and saying that would also extend to saying that all female avatars in games like Skyrim, Dragon Age, WoW, etc. are technically "Feminist Empowered Constructs"

You're ignoring the fact that everything commander Shepard can say, and actually says, was constructed and written. Every significant choice you can make is literally constrained; you can't decide to make any commander Shepard say something that the designers didn't anticipate and add to the game. We have yet to reach a point in artificial intelligence where games will allow players to insert their own characters meaningfully into stories, as avatars of themselves or otherwise.

The commander Shepards absolutely have characterization. There's just more than one of them floating around.

Please read my comment more carefully.
I'm talking about what the Misandrist was saying about Commander Shepard. The argument we had. I know what FemShep is, the person I was arguing with however believed FemShep was a feminist empowered construct. Her biggest peeve was her having the same lines as ManShep. In her eyes it's wrong because, simply put, Femshep is a woman, and Manshep is a man. They shouldn't have the same lines because in real life woman can't do all the things ManShep can.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

This revolved around the discussion about her claiming that FemShep was a "Feminist Empowered Construct" as opposed to me saying that she is a simple Avatar for a unspecified character that goes by the name Commander Shepard, and saying that would also extend to saying that all female avatars in games like Skyrim, Dragon Age, WoW, etc. are technically "Feminist Empowered Constructs"

You're ignoring the fact that everything commander Shepard can say, and actually says, was constructed and written. Every significant choice you can make is literally constrained; you can't decide to make any commander Shepard say something that the designers didn't anticipate and add to the game. We have yet to reach a point in artificial intelligence where games will allow players to insert their own characters meaningfully into stories, as avatars of themselves or otherwise.

The commander Shepards absolutely have characterization. There's just more than one of them floating around.

Please read my comment more carefully.
I'm talking about what the Misandrist was saying about Commander Shepard. The argument we had. I know what FemShep is, the person I was arguing with however believed FemShep was a feminist empowered construct. Her biggest peeve was her having the same lines as ManShep. In her eyes it's wrong because, simply put, Femshep is a woman, and Manshep is a man. They shouldn't have the same lines because in real life woman can't do all the things ManShep can.

In real life men can't come back from the dead and shoot laser pistols at evil alien robots either. I'm not sure what your point is, or if you even have one.

I don't even know what special importance you think is in the term 'feminist empowered construct' or whatever. Just because someone who claims to be a feminist says something, that doesn't make it a 'thing' in feminism as a discipline.

 

[moggett88]

snip

If you mean proper feminism, the way it's supposed to be, there isn't one. Feminism is about gaining equal rights for women, bringing them up to the same level as us. I guess if you wanted to, you could say the opposite is bringing us down to the level of rights women have :s

 

[Lilani]

This "patriarchy" thing is starting to remind me of the Devil. An intangible, unproven entity which acts as a source of all the world's evil.

And this right here would be the biggest hangup in the debate at the moment. Apart from the crazies, the only people who actually think the patriarchy is literally a conspiracy to keep women subjugated is the anti-feminists themselves. The textbook definition of a patriarchy is a family or societal group that is primarily led by a male rather than a female. If you compare the numbers of female world and corporate leaders and male ones, it's hard to argue that isn't an accurate description of the shape of our society at the moment. While there are fewer barriers now that keep women from gaining those higher positions, men still hold most of the power in both politics and the economy. That isn't a conspiracy, that's just the way things are. And unfortunately, taking down barriers isn't the only thing that needs to happen in order for society to change. A black person could have run for President in America pretty much from the moment they were given citizenship. There was no legal barrier left keeping a black person from doing so. But until the late 20th century when we as a society finally got acclimated to the idea of a black person holding power, that was still a very far-off dream.

I think most of society is pretty acclimated to the idea of women holding power, but there are still a few subtle things keeping numbers from evening out. For example, it's common practice in corporations for women in their 20s and 30s to get passed on promotions and big projects because their employers see them as ticking timebombs that could turn up pregnant any moment. While yes maternity leave would be a detriment to their business, that is hardly an excuse to discriminate against all women, and it would explain why so few women hold power in the upper echelons of corporations. How are women supposed to get to the top when they're being pruned before they even climb that high?

Also, have you ever wondered why Joanne Rowling put down J.K. Rowling instead of her proper name when she wrote the Harry Potter books? It's because Harry Potter was meant to be enjoyed by both boys and girls, and consumer psychology very plainly shows that men simply don't like buying products from women. A man or boy will see a book written by Joanne Rowling and pass it up, but J.K. Rowling is more unisex and they will be more interested to look it up. This is also in retail. A popular brand of clothing is called Liz Claiborne. They make clothes for women and men, but the two clothing lines go by different names. The women's clothing says "Liz Claiborne" on the tag, but the men's clothing only goes by "Claiborne." This is for the same reason J.K. Rowling was used instead of Joanne--men are simply less likely to buy clothes that they know come from a woman.

The same, however, does not apply to women. You simply have to look at Giorgio Armani, Nicholas Sparks, and Ralph Lauren to see that women don't care which gender produces their luxury and leisure products.

So, yeah. There's quite a bit of subtle and not-so-subtle sexism still in society. Nobody's doing it on purpose for the most part, but it's still there, and it still colors how we function as a society.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

My God. Are you even reading my comments?

Let me rephrase this to you so you can easily understand. Seeing how this went way over your head.

On Kotaku I had an argument with a misandrist who believed that Commander Shepard (female) was a "Feminist Empowered Construct"
You got that? Need to read that over again? No? Good. Let's continue.

The reason this Misandrist hates Femshep is for a variety of reasons. Some of them are as follows.

- Having the same lines and actions of the MaleShepard
- Being unable to adjust her body type to something more muscular because "feminazis" want that.(Despite many female fans saying otherwise.)
- She comes off as a "butch"
- Some of the things she does, a woman cannot do in real life.


Me, Dragonbums, the person you are talking to right now; I have tried to argue that she isn't a feminist empowered anything. She is just a female avatar for a sci-fi game.
Which lead to me being labeled as a "culted" feminist.

You got that? You sure? Positive?
Or do I have to condense this even more?

What we had here was a failure to communicate. By your use of the term 'misandrist' naturally I thought you were a crazy person. Crazy people tend to really like that word.

All that said, I think that commander shepard is a character (or group of characters) who would make for interesting case studies on their own.

 

[Dragonbums]

Please read my comment more carefully.
I'm talking about what the Misandrist was saying about Commander Shepard. The argument we had. I know what FemShep is, the person I was arguing with however believed FemShep was a feminist empowered construct. Her biggest peeve was her having the same lines as ManShep. In her eyes it's wrong because, simply put, Femshep is a woman, and Manshep is a man. They shouldn't have the same lines because in real life woman can't do all the things ManShep can.

It's hard to take you seriously when you're flatly referring to the other person in this debate as "the Misandrist" (capital M, must be a lot of misandry to warrant that) without anything to back it up beyond, "She disagreed with me over the characterisation of Commander Shepard." It makes it sound like you just got really pissed off having a debate with someone in another forum and decided to bring it onto The Escapist with your personal skew on the issue, badmouthing the other person to get people to back you up and validate you.

Now, that might not be your intention, but that's how it's coming across when you refer to this person as "the Misandrist." Hopefully my pointing that out won't earn me the "Misandrist" label as well.

I actually like that both the Shepards have more or less the same lines - it's awesome, though I'd also disagree with your view that Shepard is just a blank avatar with unspecified character. Shepard does have a specified character. Broadly speaking, he/she has two main characters - Paragon and Renegade - that can be mixed into a more complex character if the player chooses to mix up their approach. I always liked that the real decision of what your character would be was not decided by the gender choice in character creation, but by the actual choices that are made along the way.

I could show you, however like you said, I'm not trying to bring any argument into this forum. Seeing as how this conversation happened a very long time ago. I am also not just "labeling" people with names like that. I have seen enough of her comments on various posts on Kotaku. To use an example- she compared the feminist movement to the likes of the Holocaust and KKK. However, as you put, this isn't a soapbox for my argument that was done and over with 5 months ago. This thread asked me for an opinion on the other side of the argument, and I gave my experience with the matter.
Also I am kind of upset that you think that I would label you as a misandrist over the simple fact that you disagree with me. What I told you was a highly condensed version of a very long debate over at another website.
I'm not looking for white knights.
I'm not looking for back pats.
What I am sharing though is my experience, and it seems that a lot of people are ready to dismiss this because at the time I knew this person was a misandrist and labeled the person as such, and I decided I was going to summarize my debate as opposed to linking a long dead argument that at this point nobody should give two poops about.