Why feminist gaming discussions confuse and infuriate me: the modern schism of reappropriation

[wizzy555]

Unless you mean that women have it disproportionately bad.

Well I do think that, a bland character is hardly as offensive as someone with tits bigger than her head who wears little more than carefully placed belts but that wasn't my point. My point was that using that argument sounds a bit like saying "I'm against this call for better writing because writing in video games is bad". Even if you completely disagree with feminist philosophy I don't see why you'd fight a demand to improve the quality of writing in games you admit have shit writing. Even if it does focus exclusively on female characters, which I already explained why I don't think it would, that's still a lot of improvement in a hobby you obviously like or you wouldn't be on this forum.

Really that's the reason I'm so strongly for this movement, you can ignore all the gender politics if that stuff bothers you but if gaming is a hobby you really enjoy then I can't understand what possible reason you could have to not support a call for better writing.

Calling for better writing is no bad thing, but wrapping it up as a gender issue is terribly manipulative (unless there is an actual gender issue here).

Gender inequality = serious business, gets people on streets screaming
just bad writing = not serious business, means a game is not as good as it could be

I'm all for calls for better writing but I'm not going to scream sexism over every bad character.

 

[LittleBlondeGoth]

I've tried to stay away from all the feminist threads, on account of finding it very difficult to put my thoughts into words on the topic. However, I eventually came up with what the whole thing means to me:

Put some effort into your characters. That's all I really want.

The world is made up of many different kinds of people. Some of these people are strong, independant types. Others are vacuous. Some are great. Some are arseholes. You don't have to be a particular gender, sexuality, race or anything to be one of these types.

In the context of games, you need characters that will play off each other and advance the story. It's not interesting if every character is Captain Chunky McMeathead, you need variety in there. So what I want to see is depth. I don't mind there being a weak female character in there if it makes sense for her to be that way (and it helps if there's a sassy gal or a scaredy guy somewhere in the mix to balance it out).

For example. I'm female and was completely unoffended by Lollipop Chainsaw. It was blindingly obvious that this game wasn't taking itself seriously, and in fact was playing off that stereotyping, so there's absolutely no point getting het up over it. Even the trophy for looking up her skirt - I'd say that the developers gauged the first thing a lot of players would try and do, and took a cheeky swipe at it. Accept it for what it is.

I would like to see more female leads in games, where it works well for there to be one and she's a well thought out personality. This isn't just to get away from the boobs-on-a-stick mentality, but because I'm getting bored with generic brunette guy who seems to be ubiquitous these days. Sure, you can make your female characters attractive, but that shouldn't be all there is to them.

Make me believe in them, that's all I ask.

 

[wintercoat]

Yet again in the gaming section, take this to politics and religion where you can flame on freely and we can all happily ignore it.

Request to move to religion and politics.

How about, instead of saying that you want threads moved into a forum you don't frequent so you don't have to look at them anymore, you just, oh, I don't know, stay out of the threads you don't want to read? That might work.

Oh, and also, feminism is a societal thing, not a religious or political thing. It belongs in off-topic, not in R&P. The majority of feminism threads have been about society's views of women, not about any religious or political aspects of feminism.

 

[Mr Pantomime]

IM super confused. Is this one person using multiple theories in one argument, or over multiple arguments? Or is this many people using multiple theories in one argument, or over multiple arguments?

Now im even more confused.

 

[Darkmantle]

I think a bigger problem then changing the parameters every time an argument arises is the whole theory of the patriarchy, as it stands today. If I disagree with certain feminists about anything, it's because I have been blinded by the patriarchy! Any arguments**** I have are fuelled by the patriarchy! Any stats I use are tainted by the patriarchy. It's basically the same as saying "I don't have proof, and I can't counter your argument, but you're a liar!". It drives me wild.

At a close third comes the waves and waves of no true scotsman fallacies.


It also seems like most feminists I talk to take disagreement as a personal insult, and proof that I'm "sexist".

Just a couple of things I think are also problems.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

But that's an badly structured argument. You are giving special consideration to women instead of just saying, game characters suck they need improving. Unless you mean that women have it disproportionately bad.

If you are pulling out feminist arguments then there's the implicit assumption that you are seeing a sexist bias in action that you want to eliminate. The response "well men are stereotyped too" is a response to the perception of bias. If there is no bias you can't turn every problem into a gender issue for sake of attention.

Could it be, perhaps, that in an industry full of badly written characters of both genders, the female characters just tend to be worse in general? I am not even sure why this is constested because it is often quite plain to see. The way most female character ends up doing some kind of fanservice (and some are just plainly written as fanservice to begin with) or are sexualized to a ridiculous degree. Male characters are stereotyped a lot too, but they are not designed to act as overt fanservice or are objectified to the same degree as female characters are.

Honestly, do you think all of us who bring up problematic portrayal of women in media (not just games, ask yourself why the Bechdel test exists in the first place and why so few movies pass it) just do it for attention? Might it be that we bring this up because we think it is an actual problem? A problem that might be keeping women from enjoying this hobby as much as men are?

By assuming we do it for attention, you are only revealing your own bias against us, which implicitly suggest that you wouldn't adress our actual concerns to begin with.(this statement should not be taken seriously, it is merely used as an example hence why it is in italics) See how easy it is to block any form of constructive discussion simply by calling the other persons opinions and potential bias into question?

 

[Senare]

It is both tragic and comical that most posts in this thread do not even address the opening post. The thread purpose is not to gather a bunch of posts about "general things I think about feminism", but instead about discussing two views that screw up feminist discussions because people do not make a clear distinction; should we give these views new labels to fix it or do these labels already exist?

Thank you for the new insight FieryTrainwreck.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Yet again in the gaming section, take this to politics and religion where you can flame on freely and we can all happily ignore it.

Request to move to religion and politics.

How about, instead of saying that you want threads moved into a forum you don't frequent so you don't have to look at them anymore, you just, oh, I don't know, stay out of the threads you don't want to read? That might work.

Oh, and also, feminism is a societal thing, not a religious or political thing. It belongs in off-topic, not in R&P. The majority of feminism threads have been about society's views of women, not about any religious or political aspects of feminism.

I do occasionally go into religion and politics and the level of discussion of those things there is much higher than in this forum. But the only reason to put this in gaming discussion is for flamebaiting.

 

[Bostur]

I think the two different lenses are caused by confusion between formal equality and cultural identity. Equality in the legal sense assumes that men and women have the same qualifications from birth. Fighting for equality was the original goal of feminism causing such great advances as equal rights to vote, to speak in public, and to have the same professions. Equality defines what we can do.

Cultural identity however defines who we are. Based on a multitude of aspects such as nationality, language, gender and prefered flavour of ice-cream. From a certain point of view that is the exact opposite of equality because we are all different at some level.

Every historical movement that fought to recognize the rights of a certain group of people needed to mix those two aspects in some way, in order to express a common cultural identity. The working class, women, specific ethnic minorities and recently the gay community all built up a certain culture by which they were recognized. Groups of people can't fight unless they have something in common so they need to assume some kind of common identity. Usually when the goal is reached the assumed common identity starts to evaporate because it isn't needed anymore. We don't have much of a working class culture in modern first world societies, and in the same way feminist movements start to realize that they don't have much in common either.

When consensus becomes unecessary individuality emerges.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I just like to play games, myself. And if they happen to feature lovely ladies, why the hell not?

The longer these feminist threads keep continuing the more simple minded I seem to be getting.

Honestly, I just think we're just getting better at distilling our core thoughts on the matter to short, easy to understand statements. The number of times this has come up has to have made this easier for us.

 

[Pearwood]

Calling for better writing is no bad thing, but wrapping it up as a gender issue is terribly manipulative (unless there is an actual gender issue here).

I can totally understand why some people would be offended by the ridiculous sexualisation women tend to get in games. I'm not saying the issue as a whole is manipulative, I'm very sure there are people out there who are annoyed by it. What I am saying that even if people don't agree with the whole gender side of it that's really no reason to fight it. The change to society if female characters were written better in games would be zero, you can be the most woman-hating prick ever born and still support this because it's a movement that has a good chance of succeeding and aims to improve one of your hobbies.

 

[wizzy555]

But that's an badly structured argument. You are giving special consideration to women instead of just saying, game characters suck they need improving. Unless you mean that women have it disproportionately bad.

If you are pulling out feminist arguments then there's the implicit assumption that you are seeing a sexist bias in action that you want to eliminate. The response "well men are stereotyped too" is a response to the perception of bias. If there is no bias you can't turn every problem into a gender issue for sake of attention.

Could it be, perhaps, that in an industry full of badly written characters of both genders, the female characters just tend to be worse in general? I am not even sure why this is constested because it is often quite plain to see. The way most female character ends up doing some kind of fanservice (and some are just plainly written as fanservice to begin with) or are sexualized to a ridiculous degree. Male characters are stereotyped a lot too, but they are not designed to act as overt fanservice or are objectified to the same degree as female characters are.

Honestly, do you think all of us who bring up problematic portrayal of women in media (not just games, ask yourself why the Bechdel test exists in the first place and why so few movies pass it) just do it for attention? Might it be that we bring this up because we think it is an actual problem? A problem that might be keeping women from enjoying this hobby as much as men are?

I never said any of that, you note my use of the word "if", meaning I was dealing in hypotheticals.

I do think there is a need for more (and better) female characters, I also think some of the complaints are unfounded or for attention.

 

[veloper]

IM super confused. Is this one person using multiple theories in one argument, or over multiple arguments? Or is this many people using multiple theories in one argument, or over multiple arguments?

Now im even more confused.

This is actually the best point made in this thread sofar.

It's usually multiple theories or points of view and multiple posters. The Escapist is not a hive mind.

The only unifying part between theories 1 and 2 in the OP that I could find was they both argue for every aspect to be positive in fictional characters (of the female persuasion).

There's no hypocricy unless it's the same person alternating between the two opinions.
If not, then the worst you can throw at their feat is that they promote more bad fiction.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Also, Fiery, try to remember that you're posting on the fucking Escapist. There is absolutely no reason to make your posts so unnecessarily obtuse. Get your point across, and move on.

I'm 100% in favour of scaring away morons with big words. Not sure it'll work but if it does this thread might not turn into a total disaster.

Unfortunately, in practice such a thing is likely to draw morons who know some long words and think they know what the words mean. I look forward to some lovely word salad responses...

 

[SonicWaffle]

The world is made up of many different kinds of people. Some of these people are strong, independant types. Others are vacuous. Some are great. Some are arseholes. You don't have to be a particular gender, sexuality, race or anything to be one of these types.

You're entirely correct, but there is a problem in that (like the OP says) only certain personality types are viewed to be positive, and some - the vacuous types you mentioned, for example - are often stereotyped as being more the province than one gender than the other.

If you have a dumb muscley guy in a game, harr harr - big brawny guys are dumb. If you have a dumb big-titted blonde in a game, that's terrible - it's stereotypical and offensive to women! It's not so much about feminism in the game itself as it is about the player's reaction.

To take a recent example, from Arkham Asylum, I think Catwoman is a *****. She's self-centred, petty, spiteful and aggressively sexual in a way that gets on my tits. To some people, that's me attacking the character for being female (the word ***** doesn't help much either, admittedly) rather than any legitimate complaint about the character. If we're being equal, we ought to be able to point out when a woman is behaving like a bag of dicks, but there are those who will instantly cry misogny.

 

[SonicWaffle]

I have a question from a country, that doesn't give a crap about female rights, because our females do not care: Why do you care, huh?

Which country would that be? Do you know that your females do not care, or is it just that you've never asked them? You're not giving us much to go on here...

 

[Sparrow]

I just long for the day we move onto a new topic. Like rape! Let's bring the rape threads back!

I preferred it to this bullshit, anyway.

Wow, what an appropriate username.

*looks forward to yet another discussion involving men telling us what feminism REALLY means*

Wait, men aren't allowed to say what feminism means? That kinds of goes against the very point of feminism, doesn't it? That everyone is meant to be equal, and have equal opinions and equal status and all that jazz. If feminism is a women only club, then it's already sexist.

 

[MasochisticAvenger]

In my opinion, female and male characters are just as badly represented in video games as each other; it's just how people choose to view them. A lot of people view the sexy, skimpyly-dressed female as negative so they're often viewed as negative in video games. On the other hand, the bad ass tough guy is mostly viewed as positive, so those kinds of characters are considered to be positive role models in video game. I, myself, find the tough guy stereotype to be just as bad as the sexy girl stereotype.

The difference is men don't have an entire history of oppression behind them, so things like male stereotypes are often seen as not a big deal. It's the reason why you hardly see men triumphing over women in things like advertising or T.V. shows. If they do get ahead, they are quickly bought back down and put in their place.

The unfortunate truth is writing a female character is far more difficult than writing a male character, purely because of how people will react to it. Let's be honest, there aren't really any personal attributes you could associate with one gender you couldn't associate with the other. Let's take, for example, Kratos. If Kratos was a woman, and nothing else had been changed, people would have thrown a fit over God of War. We would have had constant bitching about how the game clearly hates women because it shows them as violent and bloodthirsty.

The problem when creating a positive female role model is the term is basically pointless. What is defined as positive attributes is different for each person. For example, down here in Australia we had a guy named Steve Irwin. For those of you who don't know of him, he was a person who spoke with a very stereotypical Australian accent and he did things like wrestle crocodiles and what not. A lot of people viewed him as a hero and a positive role model for kids. I viewed him as a complete idiot who should have gotten mental assistance.

So, honestly, I don't know what the solution is. I wish we could all somehow get over the history of female oppression, and realize not every negative aspect of a female character is a slam against the entire female gender. It would be great if we could start making three-dimensional female characters without having to worry about people bitching because of this-or-that imperfection. I don't know... maybe we need like fifty years of male oppression to balance things out.