Misogyny from IG to OOC

Adalie

Actually, funny enough, @Gishin was the one who shared the above link on Facebook and was the reason I saw it. Achaeans are having this discussion all over the place, it seems!

Mathonwy

Jhaeli said:

 - Part of the problem is that there are players making female characters and actively pursuing propositions, so to speak. (I couldn't tell you the latest names being banded around, but there were always people around the Archway perpetuating the stereotypes around new female characters.) This can influence other players, who then assume that all new females desire to be treated the same way, and so forth, leading to experiences like Adalie's above.

The extent to which 18yo female Sirens are immediately identified sex alts, as opposed to any other alt (or the extent to which mudsex defines those alts if it's an alt that engages in that kind of behavior, compared to if a male alt does that kind of thing 'on the side') demonstrates the differences in power cemented into gender relations, which is plucked pretty much straight from the real world. Yeah sure, there are probably some people who make alts intentionally for e-banging, but I definitely think the burden of proof is on an 18yoFS to prove she isn't a sex alt, where that kind of standard doesn't really exist for male characters.

Also, interestingly enough, most of the accounts that people seem to make, when they do make those kinds of accounts, ARE female, not male.

Adalie

I'm not really sure what you're saying here, @Mathonwy.

Or that most sex alts are female sirens, so the burden of proof is on them even though most female sirens aren't sex alts?

That, to me, sounds very close to something like: since I'm (in this scenario pretending to be) a man, and most women want to sleep with me, the burden of proof is on them to convince me that they don't want me, even though most women don't actually want to sleep with me.

Which of course is pretty silly.

Also, are we saying that a new character should expect to have to prove they're not a sex alt rather than expect to be treated respectfully until they behave in a way that shows they may welcome that type of behavior? If so, I guess misogyny has a stronger hold on Achaea than I would have liked to believed.

Maybe I'm way off in interpreting what you're saying, though. Set me straight.

Also, in response to your last statement, I'm curious about the numbers. I wonder if more characters whose primary function is to seek out and engage in text-sex belong to women or men players. That's something we're likely to never know, of course, but just something to wonder, I guess.

Kaden

I'm assuming that he meant that people do assume that sirens have to prove they're not sex alts and that it is a problem.

Honestly, I don't mind if the female and male alts had their fun. What really pisses me off is when males stalk people or randomly trawl and persist even when it's not welcome. I mean seriously, is the concept of consent that hard to figure out?

Mathonwy

Yeah, pretty much what Kaden said.

Alynna

Adalie said:

Of course when I happen to come across this Cracked.com article this morning, I thought of this thread. http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-sexist-video-game-problems-even-bigger-than-breasts/ What do you guys think?

I liked the article a great deal. The issues they pointed out were the ones that, despite me being marginally interested in video games, why I almost never buy or play any. I am sick, sick, sick to death of protagonists male or female always being portrayed the same way, and the decisions behind their portrayal based on RL gender assumptions.

 It's a writing problem, as stated in their second point. Instead of any given female character being defined by their characteristics first, they are assigned their gender first, and given a bunch of stereotyped characteristics based on what the majority of, (presumably,) male game writers thoughts of what is properly 'feminine,' rather then writing what is needed to make an interesting and dynamic character first, as is the default when writing male protagonists. Although they often fail at that too, relying on default male video game protagonist stereotypes. I can see why they fall into this trap however, as a writer is often concerned about portraying something or someone they are unfamiliar with 'right.' They often overthink it and end up making a pile of stereotypes rather then an actual dynamic, interesting character. This can happen to a writer when they write about an opposite gender, race, ethnic group, religion or other such unfamiliar territory.

My favorite thing to do when analysing a work for worries of gender issues or other such thing, is to swap the genders of all involved. Not just have them trade with each other, but a full on swap. Men become women, women become men, and then analyze your reaction to their behavior if they were that different gender.

In the cracked article, they point out that Elizabeth can rip holes in reality and pick locks, but waits for a guy to show up to save her before she starts taking action. I've read a few places people arguing against Cracked's complaint for a bunch of in game reasons, like being alone all her life, and scared, and whatnot. But the question I pose is: what if Elizabeth was Elzi, a scared young man, and Booker, was a tough older woman? Would people like Elzi's characterization, or dismiss him for being too helpless, weak and dependent on his woman rescuer? Would people like Booker the girl? Or find her rougher personality unpleasant and lacking in characterisation? If your reaction the character suddenly shifts because you swap the gender, and dislike occurs, you have a poorly written character. Like/dislike should not entirely depend on gender roles, and characteristics that are dismissed or ignored in one gender and not another suggests a sexist viewpoint, whether intentional or not.

It's an insidious problem too, and not one easily gotten rid of, because liking of a character is entirely in the reader's, (or game player's,) hands. So it will be shaped by cultural biases, which do include traditional gender roles and assumptions, that both men and women are guilty of.

Aepas

When it comes to sexism it's a bit different for me. Now I don't mean to offend anyone here, but let's look back through the small bit of history that I've been alive.

late 80's to now. I know, I'm young. Anyways, I've grown up always seeing the damsel in distress and the male hero come save the day. I love that shit. Now a lot of that might just be something that I've grown accustom to from the fiction I've read as well as all the Disney movies I've watched from a very young age. It's just kind of always been this way, so to me there is a sense of nostalgia every time I see the guy come and rescue the girl. I want to be that guy damnit! 

So anyways, this is what sells. Males are still the current dominant marketing figure in video games, so they will target us. This stuff has been engrained in our brains from a young age, and I personally feel disney has plenty to do with it, because those are most of the shining examples I can think of. and hell, let's not forget those late 80/early 90 action flicks.

Something the cracked article said that was correct is dominant female roles becoming submissive. Both Metroid and Tomb Raider... yeah, my thoughts exactly. Whoever the writers were for those games should likely give up the pen.

Now lets talk about some good writing, using these very same issues, but let's apply it to males. Has anyone ever wondered why the Alien movies were so scary? I mean, ignoring the shitty AVP movies. If we go back and look through HR Giger's notebooks, we'll find out what is scary to men. Rape. Men are terrified of being raped, at least this is what the demented mind of HR Giger thought. And that man is a pro. So, Alien is super phallic, has a penetrating mouth. Facehuggers look like terrifying Vajays that do the penetrating to you! and to top it all off, since the fear factor is meant to be against the men, who better to take the lead role than a Woman, the bad ass xeno-kicking Ripley.
So whether or not you actually believe in HR giger's beliefs about rape, there is a decent sense of understanding mentalities and abusing them to achieve a desired outcome in a movie. In Alien it was horror. This is the perfect example of what we -could- be doing with game writing, but alas everyone has a horrible misunderstood concept of what we actually want to see. The writers fail to understand what a strong female lead is, they fail to understand why a sexualized violence might be scary, they fail to understand where emotions might go into play, so they assume the female is always the more frail role, while the male is being strong and holding onto a dark past.

Blah, so I went off on a rant there. But since we are here. Girls! Remember guys can be self conscious about our looks as well. So when I'm talking to you and you oogle another guy, keep this in mind.  I had this girl show me some pics of a party she went to on her phone. She was saying "Man, this guy here? yeah, he had such a great body."
So I whipped out my phone and found a picture of a girl with gigantic boobs. "See this girl, damn she is hot. Look at those ****"

Tania

The characters in Alien weren't written with genders in mind. Which is why casting a woman as a lead worked, because she was a person first and a woman second.

Jhaeli

Aepas said:

(1) late 80's to now. I know, I'm young. Anyways, I've grown up always seeing the damsel in distress and the male hero come save the day. I love that shit. Now a lot of that might just be something that I've grown accustom to from the fiction I've read as well as all the Disney movies I've watched from a very young age. It's just kind of always been this way, so to me there is a sense of nostalgia every time I see the guy come and rescue the girl. I want to be that guy damnit! 

(2) So anyways, this is what sells. Males are still the current dominant marketing figure in video games, so they will target us. This stuff has been engrained in our brains from a young age, and I personally feel disney has plenty to do with it, because those are most of the shining examples I can think of. and hell, let's not forget those late 80/early 90 action flicks.

(1) First of all, I was born in the 80s too. I have no issue with traditional fantasy and enjoyed the Knight saving the Damsel stories when I was young too. In fact, there are some fantastic tales that involve a DID who is more than just a plot device to give the Knight motivation. Anyone who is somewhat familiar with the plot of The Phantom of the Opera (Note: for simplicity's sake, I'm speaking of the Musical/Movie here, not the book) will know that the young singer, Christine, is very much a Damsel in Distress. The Phantom is obsessed with possessing her (the Dragon) and the Viscount wants to save her (the male Knight). While the Viscount does fight on her behalf and, essentially, saves her, it's her choices at the climax that finally allow the Phantom to let her go and be taken away by the Viscount. She's a person with choices that make her integral to the plot. She never touches a sword herself - and that's okay. Not every female character needs to kick ass and take names - she just needs to be a REAL character and not just a plot device with boobies to look at. Her gender is a part of her, but she should not be defined by her ovaries. That's the problem. That's what's missing. And while this can happen with male characters, it's much less frequent. All of it needs to stop.

(2) This is a bleepin' myth and one that needs to be smashed to pieces. A male dominated video game industry hasn't existed since the 90s. There is a significant female demographic buying the SAME games as men. In fact, I would be willing to bet significant cash that, when it comes to buying and playing video games of all kinds on a regular basis, it's getting close to 50/50 overall, even with all the women who masquerade as men just to avoid much of the BS women run into in popular multiplayer games. 

ETA: Aside from the Newbie Sirens Problem, Achaea is easily one of the most gender-friendly games I've ever come across. And it's been LGBT-friendly since I started playing, when LGBT-friendly was almost non-existent. (I've had a lot of fun roleplaying a lesbian with very few problems.) While I imagine there will always be troublesome players, Achaea has pretty much spoiled me for most MMORPGs, simply because the maturity and respectability level is - in general - a lot higher.

Tania

Last I checked, it's about 45% of gamers who are women.

ETA: I'll try to find a source later, just on my cell phone.

Trilliana

Tania said:

Last I checked, it's about 45% of gamers who are women. ETA: I'll try to find a source later, just on my cell phone.

My problem is all the women that call facebook games as "games" and are categorized as gamers because of it-- but that's out of not knowing the requirements made for that sort of statistic.

Tania

I would put money on people who play Facebook games spend more time and more money on them than people who play something like Call of Duty, in general. I think someone dedicating that many hours to a game, regardless of what game it is, can be referred to as gamers.

Tania

And arbitrarily deciding what kind of game makes someone "count" as a gamer leads to the kind of snobbery and uninclusiveness that already affects many gamers.

Ellodin

I assume chess players don't identify as gamers, but what about people who only play things like chess or solitaire on computers?  Maybe it's "snobbery and uninclusiveness," but I think casual gaming can often be pretty clearly separated.

Hyperlith

Trilliana said:

Tania said:

Last I checked, it's about 45% of gamers who are women. ETA: I'll try to find a source later, just on my cell phone.

My problem is all the women that call facebook games as "games" and are categorized as gamers because of it-- but that's out of not knowing the requirements made for that sort of statistic.

A corollary to this (and not necessarily on topic with the OP) is how, regardless of qualifiers to be called 'gamers', there are more games through more outlets or platforms that interest women. Not just those who "never pay to play" but women who like to throw down $0.99 a pop a dozen or more times a year. So, I don't know if there is a quickly identified percentage on genders but the raw number of increased video gaming out there must have increased by the droves.

Sherazad

About Tomb Raider, Iono. I remember my Lara spending most of her time mowing down enemies. She had some emotional moments but I remember more when the enemies were yelling for their lives.

Xith

Well it's way too late for me to read all these massive posts right now, including the original parts, but I want to sum up my general views on video game/media influence.

First, I've never played any version of GTA. Don't know if I'm proud of that or not.

Second, I've read an article about using scantily clad babes as decoration in video game levels and stuff that caters to the male ego and the whole "every guy is entitled to a beautiful princess" philosophy that is, in fact, fed to society from square one. Everything from disney movies to Mario rescuing Peach, guy gets the girl, no matter how well-qualified he is to have her. So much so that the girls who watch them are sometimes subdued into the dainty princess/housewife role without realizing it.

It's weird to realize if it's never been pointed out to you before.

Third, though, I'm not sure it's a big a problem as the problem underlying it, which is parental guidance.

I believe expression of aggression or combative natures is healthy. (if you concede that people naturally have these, that is. some may not agree). Examples:

- I play Mortal Kombat. This doesn't mean I believe it's acceptable to yank somebody's spine out or rip off their face and set them on fire.

- I've played a shooter or two. I don't find it acceptable to shoot people because they're in my sights and move around like the people in the game do

With increasingly realistic graphics, parenting might actually become more crucial, to help kids understand that it is very different from reality and your impulse to resolve a problem with violence does not apply in the real world. We are elevated beings and are quite above our primal emotions if we need to be.

Fourth, I listen to metal and other hard music. I acknowledge my own darkness and channel it through the aggression in that form of media rather than letting it lash out at random on people in my life.

Why that music?

Well, hip-hop/rap and country music often revolve around glorifying misogyny and hatred and fear (and substance abuse),

while rock/metal more often focuses on vilifying or satirizing those elements.

The tricky part is that metal is aggressive or dark itself, while pop music is catchy, and addictive, and as with the recent "Blurred Lines" nonsense, helps contribute to the problem.

Again, parental guidance. Not control, but guidance. 

-- -- --

tl;dr - misogyny is influenced by the media, but I don't think an excess of bouncy CGI boobies is negative unless the adults viewing them were not taught well as children, and that is their parents' job. It's as simple as telling little Billy "you should never treat a woman that way" when they witness a dark plot device in a PG-13 movie at home with their parents, or telling little Sally "a man should never treat you that way"

Post ended up a lot more discombobulated that I intended. But I'm tired.

Xenomorph

I don't even know what that means but then again I never graduated ivy league. Despite what they say, Mavis Beacon is a cold hearted bitch, and failed me in chemistry. Carry on.

Adalie

Jhaeli said:

ETA: Aside from the Newbie Sirens Problem, Achaea is easily one of the most gender-friendly games I've ever come across. And it's been LGBT-friendly since I started playing, when LGBT-friendly was almost non-existent. (I've had a lot of fun roleplaying a lesbian with very few problems.) While I imagine there will always be troublesome players, Achaea has pretty much spoiled me for most MMORPGs, simply because the maturity and respectability level is - in general - a lot higher.

I couldn't agree with this more. This actually made me forget (until someone reminded me) the annoying sexist BS I dealt with as a newbie, because once I got past that stage, I really felt almost nothing but inclusiveness. (On a  grand scale, I mean. Of course individual characters do or don't accept Adalie based on their RP.) In fact, I've experienced more acceptance having a bi character in Achaea than I have being a bi person IRL, even including when I participated in my college GSA. Achaea really has always been ahead of its time in certain ways.

Skye

Maybe I'm some kind of gender traitor or something, but I mostly sit on the fence for most gender discussions and tend to fall off on the apparently 'misogynistic' side of it. I don't feel put down or less by storylines with damsels in distress or fridge damsels or any other variety of so-called 'helpless female', maybe because I feel like you're only as put down as you allow yourself to be.

I once told a friend that 'the reason why they kill the man's wife, isn't because she's a helpless woman. It's because they wanted to take away someone who was most dear to him. If he were gay, then it'd be his gay lover stuck in a fridge and then we'd have a whole other debate about homosexuality in games' <- does that make me a bad person

Frankly I feel more offended by the way modern media attempts to shoehorn female characters as being 'just as good, maybe even better and smarter than men'. I find it patronizing. I know I'm just as good in certain aspects, maybe even better, I don't need you to throw a character at me that reeks of Mary-Sue just to prove it to me.

Anyway, in the midst of all the debates on gender equality and what not... I remain convinced: Men and women may be 'equal', but they aren't the same. Even if we universally concede that gender is a 'social construct', your biological sex and genetic makeup doesn't magically go away (except with surgery).

Before people thought too abstractly about gender and sex, restrictions were made by physical observations such as the inconvenience of a woman having her period in an era where we didn't have ultra absorbent tampons, or the fact that women can get pregnant (and the changes and compromises she has to make when her body changes as a result) but not men. That doesn't make a woman less, but it does make the way she has to deal with things different. You can rewrite all the labels you want, but you will never be divorced from the differences between men and women because until we evolve into some kind of androgynous futanari, there will always be two distinct sexes each with their own problems.

I don't know really, I think I agree with @Jhaeli on this. I am proud and happy to be a woman and I have no problems with accepting the differences between my sex/gender and the opposite. I acknowledge my disadvantages and weaknesses as much as I do my strengths. Similarly, I want to write female characters who *are* female not just 'like a guy, except with boobs'.

I would rather create a sexist world and address those issues through my characters, show how they work around those restrictions with varying degrees of success, failure or compromise, than clumsily piece together a gender-blind society that caters to making women feel like 'immediate equals' to men. That's a utopia, it doesn't exist, and I think it'd be a very bland and boring world if it did. The balance between male and female powers is only made interesting by the way it teeters up and down, not by a level and unchanging plane.

Adalie

I don't see how "females have some practical restrictions men don't" equates to sexed-up female "armour" being a staple of every game or strong female characters suddenly losing their courage because there's a penis in the vicinity. I don't have a problem with DID stories either; I have a problem with every* story being a DID story. I think that's the bigger issue.

*Ok, like 95%

Tania

I am curious. Does anyone watch Alien and think "god Ripley, so unrealistic, just a guy with boobs"? Because they wrote her character as gender neutral. The actor being female took away nothing from the character. It could be the same way with any game out there.

Kyrra

Tania said:

I am curious. Does anyone watch Alien and think "god Ripley, so unrealistic, just a guy with boobs"? Because they wrote her character as gender neutral. The actor being female took away nothing from the character. It could be the same way with any game out there.

I think I was 8 years old when I saw Aliens on television. It started my love for horrors and thrillers. Instead of going through the cartoon section of the video store, I was reading B and C grade horror movies.

To a degree, the first movie would have worked regardless of gender. You've got a mixed gender crew on a space voyage, Ripley happens to be a woman and the double crosser is actually an android instead of a human.

The subsequent movies do take the gender into consideration in the second movie. The death of Ripley's daughter that she never got to see grow up and the maternal instincts displayed towards Newt are far more realistic for the nuturing qualities of women than perhaps for men. Not to say that men aren't loving parental units but I wouldn't say such a bond would easily be there with a male role.

I found what @Aepes said about rape and violation to be quite fascinating especially regarding Aliens and the following movies. Is it any difference between getting impregnated by a facehugger and having your chest burst open, to perhaps the eventual storyline where due to facehugging and gene cloning, you have a human actually pregnant with an alien queen who ends up a womb and ends up giving birth by stomach burst?

Skye

Sexed up armour is dumb. Definitely not defending that on any level. Even if you weren't concerned with the sexism, you'd still find it dumb because the armor is impractical. Having said that, I'm certainly not saying there can't be strong independent females, but I just find the knee-jerk reaction to compensate with a token female incredibly clumsy. They'll overcompensate by making her like super kickass sometimes even including some McGuffin that allows her to overshadow the rest of her team, but then dumb it back down by including gratuitous shots of her ass. Not that I don't appreciate a fine female specimen like Anne Hathaway or Scarlet Johansson and gorgeous booty, but thinking outside my panties, it's dumb and patronizing.

On the subject of Alien and a female protagonist. I think that when talking about a movie or any visual medium that isn't a book, the actress herself lends a lot by body-language and appearance. I'm with @Kyrra on this that, Ripley just happened to be a woman and it would have worked regardless of gender, but the sequels often played a lot on theme of motherhood in a very uh... violent and messy way.

Tania

I'm not entirely sure what relevance you think the subsequent Alien movies have to the fact that the original was written without gender in mind.

Obviously the next ones were written with Ripley as a woman. She's been cast at that point.

Kyrra

Tania said:

I'm not entirely sure what relevance you think the subsequent Alien movies have to the fact that the original was written without gender in mind.

Obviously the next ones were written with Ripley as a woman. She's been cast at that point.

I saw the sequel long before the original. I think I had seen Alien 3 before I saw the original.

So from that experience I've already seen Ripley defined as a woman. And it's quite relevant because my perspective of the character was changed on viewing the first Alien movie. While I do agree it makes no difference to a role cast without a gender in mind, I already had preconceived notions of what the character is like.

Xith

The only plus I see to "sexed-up" armour is the comment it makes about a warrior babe's martial prowess.

Cause to go into combat without excessive armour is psychological warfare in itself. Not to mention distracting the shit out of your male opponents.

But that applies to both sexes. If I walk in swinging a sword in nothing but a metallic bikini, ya'll know what's up.

Tania

I keep coming back in my head to this line from Skye's post: "That's a utopia, it doesn't exist, and I think it'd be a very bland and boring world if it did"

We're talking about video games here. You know, things which aren't reality already? Things that exist in video games which don't exist in reality: no consequences, the ability to heal someone by throwing magic sparkles at them, the ability to shoot fire from your hands, dragons, orcs, elves, Sirens, Atavians, leviathans, kraken, I could go on forever.

Something existing in reality is not a requirement for video games, and it isn't a good argument against equality in video games. It doesn't have to be a utopia.

And the issue, as mentioned, isn't the fact that women being murdered are a motivation for the hero's journey. It's that it's a motivation for so many video games that it's tired, and dated, and lazy. Incredibly lazy. It's like making the motivation for a female character rape or attempted rape. There are other things that can cause a person to become a murderous rage-machine shooting down everyone who comes into their path.

Mishgul

nothing is stronger than love >(

Xith

Mishgul said:

nothing is stronger than love >(

Carbon nanotubes.