Gamers make bad feminists

[GoaThief]

Sexism doesn't exist? What planet do you live on? Can I move there?

And this neatly demonstrates the point made above, it's petty little arguments like these when obviously the poster did not claim that there is no sexism in the world.

I also concur with the OP, the Escapist is particularly bad for bandwagon jumping.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I wonder - as to the hitman trailer - you the equivalent gender inversion work?

For example, a Beatrix Kiddo type assassin mending her wounds in her house when she is attacked by a punch of guys dressed like BDSM gimps/strippers armed with military weapons.

To me, I think it would work. To me the way the Hitman trailer works is the incronguity between nuns, weapons, sexuality, violence and combat.

Personally, as a woman and a feminist, I only found the Hitman trailer kind of amusing in a camp, "taking the piss" kind of way. Though I think it is important to keep the context of IO Interactives previous Hitman games in mind when watching it.

47 has always been portrayed as asexual, to the point that he reacts with shock when kissed in the first game. Add to this that the Hitman series have always mixed brutal violence with a not-quite-entirely-serious tone (see spoiler at the end). This trailer was kind of the same thing to me, by first presenting the female hit(wo)men as nuns and then turning it around and making their "actual" outfits be the kind of stripperific you normally associate with poor porno depicitions of nuns. What then ensues is a massive fight where these professional killers put up their best fight but are still overcome by the cold blooded hitman they came to kill.

All in all, it was the kind of over the top stealth parody that the hitman series has been doing since its' first inception. Could it have been presented better? Sure, but as mentioned before in this thread, I find the Far Cry 3 trailer to be quite a lot worse in regards to sexualization.

Spoiler

Kill a bikini dressed woman by pushing her into her own pool and making her drown instantly in Blood Money. The entire Ninja Castle/Bond Villain Hideout in Silent Assassin. The Angel Stripper assassin and that entire Nightclub/BDSM-dungeon level in Blood Money. Killing someone by shooting out the bottom of the pool he's sitting in. This list could go on for quite some time

 

[Brutal Peanut]

Since we are throwing stupid sweeping Generalizations based on no facts whatsoever.

Cats are shitty pets.
Cupcakes are the best source of iron.
Feminists make great objective journalists

Yes! I knew it! I knew my glorious cupcake a day habit was getting me somewhere.

 

[Treblaine]

The one problem (and solution) is female protagonists in video games. There are not enough and more of them would help. Get people to actually play as females there is going to be less of the separation between "them and us". Walk a mile in their (virtual) shoes.

I'd love if there were more female protagonists in games, apart from games where sex is interchangeable and it doesn't affect gameplay in the slightest. It would be awesome if there were more well-balanced female leads. It would be nice if they made more female characters that weren't made on that 'badder than the boys' template. I don't know if that explains what I mean properly, you know that character type where the woman has a serious chip on her shoulder because every other character in the game is a male and she ends up essentially being a male character with a feminine face?

Any protagonist - male or female or genderless robot - must be tough enough for the job, they need to have then mental fortitude to be victorious and refuse to accept defeat. There are male approaches to that but I know there are female ones as well. A female protagonist must be resolute or else it will be too incongruous with the player who is playing to the competition and accepting the challenge by continuing to play the game. That's not being "Badder than the boys" that's being made of "The right stuff".

I think the key is to have more female characters even in a single game, so many games which are highly character driven have ENTIRELY male casts. I would really like to play a character driven game like Uncharted where the principal cast are female.

What's the name of that test, it is "does at least one named female character talk to another female character"? Surprisingly, almost every game and film fails to have this to spite having named male characters talking to each other all the time. Unless they are specifically targeted as "women's films". This treats women like they are a minority.

(google searches)

Bechdel Test. That was what it was called. Really, do you have a woman as a token character (even as protagonist) to fill some minority quote or is 50% of humanity really being given their time in the lime light. I forgot the last part, if the two named women in the cast do talk to each other, do they talk about something other than a man being the subject of the conversation? This is why even shows like Sex and the City barely pass as entire episodes go by where the women can talk entirely about men, obsessing over them. As if we didn't see enough of them.

I REALLY want more women in films and games, while they seem to be just in "girly" media. I write (and rewrite) a lot with entirely female principal casts.

 

[Colour Scientist]

Any protagonist - male or female or genderless robot - must be tough enough for the job, they need to have then mental fortitude to be victorious and refuse to accept defeat. There are male approaches to that but I know there are female ones as well. A female protagonist must be resolute or else it will be too incongruous with the player who is playing to the competition and accepting the challenge by continuing to play the game. That's not being "Badder than the boys" that's being made of "The right stuff".

I think the key is to have more female characters even in a single game, so many games which are highly character driven have ENTIRELY male casts. I would really like to play a character driven game like Uncharted where the principal cast are female.

What's the name of that test, it is "does at least one named female character talk to another female character"? Surprisingly, almost every game and film fails to have this to spite having named male characters talking to each other all the time. Unless they are specifically targeted as "women's films". This treats women like they are a minority.

(google searches)

Bechdel Test. That was what it was called. Really, do you have a woman as a token character (even as protagonist) to fill some minority quote or is 50% of humanity really being given their time in the lime light. I forgot the last part, if the two named women in the cast do talk to each other, do they talk about something other than a man being the subject of the conversation? This is why even shows like Sex and the City barely pass as entire episodes go by where the women can talk entirely about men, obsessing over them. As if we didn't see enough of them.

I REALLY want more women in films and games, while they seem to be just in "girly" media. I write (and rewrite) a lot with entirely female principal casts.

I'm not talking about their actions but more the 'personalities' they give them. There's a difference between being resolute and being completely masculine. I think you can create a character that's essentially feminine but is still made of 'the right stuff'. Kat from Halo: Reach would be an example of the male with a feminine face type I'm talking about. I can think of very few female characters that were created to get shit done but who still retain their femininity.

I'd be intesting in seeing how you write a multitude of female characters interacting almost solely with each other.

 

[Schadrach]

Thats not true I am an amazing feminist. I fucking love tits and am all for giving them equal rights.

Then you're not a feminist but an equalist. Feminists, these days, are only all about women's rights. No longer about just equal rights. Or rather, feminists these days are all about getting special treatment just so they can 'feel' equal to men even though they do less work, are weaker, etc. (Not saying women all do less work or are weaker, just that the ones that are want to still feel equal for doing/achieving less.)

So yea, you're an equalist! Same with me.

Sounds like someone is getting their definitions from fox news. Actually feminism is about equality, people that say its about female dominance are getting their definition from right wing idiots who seek to discredit it.

I actually really like the term 'equalist' (Never heard of the term before just now, by the way) it implies that you support all equality as a whole rather than a single facet of it and I think that's far better than simply calling yourself a feminist which suggests a bias towards one form of equality over another.

The term egalitarian is more common, and if you Google "gender egalitarian" you'll certainly find some blogs on the topic.

Sounds like someone is getting their definitions from fox news. Actually feminism is about equality, people that say its about female dominance are getting their definition from right wing idiots who seek to discredit it.

Ayup.

"Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings." ― Cheris Kramarae

You'll find very few people who disagree with the statement "Women are people too and should have the same rights as any other person."

If that's the total definition of feminist you want to go with, then sure, why not, I'm a feminist.

If you go from there to "therefore women should be given special preferential treatment and/or lowered standards to do things that aren't already at least 50% women, and possibly even then", then I stop agreeing. Equality doesn't mean special explicit systematic privilege for one group.

Or perhaps an argument that relies on the assumption of women as always victims and never perpetrators, or of women as never being deceitful, malicious, cruel, or otherwise horrible, you've lost me again -- those are human traits, not gendered traits. A *lot* of feminists particularly engage in this one, for example claiming that women are never violent, or only men rape[footnote]For purposes of this post, I am defining "rape" as "sexual acts performed on a person through force, the threat of force, or while the victim is intoxicated, unconscious, or otherwise incapable of consent.[/footnote], or women *never* falsely accuse (one particular popular feminist blog I've read in the past likes to make this claim, and summarily delete/ban anyone who provides a contradictory example).

Or maybe, "we need to discriminate regarding victim services with respect to gender." Or to go all radfemhub[footnote]http://radicalhub.com/[/footnote] on you, "therefore we need to employ biological solutions to dealing with the male problem." Or that "when women are behind in some field or activity it shows that there is something wrong with that event or activity; when men are behind, it shows that something is wrong with men." Or that gender privilege is a one-way street (it shocks me that feminist women [the only women you ever hear talk about male privilege] can claim that "privilege blinds" when referring to men not seeing advantages, but then not realize the same statement applies to women).

The three above paragraphs all reflect things I've heard feminists argue in the past. All pretty terrible. All stuff I disagree with. That's one of the problems with "feminism." "Feminism is not a monolith" lets you get away without having to defend feminist positions by simply claiming that you don't hold them and they don't really count. At the same time, it lowers the bar to be a feminist essentially to the point of meaninglessness.

Personally, I believe women are people too and should have the same rights and responsibilities that men do, or equitable ones in any case where identical rights and responsibilities are literally impossible. I also believe that men are people too and should have the same rights and responsibilities that women do, or equitable ones in any case where identical rights and responsibilities are literally impossible.

[ul]
[li]That means holding both to the same standards and requirements, everywhere.[/li]
[li]That means giving men some means through which to opt-out of the rights and responsibilities of parenthood, and the mother having no say in that choice; much as women have that same right through abortion, adoption, and in some places abandonment, with no say from the father in any case.[/li]
[li]That means assuming joint custody as a starting point, barring good reason to make it otherwise.[/li]
[li]That means enforcing custody arrangements as strongly as child support.[/li]
[li]That means taking a rape accusation seriously regardless of the genders of perpetrator and victim, investigating it thoroughly, trying it properly on the basis of actual evidence corroborating testimony like any other crime, and it means taking the possibility of false allegations seriously as well.[/li]
[/ul]

Sounds like someone is getting their definitions from fox news. Actually feminism is about equality, people that say its about female dominance are getting their definition from right wing idiots who seek to discredit it.

I'm getting my definitions from personal experience. The feminists and equalists I've met are as I've described them. Plus, here in the Netherlands we don't really have those right wing idiots you guys have in America.

Apparently you do since a feminist is about equality, people that think its about female domination are getting their definition from the right wing.

you know that lady who opened the first woman's shelter? That brave feminist icon?
yeah her, did you know she also wanted to open a man's shelter shortly after?
do you know who stopped her?
the feminist movement.
I wish I was kidding bud, don't count the other side of the argument out withour debating it.

You cite a story without providing any other information about it, you need to work on that. Plus I never said that everyone who called themself a feminist wasn't a moron or jackass, I just said the ones that are morons or jackasses aren't really feminists. Also, there is a group who call themselves the feminists who do want to see women get better treatment then anyone else but these are't feminists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feminists

A few choice quotes from Erin Pizzey[footnote]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1215464/Why-I-loathe-feminism---believe-ultimately-destroy-family.html[/footnote], who literally started the first DV shelter ever, and was a major part of making DV shelters a "thing" in the first place:

"Thirty years later, when feminism exploded onto the scene, I was often mistaken for a supporter of the movement. But I have never been a feminist, because, having experienced my mother's violence, I always knew that women can be as vicious and irresponsible as men."

"They were vicious words that I have heard repeated over and over by mothers everywhere. Indeed, when I later opened my refuge for battered women, 62 of the first 100 to come through the door were as abusive as the men they had left."

"Many years later, when feminists started demonising all fathers, these stark images continually reminded me of the truth - that domestic violence is not a gender issue."

"Feminism, I realised, was a lie. Women and men are both capable of extraordinary cruelty."

"Harriet Harman's insidious and manipulative philosophy that women are always victims and men always oppressors can only continue this unspeakable cycle of violence. And it's our children who will suffer."

It's worth noting that she had two abusive parents, but I didn't use any quotes with direct reference to her father's violence, because no one even suggests that men can't be seriously and destructively violent and abusive.

I have a theory regarding the tendency to gender the ability of people to be horrible. I think it's a form of confirmation bias, and in the "men are terrible, women aren't" case it's supported by studies funded through sources that encourage those kinds of results (kind of like "cigarettes aren't addictive" studies funded by the tobacco industry, or "stevia is a dangerous drug and should not be allowed into food" studies funded by NutraSweet).

Essentially, since most people have romantic interactions primarily with one gender [IOW, bisexuals are a minority of the set of all people], are generally decent people, and people tend to hang out with people like themselves in various ways [thus skewing demographics within a given social circle], it creates a skewed perspective in which they are more more likely to hear about and/or interact with horrible people of a specific gender and thus lean towards that group having more terrible people (for various values of "horrible" and "terrible").

IOW, "most bad people are men" and "bitches be crazy" come from more or less exactly the same root, observing from a social context that tilts the number of "bad" examples of a given gender encountered. It then gets colored by social memes, hence why women get referred to as "crazy" rather than some of the words used to describe similarly behaving men. There's also a tendency to minimize women's agency when they do wrong lumped in with that.

Fantastic. It's always so good to see so much wilful misunderstanding of feminism in threads like these. I particularly enjoy the liberal use of extreme examples that haven't held true since the 70s. Almost as much as I enjoy the assertion that modern feminism is just a cover for The Great Conspiracy To Punish Men (TM).

You mean it hasn't been the primary face of feminism since the 70s. Because I can certainly point out examples post-70s. Like it or not, Solanas, Dworkin, Daly, and the like have had significant influence. There's a reason the senate version 20112 VAWA reathorization included language to bar discrimination of all the usual kinds but left in an exclusion for if you really, really, want to discriminate against men. [footnote]Technically, it permits discrimination on the basis of actual or perceived gender. However the STOP funding guideline require that any service that receives VAWA funding is required to serve women, regardless of who else it may be directed toward.[/footnote]

Guess what? I also have no problem with men. I have lots of male friends. I have a boyfriend. I take part in traditionally male dominated hobbies.

"I have black friends and like rap music, so I can't possibly be racist." Nope, doesn't work for that either.

But hey, what do I know? Some people on the internet have decided they feel threatened by feminism, maybe met a few manhaters once, so it must be evil. I, and all the other feminists I know, male and female, must really hate men and want "special treatment" so we can punish them, we just somehow didn't notice.

I can point to feminists that I agree with on more than not. I can also point to feminists who hold every single one of the terrible positions I mentioned above, and they are more influential.

 

[Sparrow]

Gamers make bad anythings. Hell, most of the time we're not even good gamers.

Also, see Miracle of Sound's twitter, refering to the host of Ubi's presentation:

Why is she being such a **** to Toby? Does she think being a complete **** is sexy or something? Because it isn't.

Not seeing the sexist side to MoS's response, although that may just be because I love the guy.

[sup]Keep rocking, bro.[/sup]

Sounds like someone is getting their definitions from fox news. Actually feminism is about equality, people that say its about female dominance are getting their definition from right wing idiots who seek to discredit it.

Y'know, this might be going a tad off topic, but people say that a lot. "It's not about female dominance, it's about equality between the sexes!"

Why the hell isn't it called Equalitism, then? This is a genuine question, I'm not trying to be a dick.

 

[Lethos]

Why does feminism polarize people so much? It's like as soon as the topic is brought up, every one adopts this 'with us or against us' mentality.

I believe that women should have the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else. I also believe that not everything is a political or social commentary. Seeing scantily dressed, idealized women fighting each other is just as acceptable as watching scantily dressed, idealized men fighting each other.

 

[Treblaine]

I wonder - as to the hitman trailer - you the equivalent gender inversion work?

For example, a Beatrix Kiddo type assassin mending her wounds in her house when she is attacked by a punch of guys dressed like BDSM gimps/strippers armed with military weapons.

To me, I think it would work. To me the way the Hitman trailer works is the incronguity between nuns, weapons, sexuality, violence and combat.

Personally, as a woman and a feminist, I only found the Hitman trailer kind of amusing in a camp, "taking the piss" kind of way. Though I think it is important to keep the context of IO Interactives previous Hitman games in mind when watching it.

47 has always been portrayed as asexual, to the point that he reacts with shock when kissed in the first game. Add to this that the Hitman series have always mixed brutal violence with a not-quite-entirely-serious tone (see spoiler at the end). This trailer was kind of the same thing to me, by first presenting the female hit(wo)men as nuns and then turning it around and making their "actual" outfits be the kind of stripperific you normally associate with poor porno depicitions of nuns. What then ensues is a massive fight where these professional killers put up their best fight but are still overcome by the cold blooded hitman they came to kill.

All in all, it was the kind of over the top stealth parody that the hitman series has been doing since its' first inception. Could it have been presented better? Sure, but as mentioned before in this thread, I find the Far Cry 3 trailer to be quite a lot worse in regards to sexualization.

Spoiler

Kill a bikini dressed woman by pushing her into her own pool and making her drown instantly in Blood Money. The entire Ninja Castle/Bond Villain Hideout in Silent Assassin. The Angel Stripper assassin and that entire Nightclub/BDSM-dungeon level in Blood Money. Killing someone by shooting out the bottom of the pool he's sitting in. This list could go on for quite some time

One thing that struck me about the trailer was how suddenly it wasn't so cool seeing Agent 47 break a woman's nose. Even though the woman was armed and tried to kill him and could still kill him it wasn't the same than if it was the bony face of a man. As much as I like Agent 47, I was rooting for team sexploitation.

Agent 47 has always been presented as like a biological robot, he is literally a clone, artificially created and grown, and that makes him ideal as a video game protagonist, easy for any player to control. He is in a similar vein as T-850 from the Terminator series just not a literal robot. So he isn't much of a male, he isn't much of a character, he's an blank tablet that players can make what they want of.

When I played Blood Money I spent ages trying to get the necklace off the woman without killing her or making her aware. Then again I did this with every mission of every game, I took it as my personal objective to be the perfect assassin, traceless and killing only my target(s) and being long gone before they ever even knew anyone had been murdered. I actually went far out of my way to make every death look like "an unfortunate accident".

My Agent 47 doesn't kill anyone unnecessarily. Other people play the character killing everyone who crosses his path. He is whatever you want to make of him. If that sexy-nun hitman trailer was a playable part of the game and I was controlling Agent 47, I'd have played and replayed the game till I found a way to get past the nuns without killing any of them.

But which Far Cry 3 trailer are you referring to? And which part do you object to in matters relating to sexualisation?

 

[SonicWaffle]

What you've taken are tweets. They're soundbites wihtout sufficient context or elaboration to draw commentary without that being perceived as trollish or 'reactive'.

I don't think there is ever an appropriate context for calling somebody a ****.

What if they're being a ****?

I don't really see the big deal, it's just a word. A very satisfying word, in fact. If my friend is being a ****, I will say "hey, stop being a ****", if I drop something heavy on my foot I may well shout "cunting fishsticks" or something similar, and feel much better.

 

[Schadrach]

The one problem (and solution) is female protagonists in video games. There are not enough and more of them would help. Get people to actually play as females there is going to be less of the separation between "them and us". Walk a mile in their (virtual) shoes.

I'd love if there were more female protagonists in games, apart from games where sex is interchangeable and it doesn't affect gameplay in the slightest. It would be awesome if there were more well-balanced female leads. It would be nice if they made more female characters that weren't made on that 'badder than the boys' template. I don't know if that explains what I mean properly, you know that character type where the woman has a serious chip on her shoulder because every other character in the game is a male and she ends up essentially being a male character with a feminine face?

Any protagonist - male or female or genderless robot - must be tough enough for the job, they need to have then mental fortitude to be victorious and refuse to accept defeat. There are male approaches to that but I know there are female ones as well. A female protagonist must be resolute or else it will be too incongruous with the player who is playing to the competition and accepting the challenge by continuing to play the game. That's not being "Badder than the boys" that's being made of "The right stuff".

I think the key is to have more female characters even in a single game, so many games which are highly character driven have ENTIRELY male casts. I would really like to play a character driven game like Uncharted where the principal cast are female.

What's the name of that test, it is "does at least one named female character talk to another female character"? Surprisingly, almost every game and film fails to have this to spite having named male characters talking to each other all the time. Unless they are specifically targeted as "women's films". This treats women like they are a minority.

(google searches)

Bechdel Test. That was what it was called. Really, do you have a woman as a token character (even as protagonist) to fill some minority quote or is 50% of humanity really being given their time in the lime light. I forgot the last part, if the two named women in the cast do talk to each other, do they talk about something other than a man being the subject of the conversation? This is why even shows like Sex and the City barely pass as entire episodes go by where the women can talk entirely about men, obsessing over them. As if we didn't see enough of them.

I REALLY want more women in films and games, while they seem to be just in "girly" media. I write (and rewrite) a lot with entirely female principal casts.

As I said in another thread, I just utterly fail at liking the wrong movies, because almost every movie I like (I can rattle off a list of a dozen or two, if you'd like) passes Bechdel, and the few that don't either don't due to technicality (man interjects at tail of conversation making it not count, conversation about note written on photo where conversation is only about note contents but photo happens to be of men, etc) or are Equilibrium or the new Avengers movie (which has three important, powerful female characters who never speak to each other). Admittedly, there's one movie that only passes because of a conversation that neither the viewer nor the characters know is about a woman, having not yet identified the killer. Probably because I don't like "typical" action movies (especially pre-2000 non-science fiction action movies), which seem to be where a *lot* of the examples of failures come from.

 

[Eamar]

You mean it hasn't been the primary face of feminism since the 70s. Because I can certainly point out examples post-70s. Like it or not, Solanas, Dworkin, Daly, and the like have had significant influence. There's a reason the senate version 20112 VAWA reathorization included language to bar discrimination of all the usual kinds but left in an exclusion for if you really, really, want to discriminate against men. [footnote]Technically, it permits discrimination on the basis of actual or perceived gender. However the STOP funding guideline require that any service that receives VAWA funding is required to serve women, regardless of who else it may be directed toward.

Yes, I mean the primary face of feminism. Of course you can point to examples of bad "feminism." Because there are loud, idiot minorities in every single group of human beings on the planet. You can't write off all feminists as manhaters in the same way you can't write off all Republicans as racist fundies, or all Muslims as terrorists. Or all men as wife-beaters. Sheesh.

"I have black friends and like rap music, so I can't possibly be racist." Nope, doesn't work for that either.

Seriously? SERIOUSLY?! You're saying I'm sexist? Whether that was your intention or not, that's how it comes across. My point was simply that to make the assumption that feminists hate men would be nonsensical, since reasonable, non-extreme feminists like people for who they are, not their gender. How dare you.

I can point to feminists that I agree with on more than not. I can also point to feminists who hold every single one of the terrible positions I mentioned above, and they are more influential.

So we're agreed that it's unfair to stigmatise the entire movement because some people in it are idiots? Good. That was kind of my point as well.

 

[Lilani]

What you've taken are tweets. They're soundbites wihtout sufficient context or elaboration to draw commentary without that being perceived as trollish or 'reactive'.

I don't think there is ever an appropriate context for calling somebody a ****.

What if they're being a ****?

I don't really see the big deal, it's just a word. A very satisfying word, in fact. If my friend is being a ****, I will say "hey, stop being a ****", if I drop something heavy on my foot I may well shout "cunting fishsticks" or something similar, and feel much better.

This wasn't some casual conversation between close friends. Look at what he wrote again:

Why is she being such a **** to Toby? Does she think being a complete **** is sexy or something? Because it isn't.

He wasn't talking to her. He didn't even know her. That is not a friendly use of the word ****. That is a sad and sexually charged public insult. There is never a reason to talk about anybody like that. "Does she think it's sexy." My God. How juvenile do you have to be to say something like that?

 

[Woodsey]

'Can we please put these stupid reactionary outrage to bed now?'

Yeah, when stupid nonsense like the Hitman trailer stops getting made. It was like watching a 13-year-old's wet-dream after he's been allowed to watch a fucking Zack Snyder film for the first time.

What you've taken are tweets. They're soundbites wihtout sufficient context or elaboration to draw commentary without that being perceived as trollish or 'reactive'.

I don't think there is ever an appropriate context for calling somebody a ****.

What if they're being a ****?

I don't really see the big deal, it's just a word. A very satisfying word, in fact. If my friend is being a ****, I will say "hey, stop being a ****", if I drop something heavy on my foot I may well shout "cunting fishsticks" or something similar, and feel much better.

(Assuming she's American...)

There does seem to be a different perception of the word '****' in America compared to over here. As in, it's considered much more sexist over there. That's the impression I get, anyway.

Gamers make bad everything because the majority of the gaming community consists of socially retarded priveleged white kids with a persecution complex. Wah, the women want to dominate us. Oh no, the brown people want to take our jobs. We're having political correctness thrust upon us! Why can't we call people sluts and niggers? This is SO UNFAIR.

Ha! Fucking this. So much fucking this. And you can see it in reaction to the Hitman trailer - journalists turned around and pointed out how fucking stupid it was, gamers came out of their caves to whine about political correctness and how it's "exactly the same as beating up men", thereby missing the point whilst showing the same social awareness level of a hamster.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Guess what again? Men can be feminists.

Sorry to cut out a tiny bit of your post, but just as an aside, according to some no we can't.

Back in college my sociology teacher - a big man for equality and fair treatment - told us of a lecture he went to by a notable feminist (whose name escapes me now, this being almost a decade ago). He claims to have spoken to her after the talk, told her he had enjoyed it and that he was a feminist too. What she told him was that no, no he was not, nobody could be a feminist if they didn't have a vagina.

There are women, even smart ones, who apparently consider it impossible for a man to be feminist. Not sure about why, unless they stereotype all men as their enemies, but that seems kinda foolish.

 

[Fumbles]

The one problem (and solution) is female protagonists in video games. There are not enough and more of them would help. Get people to actually play as females there is going to be less of the separation between "them and us". Walk a mile in their (virtual) shoes.

I'd love if there were more female protagonists in games, apart from games where sex is interchangeable and it doesn't affect gameplay in the slightest. It would be awesome if there were more well-balanced female leads. It would be nice if they made more female characters that weren't made on that 'badder than the boys' template. I don't know if that explains what I mean properly, you know that character type where the woman has a serious chip on her shoulder because every other character in the game is a male and she ends up essentially being a male character with a feminine face?

Any protagonist - male or female or genderless robot - must be tough enough for the job, they need to have then mental fortitude to be victorious and refuse to accept defeat. There are male approaches to that but I know there are female ones as well. A female protagonist must be resolute or else it will be too incongruous with the player who is playing to the competition and accepting the challenge by continuing to play the game. That's not being "Badder than the boys" that's being made of "The right stuff".

I think the key is to have more female characters even in a single game, so many games which are highly character driven have ENTIRELY male casts. I would really like to play a character driven game like Uncharted where the principal cast are female.

What's the name of that test, it is "does at least one named female character talk to another female character"? Surprisingly, almost every game and film fails to have this to spite having named male characters talking to each other all the time. Unless they are specifically targeted as "women's films". This treats women like they are a minority.

(google searches)

Bechdel Test. That was what it was called. Really, do you have a woman as a token character (even as protagonist) to fill some minority quote or is 50% of humanity really being given their time in the lime light. I forgot the last part, if the two named women in the cast do talk to each other, do they talk about something other than a man being the subject of the conversation? This is why even shows like Sex and the City barely pass as entire episodes go by where the women can talk entirely about men, obsessing over them. As if we didn't see enough of them.

I REALLY want more women in films and games, while they seem to be just in "girly" media. I write (and rewrite) a lot with entirely female principal casts.

Gwen from Torchwood

River from Firefly

Even Black Widow from Avengers was a strong female character

Buffy (Actually Joss Whdon has said that he is a feminist...sooo)

 

[Treblaine]

I'm not talking about their actions but more the 'personalities' they give them. There's a difference between being resolute and being completely masculine. I think you can create a character that's essentially feminine but is still made of 'the right stuff'. Kat from Halo: Reach would be an example of the male with a feminine face type I'm talking about. I can think of very few female characters that were created to get shit done but who still retain their femininity.

I'd be intesting in seeing how you write a multitude of female characters interacting almost solely with each other.

I'm afraid I haven't played Halo Reach yet, though it would be held back by how she is the only female character in the cast.

I think a key thing with a feminine character is they are motivated by sympathy rather than by rage. In other words a female character is compelled to kill the bad guys to stop them being bad, while a masculine character would just need an excuse to kill. They always wanted to kill just now they have an excuse to. Ellen Ripley in Aliens I think was the right path with this. Part of the hero's (heroine's) journey she refused the call but not out of deference to some authority but because she didn't have a bloodlust. She initially didn't want a gun, only when the situation got extreme enough that she needed one.

What do you think the distinction should be? So how would a female protagonist in a role like - for example - Die Hard a female detective on the run from the terrorists inside a complex. Now without compromising her as the protagonist (that is her role in sabotaging the heist) how would a female role be distinct from John McClane in the same circumstance.

 

[Worgen]

Gamers make bad anythings. Hell, most of the time we're not even good gamers.

Also, see Miracle of Sound's twitter, refering to the host of Ubi's presentation:

Why is she being such a **** to Toby? Does she think being a complete **** is sexy or something? Because it isn't.

Not seeing the sexist side to MoS's response, although that may just be because I love the guy.

[sup]Keep rocking, bro.[/sup]

Sounds like someone is getting their definitions from fox news. Actually feminism is about equality, people that say its about female dominance are getting their definition from right wing idiots who seek to discredit it.

Y'know, this might be going a tad off topic, but people say that a lot. "It's not about female dominance, it's about equality between the sexes!"

Why the hell isn't it called Equalitism, then? This is a genuine question, I'm not trying to be a dick.

That is a good question, the term feminist makes it quite easy for idiots to get wrong and assume it means that women are the better gender when really feminist means they are equal to men. Might be best to change the name to equalitism or something since apparently jackasses have done such a good job of messing with the meaning that even in this thread we cant seem to really decide what feminism means.