Gamers make bad feminists

[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.

 

[SonicWaffle]

This wasn't some casual conversation between close friends.

Yeah, but you claimed that there is never appropriate context to call someone a ****, not specifically that it was inappropriate in this case. I argued that it is, regardless of what happened in this specific instance.

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?

I agree that that part is incredibly juvenile. It's odd that his mind apparently went to "sexy"; nobody (hopefully!) thinks acting like a **** is sexy. If he'd said "funny" it would probably make more sense, given that many people do act like a **** for the purpose of humour. I've not actually seen the video in question so I don't know if this woman was being a **** or not, but even if she was given the context she probably wasn't attempting to be sexy in doing so.

However, I'd argue that calling someone a **** is not in and of itself a "sexually charged" insult; it's just an insult, absent of its sexual connotations (which in this specific case, it doesn't seem to be, I'll admit). Like calling someone a dick, a pussy, a twat or a cock, you don't think about them in sexual terms, you just think of it as an insult. You never say "You, sir, are acting in the exact same fashion as a vagina!" because that doesn't even make sense. You just use a word you know to be an established insult.

 

[Eamar]

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.

I agree, that is foolish. How on earth did she envision the "endgame" so to speak, I wonder? If men could never be convinced of feminism, then there'd be no possible way to end sexism...

I guess some people just get caught up in the "fight" and the "revolutionary" nature of their cause and lose touch with reality. And it's feminists like that who ensure that the negative stereotype is perpetuated >.<

 

[Lilani]

This wasn't some casual conversation between close friends.

Yeah, but you claimed that there is never appropriate context to call someone a ****, not specifically that it was inappropriate in this case. I argued that it is, regardless of what happened in this specific instance.

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?

I agree that that part is incredibly juvenile. It's odd that his mind apparently went to "sexy"; nobody (hopefully!) thinks acting like a **** is sexy. If he'd said "funny" it would probably make more sense, given that many people do act like a **** for the purpose of humour. I've not actually seen the video in question so I don't know if this woman was being a **** or not, but even if she was given the context she probably wasn't attempting to be sexy in doing so.

However, I'd argue that calling someone a **** is not in and of itself a "sexually charged" insult; it's just an insult, absent of its sexual connotations (which in this specific case, it doesn't seem to be, I'll admit). Like calling someone a dick, a pussy, a twat or a cock, you don't think about them in sexual terms, you just think of it as an insult. You never say "You, sir, are acting in the exact same fashion as a vagina!" because that doesn't even make sense. You just use a word you know to be an established insult.

Ah, I guess you're right. I guess I should have specified: That particular use of **** he employed was a cheap shot, to insult the woman vis a vis her specific gender and sexuality.

Because honestly, I guess that's what I find the most disgusting about it. That is the sort of insult that is only used against women. You never see men getting insulted by being called sluts or that they're desperately trying to be sexy. With men, there isn't an innate expectation for them to be sexual or attractive all the time. Yet for some reason, women can be cut down for those reasons.

 

[itsthesheppy]

As a straight, white, cisgendered, middle-class male United States citizen, allow me to tell you all what a real feminist is.

 

[SonicWaffle]

I agree, that is foolish. How on earth did she envision the "endgame" so to speak, I wonder? If men could never be convinced of feminism, then there'd be no possible way to end sexism...

Well, except for killing all the men, but then you'd have a whole load of urinals to dispose of. Which would be wasteful, and where would you put them?

I guess some people just get caught up in the "fight" and the "revolutionary" nature of their cause and lose touch with reality. And it's feminists like that who ensure that the negative stereotype is perpetuated >.<

I'm not sure that this woman was saying that men couldn't agree with feminism and be in favour of equality. Just that, unless you'd experienced what women go through, you had no right to call yourself a feminist.

 

[SonicWaffle]

As a straight, white, cisgendered, middle-class male United States citizen, allow me to tell you all what a real feminist is.

Is it a type of cake?

 

[itsthesheppy]

Negative. You have spent one of twenty questions.

 

[SonicWaffle]

And if you don't see what's wrong with some of the camera angles they used then...well, I know what's wrong already. You're a guy. One that probably can't really get in contact with real girls.

Why is this always the go-to insult? I find it kinda strange. "Your views are wrong, and nobody wants to sleep with you, you sweaty little loser, and the two are clearly related!"

Are there no misogynists who get laid frequently? Are there no virginal men who support feminisim? I struggle to see how it matters all that much how much sex someone is or is not having.

 

[Eamar]

Well, except for killing all the men, but then you'd have a whole load of urinals to dispose of. Which would be wasteful, and where would you put them?

*shudders* Oh god, the horror!

I'm not sure that this woman was saying that men couldn't agree with feminism and be in favour of equality. Just that, unless you'd experienced what women go through, you had no right to call yourself a feminist.

Ah, well that's a bit of a relief at least. But honestly, semantics. If you agree with feminism and are in favour of equality, you can be counted as a feminist, it's not some exclusive club. I wonder how she'd allow for women who happened to have not faced discrimination, or men who supported or stood up for women (say, mothers, partners or sisters) who did? Foolish indeed.