I do not understand.

[BM19]

There definitely is a problem of sexism in gaming, as an industry, a medium of entertainment, and as a culture.
And it's a good thing to talk about them.

The problem is that Anita Sarkeesian is bad at it.
Not every instance of damsels in distress or such a trope is endemic of female inferiority.

For example, she constantly cited Zelda as a negative female figure because she always needs Link to save her.
But this viewpoint frames women's worth only in relation to what a man can do -- Link is better at swinging a sword than Zelda, so Zelda is the lesser.
This is BS. Zelda is a princess -- the leader (or at least an influential figure) of her kingdom, and its safe to infer that she's pretty good at it, considering that everything is generally great until Ganondorf and Co gets mixed in. In fact, in Twilight Princess she was proven to be a loyal and fierce leader when Zant stormed the castle, and she only surrendered when it was clear he would slaughter her people.
Link is a silent protagonist who is good for clearing dungeons and solving puzzles; he'd probably be a **** leader.
So in THAT respect, Zelda > Link. Not to mention the fact that Zelda is rarely powerless. She often gives Link guidance, either through new items, songs, or information about what to do. Link doesn't do any of this on his own; he does it with the help of Zelda and all the allies he makes along the way.
This is why I'm a bit more ambivalent than some on a game with Zelda as the leader -- it would force a good character into a roll that is only more empowered in a traditional sense. I'd be fine with her character just getting more emphasis in-game.
[/digression]

It's all a matter of perspective, and hers is off.
What research she has done seems to have been executed for the sake of supporting her own argument rather than researching to create and support a well-rounded argument
Not to mention that her presentation and delivery are incredibly amateurish. If she didn't spend all that money on getting good information to talk about, she should at LEAST make her talks interesting to watch.


tl;dr -- Women in gaming DO need someone to speak for them. I'm just sad that it seems to be Anita Sarkeesian.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

honestly, I'm not sure what annoys me more. Extreme "feminism" that is in fact just misandry in disguise or violent backlash against feminism in general which it provokes. I've read statements like "I hate feminism" in this thread and in other places and I think people are taking this out of proportion.

The thing is, many 'feminists' don't really get what feminism is and the same goes for people who claim to hate feminism because of it. It has lead to the point where the word 'feminist' has become an insult. What you hate is misandry, extremism and xenophobia. That's very different from what feminism is yet it seems nowadays that those are firmly tied together because of people like Anita and many others (and believe me, I've seen worse. there's a group of so-called feminists in czech republic that actually encourage women to have their husbands and sons sterilised against their will. It's come to the point where they're more of a religious movement than anything).

Let me tell you what actual feminism is supposed to be. It's acknowledging that women are different to men. That they have been brought up in a different way, that they see the world from a different view point, that they tackle different challenges and deal with different issues. And that the fact that they are different, does not mean that they are inferior. Feminism isn't about making women superior to men, it's about making men acknowledge women as equal. Note that 'equal' does not mean 'the same'. Too bad that so many self-proclaimed feminists out there have grabbed this concept by the wrong end of the wrong stick that isn't actually a stick at all but a tentacle of a giant crab monster.

Let me put you into perspective, just to show you what feminism is supposed to look like. Baroness Hale, a justice of the UK supreme court, while perhaps not a feminist per se, has taken the feminist approach to point out issues with the UK law quite a few times. There's an example of an intelligent and common-sensical person that can make a point which is, in itself, feminist, without it feeling like a hate speech aimed against men. For those interested, I'd suggest reading through her judgment in the case of Parkinson v St James, especially the points she makes about the previuos case of McFarlane v Tayside Health Board.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

The woman is a hack.

She's like an undergraduate that didn't quite leave enough time for her dissertation and just rehashes the same simple rhetoric we've all heard a million times before.

Not to mention that she has no clue how context works.

I also love the absolutely hilarious bullshit gist of her dissertation.

A major element being: "women being portrayed as brave, physically strong or skilled leaders is sexist because instead of giving the woman her own qualities, she's being made to ape masculine qualities."

Wut. Wut.

[HEADING=1]Wut.[/HEADING]

That's something I really don't get about post-slutwalk feminism. A lot of it is almost blatantly misogynistic (yes, misogynistic, not misandristic), yet you're a misogynist if you call them out on it. I mean, what is more misogynistic than the notion that women are completely helpless beings who need a big strong man to protect them? Not really tied to Tropes V. Women, but it's what one of the core ideas behind the slutwalk boiled down to, and it's a nice example of the same attitude as what you see in your quote.

 

[RaikuFA]

(case in point: name 5 games with a non-user defined female protagonist)

Portal
Mirrors Edge
Beyond Good and Evil
BloodRayne
Tomb Raider
To the Moon
DreamFall Chapters
Assassins Creed 3: Liberation
Resident Evil
Silent Hill
Borderlands
Lollypop Chainsaw
Tenchu
Final Fantasy
Amy
American McGee's Alice
Hydrophobia
Wet
Left 4 Dead
Heavy Rain
Bayonetta
DreamKiller
Metroid
Velvet Assassin
Heavenly Sword
Bullet Witch
Perfect Dark
Haunting Ground
No One Lives Forever
Oni
Dino Crisis
Defenders Quest: Valley of the Forgotten


There are countless others that I have never heard of myself (mostly Japanese), plus I kept out most of the ones that people would try and argue are literally nothing more than eye candy, just for the sake of argument. Also no film/TV tie-ins. I also didn't bother listing sequels. Or ones where they are female but not "human" (Sorry Daystar, Okami doesn't count).

This is why I suggest people don't exaggerate when trying to make serious points. It just makes your argument weaker, and I am somebody who frequently comments on the ratio of decent female protagonists being too low for my own liking.

they are all fair and we need to acknowledge and address this if we are to be taken seriously as a medium.

Because films and books aren't taken seriously thanks to Twilight, and music is a joke thanks to Justin Bieber.

If I may add...

Persona 2 Eternal Punishment
Shin Megami Tensei if...(I'm sort of cheating with this one as you can choose the MC gender but the first 2 Persona games say the MC of if... is a girl).
Rule of Rose(which I suggest you check out if you liked Haunting ground. Not as good but will still make you crap yourself)
Blade Kitten
Hyperdimension Neptunia
Izuna
Rhapsody, A Musical Adventure
Code of Princess
Castlevania: Order of Ecclessia
Mugen Souls
Senran Kagura(which we might never get thanks to the Dragons Crown controversey).
All the Fatal Frame games

Seriously, female protags aren't as rare as people make them out to be.

 

[IceForce]

"TRIGGER WARNING: This video contains a handful of graphic scenes involving violence against women. Parents should preview the video first before sharing with young children."

Oh yes, because god forbid a guy get shot in the face.

I agree with this.

From now on, every youtube video that depicts violence against men must also have a trigger warning.
Because, you know, equality and all that shit.

 

[Pandaman1911]

As the Simpson episode said so eloquently "Just don't look". Don't pay attention to the shill and she'll go away.

Telling someone to not pay attention to something is like telling them to not think about pink elephants. If she's going to be getting publicity one way or the other, might as well try to make it all bad publicity and get as many lucid, erudite and articulate people as possible to tear her dumb ass apart. Not based on her viewpoints, mind, but just the faulty way she goes about stuff.

But yeah, no, bitches be crazy. (Don't kill me)

 

[Warachia]

What don't you understand?

Learn more about feminism then.

If you want to know, Anita Sarkeesian is on point in context to feminism as a school of thought. Nothing she has conveyed in her videos is incorrect and she demonstrates her criticism with great clarity and abundant evidence.

Yes, several things in her videos are incorrect, did you even see her video on LEGO? She's hypocritical, she looks at facts, and misrepresents them, like claiming that because the LEGO characters don't have any distinctly feminine features, they must all be men, whereas in other videos she says that those same features she was looking for are a bad thing (LEGO also stated that the characters are intentionally androgynous).

If you don't care that is your own fault. You should not blame Anita for your own disinterest in the subject of how women (and men for that matter) are presented in popular media and narrative.

And the fact that people continue to judge her character shows me that they are not interested in actually learning something new, rather going on a petty crusade to assassinate someone who dares speak about awful and problematic things in video games.

Anita only looks at the representations that help her arguments though, she isn't interested in showing games where the heroine must rescue the hero, only the opposite, she isn't really interested in intelligent discussion or teaching anything you couldn't pull off of Tvtropes (this what the trope is, here's where it's used, and this is why it's bad).

Anything I didn't reply to in your argument I agree with.

 

[Soopy]

As the Simpson episode said so eloquently "Just don't look". Don't pay attention to the shill and she'll go away.

Telling someone to not pay attention to something is like telling them to not think about pink elephants. If she's going to be getting publicity one way or the other, might as well try to make it all bad publicity and get as many lucid, erudite and articulate people as possible to tear her dumb ass apart. Not based on her viewpoints, mind, but just the faulty way she goes about stuff.

But yeah, no, bitches be crazy. (Don't kill me)

Yes, but you need to make a conscious decision to not pay attention if you don't want issues like this becoming more prevalent. Just treat her as a troll and move on.

 

[Ieyke]

The woman is a hack.

She's like an undergraduate that didn't quite leave enough time for her dissertation and just rehashes the same simple rhetoric we've all heard a million times before.

Not to mention that she has no clue how context works.

Oh...I dunno that it's that simple.

I sort of get the impression that she ultimately DOES know what she's talking about (at least mostly), but that the issue is so huge, cumbersome, and full of technicalities, exceptions, and asides that it's almost impossible to tackle in a way that is simultaneously cohesive, accessible to people in general, and unassailable to critics.

Combined with the fact that she's under constant attack and that she's taking on a smug defensive stance which only serves to further cloud her ability to effectively communicate her message, it's no wonder she seems fairly incompetent.

Even worse, I think she's buying into her critics' characterization of herself and building that into her smugness, so where she may have started with legit ideas and a goal to present them, she's now becoming what people are saying she is in a retarded knee-jerk reaction just to prove people wrong.


I find myself fundamentally agreeing with a lot of her general ideas, because I know they're true....but the way she presents them, the examples she uses, or the ways she uses examples...are...flawed. Badly flawed.
I do a LOT of debating on the internet on topics of my expertise, and it's not uncommon that I'll quickly throw together examples to illustrate a basic concept that actually DO get the point I'm trying to make across, even though the examples themselves don't actually hold up under scrutiny.
That works in isolated forum debates that people only briefly pay attention to, but I think she's doing the same thing for a series of widely seen videos that are going to be scrutinized to bits.
She doesn't have the luxury of simply transmitting general ideas using examples that only appear to illustrate the point. She has the legions of the internet holding her accountable for the details of facts regarding stuff that they hold dear.


I find myself unable to ultimately arrive at a judgement of Ms. Sarkeesian and her videos, aside from saying that they're not going to satisfy the people who would be her target audience.

 

[Ieyke]

True enough, but I mean the theoretical target audience of gamers beyond the little circle-jerk who gave her money.

 

[xaszatm]

The woman is a hack.

She's like an undergraduate that didn't quite leave enough time for her dissertation and just rehashes the same simple rhetoric we've all heard a million times before.

Not to mention that she has no clue how context works.

I love that fact she is blatantly sexist against men.
I mean honestly.. saying the men only care about the lost of their lover is due to masculinity?
Wow.. just wow.

o.e I hate feminist so much.

They also need to learn the difference between sexualized and sexist.

But at the end of the day.
Who doesn't prefer some extremely hot woman?
Or some extremely handsome man?

I know I do.

It's the eyes.

So very, very handsome.

My goodness, I just can't stop looking at this picture. Curse you Daystar! You'll pay for this!

OT: Meh, if there is someone I don't like, I'll usually just avoid it, especially if it is on the internet. I know that there are a lot of threads that show up whenever she does something (I myself am guilty of this) but it's still easy to ignore.

 

[The Funslinger]

The woman is a hack.

She's like an undergraduate that didn't quite leave enough time for her dissertation and just rehashes the same simple rhetoric we've all heard a million times before.

Not to mention that she has no clue how context works.

I also love the absolutely hilarious bullshit gist of her dissertation.

A major element being: "women being portrayed as brave, physically strong or skilled leaders is sexist because instead of giving the woman her own qualities, she's being made to ape masculine qualities."

Wut. Wut.

[HEADING=1]Wut.[/HEADING]

That's something I really don't get about post-slutwalk feminism. A lot of it is almost blatantly misogynistic (yes, misogynistic, not misandristic), yet you're a misogynist if you call them out on it. I mean, what is more misogynistic than the notion that women are completely helpless beings who need a big strong man to protect them? Not really tied to Tropes V. Women, but it's what one of the core ideas behind the slutwalk boiled down to, and it's a nice example of the same attitude as what you see in your quote.

It wasn't so much a direct quote as it was summarizing something she said, but thanks.

Still, it's probably worth reading yourself to form your own opinions, but to me it was drivel.

 

[f1r2a3n4k5]

I don't know. I think she provides many interesting talking points.

When you make a logical argument, often times you can't incontrovertibly prove or disprove something. Instead, you need to provide evidence. She's tackling a LARGE issue, so obviously there's a lot to cover. But I think she satisfactorily demonstrated that the "Damsel in Distress" trope is over-used. There is certainly room to debate, but that's kind of the point of... well, debate.

As a gamer, I care because, as a medium, we don't want to portray the same hackneyed stories day-after-day-after-day. Innovation is incredibly important for art forms. Think Renaissance.

As a humanist, I care because I don't think we should perpetuate gender inequalities.

As an aside, feminist theory is actually fairly interesting. Especially when you get into 2nd vs. 3rd wave. Now this is personal conjecture, but Anita strikes me as a 3rd wave feminist. In this paradigm, women shouldn't be trying to prove that they can be the same as men, but should be allowed to embrace their femininity, if they so choose. And honestly, I can't think of any character in video games that this applies to.

 

[direkiller]

I have a really hard time comprehending why people think Anita is such a horrible person for simply criticizing games.

Probably because they don't.

People are not disliking her "simply for criticising games". They dislike her for her specific criticisms that they disagree with, not the fact that she has the "audacity" to complain.

I really don't get how this is so hard to understand. I get the impression most people who assume that she is hated purely for being a woman or because she is "A woman daring to criticise games" haven't so much as tried to look at what people are actually taking issue with, but are just trying to un-ironically "character assassinate" anybody who dares to take issue with her particular way of thinking by labelling them as misogynists.

I still have no idea why people would claim that she is, to quote earlier posts in this thread "a psycho", a "bad feminist", or an "extrememist" simply for criticizing the overuse of tropes. You disagree with her critiques? Fine. But calling her a psycho because she criticizes the overuse of the Damsel in Distress trope? I have no idea how you get there.

It's not that she points out tropes
its that she states, trope x is representative of a male dominate society because of a shark jump in her logic,and trying to draw a correlation between real world violence and video games that gets people mad.

Fair enough. There are games with female protagonists (that I'm not going to argue with) but (like you said) they tend to be... a little too few and far between. I was just hoping to give a simple example, as I can't think of many games where women are portrayed as equally competent as men (or that pass the Bechdel test, but that's another story)

The Bechdel test is not exactly something you can apply as a blanket across video games.
Portal fails it, Not because it is sexiest in any way but because only one charter ever talks.

I think you will find alot of video games have weak written woman not out of sexism,but because they are not story focused(thus everyone is a weak charter), or it is extremely charter focused(the charter is all anyone ever talks about), and the player happens to be male.
both are done out of game-play need, rather then underlining or intentional sexsism.

 

[BreakfastMan]

It's not that she points out tropes
its that she states, trope x is representative of a male dominate society because of a shark jump in her logic,and trying to draw a correlation between real world violence and video games that gets people mad.

It isn't a jump in logic, as she explains how she quite clearly gets from one to another and how the overuse of these tropes is reflective of societies values. And still, if people can't take someone pointing out the simple damn fact that roles men are pushed into are more powerful than the roles that women are pushed into... I just don't know anymore. None of it ever seemed like it was ever anything worth getting mad over. But then, I still think the whole "retake Mass Effect" thing was stupid as shit, so what do I know?

 

[Byte2222]

Fair enough. There are games with female protagonists (that I'm not going to argue with) but (like you said) they tend to be... a little too few and far between. I was just hoping to give a simple example, as I can't think of many games where women are portrayed as equally competent as men (or that pass the Bechdel test, but that's another story)

The Bechdel test is not exactly something you can apply as a blanket across video games.
Portal fails it, Not because it is sexiest in any way but because only one charter ever talks.

I think you will find alot of video games have weak written woman not out of sexism,but because they are not story focused(thus everyone is a weak charter), or it is extremely charter focused(the charter is all anyone ever talks about), and the player happens to be male.
both are done out of game-play need, rather then underlining or intentional sexsism.

The Bechdel test is a different matter altogether and we could debate whether or not it's relevant to videogames extensively. Arguably, most conversation is directing or exposition-ing to the player so if the player is male it fails and if the player is female and there is one other female character, it passes. Perhaps, though, this is not best discussed here and now.

You say that women are weakly written "not out of sexism, but because they are not story focused" but why are they out of focus if not for some (not necessarily deliberate or conspicuous) sexism?

 

[direkiller]

You say that women are weakly written "not out of sexism, but because they are not story focused" but why are they out of focus if not for some (not necessarily deliberate or conspicuous) sexism?

Games, unlike outher media, do not have to be about story or charters. They can be entirely about game play or environment, thus as a result all charter are weak.

Exmples

Skyrim:
Skyrim has over 100 charters, but how many would you consider to be well devoloped?
How many of them are woman?(off the top of my head,two Delphine,Serana)

It was not done out of a ill will to woman but because Skyrim is very environment focused. Almost all aspects of the game are geared to you exploring the sandbox

Sid meier's pirates:
Has one woman, the port governors daughters(they all use the same modes). They exsist in the game for two things, a dancing mini game, and to be married.

Now can you consider this sexsist?
yes
was it done out of Sexisim?
no, it was done because they needed to quickly transition the player from one section of the game to the next.

It's not that she points out tropes
its that she states, trope x is representative of a male dominate society because of a shark jump in her logic,and trying to draw a correlation between real world violence and video games that gets people mad.

It isn't a jump in logic, as she explains how she quite clearly gets from one to another and how the overuse of these tropes is reflective of societies values. And still, if people can't take someone pointing out the simple damn fact that roles men are pushed into are more powerful than the roles that women are pushed into... I just don't know anymore. None of it ever seemed like it was ever anything worth getting mad over. But then, I still think the whole "retake Mass Effect" thing was stupid as shit, so what do I know?

Yes they are jumps in logic

example:
Dinosaur planet, was not remade into a star fox game for the reasons she states. It was done because Star fox sells games where a new IP would bring a unnecessary risk. Nintendo has repeatedly show it tries to tie games to it's flagship charters in order to drive sales, rather then "robing female charters of being heroes in there own right".

 

[BreakfastMan]

It's not that she points out tropes
its that she states, trope x is representative of a male dominate society because of a shark jump in her logic,and trying to draw a correlation between real world violence and video games that gets people mad.

It isn't a jump in logic, as she explains how she quite clearly gets from one to another and how the overuse of these tropes is reflective of societies values. And still, if people can't take someone pointing out the simple damn fact that roles men are pushed into are more powerful than the roles that women are pushed into... I just don't know anymore. None of it ever seemed like it was ever anything worth getting mad over. But then, I still think the whole "retake Mass Effect" thing was stupid as shit, so what do I know?

Yes they are jumps in logic

example:
Dinosaur planet, was not remade into a star fox game for the reasons she states. It was done because Star fox sells games where a new IP would bring a unnecessary risk. Nintendo has repeatedly show it tries to tie games to it's flagship charters in order to drive sales, rather then "robing female charters of being heroes in there own right".

There is a difference between the reasons behind taking an action and the consequences of taking that action... Kind of thought that was obvious. :\

 

[direkiller]

It's not that she points out tropes
its that she states, trope x is representative of a male dominate society because of a shark jump in her logic,and trying to draw a correlation between real world violence and video games that gets people mad.

It isn't a jump in logic, as she explains how she quite clearly gets from one to another and how the overuse of these tropes is reflective of societies values. And still, if people can't take someone pointing out the simple damn fact that roles men are pushed into are more powerful than the roles that women are pushed into... I just don't know anymore. None of it ever seemed like it was ever anything worth getting mad over. But then, I still think the whole "retake Mass Effect" thing was stupid as shit, so what do I know?

Yes they are jumps in logic

example:
Dinosaur planet, was not remade into a star fox game for the reasons she states. It was done because Star fox sells games where a new IP would bring a unnecessary risk. Nintendo has repeatedly show it tries to tie games to it's flagship charters in order to drive sales, rather then "robing female charters of being heroes in there own right".

There is a difference between the reasons behind taking an action and the consequences of taking that action... Kind of thought that was obvious. :\

She dose not state it as a consquence. She states it as a reason why they did it, She makes it sound like the game was finished(even stated nearly completed), then reworked because of Shigeru Miyamoto makeing a push.

Rather then what it is was an early beta, with stand in voice acting, reworked into a starfox game.
Which is not that uncomon of a thing, nor dose it have the implied consequence or ill will she attributes to it.

also she manages to lie in the first three minutes.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I'll admit that her structure leaves a lot to be desired, but I don't see her as being sexist, honestly.

If you go by the two tropes she's analyzed thus far, women in games are supposedly rarely, if ever empowered and typically exist to serve as the token girl to be saved; the empathy trigger that's more or less intended to either reach our basic moral cords (e.g. "Kidnapping is Bad!") or our White Knight urges. I'll also admit that the industry needs to broaden itself a bit and to stop considering its market as being chiefly catered towards men (despite persisting statistics, I know), but honestly?

The average age for current gamers is 18 to 35. Assuming most of us happen to be guys, we're either smack-dab in puberty or well and truly past it. Cheesecake women characters will never fade away entirely. Market research and social trends will always be around to prop up (hehe) the concept of the big-breasted gender-swapped male who's got all the attributes of a typical male character, with an hourglass shape and boobs added for pure titillation. At the same time, the older we'll get, the less we'll need representations like this.

I think the best example of that fact is the Tomb Raider reboot. I don't see it as being just another indicator of the "dark and gritty" reboot trend we've got going on, but rather as a sign that game creators are maturing. Their audience is following right along, so we're finally ready to consider playing a female character without necessarily twirling the camera around to mess with potential jiggle physics.

Character design-wise, though, we still have a ways to go. I suspect Lara Croft's fairly gruelling treatment in the last game is another, indirect take on forcing the player into engagement by pushing his White Knight button repeatedly.

"Oh, God! A nice-looking young woman is being threatened at gunpoint! My controller input must be precise, for I MUST SAVE HER!"

I'd personally rather empathize for a character based on who they are, not based on the fact that they'll die if I bungle an action sequence or a QTE. That's just one hurdle the industry hasn't figured out yet.

So, is she sexist? I don't know. I think I can agree with the content of it all, but the matter in which it's presented and the situational awareness of the industry as a whole leaves a bit to be desired. Yes, gaming is a bit of a sausage fest, but not all of us are insecure cavemen who feel their pride being poked and prodded out of existence by harpies daring to demand better narrative and design-centric treatment.

If there's one severe problem, it's that studios are maturing, but creators haven't quite absorbed the basic concepts needed to build a believable and entirely respectful gallery of female protagonists. Some devs hit that ball out of the park, others are still struggling or just plainly and simply refusing to abandon storied design traditions.

Lookin' at' cha, Team Ninja... I'm saying that while being entirely aware that the core Japanese audience for TN titles tends to be a gaggle of various young males who are culturally encouraged to stick to Jell-O booby fantasies.