Is it time for feminists to step off our hobby?
- Thread starter Mandalore_15
- Start date
Yes, that would indeed be blackmail. But tweeting or blogging something to the effect of "That developer is a misogynist!" does not have nearly the same effect. It'll be followed by demands for proof, "Well, that is your opinion" or "Nuh uh he ain't!". I can't really contest if they do that or not, but I don't imagine it working very well for them. Being called either a "misogynist sexist" or a "SJW marxist" seem to carry about as much weight as being called a meaniepoo.
The people it'll cause to think less of you tend to be the people who would either way, or at best remain indifferent. It's still an unconstructive and rude tactic, but the inefficiencies of it softens the blow a fair bit.
The people it'll cause to think less of you tend to be the people who would either way, or at best remain indifferent. It's still an unconstructive and rude tactic, but the inefficiencies of it softens the blow a fair bit.
As a male, non-heterosexual, and a feminist (No, we AREN'T a myth!), I DO think that we need more diversity and inclusiveness in OUR hobby/interest/obsession. But NOT because a small-ish, outspoken contingent of feminism says we need to. I may be a feminist, but that doesn't mean that I'm in lockstep with every other feminist out there; feminism isn't NEARLY as monolithic as many of its detractors claim! For the MOST part, feminism is a very IDIC philosophy (for non-Trek types, IDIC means "Infinite Diversity, Infinite Combinations"), though there are various "sub-philosophies," with some of them as poisonous as the WORST of the Men's Rights Activists... Unfortunately, much like with misogyny, the darker aspects of feminism tend to get more press time. I don't agree with everything that Anita Sarkeesian has to say; I honestly think that with some of her conclusions, she's reaching, and finding offense where none was intended. And now, I've gone off on a bit of a tangent. Sorry, folks!
I feel that games DO need more diversity and inclusiveness in them... Just not because a certain contingent of feminists DEMAND it. It needs to be there because for gaming, and for games, to grow, they need to appeal to the broadest possible base, which means having the broadest possible base in playable characters! It really wouldn't be THAT hard to include gender/sex/sexuality in games where the characters are "traditionally" male, white, and heterosexual. Just a few check-marks at character creation/selection, which locks in a group of if/then lines in the code, and we're good to go! It would just mean a slightly larger "plot tree," since to do it justice, the plot WOULD probably need fine-tuning, based on the character choices; some character would have a "fluid" sexuality or even gender, based on your choices at the beginning, for example, since I feel that games where there IS a gender option need to fine-tune their scripts to avoid it being nothing more than a skin & voice palette-swap, where the NPCs react to you in EXACTLY the same way, regardless of your character's gender. Equality is ONE thing, where the character is respected, regardless of gender. Having NPCs say the same EXACT things, with NO change whatsoever, is another matter ENTIRELY.
Yes, my ideas would work best as an open-world RPG-type qame, so I'm sure you could guess what my primary gaming interests are! I'd design a game/series of games that fit the bill myself, as a proof-of-concept, if I had the budget and the know-how. But I'm just an idea guy, and even if I used an existing engine to make a game like this, I wouldn't be able to do it justice. That's what the big guys are for: they just need to listen to what MANY (though not all) of their fanbase are saying, and start including more diversity/improving on what diversity they ARE including in games...
Just don't do it because a certain group of people are DEMANDING it, because that way leads to resentment and half-assed efforts. Do it because it's the right thing to do. Or do it because it's the best way at getting into the wallets of the largest number of people.
I feel that games DO need more diversity and inclusiveness in them... Just not because a certain contingent of feminists DEMAND it. It needs to be there because for gaming, and for games, to grow, they need to appeal to the broadest possible base, which means having the broadest possible base in playable characters! It really wouldn't be THAT hard to include gender/sex/sexuality in games where the characters are "traditionally" male, white, and heterosexual. Just a few check-marks at character creation/selection, which locks in a group of if/then lines in the code, and we're good to go! It would just mean a slightly larger "plot tree," since to do it justice, the plot WOULD probably need fine-tuning, based on the character choices; some character would have a "fluid" sexuality or even gender, based on your choices at the beginning, for example, since I feel that games where there IS a gender option need to fine-tune their scripts to avoid it being nothing more than a skin & voice palette-swap, where the NPCs react to you in EXACTLY the same way, regardless of your character's gender. Equality is ONE thing, where the character is respected, regardless of gender. Having NPCs say the same EXACT things, with NO change whatsoever, is another matter ENTIRELY.
Yes, my ideas would work best as an open-world RPG-type qame, so I'm sure you could guess what my primary gaming interests are! I'd design a game/series of games that fit the bill myself, as a proof-of-concept, if I had the budget and the know-how. But I'm just an idea guy, and even if I used an existing engine to make a game like this, I wouldn't be able to do it justice. That's what the big guys are for: they just need to listen to what MANY (though not all) of their fanbase are saying, and start including more diversity/improving on what diversity they ARE including in games...
Just don't do it because a certain group of people are DEMANDING it, because that way leads to resentment and half-assed efforts. Do it because it's the right thing to do. Or do it because it's the best way at getting into the wallets of the largest number of people.
No it's still not "stalking". I do apologize if you feel mocked or that I am being unfairly sarcastic towards you. I will try to avoid responding to your comments in the future. Stating that you have absolutely no interest in "the branch of linguistics concerned with meaning", and then complaining when people do not share your definitions for words, struck me as being worthy of comment. It is true that I chose to do it in a sarcastic way, and I could have been nicer about it.Guerilla said:
Guerilla, your lack of interest in semantics is going to result in obfuscation of meaning and poor communication, which will directly result in misunderstandings and confusion. You may want to reconsider your stance re: Semantics if you want to continue conversing with relative strangers in a public forum.
Sincerely, Bloated Guppy.
I do not count myself among feminists, though I do count myself as a skeptic, and as a skeptic I examine claims of 'X group is being undervalued and/or having to jump additional hurdles made of arbitrary bullshit' and often find that there's a good point there.
So when someone wearing a feminist hat says 'Wow, it looks like a huge majority of characters who have some level of agency in video games are male, and a disproportonate number of the female ones seem to be in there as eye candy or rewards', I have to look over a bunch of my games and think that yeah, I think they have a point.
From this I conclude that it's totally fine if someone wants to glare pointedly at the games industry in a way that suggests that the default player character should not be a burly white dude.
Saints Row 4 does okay. The default player character is a muscular white guy, but the game doesn't voice any objections if you want to play a French woman with iridescent purple skin instead.
Skyrim does okay. There's spots of sexism here and there, but the game makes it fairly clear that in this end of Tamriel, being female does not seriously negatively impact your ability to become a ruler, hurl lightning from your hands, or smash the hell out of things with a honking great axe.
Half-Life two does sort of okay. Sure, there are very few women in the cast, but Alex seems to be a perfectly capable commando and quite the techie.
Borderlands 2 is hardly flawless, but for all Gearbox' efforts at being inclusive show all the delicate grace of a vending machine being thrown through a wall, they're genuinely present. And the female members of the core cast seem perfectly capable of wreaking the kind of unholy havoc that is the main means of solving problems on Pandora.
I mention those games in particular because a) they seem to have been somewhat responsive to calls for decent female characters and b) they're all quite good.
That's really my point here. We did not get crap games because someone stuck a woman on the cast. What we got were good, solid games with good characters. This does not prove that having decent female characters makes a game good or financially successful, but it does show that a developer doesn't sink its game by putting some in.
So when someone wearing a feminist hat says 'Wow, it looks like a huge majority of characters who have some level of agency in video games are male, and a disproportonate number of the female ones seem to be in there as eye candy or rewards', I have to look over a bunch of my games and think that yeah, I think they have a point.
From this I conclude that it's totally fine if someone wants to glare pointedly at the games industry in a way that suggests that the default player character should not be a burly white dude.
Saints Row 4 does okay. The default player character is a muscular white guy, but the game doesn't voice any objections if you want to play a French woman with iridescent purple skin instead.
Skyrim does okay. There's spots of sexism here and there, but the game makes it fairly clear that in this end of Tamriel, being female does not seriously negatively impact your ability to become a ruler, hurl lightning from your hands, or smash the hell out of things with a honking great axe.
Half-Life two does sort of okay. Sure, there are very few women in the cast, but Alex seems to be a perfectly capable commando and quite the techie.
Borderlands 2 is hardly flawless, but for all Gearbox' efforts at being inclusive show all the delicate grace of a vending machine being thrown through a wall, they're genuinely present. And the female members of the core cast seem perfectly capable of wreaking the kind of unholy havoc that is the main means of solving problems on Pandora.
I mention those games in particular because a) they seem to have been somewhat responsive to calls for decent female characters and b) they're all quite good.
That's really my point here. We did not get crap games because someone stuck a woman on the cast. What we got were good, solid games with good characters. This does not prove that having decent female characters makes a game good or financially successful, but it does show that a developer doesn't sink its game by putting some in.
http://i.imgur.com/C8gG0NX.pngBloatedGuppy said:
:3
(No harm intended, you're still Best Fish of the Escapist 2014!)
Yeah... don't care. In addition, thousands are being killed in Syria, Ebola virus is rapidly mutating and killing more thousands, the Russians are threatening Ukraine's sovereignty, ...Mandalore_15 said:
Just can't bring myself to get that worked up about Quinn. Sexual escapades have consequences for men and women - see Bill Clinton (impeached) and John Edwards (political career ruined) - if you're going to hop on top of (or under) anything that moves, yes, society will judge you. Man or woman. Now, if you care about this judgement or not - that's up to you.
But Quinn? Seriously? Not even on my radar. Too old to care, maybe.
Imo some semantics are not worth discussing and yes, admittedly I do have a tenancy for exaggeration but I only do it to stress my points. As long as people understand the gist of my point I don't see why it's wrong. For example I did say blackmail but I also mentioned why I consider it blackmail in the same post. If I hadn't then yes, it would change the meaning of post but as it stands it's just semantics. Thanks for explaining why it annoyed you though.BloatedGuppy said:
As I said to someone else in this thread...maybe to you, maybe to someone else...this is an emotionally charged issue. Hyperbole does not help.Guerilla said:
See this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_polarization
That is a real thing. You're experiencing it in this thread. The louder your hyperbole gets, the louder the hyperbole on the other side will become to balance the scales. If you're genuinely interested in collegial discussion on the issue and not just shouting at people you perceive as enemies, I IMPLORE you to consider the way you communicate and how it will be perceived.
But they don't, do they? How many people in this thread have already debated the point with you or come right out and expressed openly that you're completely off-base? Counting on other people to divine when you're being hyperbolic for effect is fruitless. I've written LUDICROUSLY over the top sarcastic monologues and had them taken at face value. The more contentious the issues, the more careful you'll want to be with your expression. You don't HAVE to be, but it's a good way to avoid having people like me riffing on you for half a thread.Guerilla said:
It's all good. And guy...while we're being nice like this? Tumblr? Not a feminist site. For your own sake, you're gonna want to stop saying that. It just makes you look silly. It's a social networking/blogging site. It's no more a feminist site than a cat fancier's site than a recipe site than a porn site. It's whatever people feel like blogging about. There are feminists on tumblr, yes, and "Tumblr Feminist" has arisen as a colloquialism to describe a certain variety of lazy social activist who likes to reblog memes and shout about issues they barely understand, but it's no more a "Feminist site" than Facebook or Twitter.Guerilla said:
Misogynist means hating women, it pretty much on the same level as racist. Just because feminists have spammed it so much that it's starting to lose its meaning and importance doesn't mean it's still not a awful accusation. Personally I'm old school and still take it seriously because there used to be a time when it wasn't used as a casual accusation like it happens now. I'm sure a lot of people are like that too.Muspelheim said:
So when an organized group is collectively smearing your name like that unless you do as they're demanding then yes it can be construed as blackmail imo. If you were a dev and people were trying to ruin your reputation wouldn't you at least feel pressure to do as you're told?
Let's agree to disagree on some issues but I'll definitely take into account the first part of your post although I don't think blackmail was over the line.BloatedGuppy said:
Also, did you watch the videos of tumblr-con (aka Dash-con)? The site might on paper just be just a social networking site but it has been taken over by feminists and everyone knows it. Even the site's leadership sides with them since people who object are usually banned while they don't dare to touch even the most extremist of feminists who, as /r/tumblrinaction has proven repeatedly, ofter threaten people even with physical harm.
They also defend the site's VOLUMINOUS porn content, some of which is quite visceral. Or so I uh...so I hear. From shrekfan. Who is a porn addict. You know why?Guerilla said:
The only thing I know of off-hand that they've banned is suicide-promotion.
Not a feminist site. This is the last time I'll correct you on that point, though. After this it's on your head if you want to keep referring to it as one. It's like me referring to Twitter as a Music Site because I follow a band on there.
I don't by the way. Twitter can kiss my ass. 140 characters. The death of language, says I!
So you've never heard his radio show. If you haven't heard his radio show, you can't claim he isn't racist or sexist, because you are arguing from ignorance. He once said slavery was good, because it kept the streets safe at night. He's racist.thethird0611 said:
True, there would be pressure, and misogynism is a rather unpleasant accusation to have. However, I doubt it'd be the sort of pressure that would make me consider doing what I'm told. The only thing to do would be to, as clearly as possible, make my case of not being what I'm accused of and continue. There is only so much damage the could do to one's reputation with so little evidence. Some people might accept the slander as truth right away, but if they never heard me out, I don't think they'd ever be on my side, either.Guerilla said:
No matter what, there will be people attempting to connect you with immensively negative words. There will always be something nasty that people claim you and your work represent. The best thing to do is to defend your case as clearly as you can, and simply carry on.
That sounds exactly what the angry army of MRAs gamers think. If you are a woman and you complain about sexism in games, you are a Feminazi.Guerilla said:
Serious question: How much pot do you have to smoke to get that paranoid.Guerilla said:
Calling it blackmail or censorship is, in your words, a serious accusation, one that you can't back up.
Don't really care if tumblr makes fun of it after the disaster; hindsight is 20/20. It was still representative of the kind of people that visit the site. Part of the infamous post by the vendor in Dash-Con:
http://archive.today/iJN6B
Reddit is the site that defaulted a women-only subreddit (sounds kind of sexist... hmmm I wonder what "real" feminists say about that) called TwoXChromosomes that feminists are using now as their podium to whine about men 24/7 there. Unlike /r/Mensrights which btw never threatens people with physical harm, doxxes, or generally acts like complete lunatics like it happens in the tumblr asylum because they pretend to be moderate (pretend is operative word here). Your comparison is terrible.undeadsuitor said:
And I'm STILL waiting from people to link me to these moderate voices of feminism that are more popular than Jezebel, pretty much the entire Gawker network, Sarkeesian and yes, tumblr. It's nice that you guys changed the subject but I'm still waiting.
I'm not knowledgeable enough on all that to give a proper answer.Grahav said:Okay, cool.AkaDad said:
A question. There is an argument that there is a lot of feminist branches.
In accord to wikipedia.
Movements and ideologies (main article) Amazon Analytical Anarchist Atheist Black Chicana Christian Conservative Cultural Cyber Difference Eco Equality Equity Fat French feminism theory French structuralist Gender Global Individualist Islamic Jewish Lesbian Liberal Lipstick Marxist Material Neo New Postcolonial Postmodern Poststructural Pro-life Proto Radical Separatist Sex-positive Socialist Standpoint Third world Trans Transnational Womanism
So basically...
What is the relationship between the branches like? In a general way, they criticize one another, they ignore what each other say, they collude together, how is it?
And what is the bare minimum to a person be considered feminist? What ties all these groups to them be classified as feminists?
Edit: Feel free to point me at any article you find relevant.
On the bare minimum question, BloatedGuppy summed it up well.
Belief that men and women are equal, and deserve equal consideration based on their merits as individuals.