Kickstarter Video Project Attracts Misogynist Horde

[marche45]

http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2012.pdf here's the PDF.
Just Dance 3 is the second most sold game,who knew?

 

[Chemical Alia]

If she wanted discussions she could interview someone who makes those characters or is involved with game marketing or something.

It might surprise you how few of these people ever think about such things.

How do you want to fight the problem if you don't make an effort to understand the causes?

If you don't hear the marketers, the players who like those games (as myself), the other side, it becomes just a one sided speech where you tell a group of people to shut up. And nobody likes to be told to shut up, specially when it is said that they are the cause of misoginy or some other kind of evil.

I don't follow the point you're trying to make, based on what I said.

 

[samaugsch]

This is pretty much a scam. Asking for donations for a vlog? Man, people will try anything to get rich.

Anyway, this whole thing is an artificially constructed issue because video games are full of tropes, not just women specific. Its actually pretty sexist to ignore the ridiculous male tropes, but w/e.

The MAIN issue, however, is that it is impossible to create a good female character for a few reasons:
1. The things that define a woman are either considered sexist or have no possible application in gaming
2. A good female character is often ignored by the feminists because she's not "female" enough.
3. Look at # 2, then #1, and you'll see this closes out any possibility of females being happy with women in games.
4. As a result, developers focus on the male demographic, which :
A. Has consistent taste and purchase habits vastly outnumbering female gamers.
B. When games with strong women characters WERE released, they were ignored by BOTH communities. The industry has extended its hand a few times already, and each time they were utterly ignored. Its the fault of female gamers themselves and the white knights for not purchasing these games and PROVING that they sell.

I've seen numerous complaints about bad female characters, but ZERO tips on making good ones. It appears the videos by this lazy scammer female gamer will be no different; she'll destroy every female character seen thus far, and offer ZERO tips on making a good one.

Really? I've heard that Alyx from Half Life 2 was a decent female character.

 

[Grahav]

If she wanted discussions she could interview someone who makes those characters or is involved with game marketing or something.

It might surprise you how few of these people ever think about such things.

How do you want to fight the problem if you don't make an effort to understand the causes?

If you don't hear the marketers, the players who like those games (as myself), the other side, it becomes just a one sided speech where you tell a group of people to shut up. And nobody likes to be told to shut up, specially when it is said that they are the cause of misoginy or some other kind of evil.

I don't follow the point you're trying to make, based on what I said.

The point is that it seemed to me that you think that what the "misogynistic" game producers thoughts about the issue are either irrelevant or non-existent. If you don't know why they make such games, how do you want to convince them to stop making them or making "gender positive" games?

More, it weakens your position if the target of your discourse discovers that you consider them as just non-thinking idiots.

I've seen numerous complaints about bad female characters, but ZERO tips on making good ones.

Excellent point. It is easy to be destructive, but difficult to be creative.

An effort shold be made in this direction.

 

[Birdfalcon]

OBJECTION......the metroid franchise with the exepction of other M

 

[rbstewart7263]

But tell me: I'm a feminist. According to your rules I must be a "crazy." Find evidence of this: go!

Well, for one thing you cannot accept what I say, while a big missing link is any evidence on your part.

Which would be fairly hypocritical, because if I came in yelling fire and murder about supposed discrimination which you don't know to exist, you'd like me to at least show some indications of it actually happening before you jump on any bandwagons. I do the same and you cry I'm not interested in hearing it.

I'm not interested in hearing preconceived myths about supposed conspiracies to oppress women. I'll also tell you why: The reason for those is to dismiss any component of own choice and inevitability, just because that's uncomfortable for the author, and it has nothing to do with finding out what is true and correct. It's basically a form of religion.

I'm always open to hearing factual information, just don't blame me for not going along in some silly mythology without any proof.


On the topic of feminist mythology, do you know what's a fun topic to read about with feminists? Female rape fantasies. There's a pretty sharp divide in feminist and psychological litature, with the feminists obviously going for some fairy tale about a conspiracy of men have conditioned women to be used to rape and even fantasize about it, while the actual scientific literature weighs all sorts of explanations carefully.

For instance here:
http://www.clinica.divisionescolpsic.org/articulos-docs/Womens_Erotic_Rape.pdf

Note how they dismiss the feminist conspiracy theory. Review of said feminist book they refer to shows the empirical quality of it is questionable at best. It's bound together from baseless assumptions.

Also note how they dismiss the feminist claim that rape fantasies and actual rape are alike. They are in fact very different scenarios.


And the Huffington Post offers us a small insight into just how powerfull the politically correcy lynchmob of feminists has become towards any and all who reveal information they dislike. They bring this story about female rape fantasies, which is uncomfortable to feminists because it dismisses their 'rape culture' myth.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/womens-sexual-fantasies_b_1511322.html?ref=uk

Note the first sentence: "A team of psychologists led by a woman has uncovered". Why would the HuffPost write that? The gender of the team's leader is irrelevant? Well, if it had been a man, there'd have been a feminist lynchmob to dismiss the story as a part of a male conspiracy to oppress women. It's gotten that ridiculous.

Thank you sir.

 

[Brian MacInnes]

Oops! Who ever was in charge of assembling this openly gynemasculinistic project's head montage haplessly included a Princess Peach illustration from no less than 'Super Princess Peach'. That would be the one in which she heroically advents to rescue the helpless Mario and Luigi from Bowser, decimating his army on the way. Also fearless tomb raider Lara Croft, among others.

 

[Therumancer]

The MAIN issue, however, is that it is impossible to create a good female character for a few reasons:
1. The things that define a woman are either considered sexist or have no possible application in gaming
2. A good female character is often ignored by the feminists because she's not "female" enough.
3. Look at # 2, then #1, and you'll see this closes out any possibility of females being happy with women in games.

Um... seriously? Please can you enlighten me on what 'defines a woman'.

Do you have some examples of your second point?

You tell me. What, exactly, makes a good FEMALE character? Oftentimes when examples are brought up, they're accused of being good characters but their gender might as well be male, or their accused of pandering to the male demographic.

As for specific examples, I don't remember since I don't play most of the games where the examples were from, also these threads were a while ago. I do remember Alyx Vance and Samus Aran were considered to be the same as fetish characters from the semi naked women with boob physics from soul caliber. Unfortunately those are the only two examples I remember. I think the protagonist of the longest journey was one of the handful of "good" female characters the community agreed upon.

Interestingly though what people think is good by feminist standards doesn't sell to either men or women. "The Longest Journey" was nowhere near the success of things like Metroid or Half-Life.

A point I keep making which people don't want to address since it pretty much shuts down every arguement is to look at what women create for themselves and aim at a female audience. You'll quickly notice that these "negative tropes" and some of the most criticized female characters are par for the course.

I'll also say that people keep tossing statistics around in this. Oddly you'll find this is a good example of how statistics are meaningless as you can find or modify statistics to say whatever you want. No matter what you think, someone probably created a statistic to "prove" what you want to believe at some point. You'll find that in arguements about women in games those taking a feminist approach of demanding industry change will either approach it from female gamers being "locked out" and pointing out how few of them there are, or saying that there are tons of female gamers, representing a substantial percentage of the market, who should be given more of a voice in what is created... depending on the needs of the moment. Is 30-50% of the gaming audience women, or is it only 4% as marked by someone's claim about sales?

In the end I maintain it's a non-issue, it exists only for people to try and get attention.

 

[SOCIALCONSTRUCT]

Generally speaking men are much better firefighters than women. Organic cultural perceptions are built around patterns that are generally true rather than exceptions. I prefer this organic viewpoint to PC tabula rasa nonsense.

 

[Hollyday]

A point I keep making which people don't want to address since it pretty much shuts down every arguement is to look at what women create for themselves and aim at a female audience. You'll quickly notice that these "negative tropes" and some of the most criticized female characters are par for the course.

I find it by far the most worrying point, and I'm willing to discuss it until the cows come home! Women are as much a part of the problem as men - by saying that I'm a feminist and that I want equal and balanced representation across all media for women, I'm by no means saying that it's men's fault that we don't have it now. You only have to look at fashion magazines which are written by and for women to know that we often do nothing to help ourselves. It's self-perpetuating: we grow up with stereotyped depictions of women in the media and so that's how we view ourselves. We then sell this back to the younger generation and the cycle goes on and on and on.... until people are educated about it. Enter Anita Sarkeesian...

You tell me. What, exactly, makes a good FEMALE character? Oftentimes when examples are brought up, they're accused of being good characters but their gender might as well be male, or their accused of pandering to the male demographic.

I still want to know what 'defines a woman' from your earlier post - don't back down now!

To me, a good female character is one that is made an integral part of the story and not decoration/a plot device (of course, there are many many male characters in stories who are only there for decoration/to be a plot device. My argument is that a disproportionately large number of female characters fall into this category)

 

[Chemical Alia]

If she wanted discussions she could interview someone who makes those characters or is involved with game marketing or something.

It might surprise you how few of these people ever think about such things.

How do you want to fight the problem if you don't make an effort to understand the causes?

If you don't hear the marketers, the players who like those games (as myself), the other side, it becomes just a one sided speech where you tell a group of people to shut up. And nobody likes to be told to shut up, specially when it is said that they are the cause of misoginy or some other kind of evil.

I don't follow the point you're trying to make, based on what I said.

The point is that it seemed to me that you think that what the "misogynistic" game producers thoughts about the issue are either irrelevant or non-existent. If you don't know why they make such games, how do you want to convince them to stop making them or making "gender positive" games?

More, it weakens your position if the target of your discourse discovers that you consider them as just non-thinking idiots.

Whoa, where the hell did all this come from? "Non-thinking idiots" and misogynists? These people are talented and amazing, and I talk with them all the time. That doesn't mean they don't sometimes fall into habits and forget to think outside of the box when it comes to variety in characters. It's a pretty narrow demographic among game developers, and it's easy to fall back to the default of what they personally think is "sweet" or "sexy", but it's not some evil conspiracy or even always done on purpose.

I've seen numerous complaints about bad female characters, but ZERO tips on making good ones.

Excellent point. It is easy to be destructive, but difficult to be creative.

An effort shold be made in this direction.

I explored this idea when I was still in school with a project I did. I looked at the design process for the TF2 cast and applied the same kind of decision making to model a couple playable female versions. I made the models downloadable to the general public, and the response I got on them has been overwhelmingly positive (even with my crappy first two ones, when I was still new to modeling.) I just finished up with the fourth one, and from the feedback I've gotten from the community, there's definitely an interest in having variety along with having straight up fan-service.

But making good female characters shouldn't be any different than making good characters of any kind. They deserve the same exploration, research and variety as any other thought-out character. Relying too hard tropes and derivative material makes for boring characters, male or female, and I think that's an area of game development that needs more creativity and broader backgrounds.

 

[tautologico]

Rock, Paper Shotgun published a good editorial about this issue.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/13/tropes-vs-women-in-video-games-vs-the-internet/

Two parts I thought to highlight:

Spoiler: Silencing

And perhaps most of all, there are furious people arguing that games are sexist against men too, and therefore she should be quiet. But overridingly, in all these categories, the central message is that Sarkeesian should be silenced. (And just in case anyone is feeling left out, one commenter hopes that ?them people who funded this get raped and die of cancer.?)

Spoiler: About representations of men

I feel compelled to react to one particular theme: That men are poorly represented in gaming too. They are. Men in games are often represented as huge, muscled heroes, essentially weapons of war with biceps, gruff and focused and all-powerful. It?s not an accurate representation of men at large, indeed not. Because it?s a power fantasy. It?s aspirational (as much as very many men may have no desires to be anything like that). It?s about being big, and strong, and in control. Oh boo hoo. Yes, it is daft, and cliched, and tiresome. But to compare it to the default representation of women in games ? either huge-titted, scantily clad sexual fantasies, or helpless, pathetic and weak ? is deeply erroneous. And yes, of course there are exceptions to both, although I can immediately think of vastly more exceptions for the better presentation of men than I can women.

But to say that the topic of female representation in gaming is deserving of investigation is not at all to suggest that the representation of men is not. In fact, were someone to do the research into this, perhaps start a Kickstarter to fund a video series about it, I?d absolutely be a backer. I?m fascinated to learn more about how my sex being portrayed in this way affects my understanding of myself, and other men. I?m sure there are consequences, both in terms of a negative sense of self in the comparison, and in skewed expectations of being a man based on what I?m being told I should aspire to. Perhaps even, studying the subject from this angle could reveal even more about the portrayal of women, and even address some root causes of it. Sarkeesian?s project in no way precludes this being studied. And I?d be willing to bet a fair amount that a man launching such a study wouldn?t be on the receiving end of hundreds and hundreds of calls for him to be raped or killed.

 

[SOCIALCONSTRUCT]

Generally speaking men are much better firefighters than women. Organic cultural perceptions are built around patterns that are generally true rather than exceptions. I prefer this organic viewpoint to PC tabula rasa nonsense.

Just because men CAN be better at firefighting, doesn't mean that we shouldn't allow women to also be firefighters. I'm sure every woman currently employed as a firefighter is better at it then I am.

Taking exceptions as the norm is not a useful method for establishing a model for understanding the world. An individual women that would be a good firefighter is an exception. An individual man that would be a worse firefighter than most women is an exception. Exceptions exist but they are also entirely beside the point.

My point is that if you start from a tabula rasa premise then you are compelled to reach a tabula rasa conclusion. If you start from the premise that all gender differences stop sharply at the reproductive systems then you are compelled to the conclusion that men and women are equally good at firefighting. To put it another way, if men and women are identical and interchangeable in every way then firefighters and cultural depictions of firefighters should be at least 50% female. If reality doesn't line up with the theory then a great injustice has been done and society needs to be organized to fight it. Again, all of this is quite automatic and it is impossible to reach any other conclusion from the premise. At this point in this process, Lego needs to be publicly shamed into make more female Lego fire fighters unless they wish to be branded as oppressive or hateful or something. Similarly, fire departments will need to implement gender quotas and lower performance standards to move in the direction of gender parity.

 

[Schadrach]

Do we? What other crimes do we pursue and sometimes convict on nothing other than victim testimony? What other crime can you say "That 51 year old man committed this crime against me 36 years ago when he was babysitting", and get a conviction with no other evidence (more importantly, how would you defend against that?)? Or for a better example, imagine the person you lost your virginity with (if such a person exists) decided tomorrow to claim that encounter was rape/sexual assault (depending on the genders involved, since forced intercourse isn't rape if it's female-on-male). How would you defend yourself? As far as I can tell, the only answers are video every sexual encounter, and don't stick it in the crazy (always good advice).

"B-b-but what about people accused of rape!?" Really? You bring up bullshit about false rape accusations? Do you have any idea of how statistically insignificant those accusations are? Do you not understand how much bullshit a woman goes through when she dares to accuse a man of rape? Why would any woman want to go through all that?

So, are you suggesting that women are incapable of deceit, or that we should pretend that they aren't because it only throws some men under the bus? Most of the studies on the topic end up with results in the 2-11% range[footnote]New York Rape Squad (1974), Hursch and Selkin (1974), Kelly et al. (2005), Geis (1978), Smith (1989), U.S. Department of Justice (1997), Clark and Lewis (1977), Harris and Grace (1999), Lea et al. (2003), HMCPSI/HMIC (2002)[/footnote], mostly depending on what instrument they use. Quite a few [footnote]McCahill et al. (1979), Philadelphia police study (1968), Chambers and Millar (1983), Grace et al. (1992), Jordan (2004), Kanin (1994), Gregory and Lees (1996), Maclean (1979), Stewart (1981)[/footnote] come up with much larger numbers than that, but usually have a methodology that some disagree with (such as assuming that when an alleged victim recants that means the recanted accusation was false). Something occurring with a frequency that according to more conservative methodologies could be as frequent as 1 in 9 cases is *not* statistically insignificant.

As for why a woman might falsely accuse someone of rape, sexual assault, or domestic violence, that seems to vary pretty broadly from case to case. A cursory search seems to run everything from divorce and custody cases [footnote]Examples: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-accused-20110626,0,7042051.story http://wnyt.com/article/stories/s2650065.shtml[/footnote] to avoiding being caught cheating to using it to provide an excuse for her own violence [footnote]http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/660284_Former-Elizabethtown-woman-sought-for-assault--making-false-statements.html[/footnote] to sometimes even something as trivial as dodging a cab fare [footnote]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gaB45iWDO9c[/footnote]. People are individuals, and as such, there's no singular reason they might decide to lie.

Rape cases need to be thoroughly investigated, tried if there's evidence, held to the same goddamned standards as every other criminal case, if there's a finding of guilt, punished appropriately, and if there's evidence that it's a false accusation, then that needs to be thoroughly investigated, tried if there's evidence, held to the same goddamned standards as every other criminal case,

Regardless of whatever men's rights activists vomit out of their putrid mouths, rape already is held to those standards.

Name another crime, any other crime, where the allegation and testimony of the victim is proof enough to get a conviction with no corroborating evidence. Name another crime where you'd accept an accusation alone as proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused was guilty.

[yes, I am saying falsely accusing someone of a sex crime should itself be a sex crime]).

You're mentally ill if you seriously think this. Seriously? You equate the false accusation of rape to rape itself?

No, I'm not equating it to rape. Maybe you should look at the full breadth of things that count as "sex crimes" and thus yield getting your scarlet "A." I'm saying it should count as a "sex crime", thus yielding mandatory registration on the sex offender registry and some meaningful punishment (as opposed to the current situation which in most jurisdictions is a fine [akin to a bad speeding ticket, but without the points on your license]).

Likewise, I think the media should be barred from naming either defendant or victim in such a case (as opposed to the current practice of anonymizing the victim and plastering the defendant's name everywhere, thus effectively ruining his reputation even if innocent).

"Think of the poor rapists' reputation!"

Did I say a damned word about keeping anonymous those found guilty? You appear to want to be sure that anyone accused, even if falsely, "gets what they deserve" as you put it below? While ensuring that anyone who makes a false accusation is free to know that no one will ever know what kind of horrible person they are?

If the defendant is found anything other than guilty, I think the defendant's name should not be released. If there's a false accusation case, I think a finding of guilt should involve releasing the false accuser's name, but letting the falsely accused remain anonymous.

Let me guess, you want their name made public so they can get what they deserve, right?

Didn't say that. I want their name made public because they are guilty of a terrible act, and they shouldn't be guaranteed protection from people knowing that.

Wanetta Gibson is actually a good recent example of this (you would agree that the victim stating outright "No, he did not rape me, but I don't want to clear his name because I might have to pay back the large sum of money I fraudulently sued the school for" counts as clear evidence of a case of false accusation, right?). No, I don't want her to "get what she deserves" (I don't even like that you are implying that), but I don't think she should never have to deal with the fallout of that choice. You would, as I understand it, want her to be kept anonymous forever, because she shouldn't have to be responsible for that terrible thing she did, right? I personally think in a just world, she'd see some jail time, be put on the registry, and have all future wages garnished to start paying back from her fraudulent suit (though I doubt given what she did she'd be terribly employable).

After all of that I feel I need to reiterate that I don't believe all rape accusations are false, or women need to be "put in their place" for daring to accuse a man of a crime he committed, or any other ridiculous exaggeration you might concoct. Actual rape happens, should be investigated, and the rapist brought to justice and appropriately punished. However women, by virtue of being human, are not perfect fonts of honesty and are fully capable of being just as malevolent as any man, and false accusations are a uniquely gendered avenue through which this can occur. Those engaging in such things need to be investigated, tried, and if guilty punished.

Jessica Valenti.
Clarisse Thorn.
Hugo Schwyze.
Alyssa Rosenberg.
Pretty much everyone at Feministing.
No seriously, what about teh menz [http://goodmenproject.com/category/noseriouslywhatabouttehmenz/], those guys.
Rebecca Watson.

That's just a number of prominent feminists I found just on my fucking twitter page who are all reasonable as hell.

Hmm, a quick Googling turns up something a bit unpleasant about Valenti (specifically an article in which it sounds an awful lot like she wants the burden of proof in rape cases to lie with the accused in an article about Julian Assange [quoted below]), and Hugo is generally ugh (I find it interesting that he's such a popular male feminist though, given that he's a professor who used to sleep with his female students, almost murdered an ex girlfriend, may have fathered a child that he helped the mother pretend was her other boyfriend's because she wanted to marry the stable one with the good job, acts an awful lot like a recovering addict using "feminism" as a movement as his sponsor, pretends that all men everywhere are exactly like him and all the dirtbag things he's done before, and tends to take the view that women have no agency at all since they seem never to be responsible for their own actions). NSWATM is usually pretty reasonable, though they occasionally have their off days (actually been reading it since it's launch though I despise the new format since they've moved to Good Men Project). Clarrise isn't too bad either. Haven't read any Rosenberg. Feministing is a bit hit and miss. At least you didn't use Pandagon, Shakesville, or RadicalHub as your examples.

Swedish rape laws ... go much further than U.S. laws do, and we should look to them as a potential model for our own legislation.

In fact, some activists and legal experts in Sweden want to change the law there so that the burden of proof is on the accused...[footnote]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/10/AR2010121006996.html[/footnote]

Feminism = not a monolith. Or shall I get Anders Breivik to represent all gamers?

Feminism is not a monolith has two effects. One, it allows a No True Scotsman argument while pretending that's not what is being done. Imagine I claimed "Republicans (to pick a group I gathered you don't like given you've accused me of being right wing[personally, I'm registered independent in large part because I can't figure out why one's positions on freedom of speech, abortion, and gun control should in any way be remotely related -- as an aside I <3 ACLU, pro-choice, and pro-gun]) are not a monolith", therefore you can't take any statement from or about any of them as even being an example of things they say, even when that statement is fueld by their Republican-hood. Or Democrats, or Neonazis, or MRAs. In fact I'm pretty sure I can argue that since "Neonazis are not a monolith", that it's impossible to demonstrate that Neonazis are racist scum because some other unnamed and unknowable Neonazi "isn't like that."

On the converse, since FINAM means that almost no beliefs are actually feminist ones, thus it sets the bar really really low to count as a feminist. In fact, if the bar is "believes men and women should have equal rights and responsibilities wherever possible, and equivalent ones when equal ones are literally impossible", then *I* count as a feminist. In fact, almost everyone you meet is, even if a lot of them wouldn't use that label because of all the other things that seem to get attached to it.

Anders Breivik seems to be a one off case, I can't point to dozens of examples of people like him. I *can* point to dozens of examples of people identifying as feminist saying terrible, terrible things, often in books used in the academic study of feminism afterward, and not as examples of one-off nutjobs (influential feminists from the 70s tend to fill this hole readily, for example).

(Also, spoiler alert, but the divorce-custody thing? Is also an example of sexism against women - we give custody to women more often because society forces them into the nurturing caregiver role, so clearly the mom MUST be the better child rearer - that also happens to hurt men. HUH.)

Ah, yes, the old "anything that screws men specifically is really about women" argument. Got a version of it for why men commit suicide at a dramatically higher rate than women, but we still focus suicide prevention selectively at women?

or someone working the mines digging coal until you die.

Damnit, I'm playing Minecraft completely wrong, aren't I? =p

As a guy who used to be as fucking willfully blind as you, I have seen rape culture for a fact.

Care to provide some evidence? I'm actually interested, because it always seems like underpants gnome logic to me:

1. Someone tells a joke that references rape in any fashion/makes somthing that loosely implies rape.
2. ???
3. Rapists feel better about being rapists, so more actual rape happens.

I can't come up with an example that doesn't also require nearly the entire game industry and most of the movie and TV industries to be promoting a "murder culture" wherein murder is trivialized and normalized and actual murders should be skyrocketing for the past few decades. But that doesn't match reality at all.

gotta say, the insult 'ovendodger' is new to me...

Yeah, I'd never heard that one before either. Is it supposed to be like calling someone a draft dodger except their not in the kitchen so their dodging the oven? Or am I supposed to be building a trebuchet with which to fire ovens at feminist icons? Actually that last one could make for an interesting game concept, maybe bonus points for hitting Valerie Solanas before she can shoot you?

Oh dear Lord. Maybe this thread should be renamed "Feminist commentator has opinion, internet has conniptions".

Seriously, I bet if I started a thread entitled "Maybe the feminists are right...", I would get a couple of hundred views in a matter of minutes.

You can't do that. Feminsits cannot be right about anythnig, because they hold no positions despite having strong opinions about everything.

Oops! Who ever was in charge of assembling this openly gynemasculinistic project's head montage haplessly included a Princess Peach illustration from no less than 'Super Princess Peach'. That would be the one in which she heroically advents to rescue the helpless Mario and Luigi from Bowser, decimating his army on the way. Also fearless tomb raider Lara Croft, among others.

It's also the game where she decimates Bowser's army by using her mighty mood swings. So, yeah, sorry, she'll rip Super Princess Peach a new one.

Generally speaking men are much better firefighters than women. Organic cultural perceptions are built around patterns that are generally true rather than exceptions. I prefer this organic viewpoint to PC tabula rasa nonsense.

Just because men CAN be better at firefighting, doesn't mean that we shouldn't allow women to also be firefighters. I'm sure every woman currently employed as a firefighter is better at it then I am.

So long as they are held to the same standards as the men, they certainly should be. When you start holding them to a separate lesser standard because not enough are passing, then there's a problem.

I actually find the case with the boy on the girl's field hockey team interesting. You know, the one where there's no boys team so he's on the girls team and people have tried to kick him off for being good at the game? I've seen a *lot* of people feel it's unfair for him to use a Title IX argument because he's "not a protected class."

Society and the media seem to jump on their side a lot. See duke lacrosse where everyone immediately assumed the college kids were guilty until it became painfully clear they weren't. I can't think of a big shitstorm where everyone sided with the accused.

Also saying you support something is saying you are actively rooting for it which he is not.

You know why I didn't footnote Duke Lacrosse or Hofstra as examples above? Because I wanted more recent ones to avoid the whole "see you have to go back a very long time just to find one example, it's not really important" argument I've seen before.

 

[Schadrach]

*snip*

Ok...

Also I've heard that women attempt suicide more often than men but fail at a higher rate.

My source is George Carlin and I trust that man.

Is it bad that I didn't notice just how much of a wall-o-text I had until you quoted me? I fully expect someone will pick a single sentence out of it and make an out of context argument though, that is usually how posts longer than a paragraph work out.

CAPTCHA: "take an umbrella" -- No, CAPTCHA, I think an asbestos suit is more appropriate...

 

[Ukomba]

gotta say, the insult 'ovendodger' is new to me...

Yeah, I'd never heard that one before either. Is it supposed to be like calling someone a draft dodger except their not in the kitchen so their dodging the oven? Or am I supposed to be building a trebuchet with which to fire ovens at feminist icons? Actually that last one could make for an interesting game concept, maybe bonus points for hitting Valerie Solanas before she can shoot you?

Could be, or it could be an antisemitic comment. As in, dodging the ovens at Auschwitz.

 

[Schadrach]

gotta say, the insult 'ovendodger' is new to me...

Yeah, I'd never heard that one before either. Is it supposed to be like calling someone a draft dodger except their not in the kitchen so their dodging the oven? Or am I supposed to be building a trebuchet with which to fire ovens at feminist icons? Actually that last one could make for an interesting game concept, maybe bonus points for hitting Valerie Solanas before she can shoot you?

Could be, or it could be an antisemitic comment. As in, dodging the ovens at Auschwitz.

Ah, I'd completely forgotten that the trolling horde was attacking her for "Jew" as well.

 

[SkellgrimOrDave]

I'm just going to point out one of the best characters in games, period. The fact she's female is irrelevant to her character, but she's female. So apparantly that's important. I always thought good characters were good characters, regardless of gender.

Alyx Vance.

Pure and simply, Alyx Vance.

Firstly, let's get the usual issue in games out of the way, that most women look like a sitck with four balloons nailed in various places and the face of a porn star. Alyx does not. She looks like a normal person, albeit slightly better than the average resident of the depressing world of half-life 2, she's built like a normal person, she's pretty, sure, but not like she spent forty minutes getting ready. She looks like a pretty woman, but a realistic one.

How she acts comes next. Through the entire game, Alyx acts in character consistently, and wonderfully. She cares for her friends, she is unafraid in the face of danger, she is smart, she is confident, but scared when anyone would be scard. Some moments will now be listed, because as the old saying goes, actions speak louder than words.

Firstly, the moment when she's trapped under a stalker, with it screaming in her face. She is terrified, because she's not strong enough to lift off the weight of a large metal carriage with most of what was once a human on top of her. She recoils from the horror screaming at her, and tells gordon to shift the damn thing. This is the same woman who hours ago (in-game) was running around a street under fire, defying the leader of a corrupt administration and aiding our mute hero in his final battle, probably scared, but overcoming fear to help in any way she could. Faced with a muted, horifically scarred human, she breaks down. Because of empathy. She knows what they once were, and she feels horrified by the process. As did I. It's natural.

Instead of any further moments, a point of comparison to another character, that ***** from WET, so unremarkable I can't even remember her name, but her character still sticks in my head like an insect sting. Because it was terrible to behold. Whoever wrote that character I hope was doing it as satire, because if the intention was to depict a strong woman, all they did was create a *****. Strong women do not pick fights with anyone they want to, utter dicks do that. Regardless of gender. Forget even the use of the phrase "strong woman". Good characters are good characters, regardless of gender, and one of the problems I see is that to avoid the idea of creating a female stereotype of a damsel hiding behind the heroes absurdly muscled shoulders, writers can fall into the other side of the hole, writing an unlikeable character with no redeeming qualities, with a hair-trigger temper, a lust for vioilence when unecessary, and no sensetivity whatsoever. Strong female characters are not some kind of code to crack, they are strong characters with two X chromosomes.

In response to an argument i've just created, (that being the idea that female characters are often only acting in response to a "strong male lead"), the whole point of a good character for me is what they might have done when the player character is not around. Alyx for example, I can imagine her helping the resistance (or what is was before Freeman and Alyx attacked Nova Prospect), disrupting the combine's movement wherever she could, doing what had to be done in Eli's lab, welding, metalwork, target practice whenever she could, relaxing, showering, playing with DOG. Stuff normal people do in a post-apocalyptic world. Try imagining that with other characters, male or female, it always gave me an idea of what a good character was. Someone you could imagine going along with life when you, the PC, left.

 

[Calibanbutcher]

Five things.

1. It's youtube commenters. They're 13-17 year old boys who have never touched a boob before. It's the same commenters who drastically hated the male shepherd sex scene from Mass Effect 3.

2. It looks like she got her project funded, so... Good.

3. She's completely right. Video games are overly sexist.

And two counters:

1. This isn't just a problem with games, its a problem with media in general. See also: Hollywood and any commercial on a major network dealing with: food, laundry, yogurt, beer, cars, and any kind of yardwork tool or garage tool.

2. Why does she need money for a video blog series? Not to agree with the third guy you quoted, but... What does that money go towards?

Good sir, I take offense to that, I have also met youtube commenters older than 13 years old.
I myself indulge in posting comments on youtube every once in a while and whilst I am male, I am not 13-17 nor do I take offense to homosexual Shephard.

Also, I don't know any good rape jokes.
NONE, so could someone please give me an example of what is considered a rape-joke?
Will trade for dead baby jokes.

Well since you asked

Spoiler: Rape Jokes

What do 9 out 10 people enjoy?
Gang Rape

Spoiler: Winner of a sickest joke competition

A man walks into a pharmacy and asks for birth control for his 11 year old daughter.
The pharmacist says "your daughter is sexually active at 11?"
To which the man replies "Active? Hell no, she just lies there and cries!"

You may also want to watch the documentary The Aristocrats, the shock value wears off after a bit but it's worth seeing and I couldn't stop laughing at some lines.

Well, I am a man of my word, so here you go:

Spoiler: dead baby jokes

How many babies do you need to paint a room?
Depends on how hard you throw them.

What is worse than three dead babies in a dumpster?
A dead baby in three dumpsters.

 

[Kelgair]

Generally speaking men are much better firefighters than women. Organic cultural perceptions are built around patterns that are generally true rather than exceptions. I prefer this organic viewpoint to PC tabula rasa nonsense.

Just because men CAN be better at firefighting, doesn't mean that we shouldn't allow women to also be firefighters. I'm sure every woman currently employed as a firefighter is better at it then I am.

I don't know of anyone (IRL that is, and with the power to affect it, not some anon-enabling forum[U-2b]) generally saying women shouldn't be firefighters. And women can be as good a firefighter as men, but if you lower the physical standards for being a firefighter just so you can meet some BS gender quota you help no one (as happened in LA some years back). Same with the military and most other physically demanding jobs. Gender equality shouldn't mean a lower standard for a gender and I would think women would be insulted to be held to one.