I'm really tired, so apologies in advance if I ramble a bit.
Spearmaster said:
So its more the way women aren't realistically portrayed then?
Not quite, because again, men aren't always portrayed realistically, either; but the difference is, men aren't portrayed realistically because they're portrayed in a manner that is supposed to please their desire to role-play as a rough, chisled man with weapons who gets to do all these cool things in the game. Women usually aren't portrayed unrealistically because they're pleasing some desire for anyone to play through that perspective; it's typically because the slutty clothes and skimpier personality appeals to those (assumed to be men) who need/want women as dressing for the power fantasy described above. I.e., they're not there for the purpose of providing anything to the experience other than to fulfill sexual desires or adhere to various other female stereotypes in order to have the narrative "make sense" to the demographic it's being directed towards (i.e., gaming teens, which seem to have a lot of trouble staying on the right side of the whole sexism issue). In other words, the difference is that you're rarely going to just see the unrealistic men sprinkled into the game for a purpose as shallow as being eye-candy for the gamers. Now, whether the unrealistic women are actually attractive and/or the chisled men actually help with the power fantasy is of course subjective and debatable, but the reasons why they are made that way are arguably more important than whether they actually achieve that goal.
so if men that respond positively are already sexist and men that don't wont become sexist because of it then if it doesn't change men how does it affect women different?
People can change because people don't always start out as being completely not sexist or completely sexist. Most are in a grey area where they have assumptions about guys and girls but haven't necessarily gotten to the point where they'll say with confidence that those stereotypes are true (for example, they may subconsciously doubt that straight guys can like pink or that girls can open jars, but this hasn't become an absolute yet). If such people are lazy thinkers (which many are) and only (or mostly) given negative examples of how girls/guys act, these examples start to validate their own negative positions, and cause them to have the confidence to move into full-blown sexism. Using the examples above, if every show on television shows women going to their boyfriends with jars to open, this may start to validate the perception the person has on women regarding jars, simply because being exposed to the same stereotype over and over again, even in media, makes it that much easier to think that this is a common occurrence and therefore is likely generic enough to the demographic as a whole.
If, however, you did the opposite and gave a lot of positive examples, such people would be a lot less capable of subconsciously justifying their bias. If women are always opening jars on TV, then suddenly it doesn't make as much sense to assume that all women can't open jars, because so many writers/producers/etc don't seem to have shared that experience. They'd have to work at justifying the stereotype to continue believing that stereotype, and the lazy thinkers aren't going to do that.
In the instance of scantily-clad women, the underlying assumption to be validated is typically "women are here for my entertainment" or something of the like. Guys not predisposed to this type of thinking can play such games without moving towards that mindset; sexist guys will already be proclaiming that mindset on the streets. Those in the middle may think to some small degree that it's true, but they may not fully adhere to that line of thinking yet. But constant exposure to the stereotype they have an inkling of faith in allows them to justify having said thoughts (i.e., whereas the non-sexist guy may play the game and think "This is not okay," the guy in the middle may think "Well everything I see indicates that my gut is right, so maybe it's okay that I make this assumption"). If, however, gender roles were reversed in most games and women weren't usually the ones put in games to look pretty, the guy in the middle no longer has a reason to validate that way of thinking.
The problem with having a handful of examples of good female characters amidst a sea of bad ones, is that if the person is first exposed to the bad examples, then they are used to inform him of what women should be like, which typically makes subsequent good examples seem strange to him. For example, if a guy's seen a bunch of window-dressing women in various games and has already come to the conclusion that women are supposed to be like that, then making one game with a good female character doesn't just fix everything. He's more likely to think, "Wait, but a woman isn't supposed to act like this..." than he is to think "Oh wait, now I should re-examine my thoughts on women." Quantity is as important as quality in this issue.
Is it that there are no proper role models for women in games?
There aren't for men either so it then must be that there are just not any/enough women in major roles in games that aren't of the submissive/hooker archtype?
There are role models for women, but they are few in number (and that is significant; see above). While Batman and Kratos aren't necessarily "good" role models, they at least serve as examples of people gamers would love to be--lots of us wish we had the strength and badassery to kill gods or beat up criminals in a costume, even if these aren't things we
should actually aspire to. How many of us wish we were princesses who always got kidnapped, or airheaded women who dress and move like sluts, or women who are getting assaulted (physically or sexually) in a manner we can't really prevent, almost every time we're in a playable scene?
(This also plays into validating people's assumptions that women can't do "cool" things that men can do, that women are weak and need saving, etc.)
I can see how its a stereotype problem, I do see it as a problem (girls need games to), but how is it an equal rights for women issue? and how does it hurt women if its not changed?
Well first off it hurts girls to not be able to see an abundance of strong role models in media. Halloween is always best at bringing this out: if guys have cool movie characters like Batman and Captain America (i.e., heroes who use their strength to save people) to dress up as, and girls only have Disney princesses (most of which depend largely on a male character to save them from their situation), what kind of message is this sending to them? If the only women they can play as in games are of that "need to be saved" or "only here to be attractive" variety, what message is that sending them? What does that tell them regarding what they can aspire to, etc?
Not to mention, when the media only focuses on the negative, it gives those with a mind to be biased an excuse to remain so. Like with race: a lot of people felt (and clearly still feel) justified in being afraid of blacks and latinos purely on the basis that they saw more of them on shows like Cops, because the media disproportionately reports on crimes that they commit compared to crimes that other races may commit, etc. And once we make it easy for said people to justify their bias, things go downhill for the demographic they're biased against.
"Also what can actually be done about it other than a direct boycott or asking them nice to stop, even the most impressive speech or rant about a problem without a viable solution is just whining right?
The easiest solution is to get writers/producers to think about why many of them put women in games, and alter that mindset and the way they portray them. Problem is, that's been done many times over already, and writers are often too lazy to do it. So the best solution currently is to make independent games that have good characters in general and doesn't play into the same tropes as AAA games. And then to support the hell out these games, to make sure writers of those AAA games take note and realize that if they don't change their ways, they're going to be out of a job. Pressure is about the only recourse we have, but if we don't apply it, literally nothing's going to get solved.
And while people often claim you can't change games because a million people will still go out and buy it--just because your message may not have the biggest following, doesn't mean you shouldn't stick by that message. Most people in the country won't back a bill for same-sex marriage, but that doesn't mean it's pointless to stay active in getting the word out about marriage equality and boycotting or contacting groups who seek to perpetuate misinformation.
