Should Feminism and Gaming Mix?

[Lukirre]

I didn't read every single post in this thread, but I figured I'd offer my two cents.

Feminism fits perfectly well into gaming. Most people don't seem to realize this, but when a game is feminist, most people actually won't notice it. The only way you would notice it is if you're one of those people who says something like "Wait, what!? Women/men shouldn't be doing that!".

People throw around the world "equality" a lot, but that's not really the point. The point is freedom from restrictive gender roles. Skyrim was an immensely popular game. I played it pretty thoroughly, and as far as I could tell, women and men were free to explore their lives as they saw fit and no one in the game universe seemed to think anything of it. No one was bound by any sort of gendered expectation of how they should live their lives.

I mean, you still see sex-based phrases such as "They lost a lot of good men that day", where men = soldiers, or the whole "Sons of Skyrim", but in the end, those are minor points.

The main point is that there were no qualities of a person that defined them as a strong man or woman, there were just qualities that defined strong people.

That is a very strong feminist value that was injected into a game, and again, unless you're one of those people who said "Aela the Huntress should be mopping floors, not fighting with the companions", then you probably didn't notice it.


It's not about just cramming female characters into everything. It's not about making exceptionalized females who say "Pff, don't be a GIRL." It's about creating settings and worlds in which human beings are free to explore their lives as they see fit with no gendered restrictions. And when you play a game that does this, it doesn't feel like you're playing a game that does this. Unless of course the developers slap you across the face with it.

It's unfortunate that the majority of people in the gaming community (and many other communities, to be honest) stick to the false image of feminism that has been painted for them. If you take a little bit of time to research and understand the political movement, you generally find a lot of your previous doubts debunked. The problem with discussions about feminism on sites like this is that most of the people who choose to engage in them have never actually looked into feminist theory from primary sources. As such, the conversations inevitably become:

"Here is my argument to stop feminism in its tracks!"

vs.

"Here is information on feminism 101."

And no one gets anywhere.

 

[Lukirre]

It doesn't, and games like Dragon's Crown, Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball or even Rapeplay don't impact anyone either. Not even feminists. Can we agree on that at least?

Let's say I walk into a convention about astrophysics. I decide that, since I know very little about stars, that the Sun is not a star. Quite the opposite, our Sol is a Sun and nothing more. Suns aren't stars!

Now, the evidence is out there that our Sun is in fact a star, but I haven't chosen to look at it. I blew it off, considered it not worth my time, so on and so forth. The people in this convention are trying to explain to me why I am wrong, but they're using all these arguments that sound like they just plunged them out of their assholes. Ridiculous. They try to throw out some sources, but ah, I've never heard of them so how can I trust them?

Just ridiculous, really.

 

[Lukirre]

Except nobody has given me a source that these cause harm or impact anyone. Nothing. It's just people insisting that it's so and expecting me to believe them because they insist hard enough.

And this isn't some feminist convention where your ideas will be taken for granted, you have to actually prove your claims here. Like what actual scientists would have to do.

Crazy isn't it?

I'm too lazy to type this out again so I'm just going to quote myself.

The problem with discussions about feminism on sites like this is that most of the people who choose to engage in them have never actually looked into feminist theory from primary sources. As such, the conversations inevitably become:

"Here is my argument to stop feminism in its tracks!"

vs.

"Here is information on feminism 101."

And no one gets anywhere.

 

[Vegosiux]

...Except the largest demographics group in gaming is female Casual Game players, a genre of game that is lucky to include even a single character, let alone one with any complexity to them. Large numbers of gamer girls don't play the more main-stream AAA titles - now, I'm just hazarding a guess here, but don't you think that it's because AAA gaming doesn't appeal to women at all, with advertisements focusing on 'DUDESPLOSIONS!' or 'TITANIC TREMBLING TITTIES OF TITILATION!'?

And here's the issue that keeps frustrating me. Sure, those might be casual videogames, but they are still videogames, a significant part of the videogame industry in fact. A significant part that can't have this bigotry problem because it's designed in a way that would make it rather hard to have it. And hence my rant on the need for qualifiers and for people to stop just blanketing the entire medium, the entire industry with a broad generalization.

Seriously, here's a fun little game to play for you less apathetic people is to go to Youtube, look up video game advertisements for Main-Stream video games and wait to see how long it takes for a female character who isn't sexualized or Plot-Point Prisoner to show up - you'd be surprised how fucking long that takes to occur.

Representative for "mainstream videogame industry", not representative of "videogame industry."

You can do another one with game covers - you get a point every time you find one which is 'generic white middle-aged male with 5-o'clock shadow walking away from something while carrying weapon', 2 points for 'Female character with tits and/or arse on cover (double points if both at once)' and 100 points for 'Female character that's actually on the front cover, standing confidently with all her clothes on/anatomy in order and isn't the Last of Us'.

Why exclude TLoU? Isn't it a videogame? Just because it offers a counter-example? My opinion is you should simply give less points for it.

Also how many points do we get for this cover:

Or

Two very significant games that had quite an impact on the industry, and are quite mainstream. I mean, awarding them 0 points would not exactly be a good idea...

It's a fun game, and usually by the end of it you realize why there aren't that many girls in mainstream gaming - because they are literally ignored as a demographic when it comes to advertisement.

Firstly, I agree, the mainstream advertising is in danger of dying of testosterone poisoning these days. But notice how we keep talking about "mainstream", or, the expression I prefer, the "high-profile" and not the entirety of "videogame industry"?

I actually consider the talk about "videogame industry being sexist", with no qualifiers and no elaboration to be rather self-defeating, and defeatist. I mean, to address specific issues like "the best-selling stuff being to saturated with male protagonists and cover-based shooters", people need to get up and do some stuff...while by just raving about how "videogame industry is laced with sexism, that needs to change" they can convince themselves they're "doing their part" and feel good about it, without actually doing anything.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

It doesn't, and games like Dragon's Crown, Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball or even Rapeplay don't impact anyone either. Not even feminists. Can we agree on that at least?

Let's say I walk into a convention about astrophysics. I decide that, since I know very little about stars, that the Sun is not a star. Quite the opposite, our Sol is a Sun and nothing more. Suns aren't stars!

Now, the evidence is out there that our Sun is in fact a star, but I haven't chosen to look at it. I blew it off, considered it not worth my time, so on and so forth. The people in this convention are trying to explain to me why I am wrong, but they're using all these arguments that sound like they just plunged them out of their assholes. Ridiculous. They try to throw out some sources, but ah, I've never heard of them so how can I trust them?

Just ridiculous, really.

Eh? I thought you were arguing FOR feminism. Why are you making an argument against it? Because the person believing the sun isn't a star sounds more like the feminists than the gamers.

 

[Bruce]

A content analysis of images of video game characters from top-selling American gaming magazines showed male characters (83%) are more likely than female characters (62%) to be portrayed as aggressive. Female characters are more likely than male characters to be portrayed as sexualized (60% versus 1%), scantily clad (39% versus 8%) and as showing a mix of sex and aggression (39 versus 1%).

"Video game characters from top-selling American gaming magazines"? That sounds awkwardly worded. And again, when trying to determine a prevalence of something in a medium, you don't only look at the "best selling" stuff.

First, I find this line of thought disingenuous at best considering if we then turned to an analysis of lesser titles you would probably say "Well those games sucked anyway", and second...

Top selling gaming magazines. That tells you the state of games marketing, which is a huge chunk of the overall problem. A lot of games which shouldn't be all that female unfriendly still come off as exactly that not because of anything the developer did but because of decisions taken by publishers.

Consider Evony - that game wasn't rendered female unfriendly because of the content of the actual game, but because of the highly sexualised adverts for it.

 

[wulf3n]

No form of activism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism] that tries to tell a creator what they can and can't create should have any right to exist.

 

[Vegosiux]

First, I find this line of thought disingenuous at best considering if we then turned to an analysis of lesser titles you would probably say "Well those games sucked anyway", and second...

How about we turn to the analysis of those "lesser titles" and you ask me what I thought of them? I think that way you'd have less chance to be completely wrong about what I'd say, because, well, you'd know what I said instead of having to assume what I'd "probably" say.

Or well, if you don't have the time or inclination to do that, we don't have to do it, I'll just ask you to stop assuming what I'd say in that case.

Top selling gaming magazines. That tells you the state of games marketing, which is a huge chunk of the overall problem. A lot of games which shouldn't be all that female unfriendly still come off as exactly that not because of anything the developer did but because of decisions taken by publishers.

A point I never contested, I actually agreed with it. The point I did contest is that the high-profile marketing is representative of the entire videogame industry, and I still maintain that it is not, the same way the best-seller market is not representative of the entire book market.

Consider Evony - that game wasn't rendered female unfriendly because of the content of the actual game, but because of the highly sexualised adverts for it.

Ugh, that game is just an outrage.

 

[Lukirre]

Eh? I thought you were arguing FOR feminism. Why are you making an argument against it? Because the person believing the sun isn't a star sounds more like the feminists than the gamers.

To sum it up, people like to say, "It's your responsibility to prove this to me!", but fail to acknowledge that it is their own personal responsibility to become educated on a subject.

If you were being antagonistic, then you'll probably try to be cute and say "Yep, still sounds like feminism." But it is important to note that this just proves my point.

Aaaaand just to cover all my bases, in the event that you think I'm saying that people who call themselves feminist would never ever not ever not even once do that, I'm not saying that, I'm saying that it proves my point that you've never looked into actual feminist sources.

And of course, if you weren't being antagonistic (or I guess even if you were), it's a bit sad that I have to put the disclaimers afterward, eh? Maybe this can open up a whole new vein of discussion wherein we analyze why people are more likely to attack grammatical slip ups, poor word usage, or utilize "possible message twisting" to suit their needs rather than make a unique argument.

 

[Bruce]

I believe feminism should stay away of games. And that for a simple reason: those who complain about it seem to not know jack about the issue. Let me elaborate: most people defend their complaints with "we're not trying to censor anything and we don't want all T&A (or whatever) to go away, we just want less". Here's the problem though, no one has ever given a percentage of the games in the industry which are actually sexist/women-unfriendly. Let me put some extra emphasis: no-one. How can someone make the claim there is too much of something if they don't know how much of said something there actually is? If you're going to act all self-righteous you better have a good case.

http://www.nouspace.net/dene/475/videogames.pdf

A content analysis of images of video game characters from top-selling American gaming magazines showed male characters (83%) are more likely than female characters (62%) to be portrayed as aggressive. Female characters are more likely than male characters to be portrayed as sexualized (60% versus 1%), scantily clad (39% versus 8%) and as showing a mix of sex and aggression (39 versus 1%).

Great way to prove my point. This doesn't address my point in the slightest.

Great way to illustrate why you claim you never see anyone show facts and figures - its because you plug your ears and yell "lalalalala" whenever anybody does.

One of the almost cliche arguments by feminists for something they find alienates them is that so many female characters tend to be overly sexualised. Here we see figures backing that up to the tune of 60% of female characters who appear in games advertising.

When you couple that with the findings from EEDAR which I know you know about, it becomes pretty clear that facts and figures do actually support the feminist narrative.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them

Looking at a sample of 669 games that had protagonists with discernible genders, only 24 had exclusively female protagonists.

So lets consider - we can see that the vast majority of games have male leads. Of those with female leads, we can see a majority of them are still basically being marketed to men, in a way that a lot of women find a turn-off.

Not only that, those games also receive much less advertising, a quote from that same article:

Games with a female-only protagonist ? [received] only 40% of the marketing budget of male-led games. Less than that, actually.

Oh, but lets pretend its all peaches and cream and all these facts and figures don't exist.

 

[Vegosiux]

Looking at a sample of 669 games that had protagonists with discernible genders, only 24 had exclusively female protagonists.

So lets consider - we can see that the vast majority of games have male leads. Of those with female leads, we can see a majority of them are still basically being marketed to men, in a way that a lot of women find a turn-off.

At best we can see that the vast majority of "games that had protagonists with discernible gender" have male leads. Which is not the same as the vast majority of "games". "Has a protagonist with discernible gender" is a qualifier, it narrows things down to a subset of the entire industry.

As for the point about the marketing, I addressed the issue I have with that in my previous post.

It's not the points you're making that get my goat, it's how people are generalizing them.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Eh? I thought you were arguing FOR feminism. Why are you making an argument against it? Because the person believing the sun isn't a star sounds more like the feminists than the gamers.

To sum it up, people like to say, "It's your responsibility to prove this to me!", but fail to acknowledge that it is their own personal responsibility to become educated on a subject.

I don't know. Sounds kind of like the accusations by feminists of gaming leading to negative views of women or spousal abuse followed by gamers asking for the evidence that supports it.

If you were being antagonistic, then you'll probably try to be cute and say "Yep, still sounds like feminism." But it is important to note that this just proves my point.

Aaaaand just to cover all my bases, in the event that you think I'm saying that people who call themselves feminist would never ever not ever not even once do that, I'm not saying that, I'm saying that it proves my point that you've never looked into actual feminist sources.

And of course, if you weren't being antagonistic (or I guess even if you were), it's a bit sad that I have to put the disclaimers afterward, eh? Maybe this can open up a whole new vein of discussion wherein we analyze why people are more likely to attack grammatical slip ups, poor word usage, or utilize "possible message twisting" to suit their needs rather than make a unique argument.

Unfortunately, "possible message twisting" seems to be unavoidable when it comes to this topic. If I were to be childish then I'd blame it on the person that kicked off this debate about sexism in gaming more than a year ago since she seems to love doing it. If I were to be mature though then I'd blame the natural proclivity of discussions like these to fray nerves to the point that someone slips up somehow.