So it seems Hotline Miami 2 has rape in it...

[NKRevan]

So many people complaining that movies, TV and books can get away with things, but not games.

I'd like to remind everyone that games have agency. Other media doesn't. That's a major difference, especially in the eyes of those who watch like hawks for what the gaming industry does.

And there is a difference. After all, in most posts comparing games to movies (and other media) we praise the fact that in games, you can influence the world. You can influence the story. You can make decisions that the movies and TV take away from you. You are not passive, you ARE the person doing those things.

Not saying I think this particular instance should be banned or shouldn't be. I honestly haven't made up my mind about it yet. Just wanted to point out a comparison to other forms of media is a little weak when most of the time we praise games for the big DIFFERENCE from other media.

 

[dudlerand]

Why would anyone be so broadly opposed to an artist incorporating rape into their material? Voicing concerns I get, but requesting something to be removed without even having proper context just seems borderline fanatical. Besides, it's not as though rape is any worse than many forms of torture, which I seem to recall being in the first game.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Aren't the real victims of murder the surviving relatives of the murdered? Couldn't you upset the mother of a boy who was murdered in cold blood?

I'll actually swing the otherway, I don't think any entertainment medium should ever really try to tackle anything super serious as to try to have an impact on people. Regardless of the material or how it's presented, so long as there is a fictional narrative at play it will always indirectly end up glamorizing it.

At that point though you lose the ability to invoke the personal first person memories though because youre referring to a first person by stander. Not to mention theres a huge difference and variation in murders and assaults. Ive been held at knife point yet holding another person at knifepoint in game doesnt ever flash me back or make me uncomfortable thinking about the shitty situation. Its just too disconnected. The action is to general and impersonal for me. It didnt violate me at all in any serious way. I cant imagine someone who had a family member murdered will ALWAYS be traumatized by the mention of any sort of death or killing. Theres too much of a disconnect. Now if the exact scenario was simulated almost perfectly and played out over and over by different people maybe. Then the disconnect might disappear. Killing in games isnt messy either, its usually made swift and glamorized for the younger audience to the point where its very hard to link it in your mind to a real scenario. I think seeing a real headshot would disgust most people. I think movie bob did a video about it. We dont get traumatized by fake violence because we are used to it. I dont think we are used to fake rape. People who that might utterly traumatize dont have barriers against it. We could change this i suppose. I just dont see a compelling reason to do so. Like you said its usually handled very fucking poorly in entertainment.

I just think rape is more of a psychological damage than any other form of assault. The only way to get close with violence is being third party to a personal murder. And even then youre not involved as the victim or perp so its not the same as actually BEING an active part of a rape. Not to mention the potential scenario could vary wildly with a murder, less so for a rape. I imagine most rapes have a lot of things in common. Ive read personal diaries of a few victims of rape in some best selling auto biographies and they are chillingly similar but this is anecdotal so i dont want to state that as fact. Its easier to recreate the "general" rape than the "general" murder in my opinion. I could be wrong though it just seems theres less room for variation. Its easier to hit home with something too much like the real thing.

I think some VERY rare pieces of media handle the idea of rape well. However some try too hard not to glamorize it and just do the lazy "Look the villain is a rapist so he is evil" shtick which feels a little contrived.

 

[dudlerand]

Why would anyone be so broadly opposed to an artist incorporating rape into their material? Criticism I get, but requesting something to be removed without even having proper context just seems borderline fanatical. Besides, it's not as though rape is any worse than many forms of torture, which I seem to recall being in the first game.

Someone asked this question of the one person on Twitter who actually objected to the inclusion of the scene, and they responded. Not saying I even necessarily agree with them, but in case you wanted an answer:

"Sexual violence occurs far more often in real life than the hyper-violent murders shown in Hotline Miami, and there are far more survivors of this sexual violence playing these games than there are survivors of murder. These depictions, 'dramatizations' or not, have a very real threat of inducing traumatic stress in victims. If you don't agree, that's fine, but I'm asking for very little (a second or two removed at most) so that survivors of sexual violence can play these games without having to worry about having their trauma dug back up. The use of rape in storylines is acceptable so long as it's handled tastefully - but graphically depicting the act and having it performed by the playing character, I believe, is far more likely to cause trauma."

They were then asked whether or not the weird forms of torture in the game should also be removed, since a very small minority of people who might play the game are survivors of torture:

"I don't think it is, no. It would be folly to try and make a game suitable to be played by everyone. I would add that the hyper-violence in Hotline is much more integral to the game, and un-realistic, than rape is."

Again, this "controversy" isn't in an article or actually on any gaming website or anything. It's two random people (one has 56 followers, the other has precisely 2) having a casual conversation about something on Twitter. I think it speaks volumes that The Escapist forums' ears were pricked up high enough to dig out this fairly innocuous exchange and treat it like some kind of massive controversy.

Eh, sounds like he/she's just marginalizing people for the sake of his/her own agenda, especially considering that victims of extreme violence (not just torture) can also suffer from PTSD and develop triggers, and the violence depicted in games like Hotline could probably set some people off. I also shouldn't think it is the artist's responsibility to censor their work to accommodate other people. I think putting up a trigger warning would be more logical (like they do for epilepsy). Oh well. That person is certainly entitled to their own opinion.

Either way, I was speaking about anyone who might wish to broadly censor this sort of thing, which is why I never mentioned the word controversy or implied that multiple people verifiably thought that (though I don't doubt that others might share that individual's general sentiment).

 

[dudlerand]

Eh, sounds like she's just marginalizing people for the sake of her own agenda, especially considering that victims of extreme violence (not just torture) can also suffer from PTSD and develop triggers, and the violence depicted in games like Hotline could probably set some people off. I also shouldn't think it is the artist's responsibility to censor their work to accommodate other people. I think putting up a trigger warning would be more logical (like they do for epilepsy).

I more or less agree with this.

Either way, I was speaking about anyone who might which to broadly censor this sort of thing, which is why I never mentioned the word controversy or implied more than even one person thought that (though I don't doubt that others might share that individual's sentiment).

The trouble is, this thread is full of people responding to an outrage that hasn't actually happened. It creates the false impression that there's been some kind of to-do over the preview, where there hasn't been one at all.

I mean, if I suddenly said, "I just don't understand why anyone would want to put a pumpkin on their head, write "AWESOME MAN!" in lipstick on their chest and go dancing down Broadway," then you'd probably assume that someone had actually done this and that I wasn't just saying it for fun. Obviously I don't understand why anyone would do the Pumpkinhead Awesome Man thing but I wouldn't be very likely to comment on it unless it was an actual thing that had happened.

You say they're responding to an "outrage", but if I'm at all representative then hardly anyone is claiming it to be one.

Besides, I never claimed that the comment was random either. I did state " more than even one person". I'd imagined one who'd read this far into the thread could infer that I'm referencing the twitter conversation that contain the perspective I was specifically criticizing in my comment, and encompassing anyone who might share said perspective in my views. All I said in my previous comment is that I never mentioned a controversy or stated that multiple people claimed to be in favor of what the tweet stated.

Look, if someone makes a comment in the beginning of a thread and a bunch of people respond to them disagreeing, it's not as though that comment is suddenly an object of this huge, swirling controversy. It seems like the only reason this is being viewed as problematic in its pseudo-controversial status is because people are commenting about a tweet instead of an escapist post, and somebody made a youtube video. Well people have been known to make youtube videos about pretty much anything, and cross forum commentary also isn't particularly rare. Honestly, until a person fails to clarify the source of the comment while simultaneously stating "this perspective has been voiced by multiple people", or "this was said by someone important", then it shouldn't be their responsibility to clarify how big of a deal the thing they're talking about is. Even at that point, it becomes THEIR responsibility to clarify, not the person commenting after them who made no such claim.

 

[Smeatza]

I cant imagine someone who had a family member murdered will ALWAYS be traumatized by the mention of any sort of death or killing.

I can't speak for all circumstances but I've yet to meet a parent who's lost a child to violent crime who doesn't experience this.

 

[kuolonen]

I wonder if I might be able to one day understand why people say with a straight face: "rape is worse than murder"

But it is not this day. This day I just wonder how the hell people like that are considered mentally fit enough to be allowed to interact with society.

"It should be removed because it cause mental stress for people who have experienced rape"? What. If you are oh-so-delicate, that that seeing bunch of pixels reenact terrible thing done to you will unhinge you, then maybe games where people are getting their intestines gutted out aren't for you in the first place?

 

[Six Ways]

Someone else will have to dig up the link, but research has been done to show that babies are attracted to stereotypical toys even from as early as one-day old. Which presents something of a problem if you wish to state that all gender identity is societal, and none of it is biological.

I'd be very interested to see that. In all honesty though I have a certain skepticism about it. That said - I'm certainly not claiming all gender identity is societal. But I do suspect that it's a bigger influence than people generally assume.

And as Yuuki mentioned, our most gender equal societies, who have invested quite a lot of money into trying to shift these demographics, end up with no more equal numbers than societies that make no effort at all and would be regarded as pretty sexist.

These sort of schemes are not what I'm talking about - or at least, not if they don't change attitudes.

What practical measures would you suggest?

The debate the games industry is having is a good start. Attempting to interest more women in game design, and also lower the barriers for those who are already interested but find the industry hostile. Attempting to combat the image that gaming is a boys' club. Specific methods to do these? Not sure off the top of my head, but it's the kind of thing people are starting to talk about.

Artists have their ideals solely in mind when creating their art. It's the reason why Van Gogh's The Scream possesses a specific color palette: it was designed that way. It holds a distinct purpose. If he were to come back to life after all this time and say "Yeah, that smudge on the canvas was actually from where I dropped my cigarette, so I'm actually going to remove it," it wouldn't be the same image. It would not be a complete work of art.

Once more, my first post explicitly stated my support for this rape scene. I think it furthers the message of the game and is appropriate. If artists include things for a genuine, artistic reason, then sure. I might not agree with them, and I might criticise them, but if they've honestly considered it then that's their choice to make. If someone has blithely included something because they thought it was cool, without it being part of their artistic vision as such, then perhaps they should think about it a bit more. I.e. not everything in a game has to be an important part of the artistic vision.

But more than that, my intent is to change things in the future rather than necessarily scrub out bits of existing art. To bring a developers attention to troubling aspects of their existing work, and perhaps have them say "Oh yeah, I see what you mean..." and end up with different artistic intent for the next project, is progression and not censorship.

 

[Xakk Zeliff]

Well I would imagine it's just the fact that there's a depiction of sex itself in a game that's not glossed, romanticized and sugar coated. How many games do you know of that even hint at the kind of wild, animal, hungry sex that everyone wants but no one wants to talk about? There's a stereotype that gamers are sexually self repressed because they can't 'get any' or are inadequate, thus becoming coy and shameful when the subject floats by. Some people are encouraging that stereotype, inadvertently, it seems.
It won't look good for the medium if every time something aggressively sexual is portrayed, it's dragged behind horses. That leads to artists trying to sneak examples past the critics (or hurl them past a la Mortal Kombat in a bygone era). And guess which examples usually get that treatment? Yes, the most extreme ones, and in this category, that would be violent rape.

That said, on the subject of putting rape itself in a game like this:

Urethral baby-rape vore

That's a phrase that can find a relevant result on the internet, which you are on RIGHT NOW (!). I'm pretty sure as far as exploring topics, violent rape has pretty thoroughly been broached. It's too late not to portray it, as if that could ever have been prevented in the first place. The point of video games like HM is to allow us an outlet for out desire to explore and experiment with subjects; Video games allow for types of both that are unavailable in other media. It's not just the artist making a comment on a subject, it's the peruser taking that comment, and saying it in their own words, within the artwork. It's an outlet for the desire to experience these scenarios, without actually doing so in the world on this side of the screen.

Now if we allow that outlet for murder, theft, torture, treason, mass destruction, assault, poisoning, demonic magic, genocide, and sexual harassment, but absolutely not for sexual assault...what do you expect the outcome of that policy to be?

(PS that said, please do go out and 'experience' an hour of exercise a day. Also, sorry about the google metatag.)

 

[Six Ways]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8624999.stm

Here is the story about the study, I am far too lazy to go looking for the actual study itself, but I am sure you could find it armed with the doctors names.

Well, just from that there are a few points to make. Firstly, it's from 9 months. Secondly, one of the authors is quoted as saying:

Children of this age are already subject to a great deal of socialisation, but these findings are consistent with the idea of an intrinsic bias in children to show interest in particular kinds of toys.

So while she says it's "consistent" with the idea of intrinsic bias, she also implies it's consistent with a socialisation model. It's somewhat inconclusive in that sense.

I'd also say there's a big red flag that they include gendered colours in that. Given that 100 years ago, pink was for boys and blue was for girls. So it seems far more likely the colour aspect is explained by socialisation, which suggests at least the possibility and IMO the probability that the other aspects could also be socialisation.

 

[oreso]

-snip-

I do appreciate your scepticism. I'll try and answer as best I can.

I found a reference to the one-day-old research, but my quick Googling has failed to get the research itself. But for what it is worth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathizing%E2%80%93systemizing_theory#Evolutionary_explanations_for_sex_differences

It seems like a small thing, but still. We're talking quite small trends that add up over time.

Obviously the research that would distinguish between biological biases and societal ones with utter certainty is hard to even conceive, never mind carry out. Especially when the effects of those biases are social, so we can only see most of the results once children have started to socialise. But those tests at least seem like a start.

But consider, if every culture on earth throughout all of recorded history, and even including our close genetic cousins like chimpanzees, they all share similar biases. And if extensive government programs do not help either... then it does suggest at least some genetic predisposition.

-----

Removing more gendered barriers, wherever they exist, is great. But especially with indie gaming (which is what we're talking about here of course) where the barrier to entry for anyone is so low (you basically just need to want to do it, want to learn how to do it, and have a computer), what room is there to discriminate? Many games designers remain effectively anonymous as it is.

My advice for anyone who is getting annoyed by the lack of women in game design is to first question why there aren't also annoyed by the lack of female sewage workers or miners. My next suggestion to them would be to become a games designer themselves and work with women and be the change they want to see.

-----

Ultimately, the question of whether gender biases are biological or societal is only of interest if you want to do some wide-scale social engineering, since of course, we should be treating everyone equal regardless. As long as individuals are making free choices, and no one is being prevented from pursuing the career they want, then I don't think we have cause to worry. Intrinsic gender symmetry might be aesthetically pleasing on a graph, but it just might not be reality. Reality might be that we're a sexually dimorphic species who evolved to suit different roles, and even aspects of our psychology are subtly broadly different to reinforce this.

Such as, as I think is shown throughout this thread, I believe we're hard-wired to care more about the harm to women than the harm to men.

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

You would think so, but you would be wrong. Refer to the twitter discussion between Söderström and Blackclaw FM.

So wait... a single person (with 56 followers, the horror!) on Twitter had an amicable conversation with the dev about the scene and somehow this qualifies as a controversy? Man, the gaming community must be really bored right now. Can we have another Mass Effect game with a crap ending, please?

But if them feminists aren't trying to take our fun away at every point, how can we be upset about them!?

BTW, you messed up the quotes, that wasn't me saying that.

You... I like you guys. I definitely agree with you. Like you've said, my main two problems with situations like this are:

A) People trying to protray it as an extreme controversy and then roll their eyes at how "offended" people are, even when nothing's really happening. Or turning any controversy, no matter how small, into a completely absolutist argument where you either don't care at all or want the game to be completely destroyed.

B) People acting like complaints are censorship. Basically, what if Twitter and Tumblr and the rest of the internet really did burst into flames over a game, about how "offensive" it is? Well, nothing would actually be changed unless someone with power over the game did something about it. In this case that would most likely either be a game designer, or someone from a downloadable retailer like Steam deciding not to sell it. I can't really imagine a retailer refusing to sell a game because of an online controversy (if that actually happens, we can discuss it then), so that just leaves a game designer. And this leads us to the whole "artistic vision" thing.

I'm of the opinion that if someone changes their artistic creation because of complaints, it's either because they were persuaded by them or they just wanted to do whatever they thought would be the most popular or successful. If it's the former of those two, who are you to tell the creator that they were wrong to listen to another point of view? If it's the latter, well, I think we can agree that their artistic vision wasn't all that valuable to them in the first place.

Quite frequently when I hear people complaining about political correctness gone mad, or over sensitivity, or people being easily offended, I stop to think whether there's actually any censorship involved. By censorship, in this context I mean someone with power over a person making a statement using that power to prevent a statement they disagree with from being heard/seen/put in a game/whatever[footnote]My God that's an unwieldy sentence, but I can't think of a better way to say "censorship, but not the literal kind that involves governments."[/footnote]. Generally speaking, there's no such force at work. No one appears to be censoring games like Hotline Miami, no one's censoring comedy, no one's censoring the internet in general (at least, not censoring "controversies" like this). So what are people afraid of? People keep saying that someone being "offended" is meaningless, while simultaneously acting as if it's such a damning action that it will censor a game via some kind of latent psychic manipulation or something.

 

[Lieju]

Well I would imagine it's just the fact that there's a depiction of sex itself in a game that's not glossed, romanticized and sugar coated. How many games do you know of that even hint at the kind of wild, animal, hungry sex that everyone wants but no one wants to talk about? There's a stereotype that gamers are sexually self repressed because they can't 'get any' or are inadequate, thus becoming coy and shameful when the subject floats by. Some people are encouraging that stereotype, inadvertently, it seems.
It won't look good for the medium if every time something aggressively sexual is portrayed, it's dragged behind horses. That leads to artists trying to sneak examples past the critics (or hurl them past a la Mortal Kombat in a bygone era). And guess which examples usually get that treatment? Yes, the most extreme ones, and in this category, that would be violent rape.

Please, do not equate rape with sex.

I want more sex in games, and I want it (and subjects like rape) portrayed in a mature way. But it is pretty gross (and more than little scary) you'd equate 'rape' with something that 'everyone wants but no-one wants to talk about'.

The problem is that putting rape in something is more acceptable than having characters engage in consensual sex, generally speaking.

Basically, what if Twitter and Tumblr and the rest of the internet really did burst into flames over a game, about how "offensive" it is? Well, nothing would actually be changed unless someone with power over the game did something about it. In this case that would most likely either be a game designer, or someone from a downloadable retailer like Steam deciding not to sell it.

In the case of this particular game, I'd say they'd be happy about the controversy, since it's that kind of game.
Now, if it was something marketed as family-friendly, their reaction would be different.

 

[Mr F.]

Oh, so women not being interested in Programming/3D Design and choosing other careers = societal sexism.
Lack of male interest in becoming social workers = societal sexism.
Lack of female interest in F1 Racing = societal sexism.
Lack of male interest in becoming nurses = societal sexism.
Lack of female interest in becoming construction workers = societal sexism.
Lack of male interest in the beauty industry = societal sexism

Um, basically yeah. Considering, for example, from birth we get boys to play with cars and girls to play with dolls, is it that much of a stretch to ask how much gender difference may, in fact, be non-biological?

There are certainly non-biological factors at work. Unfortunately, there also seems to be some significant biological ones.

Someone else will have to dig up the link, but research has been done to show that babies are attracted to stereotypical toys even from as early as one-day old. Which presents something of a problem if you wish to state that all gender identity is societal, and none of it is biological.

Bullshit. No, seriously, bullshit. You cannot put the burden of proof on someone else. You know what? I will just crack out the last year of sociology at the best Uni for it in the North of England and one of the best Uni's in the country (In the top ten these days).

Gender is societal. Sex is biological. Gender is learned. Gender is a combination of Repetition, Citation and Representation (Butler). Like any form of identity, it is built up over time. To badly paraphrase, "Identity is revealed to us as something to be invented rather than discovered" (Bauman). The difference between the biological sexes will have no effect on the toys that a child will choose at a very young age, an experiment to try and prove this would be inherently unethical (EDIT: Sorry, I did not explain that. I could, if I wanted to, it would just take ages and I need a coffee first. Might need to bounce things off me mate doing PPE or just find the notes I made a year or two ago). You say from as early as "Day One", strange that at a time in which children have no concept of permanence (Several years of Psych, because I could), that they have the ability to recognise what is and is not a male or female choice!

Find the study. Seriously, Find it. Don't say "Someone else will have to find the link for me because I am lazy", find it. And remember, that Psychology (Which is what you are referring to there) is out of date within 20 years, if you are being generous.

And as Yuuki mentioned, our most gender equal societies, who have invested quite a lot of money into trying to shift these demographics, end up with no more equal numbers than societies that make no effort at all and would be regarded as pretty sexist.

Just means more needs to be done, also bullshit. Numbers plox.

It's not that people haven't tried it. Or that everyone is being tricked or cajoled into acting according to their gender role. Large numbers of people just appear to freely choose it.

But still, of course, with game developers, we don't need vast numbers of people to create games. So I don't think it's a total loss or anything.

What practical measures would you suggest?

Sorry for jumping in on your discussion. I just saw your above pseudoscience quote and needed to step in. Well, wanted to. Its been a lazy day of being in bed so I though I would do something partially productive. Sorry, it is simply wrong to state that kids "As young as one day old" already choose gendered toy's.

 

[Carrots_macduff]

I doubt the controversy will reach any further than forum posts like these simply because its a low/no budget indie game, when was the last time a mainstream news outlet reported on a game controversy that wasnt related to a game with mainstream appeal?

Only the mass effects and mortal kombats and grand thefts autos get that sort of attention.

As for my opinion on the content itself, im going to wait to experience it before I decide how I feel about it.

 

[oreso]

Bullshit. No, seriously, bullshit.

Find the study. Seriously, Find it. Don't say "Someone else will have to find the link for me because I am lazy", find it.

Sorry for my laziness. I found a link in my previous post, just a few posts above yours. But here's some more details that I've just found:

Spoiler: Click for details of the experiment, from healthfully.org

Simon Baron-Cohen and his associates at the University of Cambridge took a different but equally creative approach to addressing the influence of nature versus nurture regarding sex differences. Many researchers have described disparities in how "people-centered" male and female infants are. For example, Baron-Cohen and his student Svetlana Lutchmaya found that one-year-old girls spend more time looking at their mothers than boys of the same age do. And when these babies are presented with a choice of films to watch, the girls look longer at a film of a face, whereas boys lean toward a film featuring cars.

Of course, these preferences might be attributable to differences in the way adults handle or play with boys and girls. To eliminate this possibility, Baron-Cohen and his students went a step further. They took their video camera to a maternity ward to examine the preferences of babies that were only one day old. The infants saw either the friendly face of a live female student or a mobile that matched the color, size and shape of the student's face and included a scrambled mix of her facial features. To avoid any bias, the experimenters were unaware of each baby's sex during testing. When they watched the tapes, they found that the girls spent more time looking at the student, whereas the boys spent more time looking at the mechanical object. This difference in social interest was evident on day one of life--implying again that we come out of the womb with some cognitive sex differences built in.

And I understand more can be found in The Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, OUP 2007, Chapter 16

I'm making no claim to be an expert (my wife has the training in psychology, not I). I'm only presenting it as a possibility.

Just means more needs to be done, also bullshit. Numbers plox.

Forgive me, but that sounds like an unfounded axiom. No matter how much action is taken (short of direct coercion and quotas), there might not ever be any significant change in the numbers, if indeed there are biological trends at work here. But even then, you would insist more and yet more would need to be done?

I used to believe in a solely constructed gender too, at least with regards to behaviour like occupational choices, but my wife's work and this documentary convinced me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70

Sorry for jumping in on your discussion. I just saw your above pseudoscience quote and needed to step in. Well, wanted to. Its been a lazy day of being in bed so I though I would do something partially productive. Sorry, it is simply wrong to state that kids "As young as one day old" already choose gendered toy's.

No problem at all ^_^ Hopefully I've shed a little more light on what I was referring to.

Please understand, that I am completely for equal opportunities for everyone, and I do not think we are there yet. But that is not say that when we do have equal opportunities that we will necessarily have equal numbers of men and women doing the same thing. And that this is not a problem, as long as everyone had the opportunity and chose freely.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

Well I hate to say it but I don't really mind. The point of Hotline Miami is bad people who do bad things for whatever reason... And let's be honest, the rapist guy is probably gonna get murdered horribly.

 

[Sunrider]

Well, in New Reno the hookers you can hook up with are well known to be Jet addicts, and according to most hooking up with a person of impaired senses such as those on drugs is rape even if they consent, then I would say yes, most of the sex in Fallout is rape.

Without knowing more details or the background of whatever people you have sex with in that game, I would say "we can't make that assumption". Drug addicts or not, there is never any implication towards them being heavily impaired or not. Whatever our thoughts on prostitution might be, I'd say you need a little bit more evidence than that to call it rape.

 

[Six Ways]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathizing%E2%80%93systemizing_theory#Evolutionary_explanations_for_sex_differences

Interesting stuff. I can well believe that male and female brains have certain differences like this ingrained, given different areas of the brain do different jobs (systemising vs empathy, to use the terminology of that theory). That said, without more in-depth stuff I would still expect that sociological effects are profound.

But consider, if every culture on earth throughout all of recorded history, and even including our close genetic cousins like chimpanzees, they all share similar biases.

Certainly biology has a primary role in why society is as it is. Clearly, male dominance is almost ubiquitous, which must stem from biology since biology existed before society! But that could, for example, just mean the generally superior strength of males has set things up this way, rather than males actually being better at certain things.

But especially with indie gaming where the barrier to entry for anyone is so low, what room is there to discriminate?

Well, I'd agree it's a lot easier than the AAA industry. But that doesn't mean there isn't discrimination of a sort. This is one of those "not in a vacuum" things. Women may be generally deterred from making games for a number of reasons. Unwelcoming audience, their own assumption that women shouldn't make games, other people encouraging or expecting them to do something more "womanly", etc.

Ultimately, the question of whether gender biases are biological or societal is only of interest if you want to do some wide-scale social engineering, since of course, we should be treating everyone equal regardless. As long as individuals are making free choices, and no one is being prevented from pursuing the career they want, then I don't think we have cause to worry.

I absolutely agree. However - asking those questions is a great way to see if we are artificially influencing their choices. We might think it's ok that few women make games, but then find out there's no biological reason that should be so. In which case, it's likely we're doing something to artificially restrict choices.

Beyond that, I might have to leave this to Mr F, as he seems to know more about this than me. Although I would say, I don't think the somewhat aggressive tone is helpful...

I'm of the opinion that if someone changes their artistic creation because of complaints, it's either because they were persuaded by them or they just wanted to do whatever they thought would be the most popular or successful. If it's the former of those two, who are you to tell the creator that they were wrong to listen to another point of view? If it's the latter, well, I think we can agree that their artistic vision wasn't all that valuable to them in the first place.

This is exactly what I've been trying to say in response to the "self-censorship" fallacy, but you've said it way better. So thanks for that!

 

[oreso]

Thank you very much for your reasoned response. ^_^

Ultimately, the question of whether gender biases are biological or societal is only of interest if you want to do some wide-scale social engineering, since of course, we should be treating everyone equal regardless. As long as individuals are making free choices, and no one is being prevented from pursuing the career they want, then I don't think we have cause to worry.

I absolutely agree. However - asking those questions is a great way to see if we are artificially influencing their choices. We might think it's ok that few women make games, but then find out there's no biological reason that should be so. In which case, it's likely we're doing something to artificially restrict choices.

That's all fair enough. We should be asking these questions. But I'd say we really are asking those questions quite aggressively now (even at the expense of other questions which I believe are equally pertinent).

And many people seem to come with the prejudice that unless we have a 50/50 outcome, then there -must- be discrimination and bias, even to the point of disregarding hard evidence to the contrary. And some of those people are in governments. I know most of the people here aren't considering quotas and other sexist policies, but these laws already do exist in some places.

Spoiler: A small example you might find interesting

The National Union of Students elects its representatives with free votes. Female students actually outnumber male students, but still few female representatives are elected each year.

Now, this raises interesting questions: Why weren't more females stepping forward? And why were both female and male voters choosing to vote male? Is it perceived charisma? Simple gender role assumptions? I don't know. Some encouragement might've helped, and if not, well, everyone involved is making free and democratic choices. There were certainly no barriers here. And these are University students after all, if we can't trust these guys to make intelligent informed decisions, there might not be a lot of hope for us.

But instead, some Universities have introduced a quota. A certain number of representatives must be female, regardless of the votes. Now some representatives are elected not because people voted for them, but because of their reproductive organs. This does not help the men who should've rightfully been elected based on what people actually wanted. Nor does it help the women who wish to be taken seriously as a candidate equal to her male colleagues.

I would say, regardless of whether the causes of the original imbalance are purely societal or a mix of biological and social trends, it really doesn't matter. We should be treated equally under the law and given equal opportunities, regardless of gender, regardless of outcome.

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Well, I'd agree it's a lot easier than the AAA industry. But that doesn't mean there isn't discrimination of a sort. This is one of those "not in a vacuum" things. Women may be generally deterred from making games for a number of reasons. Unwelcoming audience, their own assumption that women shouldn't make games, other people encouraging or expecting them to do something more "womanly", etc.

I'm of the opinion that if someone changes their artistic creation because of complaints, it's either because they were persuaded by them or they just wanted to do whatever they thought would be the most popular or successful. If it's the former of those two, who are you to tell the creator that they were wrong to listen to another point of view? If it's the latter, well, I think we can agree that their artistic vision wasn't all that valuable to them in the first place.

This is exactly what I've been trying to say in response to the "self-censorship" fallacy, but you've said it way better. So thanks for that!

I'd like to contrast these two points. The message I take is: we can give women/artists/whoever as much input as we want, in order to influence their decision (short of direct interference such as coercion/censorship/etc). But at the end of the day, we have to leave them to make their own decision.

If artists want to continue to create art featuring sexy women, as much as we're bored/offended by it, we can't and shouldn't insist otherwise. Including shaming tactics or blaming them for wider issues.

If women want to choose a profession that goes along with a traditional gender role, as much as we might want 50/50 outcomes, we can't and shouldn't insist otherwise. Including shaming tactics, or blaming them for wider issues (except we don't blame the women who make the choice of course, we blame all the men around them).

Cheers!