The opposite of feminism in gaming?

[Fintago]

You know, every time one of these threads come up it seems like a whole bunch of people take a pro feminist side against the "legions of neckbeards" and very few people actually saying that things are just fine the way they are, don't change them.

It kinda feels like people are inventing an enemy that doesn't exist.

 

[Boogie Knight]

The opposite of feminism in gaming... Isn't that RapeLay? You play a sociopath who does terrible things to innocent people because one of his victims was not cool with being an object for his personal gratification. I'd say that creepy game is everything feminists are railing against.

Yet, compared to a game like Bayonetta or Lollipop Chainsaw, the oversexed games we normally see are relatively naive. There are issues which need ammending, like the hesitance of game companies to back games with female protagonists or letting major female characters even occupy the cover with the leading man are good examples. Hell, Clementine from TellTale's Walking Dead game is a better written character than most of the dick swinging heroes of today's AAA games.

What's wrong with depictions of gaming women could use rational discussion, but moreso, good examples like Clementine need to be put on a pedestal. The game industry is an industry and so has a hard time being imaginative. That's why when great female characters show up the fans to be like, "THIS!! This is what we're begging for, you myopic, risk-averse jerks!"

 

[tardcore]

The core problem I see with this subject is the personal definitions of what individuals are talking about are so varied its hard for anyone to find common ground, let alone understand the other factions point of view. This problem isn't helped by many on both sides thinking that merely shouting their opinions at each other louder and louder is the proper way of getting one's point across.

 

[Colt47]

Are we sure there is a anti-feminism movement, or just another extension of the inherent distrust of other people that is perpetuating through the United States and some other parts of the world? Personally, I'll take the anti-feminism movement over what is brewing up from manipulative marketing and anti-consumerism from corporations.

 

[The Lyre]

Except that's not actually true. Gender-stratified roles through history have been almost exclusively the domain of the upper classes, who tended to either keep upper class women down or at least misrepresent them afterward (those in power get to write the histories). What we know of most periods of human history for everyone else (<url=http://sandradodd.com/sca/womenandwork>including some with stereotypes in the other direction), not to mention currently existing hunter-gatherer societies, is that human relations tend towards egalitarianism and separate "men's and women's" work is <url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Division_of_labor.aspx>fairly recent.

I'm also trying to think which mammal species leaves violence exclusively to males, unless you're referring only to intraspecies competition for mates. I can't think of any when it comes to hunting or defense, except maybe wild pigs.

Spoiler

I wasn't really specific enough on this - I wasn't referring to how humans want to be in society, I was referring to how humans had to be before society, and how that is believed to impact on our behaviour today.

Like I said, I'm not talking about this from a sociological perspective, but from a biological one.

Everything I've read has said the complete opposite about nomadic tribes today, wherein men fight and hunt, whereas the women gather and protect the children, and to my knowledge, it is still believed that this is how the primitive, prehistoric human animal lived.

That's not really egalitarian, is it? It's clearly defined roles and jobs divided between the two species.

Nor did I say that violence was exclusively left to males, but I did say that in a time of danger or emergency, the men would be expected to protect the women and children.

That said, I also have no idea what you're talking about with hunting - everything I can find on the subject explicitly states that potentially fatal hunting and fighting was left to males; that's violent excursions, rather than protecting something, or fighting for something, or less dangerous forms of hunting. Prehistoric communities are believed to have died out solely because of these - the disproportionate number of men banding together, going out and hunting, could result in so many fatalities that the community no longer had enough men to sustain their numbers - there weren't enough men left to help protect the group.

In mammals, lone males and females will obviously hunt, but as a 'family' unit, a male, his mates, and their offspring, the hunting - and dying - is usually left to the males, whereas the females care for the offspring.

In family units females will sometimes hunt, but, again, as in chimpanzees, it is usually the male that hunts and gathers food, providing a share of this to the female.

There are notable exceptions, but not usually in anything close to primates - again, I wasn't really specific enough there.

The most obvious is in lions and lionesses - but this is pretty much an exact mirror of other mammals. The roles are reversed, but the roles themselves remain exactly the same; bands of females gathering together, hunting and killing to take down prey.

They are not particularly relevant examples, however, because they are apex predators. Even then, however, you're still going to find more female-hunter fatalities than male-protector. They can 'get away' with this because the vital females are far more aggressive and far less likely to die hunting - again, apex predator.

A further distinction here is that not all hunting involves chasing and fighting animals and dying, but again, in prehistoric man, it was definitely the men that were fulfilling this role.

I am not saying that prehistoric man and woman did not share activities, and I understand that even in early societies, of course men and women worked together in agriculture, but primitively speaking, in 'biological gender roles' stereotypically males hunt, whilst females gather - 'hunter-gatherer' doesn't mean equal sharing of those tasks. What primate could possibly send its females out on violent hunting excursions and still expect to survive as a species? Primitive man was not the apex predator - things fought back, and they fought back hard. It would take far fewer female fatalities for the community to collapse than it would male fatalities - that's kind of the whole point of this. Men are genuinely far more disposable - not utterly so, but far more so than females.

I never suggested that these roles are what people wanted, nor am I saying there were never exceptions in human society, but generally speaking, the pregnant female remains safe, whilst the male attempts to provide and protect the mate and potential offspring. We still have the attitude of 'women and children first' today, so I'd say we're still very much influenced by our instincts, even though we don't want to be.

 

[oreso]

TV Tropes is an easy source: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DoubleStandard

Mostly things like all abusers portrayed in media being male and the lesser importance placed upon the torture and killing of men compared to women.

Or, for example, a friend of mine recently described Catwoman's story in Arkham City as "A woman breaks into a prison to steal from, beat up and sexually abuse a group of terrified, maladjusted and brutalised men". This might seem odd and laughable, but reverse the genders and see what it looks like?

Quite often, if a woman is killed in a game, it's a big deal. To the plot, to the hero and to Sarkeesian and other critics. If ten thousand guys get murdered? Pfft. That's just gameplay. ^_^

Thankfully, exceptions exist. So while both genders do seem to have strongly enforced roles in writing, I think it is changing. More diversity in gender roles would be great, just for variety's sake. (Some claim it would have positive social benefits too.. but I'm skeptical of straightforward links between media and social behaviour. But hey, whatever)

Cheers! ^_^

EDIT to add:

What's wrong with depictions of gaming women could use rational discussion, but moreso, good examples like Clementine need to be put on a pedestal. The game industry is an industry and so has a hard time being imaginative. That's why when great female characters show up the fans to be like, "THIS!! This is what we're begging for, you myopic, risk-averse jerks!"

I very much agree.

With all the criticism of the portrayal of female characters (seriously, the scrutiny is MASSIVE, from proportions to clothing to behaviour to personality to story role etc; it's always discussed and it's always a gender issue), it can be scary to include.

Then people need to positive about the good things too. There's plenty of good examples out there, but the crazy scrutiny isn't encouraging.

 

[Ickorus]

This whole topic is just flame bait though, but since it's not in religion and politics maybe it'll stay as a campfire rather than a than an unstoppable blaze....

You've been here a while, you should know better than that.

Though admittedly I haven't spent much time in R&P, they scare me over there, so maybe what I perceive as a raging inferno is quaint compared to what lurks in there.

In regards to the topic at hand:

Some people just don't like Anita, others disagree with her methods and message, for instance I feel like she has already come to her own conclusion and is now simply trying to make connections to support her argument rather than researching it and drawing a conclusion from the compiled research.

The term 'Feminism' has some extremely negative connotations due to radical feminists (Or rather, bigoted man-haters masquerading as feminists) and many people, male and female, immediately have a negative reaction to the term regardless of how reasonable the feminist might be. (I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you truly support equality, use the term egalitarian or equalist when describing yourself)

In regards to the 'It's not as bad as it seems/it doesn't exist anymore' I believe this comes down to miscommunication and innocence rather than anything aggressive.

Some people simply haven't experienced the issue and have never come across it except in anecdotes from people they have never met, you can't blame them for thinking it isn't real.

The others I think mean that it is a lot better than it used to be (My opinion too), in the last couple of years and going forward I think there has been a huge shift in the ethos of the gaming industry in regards to equality and as time goes by and fresh minds come in (and the older, more set in their ways people leave) we'll keep seeing improvements.

Tying into the last point a little bit, blame and name-calling also plays a part in the defensive nature of gamers, I've seen it far too much where people blame the majority of gamers for the actions of a very vocal few (Same problem as the issue with feminism being associated with misandry, funnily enough), I've also seen a lot of people calling others 'privileged'[footnote]Just to add to this without lengthening the paragraph too much: Please don't use this term, it isn't fair because you don't know the life of the person you're accusing (except for gender/race/sexual orientation/etc) and can be extremely offensive and inaccurate.[/footnote] based on their gender or race, which doesn't help. (Specifically when the person they're insulting is only trying to understand or even has made a statement in agreement but perhaps hasn't totally understood)

I'll leave it at that for now, I feel like I'm beginning to ramble and would rather not dilute my point.

In closing: I don't think it's so much the other side as it is people being misinterpreted, misinterpreting an argument, or going on the defensive due to insults.

 

[The White Hunter]

This whole topic is just flame bait though, but since it's not in religion and politics maybe it'll stay as a campfire rather than a than an unstoppable blaze....

You've been here a while, you should know better than that.

I went to R&P twice. Once to throw my 2 pence in on the gun debates, oddly enough people seemed to agree with my rational and well balanced thoughts on the problem. The other time was a sexism thread and I read through and thought to myself "wow, I just don't have the love and tolerance levels necessary to make it here"....

I've been here a while, I know that laid back commie-hippies like me belong in off-topic and gaming discussion.

 

[Something Amyss]

The opposite stance is that the feminists I assume you're referring to are making a mountain out of a molehill. Debating as if the patriarchy is some sort of pervasive force in all things and characters are designed specifically to diminish women as people if missing the point, because those on the other side don't actually think any of that is true.

Which is great, since that's rarely the point being argued. In fact, I'd bet most feminists would come down on the side of that not being true. That's kind of the thing. Feminism is largely met by strawman arguments, intentional misrepresentations of the position that are easier to attack.

However, I would argue that Patriarchy is a pervasive force. It's also a very passive one. Much of this occurs without people thinking about it. There is no grand conspiracy and I doubt there's any active movement. Personally, I even balk at the notion that groups like the Republicans are actually trying to control women or whatnot. I may think their policies are anti-woman, but that doesn't imply conspiracy or whatever.

The problem is less intent and more the end result. Women are treated like shit in gaming, disproportionate to the general public. Looking at why helps people understand, but the why doesn't change the root problem.

Could also be something to do with the fact that there are millions of feminists in the world and unfortunately the hivemind is on the fritz.

Yeah, I haven't received new programming in years now. I need a new chip or something. Unfortunately, without that we are forced to act like some sort of...People or something. Behaving as individuals with our own thoughts and ideas and stuff. Won't someone end the madness?

The term 'Feminism' has some extremely negative connotations due to radical feminists (Or rather, bigoted man-haters masquerading as feminists)

I'd say it has more to do with marketing. The main reason "feminist" has a negative connotation is jerks like Rush Limbaugh who have branded this fantasy world where there's a lot more of those man-haters than actually exist. The same was done with the word "liberal," and we still have folks believing there are hundreds or thousands of "welfare queens" driving luxury cars and popping champagne or some shit completely untouchable by the government unless we somehow further penalise people who are living day to day. Branding is a major thing in our culture.

Sorry to talk politics, but it's hard to address the issue of feminism's connotations without bringing up politics.

 

[Mikeyfell]

The problem isn't sexism (Canned, older than dirt response but still)

The problem is bad writing (Okay... that doesn't make sense...)

Most people who write games aren't good enough to make a character gamers can relate to or sympathies with.
So they cheat, and make them white, male, and straight because the target audience is white straight males! (So how does that relate to women?)

Well what's the laziest way to motivate a straight male? (Boobies!)

Correct! (Well, that still doesn't explain why they always have to make the women in question weak, ineffectual, bland and sexy.)

Well, they have to be sexy because the games industry has so little faith in gamers that they believe that we won't rescue our girlfriend if she's not a super model.

They have to be bland because... bad writing. And now on to weak and ineffectual.


What's the primary method of interaction a standard game protagonist has with his environment? (Shooting it! Stabbing it! or otherwise inflicting harm on it!)

Correct!

So now what ingredients do we have?!?!?!?!?!?

A protagonist who's only characteristics are straight, white, and male.
Who's sole motivation is super hot boring girl.
and who's only means of interacting is "Inflict harm upon"

Now what is the easiest way to connect violence to sex? (Bondage!!!!!)

No! Get your head out of the gutter! (uh... revenge?)

There you go...perv.

Taking that into account the bad guys have to do...something... to her that would incite the protagonist to want to revenge all over them.

And if the woman had any skills or ability that means the bad guys need even more skills and ability and that could potentially intimidate the player, or even worse make them start to think.

And if the player starts thinking they're that much closer to realizing how shit this plot is.

So, bland protagonist, weak girl, dumb bad guys, violence galore, revenge, bada bing bada boom.

And there you have it. A general story frame work guaranteed to make sense to the lowest common denominator of the gaming target audience.

 

[SeanSeanston]

Acknowledging the ways in which patriarchy affects men isn't the opposite of feminism. It IS feminism.

Is that why feminists always care as much about men as women?...

Oh wait.

Women are given the short end of the stick in terms of political power and earning potential

No they're not. The wage gap is a myth that's explainable by personal choices people make. There is nothing stopping women from gaining political power, which may explain why they often do and often did throughout history.

but men and boys also suffer from constrained roles and limits to what is acceptable "masculine" expression.

And Feminists exploit it for personal gain.

Hence why reducing men's employment prospects is fine, because after all... men are so much more capable than women, who cares, right? Oh ****, that contradicts the most basic core concepts of gender equality or (the very different concept of) feminism. Oh noes.

Feminism isn't anti-man, it's anti-patriarchy.

Is it just mere coincidence then that they hold many anti-man positions?

Do they have good intentions, but they're just terrible at what they want to accomplish? And THAT'S why they appear to support false rape and domestic violence accusations?

Feminism has become almost scarily misrepresented by hypocrite misandrists and the likes, and to see the word "Feminism" be so strongly associated with it, really hurts what actual feminism is.

If Feminism is not what virtually all influential people and organizations that identify as "Feminist" practice... then what in the Christ could it possibly be?

Honestly, the old NAFALT argument only goes so far.

If someone said that Nazis were Jew-haters, pointing out that Oskar Schindler wasn't isn't exactly convincing evidence for an entire movement.

Fact is: The vast majority of Feminists who have any sort of exposure or influence whatsoever, do not give two ****s about the often horrific problems that men face. In fact, they give negative ****s by actively working to restrict their rights, label them as some sort of malevolent and powerful enemy, rewriting history with baseless nonsense and ignoring the possibility that they ever have any form of legitimate grievance.

Where are all the Feminists complaining about sexism in domestic violence law and public perception? Why do Feminists not DEMAND men's cancers be given the same level of funding as women's cancers? Why do Feminists support quotas for women to receive high-ranking highly-paid positions regardless of ability? Why is "violence against women" portrayed as a massive social issue, when men experience the vast majority of violence throughout the whole world? I thought we were meant to be treating people equally? Aren't these facts awfully patronising to women?

I think a lot of the time, Feminism isn't considered sexist because people start to ACTUALLY BELIEVE the sexism that Feminism is spreading.

 

[The_Lost_King]

If only I could just insert a clip about Kenji, from Katawa Shoujo, ranting about the vast feminism conspiracy in here. That would be amazing.

 

[SeanSeanston]

Where I live now, there's going to be something like a mandatory 30% of election candidates must be female. Horse****. If they can't compete fairly, then they shouldn't be there. It didn't stop Margaret Thatcher, possibly because she had personal ability and didn't have an inferiority complex.
I flat out refuse to vote for a woman (unless she gives me damn good specific reason) while such sexism exists in the political system. It's not the equal treatment they appeared to be promising me all my life.
Why vote for a woman when you have good reason to believe there is a significant chance she is there for no other reason than she was the right gender? If I vote for a man I know for a fact he wasn't there to make up any numbers at least. As an individual a man has a harder time reaching that point because he gets no preferential treatment (nor is there any political reason to favour a man over a woman; one gets you support, the other gets you derided for sexism).

Why do men get zero quotas, zero preferential treatment, zero increased resources in areas where they're lagging behind?
Because nobody cares about gender equality; it's all a political game, and helping one side gets votes, the other gets nothing.

 

[Mcupobob]

My problem with feminism is that is not about equality anymore. Its about a power struggler and has become more of the battle of the genders than actually addressing any real problems.

Is there still sexism in the western world? Yeah of course there is, theres still the whole glass ceiling that a lot of women have to break through to earn as much as a man. That I believe is a fight worth fighting. Boys only clubs still exist in some facets of our culture still, like gaming. I do believe in breaking down these barriers and get more women involved in the fields of science, technology, politics and creative positions of power to see the female prescriptive in more of our media. However this new age of feminism is going about it the wrong way. They all come off as bitter and anti-male rather than furthering the cause of equality.

I know my little rant is off-topic is just thats the feeling I got when watching the Anita Video. The problem with gaming isn't sexism, the problem is that not enough women are involved and given creative license over video games. The games she listed weren't sexist they were just written from the straight male(Another issue and another time) perspective.

Captcha: Texas summer

How do they know where I live?

 

[Diddy_Mao]

I've been hesitant to comment specifically on Sarkeesian's Tropes vs Women series largely because even with two videos in the can it's hard to get a firm grip on her stance on the issue of equality. The idea of role reversal and gender swapping promises to be raised in the next video which I think will paint a clearer picture on this.

This is a point of contention for me because in many cases I feel that what passes for "strong female protagonist" really does fall back on just writing a male protagonist and then adding a pair of breasts. Rather than emphasizing the strengths of a female character, the insinuation is that the only way to make a compelling female protagonist is to make them more masculine.

To clarify my point a bit I'm going to bring up Aaron Diaz' Legend of Zelda: The Clockwork Empire game pitch.
http://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/post/47724463171/inspired-by-anita-sarkeesians-video-game-tropes

This is hard for me because A: I respect the hell out of Aaron Diaz as a creative person and character designer. And B: To be perfectly honest, he's pitched a great game. Truth be told I'd probably play the hell out of it and.

The problem is that all he's done is pitch a standard Legend of Zelda game and then swap the two main characters. So now it's just Zelda as the wandering hero and Prince Link as the helpless pawn in Ganon's schemes. Her role in these games has always been as princess Zelda and while her duties in that role have rarely had an active role in seeing the story to it's conclusion there's absolutely no reason to strip her of that role in order to make her the hero. In fact I think it rather strips her of the role that would make her a compelling protagonist.

 

[Darken12]

Sacred male spaces? The fuck is that?

This whole topic is just flame bait though, but since it's not in religion and politics maybe it'll stay as a campfire rather than a than an unstoppable blaze....

It's a complicated, touchy thing that's liable to burst into flames. The less said about it, the better.

 

[The White Hunter]

Sacred male spaces? The fuck is that?

This whole topic is just flame bait though, but since it's not in religion and politics maybe it'll stay as a campfire rather than a than an unstoppable blaze....

It's a complicated, touchy thing that's liable to burst into flames. The less said about it, the better.

You mean like the mens bathroom? Eh, I don't get it, maybe tell me in a PM or something if it's gonna cause problems.

 

[mionic]

snip

Personal choices yes. Personal choices due to gender roles and societal expectations. Beyond even that, it's very patriarchic that the very jobs that are female-dominant happen to be statistically less-paying. Women also have harder reaching higher positions, for different reasons.
You seem to be assuming the misandrists are some sort of majority when it comes to feminists for what exact reasons?
I self-identify as a feminist. I DO support strongly that men's cancers be given the same level of funding as women's cancers. I DO not think we should put quotas on genders.