Why are people so against 'feminism' in gaming?

[BioHazardMan]

People will just take a while to release gaming is not just some 13 year old geek thing anymore, it's a whole phenomenon including people of all ages.

 

[Psycho Cat Industries]

Believe me,you don't pull Pinocchio's strings.It is the same with every group ain't it?Just all a bunch of politics.

In my fun and games, no less!

Yeah,its like rats,you don't know you have them until its too late.Seems this discussion has hit a bit of a snag has it not?Frankly,I find it ironic that people have to discuss and agree for anything to get accomplished as this by human nature means that nothing gets accomplished and in the end only causes or worsens disputes.It makes those simple casual games seem oh so nice in that you really can't discuss the reasonings behind a cow saying moo.

 

[Nick Angelici]

the word has a bad ring to it, most guys immediatly jump to the old cranky witch who wants every man castrated, adding feminine elements I dont mind, but again, most think of the extreme

 

[RelexCryo]

This may have been discussed before but a search of the forums didn't bring up anything that I was looking for so...

I've been asked to write about sexism in gaming and I know it's a subject that has been done to death. I want to make it as fair an argument as possible. As a girl you can probably figure out which side of the debate I'm on but I do want to know why people are so vocal AGAINST people speaking up against sexist slogans in advertising and reinforcing white male gamer stereotypes.

For example, the recent gamestation advertising campaign saying their pre-owned games were cheaper than your girlfriend. When people complained that it was offensive the minority of gamers told them to shut up and get over it. So..why are people so against gaming becoming more gender neutral and accepting of female, child and elderly gamers.

I'm not slating it, I would just like to understand the mindset a bit better to at least try and make this piece of writing fairer.

Many gaming males are defensive because they have been aggressively attacked in previous years. Both verbally, with us being called adoslecent for liking fanservice in the first place, and in a more *tangible way, with many of our games switching from fanservice characters to realistic physiques. The gaming industry, rather than moving towards greater diversity, is moving towards destroying one thing while creating another. Tifa Lockheart and Lara Croft used to have huge breasts for example. Now they don't. Rather than creating new female characters with athletic physiques, they took fanservice characters and rewrote them to have more athletic physiques.

Rather than moving towards greater diversity, Square Enix simply destroyed male fanservice and tried to recreate the characters to be less likely to annoy certain people. Greater diversity would ultimately require making both fanservice for men, and realistic, athletic women. The industry, rather than including both, is making a move towards exclusively having realistic, athletic women.

Gamer males who like voluptuous women are having the games they like taken away from them. Diversity does not bother gamer males, being verbally attacked and having what you possess taken away from you does. And after several years of being told that the games we like are "bad" and that they should not exist, and several more years of the games we like being taken away from us, many gamer males who like these games have become defensive.

Simply allowing fanservice games while simultaneously making games with realisticly shaped female protagonists would not bother us.

*edit: I originally used the word physical, but meant tangible instead.

 

[Pist0l 07]

Frankly,I find it ironic that people have to discuss and agree for anything to get accomplished as this by human nature means that nothing gets accomplished and in the end only causes or worsens disputes.It makes those simple casual games seem oh so nice in that you really can't discuss the reasonings behind a cow saying moo.

I think that problem comes from internt anonymity which leads to people acting like ass since there are no repercussions for it. If you get people together in real life they are usally much nicer to each other and I bet they'd appear to agree more as well. Its much harder to convey complex opinions in text windows. I had a hard time convey this opinion via internt comments, but that could just be my poor english skills.

 

[Psycho Cat Industries]

Frankly,I find it ironic that people have to discuss and agree for anything to get accomplished as this by human nature means that nothing gets accomplished and in the end only causes or worsens disputes.It makes those simple casual games seem oh so nice in that you really can't discuss the reasonings behind a cow saying moo.

I think that problem comes from internt anonymity which leads to people acting like ass since there are no repercussions for it. If you get people together in real life they are usally much nicer to each other and I bet they'd appear to agree more as well. Its much harder to convey complex opinions in text windows. I had a hard time convey this opinion via internt comments, but that could just be my poor english skills.

True,people most often seem to feel "protected" just staring at a screen to talk and I can see how it affects many kids into acting the same way in actual discussion whether it be actual text talk,descriptions of sighing rather then the action or full out trolling.No,you still see this stuff in all politics.Think of any news discussion that doesn't either agree or end in yelling.Either agree or fight and nothing gets done.Why,we're doing it right now.As for English,just try spell check if you really are having trouble.

 

[agrajagthetesty]

The fact that you think that just demonstrates all the more why that video is necessary. Thank you for proving my point

Oh we dont "think that," we know that. The fact that that video includes a stat for girls raped while walking to school in any given year, which is actually higher then the entire national stat for rape in the contential US. The rest is equally wrong or misrepresented & has been proven to be wrong by peer reviewed studies & extensive number crunching by actual experts.

You keep saying that things are "proven wrong" but never give any evidence for this assertion. How about you cite your sources?

 

[GestaltEsper]

Tifa Lockheart and Lara Croft used to have huge breasts for example. Now they don't. Rather than creating new female characters with athletic physiques, they took fanservice characters and rewrote them to have more athletic physiques.

Rather than moving towards greater diversity, Square Enix simply destroyed male fanservice and tried to recreate the characters to be less likely to annoy certain people. Greater diversity would ultimately require making both fanservice for men, and realistic, athletic women. The industry, rather than including both, is making a move towards exclusively having realistic, athletic women.

Um what? Tifa is just as big as ever and as for Lara isn?t Eidos the one responsible for the change?

Oh yeah they really toned it down.

Fortunately she has a stomach now. Looking back I really have to ask "where does your food go?"

 

[Pist0l 07]

Frankly,I find it ironic that people have to discuss and agree for anything to get accomplished as this by human nature means that nothing gets accomplished and in the end only causes or worsens disputes.It makes those simple casual games seem oh so nice in that you really can't discuss the reasonings behind a cow saying moo.

I think that problem comes from internt anonymity which leads to people acting like ass since there are no repercussions for it. If you get people together in real life they are usally much nicer to each other and I bet they'd appear to agree more as well. Its much harder to convey complex opinions in text windows. I had a hard time convey this opinion via internt comments, but that could just be my poor english skills.

True,people most often seem to feel "protected" just staring at a screen to talk and I can see how it affects many kids into acting the same way in actual discussion whether it be actual text talk,descriptions of sighing rather then the action or full out trolling.No,you still see this stuff in all politics.Think of any news discussion that doesn't either agree or end in yelling.Either agree or fight and nothing gets done.Why,we're doing it right now.As for English,just try spell check if you really are having trouble.

Well I use spellcheck when I'm really unsure, but I was reffering to making an idea flow cohesively through a paragraph.(I didn't mispell anything in my post did I?) As for what you see in the news, I don't know. I feel like a lot news is just entertainment made on them are more for show rather then an accurate view on peoples' opinions. Often I hear people saying things like if this bill is passes/fails, then our nation will be doomed/saved(I'm in the USA to be clear). Whatever happens people will contiue comment on it for a couple days then the news moves on and you could never hear about it again. If anything I'm worried people will miss important news that doesn't have much "entertainment" value like the new antibiotic resistant bug going around. Apperently it hit Israel pretty hard and because antibotic are ineffective against it, it has a 36% mortality rate, yet it was only briefly mentioned in the morning news. But this is getting off topic now. Yeah, people will disagree, and some will disagree vehemently, but if they sit down face to face for a couple of hours, they'ld probably be able to come to some comprimises. As for nothing getting done, well, I don't think I've ever seen internet disscusions lead to big changes. I wouldn't be so pessemistic about meaningful change happening. Things get done, change comes, even if it is rather slow.

 

[CheckD3]

In that case, your problem isn't with feminism as a belief system, a movement or an ideal, but just with the word itself. In my opinion, that's a pretty poor reason to have said something like "feminism needs to go". I hope you understand how a statement like that can be misconstrued.

So what you actually meant to say is that feminism needs to be rebranded. Looking at this thread, I have to say that I can see where you're coming from. There's been a horrific amount of backlash to feminism, and it's acquired so many stigmas and negative associations that a lot of people don't even recognise its original aim - which is indeed, as you have acknowledged, gender equality. But for too many people, the term "feminism" conjures up the image of a screeching, man-hating banshee. What I would ideally like is for this misconception to vanish. However, given how exceptionally unlikely that is, you might be onto something with the idea of a rebranding along the lines of comic -> graphic novel.

The "fem" in the title stems from the fact that when feminism emerged as a movement, women were at a significant societal disadvantage compared to men, so gender equality largely meant helping women. (These days, I'd say that there are stigmas against all genders, almost all of which stem from the traditional gender roles imposed on society.) The "fem" does not exclude men from the movement, and yes, there can be such a thing as male feminists. A few people have defined themselves as such in this very thread, in fact!

That was a mistake on my part to word it as such, and I agree that my wording was wrong

That is what I meant to say, that the WORD feminism is the problem, and that rebranding is needed. It's a word that has it's roots in the past, where now we have more equality, not to the point of total equality, but more so. We've reached a point now that it's not just women fighting for the cause, since there plenty of men who look for this equality. Gaming would be a place where gender equality is being fought because it's trying to be viewed as a legitimate form, and the stigmata of gamers only being fat, lazy males is one that is not only false, but needs to be changed in the minds of many.

I honestly find strong characters enjoyable, regardless of gender, and sometimes the fact that characters are developed and put into gender specific roles gets insulting sometimes. Bayonetta is an example of someone who's overly sexualized, but still considered a strong female character because she uses her femininity the way a man uses his macho attitude. Obviously Samus is the front runner I'm sure in most minds as someone who proves that genders don't limit a strong character, since as I'm sure others have, as well as myself, she's reasonably built, wears the same crazy power armor throughout the game, and leaves a trail of alien bodies in her wake.

 

[chainer1216]

there is sexism in games, but it goes both ways, feminists complain that the women in games are too barbie like and/or a quivering mess of jelly when danger looms.

compare you're "average female' of the age of 22 to the few female protaganists in video games.

its quite unreasonalable to compare the two, the video game girl has a perfect body, perfect hair, and an unshakeable mentality (aside from other M, i hear).

but cannot the same be said for males too? i'll never be as fit as, oh, lets say, sam fisher, my jaw will never be as perfectly cut as nathan drake, and despite years of martial arts training, and practice with firearms, if someone was to point a gun at me, i'd still freeze in place out of fear, at least for a moment.

when we play video games, we're not playing simulated human beings, no matter how much they try to tell us as that we are, we're playing greek gods,characters who are made to be so much better than any of us, male or female.

i mean really, what man among us can compare to the duke?

 

[Saint Cynicism]

The fact that you think that just demonstrates all the more why that video is necessary. Thank you for proving my point

Oh we dont "think that," we know that. The fact that that video includes a stat for girls raped while walking to school in any given year, which is actually higher then the entire national stat for rape in the contential US. The rest is equally wrong or misrepresented & has been proven to be wrong by peer reviewed studies & extensive number crunching by actual experts.

So, just asking here, but when you're talking about the national stat and the stat in the video: for each, is it the REPORTED incidents of rape, or the estimated (which would include those that go unreported)? Considering not all rapes actually get reported, it seems like something that should be taken into consideration before getting your J. Jonah Jameson on. And on top of that, if I remember right the continental US excludes Alaska and Hawaii, so while that's probably not going to amount to a monumental change in numbers, it's nonetheless something to keep in mind. Just like the fact that feminism doesn't necessarily stop at a nation's borders (just like people advocating world peace don't typically include the phrase "for just us" at the end of their messages), and how women in the Western world ARE concerned with the plight of the ones in countries like Saudi Arabia. I mean, have you at least heard of the International Council of Women?

As for a more on-topic-in-relation-to-the-OP comment, I honestly think the opposition is largely just due to misconceptions regarding feminism (especially if this thread's any indication). Wanting a strong female character rather than eye candy, romance bait, or a female character who happens to be strong (note: there is a difference, though they are not mutually exclusive) isn't all that bad a thing to have. More realistic characters in general would be a good thing, and I doubt any mainstream feminists would complain about that either. At the same time, that's not to say that all other types of characters should be forbidden, just that they shouldn't be considered the go-to default character type.

The slightly more militant feminist fringe that insists on spelling "women" as "womyn" on the other hand, eh, they might complain. But they're really hard to appease to begin with.

 

[Pist0l 07]

My suggestion, dont watch US news... Its a toilet full of crap. Watch the news feeds from other coutnries: I suggest Australian (i used to suggest the UK as well, but recently thats gone all faux newsy as well).

Yeah I go, BBC, Daily Show, and New York Times. Although Fox News makes an excellent comedy show on occasion, but I aviod watching that for extended periods of time because as ridiculous as it can be, I don't want to boost their average viewer count that they like to brag about.

 

[Evidencebased]

snip

Many gaming males are defensive because they have been aggressively attacked in previous years. Both verbally, with us being called adoslecent for liking fanservice in the first place, and in a more physical way, with many of our games switching from fanservice characters to realistic physiques. The gaming industry, rather than moving towards greater diversity, is moving towards destroying one thing while creating another. Tifa Lockheart and Lara Croft used to have huge breasts for example. Now they don't. Rather than creating new female characters with athletic physiques, they took fanservice characters and rewrote them to have more athletic physiques.

Rather than moving towards greater diversity, Square Enix simply destroyed male fanservice and tried to recreate the characters to be less likely to annoy certain people. Greater diversity would ultimately require making both fanservice for men, and realistic, athletic women. The industry, rather than including both, is making a move towards exclusively having realistic, athletic women.

Gamer males who like voluptuous women are having the games they like taken away from them. Diversity does not bother gamer males, being verbally attacked and having what you possess taken away from you does. And after several years of being told that the games we like are "bad" and that they should not exist, and several more years of the games we like being taken away from us, many gamer males who like these games have become defensive.

Simply allowing fanservice games while simultaneously making games with realisticly shaped female protagonists would not bother us.

Well, this really is the perfect illustration of how male gamers are just getting het up about losing their "boys club" privileges isn't it? Paragraphs and paragraphs about the cruelty of game designers, stealing all those boobies. Sure, they aren't actually doing anything of the sort (as illustrated above) but it feels like the world is a less boobyiful place, and that's what counts! And sure, you can still get more porn than you could watch in a lifetime absolutely free -- plenty of large breasts there -- but that would require the imposition of opening a second browser tab! Woe. Most fascinating of all is that this supposed shift towards less fanservice is literally seen as an "aggressive attack" and is even characterized as "physical" ... the pain of having to look at a female character who can stand upright without a backbrace is comparable to physical assault? My, my, we feminists are definitely the whiny ones here. 9.9

No one is "taking away" games; at best, the ratio of [total fanservice] to [slightly decent female characters] might be improving slightly, but no one is tearing your Lara Croft games away from your sadly groping hands. If the rate at which fanservicey games are made is slightly decreased (which I'm not convinced it is) that's still not actually a loss at all. Furthermore, characters aren't a zero sum game, and making more good female characters won't require that you remove any of the "bad" ones (and really, was someone on this thread trying to get rid of Lara Croft? I don't think so ) But if you're proposing that the (majority male) game designers are creating slightly fewer impossibly stacked women, perhaps that's just because not every guy needs giant boobies to make him like a game? And some of them are tired of pandering to the lowest common denominator? You can't blame women for adult men choosing to create more mature and realistic games.