Women in games are not systematically oppressed - a vertical slice

[endtherapture]

I am currently involved in a debate with my friends who say games are systematically oppressed. They cite Lara Croft as a sex object in games, Anita Sarkeesian's videos, and GTAV. However they say they still play GTAV, refuse to vote with their wallet, and don't know if a game is sexist unless they buy it. I was told Tomb Raider and Mario were sexist and used women as objects and I said that those games are nearly 20 years old. I was told that that doesn't matter because people might still play old games.

I have said there are plenty of games which do not oppress women and are not sexist and I took a vertical slice of the games I currently have installed to see which one either have a female protagonist or a strong female character in the game and thought it'd be interesting to see what percentage are sexist.

Skyrim: Option to play as female character, plenty of female characters eg. Lydia, Delphine. NOT SEXIST.
The Witcher 2: Male protagonist but lots of female in supporting cast eg. Triss, Saskia, Sile, Philippa. NOT SEXIST.
Divinity Original Sin: Female and male protagonist. NOT SEXIST.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Option to play as female character, bikini clad but not sexual supporting female character. NOT SEXIST.
Mark of the Ninja: Male protagonist, secondary character is female but not sexualised. NOT SEXIST.
Deus Ex: Male protagonist, have not really played so I won't say anything.
Assassin's Creed: Male protagonist, females are somewhat damsels in distress but there are also some females with agency. I guess we can say this is mildly sexist. SEXIST.
Half Life 2 series: Male protagonist but Alyx is one of the best female characters out there. NOT SEXIST.
Dota 2: Loads of male and female characters to play as. NOT SEXIST.
Guild Wars 2: Good balance between the sexes, you can play as men and women, characters are lesbian and gay also. NOT SEXIST.
Torchlight 2: Can play as male or female characters. NOT SEXIST.
Mount and Blade: Set in a medieval society so you are penalised for playing a woman but there is the option. NOT SEXIST.
Baldur's Gate series: Can play as a man or woman, plenty of female NPCs. Women are used as damsel in distress but also as strong characters and villains. NOT SEXIST.
Freespace 2: Character is genderless, female pilots also appear. NOT SEXIST.
Football Manager 14: Game is based on the male dominated world of football but you can play as a female manager. NOT SEXIST.
FIFA 14: Game is based on the male dominated world of football but you can play as a female manager. NOT SEXIST.
XCOM: Commander is genderless, option between male and female squaddies allowed. NOT SEXIST.
Fallout New Vegas: Can play as male or female characters. Plenty of female characters around the Mojave. NOT SEXIST.
Civ 5: You can play as some female leaders. NOT SEXIST.
Endless Space: Basically everything has no gender in this game. NOT SEXIST.
Transistor: Female lead character, she is not sexualised or objectified. NOT SEXIST.
Team Fortress 2: Not sure on this one.

So out of the vertical slice of 26 games I have here, 1 is sexist. 2 I can't decide on, and 23 are not sexist.

So if you take a random selection of games installed, how many include objectification or sexualised female? Not many, however if you cherry pick examples like Tomb Raider or GTAV or COD, then this will be a higher percentage. There is no systematic oppression of women in games. The argument with my friend ended with me being told I was an ignorant sexist for ignorant the oppression of women in videogames. Sigh.

 

[Pink Gregory]

There's gender in Endless Space, what about the Horatio?

The gender is Horatio.


...


Horatio.




horatio

 

[endtherapture]

Yeah but you're controlling entire civilisations and there's no player character beyond just "you"

 

[Pink Gregory]

To be srs bsnss for one brief, agonising second; I don't think a box ticking exercise is really a helpful approach to this much feted topic.

When nothing is universally agreed on and most people involved in the discussions seem to have some sort of axe to grind and couldn't possibly get along with anyone who disagrees with them, I don't think declaring stuff capital letters SEXIST or NOT SEXIST really gets to the core of...anything really.

Also I am far, far away from agreeing about Lara Croft being objectified. Coming from an angle in which I don't think sex appeal is a fucking SCOURGE, I will admit that it's fairly obvious in the marketing; but when I'm playing it I'm not slobbering over the player character, I'm more concerned about grabbing ledges in time, backflipping over lions and descending into hell, if the last level of TR1 is to be observed.

...Tomb Raider 1 takes a strange direction at the end of the game...

 

[Batou667]

It depends on how you want to try to quantify equality, or lack of sexism, or however we're phrasing it today. You've recognised there's potentially an element of sexism in representation (are there women in the game? If not, why not?) and also depiction (are the women that appear in the game victimised more than men? Sexualised more than men? Less capable than men? If so, can this be justified by the context and narrative?), but possibly you're occasionally conflating the two or only looking at one or the other instead of both.

It's a very tricky one but I think we have to start by acknowledging that games don't exist in a vacuum. Games are usually a reflection of, or inspired by, real life: our historical events, contemporary life, our films and literature, and so on. We live in a gendered society where it's generally held that the sexes are innately different in at least a few key ways and gender roles have sprung from that. That means we can't wade into a debate about sexism, point at Call of Duty and say "less than 50% of the soldiers are female, that's sexist!" - that's a naive, top-down way of looking at the situation. For context we need to view CoD from the bottom-up: historically all soldiers were male, our war films reflect that, and our games reflect that. That's not to say the situation is perfect or unchangeable, but it does suggest that in demonising games for, say, featuring strippers, we're addressing the symptom rather than the cause.

There's also confirmation bias and the idea that "look, and ye shall find". A cynical person with an axe to grind can find sexism in a lack of representation, in over-representation, in weak female characters, and in strong female characters.

 

[IceForce]

The Witcher 2: Male protagonist but lots of female in supporting cast eg. Triss, Saskia, Sile, Philippa. NOT SEXIST.

I think your definition of "sexist" is too narrow.

Just because a game has female NPCs or a good female supporting cast, doesn't automatically mean the game is not sexist. Because the portrayal of those females within the game can still be considered to be sexist.

 

[Batou667]

I think your definition of "sexist" is too narrow.

Just because a game has female NPCs or a good female supporting cast, doesn't automatically mean the game is not sexist. Because the portrayal of those females within the game can still be considered to be sexist.

Yeah.

I love the DOA series. But I can admit that it contains some content that is definitely a bit stereotypical and chauvinistic, if not sexist. The fact that a full half of the playable characters are female doesn't change that. (In-game the girls are all tough and kick-ass, but in the pre-rendered scenes they revert to clumsy, simpering and over-emotional bits of fluff... which pisses me off not because I'm a crusading anti-sexist, but because it's ham-fistedly changing the tone of some characters I quite like).

You can have a game with very positive representation but poor depiction, and vice-versa.

 

[siomasm]

How could you forget saints row?

It literally allows you to play as a transgender homosexual that identifies as shrek and become the president of the united states!

 

[Erttheking]

Yeah, I like the Witcher series (Would like it a lot more if the combat wasn't such a chore) but I'm not buying that it's not sexist when every last woman is a double D wearing skimpy clothing no matter how little sense it makes. Even two of the really tough and butch characters show off a bit of cleavage, and since one of them is supposed to be in armor and the other was kept as a sex slave as a teenager,

Spoiler

gets RAPED during the main storyline, and from what I understand, recent rape victims do NOT want to show off what they've got for very obvious reasons (If anyone is still curious about that rape in video games thread, stuff like THIS is why I don't trust video games to do it)

I'd like to hear the explanation for how THAT works!

 

[DefunctTheory]

Well, here's the problem - one persons 'not sexist' is another's 'didn't try hard enough to be actively fair to women, so sexist.'

The Witcher 2: A series with a history of treating women weird, if not downright bad. Like the fact that only ugly women (Who then use magic to become pretty) can be magic users, as pretty women just have better things to do, like get married. Sexist.
Deus Ex: Almost entirely male cast, as per usual for the period. Sexist.
Half Life 2 series: Only significant female character is utterly obsessed with the male lead, has to be saved by male lead. Sexist.
Mount and Blade: Penalizes you for playing as a woman. Sexist.
Team Fortress 2: Only female character is an evil *****. Sexist.

Which isn't to say that I agree with those criticisms. Only that they exist, and are as valid as your opinion, or mine.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The Witcher 2: Male protagonist but lots of female in supporting cast eg. Triss, Saskia, Sile, Philippa. NOT SEXIST.

Don't you pretty much get to bone a good supply of women in that franchise? Now maybe this isn't sexist, but it's sure as hell pandering to the male demographic.

Half Life 2 series: Male protagonist but Alyx is one of the best female characters out there. NOT SEXIST.

That was untill Episode 2 rolled around and Eli Vance more or less says 'Here, take my daughter'. Half-Life 2 wasn't sexist what with female resistance fighters running around all over the place, but Alyx... Yeah, I don't know.

 

[Story]

I can't really speak for the other franchises listed but The Witcher 2? Really?
I can really speak from personal preferences, but that was the first game I stopped playing because of the way the game portrayed women. And I'm not usually so sensitive about such things.

I mean this is a game with collectable sex or romance cards.
http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Romance_cards

Like women were some kind of collectable or something.

 

[Lieju]

So, what is your definition of 'sexist' anyway?
I'm not sure how useful it is to try to define things on such black-and-white terms.

It's possible for a game to have some questionable content, and still be enjoyable.
And it's possible for a game to have a well-written female lead and still also have problematic stuff, especially when we are talking about AAA games with several writers and narrative that's often divorced from gameplay.
It's much more useful to look at the trends and choices the dev-team made.

For example, look at Team Fortress 2.
Why are all the characters male?

It's a game that is far from realistic, and widely different and interesting character-designs are a big selling point for it.
And they're all guys?
Why? Why limit yourself as a designer like that?

Designers limiting themselves especially when it comes to female characters is in general a trend.
There are far fever 'acceptable' body-types and roles for women even now.
Either the designers don't even think about it (a friend of mine got a book that tought drawing and character-design and it was obsessed with women looking 'attractive', which of course meant the very narrow defition of attractiveness too)
or they're scared their audience won't like it.
Or they're lazy.

 

[endtherapture]

I can't really speak for the other franchises listed but The Witcher 2? Really?
I can really speak from personal preferences, but that was the first game I stopped playing because of the way the game portrayed women. And I'm not usually so sensitive about such things.

I mean this is a game with collectable sex or romance cards.
http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Romance_cards

Like women were some kind of collectable or something.

That's the first Witcher game, the second game is a lot more progressive. It still has sex scene but female characters drive the entire plot along and are strong supporting characters who are female.

There are also no collectible sex cards. Please check your facts before posting.

 

[Someone Depressing]

I can't speak for a lot of these franchises, because I've only played a few, but...

The Witcher 2? You're kidding, right? Saying The Witcher 2's attitude towards women is anything creepy to downright degrading is like saying Team Fortress 2 has any attitude towards women at all.

Sexism is a very grey area, so analysing it like black and white, and without a definition of "sexism", like this isn't going to rise any information or potential for debate, other than "This list is flawed."

It's an interesting list, though.

 

[Something Amyss]

I question the criteria of this list.

I think your definition of "sexist" is too narrow.

Just because a game has female NPCs or a good female supporting cast, doesn't automatically mean the game is not sexist. Because the portrayal of those females within the game can still be considered to be sexist.

And that gets to the heart of it.

Moreover, just the fact that the thread opens with a "vote with your wallet" argument is kind of disingenuous. If we don't buy the games, we're not real gamers and not customers. If we do, we're enablers. Screw the double standard, if my opinion is going to be discounted, I might as well have fun while I'm at it.

Further, we can be critical of things we otherwise like. Even the evil feminazi extremist Anita Sarkeesian acknowledges that, and she's an evil feminazi extremist.

 

[endtherapture]

I question the criteria of this list.

I think your definition of "sexist" is too narrow.

Just because a game has female NPCs or a good female supporting cast, doesn't automatically mean the game is not sexist. Because the portrayal of those females within the game can still be considered to be sexist.

And that gets to the heart of it.

Moreover, just the fact that the thread opens with a "vote with your wallet" argument is kind of disingenuous. If we don't buy the games, we're not real gamers and not customers. If we do, we're enablers. Screw the double standard, if my opinion is going to be discounted, I might as well have fun while I'm at it.

Further, we can be critical of things we otherwise like. Even the evil feminazi extremist Anita Sarkeesian acknowledges that, and she's an evil feminazi extremist.

You could support games that are inclusive of all genders. For example I dislike modern military shooters, I don't like them so I have crowdfunded a bunch of old school RPG games. EA isn't going to respond to a petition with online, they're going to respond to people not buying their games and look at things that needs to change. There is no shame in not supporting games that don't.

Some of you are looking at games in a very...narrow way. Women are allowed to show cleavage, that does not inherently make a game sexist. The Witcher 2 has themes such as rape and the crimes of war but does not use them in a titillating manner like "this rape scene is so hot", but in a terrifying way. The tone of the game is mature so the inclusion of these themes does not feel like pandering, just as the rape scenes in Game of Thrones are horrifying. Unless everyone just wants PG games with no exploration of mature topics.

 

[Something Amyss]

You could support games that are inclusive of all genders.

That doesn't end the "not a gamer/customer" argument, it attempts to ignore it by pushing it back a step.

 

[endtherapture]

You could support games that are inclusive of all genders.

That doesn't end the "not a gamer/customer" argument, it attempts to ignore it by pushing it back a step.

I don't get what you mean...if you're not a gamer...why are you here? If you buy these sexist products and then complain about them...why not just not buy them? Consumer boycotts are an old practise.

 

[JimB]

Some of you are looking at games in a very...narrow way. Women are allowed to show cleavage, that does not inherently make a game sexist.

Uh, Zachary Amaranth did not say anything about cleavage, so I'm not sure why you bring that up.

The Witcher 2 has themes such as rape and the crimes of war but does not use them in a titillating manner like "this rape scene is so hot," but in a terrifying way.

Not having played the game, I can only speak in generalities, but I tend to be suspicious of rape in video games because there seems to be a disturbing tendency to treat rape as some kind of go-to for character development; like, "Hey, what's something bad that happens to women? Rape, right? Women get raped? Okay, I'll say the bad thing that happened to her is rape."

I don't get what you mean.

He's saying gamers are people who buy and play games, so telling people not to buy or play games makes them not count as gamers in the hopes that game companies will respond to the demands of people who are not part of the target audience. That only works if enough people boycott to drive people out of business entirely.

If you buy these sexist products and then complain about them, why not just not buy them?

How do you expect people to know what is sexist without first buying and playing it?