It’s almost impossible to catalogue all the ways men are oppressed by women in contemporary gynocratic society. There are so many! For example, did you know that men are oppressed by female characters in video games? I know, right? The last bastion of red-blooded manliness, invaded by imaginary ladies!
Luckily, the fellows at MGTOWforums.com are on the case, exposing this foul virtual misandry. I Am started off a recent discussion on the subject by asking
WTF is with empowered women in video games now? …
I see a new trend in the video/computer game world and that is the increase in strong playable female characters.
Now, I am no hardcore gamer but I do play computer games often and the recent one I have been playing recently is Shogun 2 total war. Now for those who don’t know what this game is, it is a strategy game based on the military of feudal Japan. I recently bought an upgrade for the game the other day and guess what one of the strongest military units was? Nuns. I shit you not. The nuns had an attack 20% -40% higher than most units in the game. Somehow I doubt that in real life a nun would have swung a sword or used a spear faster and harder than a feudal warlord, and this game was based on history.
Clearly nuns are incapable of manlike swordplay, though it is true that they are capable reenacting famous internet panda sneeze videos. (I have seen video proof of this.) But Shogun 2 does not depict them sneezing like pandas. It depicts them fighting.
This is an outrage because video games are meant to be a perfectly accurate reflection of reality. Obviously there is nothing even slightly unrealistic about any of this:
Most of us dudes are in fact capable of karate-chopping heads in two. We just don’t like to show off all the time.
I think I have the right to ask steam and other gaming companes: WTF with the subliminal brainwashing? What now when I buy or play a game women will be doing all the ass kicking? …
I call bullshit on this subject. Video games are the last place for guys to hang out and now women are taking over. Why not just save us the trouble and instead of eliminating our fantasy world just throw us in work camp to provide for thier bastard children (literally speaking) while they shit all over us…wait they already do that.
I Am is not the only dude who’s noticed this alarming femtrend. Goldenfetus added his observations:
I’ve noticed this too, and it drives me insane. Was co-oping Gears 3 last month and there’s a point where 2nd player has to take over a female character. Almost ruined the game for me. It may seem minor, but once you’re aware of this type of brainwashing it’s impossible to ignore. There’s no way a slim female could keep up with the massive battle-hardened male Gears in that kind of environment. They would be a liability as they are in real life combat.
Exactly! By contrast, the male characters in Gears of War 3 are all completely accurate representations of real-world men.
Goldenfetus continued:
You’ll see the same thing in most stat-based role-playing games as well, where you have the option of a female player character – like Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, D&D, etc. The women never have any strength or intelligence penalties compared to the males. … They want to give the impression that people of any race, gender, and sexual-orientation are interchangeable – that there are no differences in ability between them, and that only a bigot could think otherwise. I’m sick of it too.
At the very least, female characters should be depicted as carriers of cooties.
Despite the very serious subject matter – video game misandry is never funny! – Xtc tried to lighten the mood with a little humor:
It would be hilarious to portray the female characters realistically. If you chose the female character in your FPS [First Person Shooter] she would have to move very slowly, dragging the gun around. You could build in some extra shake to the crosshairs to represent hopeless accuracy. Every time you needed to reload your gun, instead of just pressing a button, you’d have to find a male character and go through some flirting dialogue options to persuade him to do it for you. One out of every four missions the game would tell you that you were sitting out this one due to ‘women’s issues’.
Calloway, for his part, offered some historical perspective:
This is nothing new. I got heavy into gaming back in the late 90’s and even back then they had Tomb Raider, S.I.N., etc. Even in the original Unreal, you played as a big-breasted female.
I saw a documentary on the making of the original Tomb Raider once. The lead character, Lara Croft, was originally going to be a man. They saw him as an Indiana Jones-type character. Then, one of the designers suggested it be a woman because “if you’re going to be playing a game for hours, you might as well have something good to look at”. …
When you first take the red pill, it’s amazing the things you see. It’s as if you had blinders on before, and all of sudden they’ve been removed, allowing you to actually understand what you’ve been seeing.
Yep. And what you’ve been seeing is Lara Croft’s ass. Lara Croft’s ass oppresses men! The red pill tells me so!
Now we come to the clincher.
When you try to get romantic with the imaginary ladies in video games, they don’t act like Roissy and those dudes say ladies act. I mean, you can’t even neg them! As Dave sadly pointed out:
I remember about 12 years ago playing the Baldur’s Gate rpg series and there were some romance dialog paths between your character and some of the women who could join your group but you had to treat them very nice. You couldn’t give them any attitude or make fun of them otherwise it would be over.
Basically you have to be a total mangina towards women in most games if you want to bed them.
Even imaginary ladies are stuck up bitches!
The horror!
I had a
point one: my mother was the top marksperson in her government training class, of approximately 200 men and women (in the 1980s, so probably mostly men).
point two: OMG I KNOW RIGHT I CAN’T DO ANYTHING WHEN I HAVE MY PERIOD LOL LOL LOL I’M JUST GLAD NONE OF MY FRIENDS HAVE NOTICED I COMPLETELY DISAPPEAR AND STOP GOING TO WORK FOR A WEEK OUT OF EVERY MONTH LOL
That’s right, guys, women can’t possibly shoot or reload a gun:
Female units in a strategy game having good stats? This must be a result of female empowerment brainwashing. It can’t possibly have been the result of game balancing or to increase unit variety. Oh no…
This actually worries me, since it shows these MGTOWers can’t even shut up and enjoy a hobby like videogames without seeing nefarious plots by the gynocracy.
Aw, Dave, you have be nice (not Nice) to women IRL to bed them. No guarantees, but it helps.
The sad thing about this article, though, is how similar it is to a lot of discussion in mainstream gaming forums. There’s a lot of talk out there about how cruel it is to force the player (obviously male) to play as a woman, and a lot of “but that’s just ordinary” about the umpty-billion games where you’re forced to play as a man.
(Ditto with white and straight. Considering the kerfluffle over games where being gay is even an option, can you imagine the reaction to a game where loving someone of the same gender was a compulsory part of the plotline?)
“Somehow I doubt that in real life a nun would have swung a sword or used a spear faster and harder than a feudal warlord, and this game was based on history.”
I for one cannot believe that a video game would take liberties with historical facts
Oops, I tried to get it to start at 1:00
Bwahaha, I can’t believe someone is complaining that men are oppressed by women in video games. What planet do these people live on?
IIRC The shinto monks I think he’s referring to have been in the game (and female) since the very first total war game.
I far prefer to teach women to shoot than I do teaching men. The men tend to show up with the idea they know how to shoot, and that all they need to do is get some, “tips” to be better.
Women tend to listen, and they don’t think the things I’m telling them are, “useless” because it’s not what they are used to/”already know”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onna_bugeisha
They even match the time period and place as the game he’s complaining about. admittedly they aren’t nuns, but you can’t have everything.
Oddly enough, Goldenfetus kind of has a point about female game sprites being unrealistically thin for the kind of physical activities the characters do. But then he has to turn right back around and decide the solution is to remove female characters altogether, rather than resdesigning them.
I betcha anything that if female game characters were designed with realistic physiques for the physical prowess they display, these guys would complain that they looked like “uggo lesbians.”
By the way, if you want a way to hate all of the video game community, watch this:
I guess those gamers don’t know their kung fu history, or read Beautiful Warrior: The Legend of The Nun’s Kung Fu, or they’d know that Bruce Lee’s technique was originally developed by a Buddhist nun.
Dave probably tried to romance Viconia … first fanboyish irreal-crush of my life. Well, drow are not for the ogrish.
In Super Mario Brothers 2 for the original NES, Princess Toadstool was a playable character instead of a damsel in distress to rescue. The MGTOW must hate that game. “What do you mean Peach helps Mario? Women can’t jump on Koopa troopas and use their turtle shells to kill Bob Ombs. That’s misandry!!!!!!!!” They might be able to handle Metroid, since Samus Aran wore a suit that hid the fact that she’s a woman. Then again, if you beat the game, you can see her in a bikini, and of course fan service for straight men is also misandry!!!!!!!
This guy has obviously never seen my wife shoot 1-inch groups with her Colt Python .357
Hey ladies? Did you know that video games are the last man-fort left in the world? Unfortunately, because we ladies keep trying to break in with our feminist siege towers, the MGTOW defenders have really suffered intolerable hardships! Having the option of playing a video game as a female character is a soul crushing experience, … er… for some reason!
In other news, I probably read those same comments in a thread at kotaku once.
Wow, were there any qualifications to be a contestant on that show at all?
WTF David?! You mean I’ve been trying to GOW my body for nothing?
@Blue Jean
Put aside history, have they not watched any kung fu movies!
I’m actually shocked that some MGTOWer hasn’t posted a shrill article about how you have the option of getting married in Skyrim, and how it’s obvious an evil plot by the gynocracy to brainwash young men into getting married and giving their wives money (Skyrim spouses give you 100 gold per day).
Yeah, about that. In Skyrim you don’t have to get married, you can also marry a spouse of the same gender, your spouse actually helps you out by running a shop, your spouse will cook for you, and so on.
I’m disappointed that they haven’t. I’ve been looking forward to elaborate, tin-foil hat diatribes.
I’m playing as a female Khajiit. I may wed some lusty Nord woman just because.
I wonder what the MRA POV is on non-human, non-gendered characters?
Kong, the toad, mushroom etc?
David, how about a competition to do a treatment for an MRA video game?
To keep things reasonably light (no mass murder etc), the guidelines could be a “platform” game rather than a “shoot ’em up”?
I do agree with this though. I mean, if there was going to be any kind of accuracy, wouldn’t the Redguard have the ability to dunk as one of their powers?
And let’s not even get into the misandry in games like The Sims or Fable, where you have to hide any cheating or your wife’ll divorce you and take half your assets!!! Vile shrews!!! This is Feminism run amok I tell you, AMOK!!
Hahahaha! these losers really at the real life He-Man Woman Haters Club. I wonder if they post “No Girls Allowed” on their front doors.
Not only was the princess a playable character in SMB:2, but she was one of the better characters to take in many of the levels. I often chose her instead of the other 3. I guess that makes me a “mangina”.
But I love the whole “Oh noes, I hate that a game based on some fantasy idea has something that I do not find realistic” idea belonging to the MRA.
I can see it now “Women can’t do that, this game sucks. I am gonna go play my other game where I can strap on a jetpack, fueled by nuclear fusion, and travel by warp speed to another galaxy where I can use my laser guns to defeat the evil lizard alien hordes trying to take over planet Earth”.