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
DKM I don’t understand why you put rape in scare quotes. You want to maybe explain why you did that?
You’re not a “keeper” of women, Meller. Dolls are not women. What you are is a sad, pathetic old man who collects dolls because actual women want nothing to do with him.
Also, please refrain from fondling your pets. Bestiality is against the law in most jurisdictions, you know.
You know Meller, you’re always going on about what “real” women are like and, what they do, how they act, etc.
What about “real” men? I mean you’ve given hints, you’ve said they should be traditional and all that, but you never elaborate. What are “real” men like, if I may ask?
Blackblock: “You have to be the worst of revisionists not to understand that the early American libertarians (all self-described socialists, BTW, including Benjamin Tucker who you and the other right-wing libertarians have a peculiar hard-on for) generally championned ideas that run counter to your ridiculous gender traditionalism.”
…
Ding Ding Ding!
Well, he doesn’t have to agree with them on ANY of that! JUST THE STATELESSNESSS! Which for him means non-state but totally enforceable arranged marriage contracts that can’t just be dissolved, or anything, because that would destroy society! Among other totally awesome anti-state things!
Right Meller? 🙂
She didn’t want to be protected by state or family or husband or church. She wanted the right to control her own body and determine her own destiny. A right you still hem and haw about giving women. It had EVERYTHING to do with statelessness, which had EVERYTHING to do with her feminism.
Tucker had his gender issues, but still thought the subjection of women might have been the original evil that led to the state, over and above the called himself a socialist thing, too.
Which he did. They pretty much all did. Socialist bled into libertarian bled into syndicalist bled into communist bled into utopians bled into freemarketeers bled into the best of the old right, and it was all a force to be reckoned with, until everything radical got split apart and changed and mutated.
Now it’s time for us to find that again, not stomp our feet and try to relive old culture wars and red scares and witchhunts. And, happily, it’s starting to happen.
I’ve said before, and I’ll say again, Meller, I don’t think you even LIKE libertarianism! Even of the rightish variety! You want feudalism, if anything.
Blackbloc – There’s a good overview somewhere of how Tucker got so deified by the right libertarians and such, but I can’t remember where…
“By the way, Zhinxi, I agree with her, and think that an obviously irreparable marriage should be discontinued, and I also think that the women of her time–and perhaps ours–could have used better protection from brutality or “rape”.”:
…
She wouldn’t have said you needed to prove anything to anybody to discontinue a marriage, though. She was a free love advocate. That was all about her critique of the state. This isn’t about protection from worst case scenarios. It’s about all human arrangement being voluntary.
That all human arrangement should be voluntary pretty much IS the classic critique of the State, even if you want people to choose monogamy, yes?
Yet you continue to hem and haw as to whether women should have the right to choose their relationships, when they begin, and when they end.
And again, you really can duck all these questions for a while, if you just tell me what you think lady doll collectors do, and how the dollies are role models!!!! or should be role models! I promise!
HOW SHOULD WOMEN DOLL COLLECT???
GOTTA HEAR THIS!!!
You dopes are so funny! I mean, are you seriously upset over the fact that women who can kick ass are in video games? I love a woman who can kick men’s ass! I only select women on fighting video games.
You people are what I like to refer to as nut jobs.
Oops, sorry! I thought you guys were MRAs! I saw the red writing and I didn’t realize that you all supported my position on female gamers. 🙁
Most of the comments were ridiculous but you honestly see nothing wrong with nuns/monks being better at fighting than trained soldiers (barring the few that actually train at fighting)?
And I love your logic “hey here’s a video game that doesn’t try to be realistic at all, therefore no video game should ever aim for realism”.
It’s like saying the existence of Rambo and Kill Bill means films should never aim for realism.
Truly, it is a sociological turducken.
“Most of the comments were ridiculous but you honestly see nothing wrong with nuns/monks being better at fighting than trained soldiers (barring the few that actually train at fighting)?”
No. If there was a soldier vs monks&nuns and all the monks and nuns of the world were kicking ass, I would find it unrealistic. But the idea of some of them kicking ass? Nope, nothing wrong. It’s not like no group of monk or nun ever trained to, say, martial art, and a lifetime of training would make them stronger than the average soldier.
Meller, women and pets don’t need you to protect them, they need protection from you.
There is something deeply, deeply wrong with you. Go see a therapist, please. And not one of those MRA con men or some weirdo church one. Find a real one. Please.
Seriously.
While I’m all for the creep-shaming and you are very, very, creepy, I am definitely not for the mentally ill shaming. Just go find a fucking therapist already.
I’m a game design student, and when I read this, I just…ugh. I can’t believe there are misogynistic assholes who think it’s “misandry” that there are playable female characters. Looks like they didn’t get the memo about girls and women playing games, too. Also, it would be boring as fuck if every character were a white, heterosexual male.
Now to post my reply of the quotes from those manchildren:
“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?”
That’s the definition of brainwashing? Having female playable characters? I mean, if you’re going to complain about realism, then you’d have to have female characters, because the world doesn’t revolve around men only.
“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.”
Ah, the old “NO GIRLZ ALLOWED IN MY MAN-HOBBY” shit. The womenz is taking over our hobby by being represented in games! Oh noes!
“The women never have any strength or intelligence penalties compared to the males.”
I would let the “strength” thing pass, but *intelligence?* Sex doesn’t determine intelligence.
“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”.”
Yes, that’s totally MISANDRIC and not MISOGYNISTIC for wanting to include a character ONLY FOR HER BODY. Lara’s a good character, otherwise, and her image is improving.
“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.”
Having to treat your partners nicely? Just like in real life! Isn’t that a *good* thing, seeing as how you want games to be *realistic?*
What assholes. I’m going to make female, multiracial, pansexual playable characters in my game, just to spite them.
Lightningrod: Most of the comments were ridiculous but you honestly see nothing wrong with nuns/monks being better at fighting than trained soldiers (barring the few that actually train at fighting)?
You might want to read up on the Monks of Mt. Hiei, who were miltarised enough to be something of a legend in Japan. Oda Nabunaga; who began the final centralisation of power which led to the Tokugawa Shogunate, needed 30,000 soldiers, with firearms, to take out the, roughly, 5,000 monks in the temple, and it was a weeklong fight.
The last half of your comment is completely nonsensical, since the idea of the game is one is training those very monks; so they are “the few” you are quoting as exceptions. The game took that into account.
You’ve put your finger right on it, haven’t you? These sad sacks think it does. They think it’s a grave injustice that women even exist in contexts other than pleasing men. Or more accurately, them.
I’ve never heard of those monks, sounds interesting but there has the been any nuns (not monks but nuns) known for their skills in battle?
I’m afraid I can’t give you historical references, but there are references to these sisters in a lot of Kung fu movies. The one that comes to mind is Jackie Chan’s Shaolin Wooden Men and, if I remember right, Jet Li’s Shaolin Temple
Okay, I was “over-the-top” in talking about “keeping pets and women” that way. It was an expression guaranteed to “get the goat” of feminists, and it did. By way of explanation, it is just as offensive to hear talk about women and housepets being on the same level to modern women as it is to men concerned with our dispossession and disenfranchisement in society, the workplace, the schools, the civil service, law enforcement, business, and even most churches and trade unions to be displaced by women! The fact that the displacement is celebrated by other (renegade) males adds insult to injury!The fact also that we are displaced not by any objective criterion of merit or experience, but instead by State-imposed gender (or race) critieria is also adding insult to injury!
Women, I suppose, can, and perhaps should, have games of their own! These “girlygames” couid stress feminine qualities and values, and emphasize goals appropriate (for the most part) to women. The displacement of men is what I was protesting, somewhat undiplomatically.
I shouldn’t have said “keeping women and housepets”. that was over the top, and I apologize!
The wandering nuns of Japan were known to be more trouble than it was worth to try and rob.
But again; the premise of the game is these are trained fighters. Your complaint fails on that basis. It’s not random folks who are really religious, it’s specialised troops drawn from a tradition.
The game-bois are all hot under the collar because someone put GIRLS in their manly game.
DKM there already are girlygames. The ‘Imagine’ series of games are on the Nintendo DS and are cynically created cash grabs usually based on stereotypically female professions (Fashion Designer, Beauty Stylist and… Babies to name but a few.) and aimed at pre-teen girls.
They are kind of shit. I wouldn’t wish them on YOU, let alone innocent kids.
Zhinxi–January 13, 2012 @7:39pm:
I don’t know why women collect dolls (or plushfluffies)! I suspect that it is a fairly commonplace hobby for them when they see that they–and other women like them–have pretty much flopped hopelessly in the traditional role of women of bringing beauty and love into the world, that they are now, in far too many cases, imitation men, and they at least try to make up the shortfall of the feminine in the world caused by their pseudo-masculinity and androgyny by cultivating the collection and display of beautiful images, photographs, figurines, and dainty feminine dolls, preferably highlighting an era when ladylike daintiness, softness, and allure, even when it wasn’t especially sexual, was valued and cherished.
The thought of a man doing this reminds them of their betrayal of the feminine in their own lives, even if they do live their lives as traditional women, and this is why they call MY doll collecting “creepy”.
This would also explain your otherwise inexplicable hostility toward my revulsion at the thought of modern women wearing slacks, or , in some earlier posts, embracing the Moslem veil as an item of ladies’ headwear. Not thick, heavy veils that she could hardly see through, but light, filmy, feathery veils that would just make do for the needs of modesty in public and enhancing the rest of her apparel.
Normally, women would think that there may even be something to my suggestion, and leave it at that, but I think that my suggestions generated almost as much hostility from the manboobzettes as my rant against Sharon Osborne did!
Zhinxi, the fact of feminist denial of individual, and (almost) universal female–and male–gender specificity bothers the living hell out of youall. This would be harmless enough if this confusion and envy on the part of youall toward men was a personal neurosis, but it has infected and permeated a large part of the 51% percent of humanity that is the female population. That worries me, and I have a LOT of company!
Caraz, et al. January 15, 2012 @ 10:53am–
Why are games for girls and women that take notice of your womanly qualities and aptitudes regarded by feminists and modern women as “kind of s**t”
Why the aversion to the natural feminine? Why can’t you–and the other women take your cue from the lady in the play “Flower Drum Song” who “Enjoys Being a Girl”? Believe me, while women do outnumber men–at least in the over-80 demographic percentiles–there is no shortage of men to do what men have to do in the world. Your feminist imitation of men is what make you superfluous and irrelevant, not “sexist discrimination”. Be better women, not imitation men! Enjoy YOUR girlygames!
No, they are shit because they are poor quality. Most don’t get reviewed because they’re mediocre and flood the Nintendo handheld market.
The ones that do get reviewed:
“A frustrating, unfocused and ultimately soulless product.”
“Imagine: Babyz ends up being just about as fun as its real world counterpart – meaning not very much fun at all.”
And so on. It’s rather telling that ‘Imagine: Badass Space Marine’ has not been created yet.
I wonder how Meller feels about The Sims.
Or how about Angry Birds? Is that a “male only” or “female only” game?
I used to murder my sims by bricking them up in a room with a fire hazard and waiting for them to burn to death.
So males only then, because I can’t imagine Meller wanting to give his ‘pets’ ideas.