So the top post in the Men’s Rights subreddit for a time yesterday, with hundreds of upvotes, was a post devoted to the question: “Why should male gamers change their behavior?” Yep, apparently the sacred right of men and boys to harass women and girls on Xbox live is one of the most important Men’s Rights issues of the day. Here’s how the OP, IsItRacistToAsk, framed the issue:
[G]amers themselves (until relatively recently) were a 90% male community. This goes back really far if you count non-video-game games (like Dungeons and Dragons and the like). Now all of a sudden they’re expected to just behave differently because some girls want to join?
I’m not saying girls shouldn’t be welcome in gaming communities, I’m just comparing them to someone who shows up, uninvited, to a house party and demands everyone go out and get blue plastic cups because red offends her.
Well, no, it’s more like a girl or a woman going to a public event, open to everyone, and facing a small army of creepy dudes who come up to her making sandwich jokes and calling her a bitch and a whore and a fat slut and demanding that she show her tits and when she refuses telling her “I hope your vibrator shorts out and fries your fucking vagina.”
The OP’s response to harassment? Well, guy gamers regularly get called “faggot” and “n*gger,” so girls and women should just suck it up.
Yeah, it would be too much to ask to suggest that guy gamers actually stop calling each other racist and homophobic slurs as well. Because, really, how can you possibly enjoy Call of Duty without calling some guy who’s just shot you a “fag.” Seriously, gals, you need to model yourselves on the mostly straight white dudes of Reddit who really don’t mind when people call them “n*ggers” and “fags.”
The discussion (more than 700 comments worth at the moment) is about as terrible as you might expect, filled with epic shitlordery and self-congratulation and calls for the gals to “man the fuck up,” with only a handful of commenters having anything bad to say about the culture of harassment in online gaming. Indeed, most of the gamers in the conversation seem to feel proud that online gaming culture is as shitty as it is.
Some highlights:
JonLR won himself more than a hundred upvotes for this self-congratulatory assholery:
By asking to never be made fun of, they’re essentially asking for special treatment. These days, ‘gamer girls’ go on and on about wanting to be treated like everyone else, but then cry when they are?
I used to play Quake 1 online, and a lot of the players knew I was short (5’7″). I got called a fucking midget every game, haha. My asian clanmate got called a chink every game. Fat people got called fat, girl players got called sluts, everyone made fun of everyone. No one cared. It was all aimed at throwing people off their game.
What the fuck happened in the past 15 years that made it the worst thing imaginable to insult a girl in gaming? Whatever it was, it’s embarrassing to witness.
Oneiorosgrip got nearly two hundred upvotes for her special snowflaking:
I’m not a video gamer – long time tabletop gamer though…
Remembering when I was the only girl in the group, it strikes me that modern gamer girls are spoiled princesses who expect to walk a path they did not forge, without ever seeing any of the dirt along the side. Those of use who played before there was internet, before there was linking between video game systems… before there were RPGs on video game systems, for that matter… we didn’t earn our place among the gaming community by whining about shit like that. You had to be able to take it, and dish back, or you took your dice and went home.
I took my dice and went home only once, and found that to be a wholly unsatisfying response. After that, I learned to eschew restraint and mouth off in kind. That was more effective, and more fun, and I think it would be the more appropriate handling of today’s gaming environment, as well.
In other words, IMO, modern girl gamers really just need to man the fuck up.
Men’s Rights subreddit regular Demonspawn was his normal charming self:
Men take the shit to make a niche, once it’s successful women want to take it over.
This is the world order, nothing new about it. I’m just glad that gamers are finally saying “No.”
Sidetracking got dozens of upvotes for suggesting that women and girls just hide their identity and pretend to be guys, because gamer girls who acknowledge their gender online are just attention whores hungry for female privilege anyway:
When anybody plays a video game, without talking, they are pretty much concealed. Nobody really knows what gender, age, etc. In real life, girls expect this privileged talking, because people want to engage in intercourse with them, however, over a video game, this privilege is gone. In order to get the privilege back they say “Hey, I’m a girl”, not knowing that this privilege is completely removed over the internet. Then they get over-sensitized when someone calls them a bad name, when they don’t realize that pretty much everyone calls anyone out over the internet.
Daysleepin83 also got dozens of upvotes for talking about the kinds of “gamer girls” he hates the most: The ones who complain and the ones who, evidently,wear no clothes.
For the most part i really don’t give two shits about what sex my opponent is.
But there are two types of “gamer girls” that really piss me off. There are those like Anita Sarkeesian who seem to bitch and nag about all that is sexist and wrong with video games. Doesn’t really offer any solution to the problems she digs up, aside from telling us we need to change. …
Then there is the second group, they don’t so much as piss me off but more like aggravate me. The sexy gamer girl. … Could she be a legitimate gamer? Sure of course she could be. I could also one day become the Pope. Till she puts some clothing on and picks up that controller i am not going to take her serious as a gamer.
MrDorph explained that he hates those “girl gamers” who “have to shove down your throat.” (Shove what? Your own assholery?)
The issue I have is girl gamers who have to shove down your throat. I imagine the majority just don’t give a shit and tend not to talk or if they do its not provocative. The moment I hear “hey guys” I leave, I can’t be bothered with the shit storm that comes with it.
Ghebert001 told the “poor things” to get used to shitty treatment, in online gaming and everywhere else:
Bottom line is women need to learn to adapt to the “environment” (environment meaning gaming community, workplace, etc.) instead of always expecting that the “environment” adapt to them and use language like “it makes me uncomfortable” to shame others in that “environment” to accommodate them at their own expense.
Throwing in the obligatory, “women” =/= all women…don’t want to offend the poor things. Oh wait, there I go accommodating again!
Yourotherusername wins points for pomposity with this response to the OP:
Well put. Like many things, the environment of gaming has it’s own language. It isn’t the language of Shakespeare or high-finance. It’s high context communication. It’s code. It isn’t (usually) to be take at face value. The problem for the people who complain, is that the marketers who attracted them to play the game, didn’t tell them how the game is played and the vocabulary needed.
If a person hangs out with a group of people not in their normal click, they need to understand that what is being said, might not actually be what was meant, and until they grasp the context, they need to keep their mouth shut if they don’t want to look like an asshole. I’d much rather ‘learn the language’ than try to change a sub-culture.
Take reddit for example. Expect masturbation jokes. Expect memes. Expect stereotypes. But in all of that, you will find that once you adapt and understand the context, it becomes more than a middle school locker room (especially in the smaller subreddits). IF you are so bold as to challenge the nature of communication on Reddit by admonishing others and trying to get them to change their way, you will be anathema, and most likely down voted to hell. The best you can do to change the language, is to be an example of what you want, and hope to flying spaghetti monster, that it catches on.
TLDR: Go with the flow or don’t go at all.
Reddit: Awful and proud of it.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on the Men’s Rights subreddit, someone has once again posted a link to the “The Catalogue of Anti-Male Shaming Tactics,” because god forbid anyone ever say anything “shaming” about MRAs for being the shitty people they are.
Thing is, Phillikins, you know you’re railing against ‘Gamer Girls’ as opposed to ‘female gamers’, whatever the fuck those terms actually mean, but the rest of us don’t. We see you, or any other gamer boy, attacking our fellow women over gaming, and we wonder ‘when are they going to turn on us?’ Not helped by the fact that you seem to define ‘Gamer Girl’ as ‘someone who openly identifies as female [by, for example, having a feminine voice] and plays games’.
Also, nice little ‘get back in the kitchen *patronising headpat*’ with your generalisation that women [should] only like to play Wii Bowling. You are truly a worthy ambassador of inclusive gaming. [/sarcasm]
Ah Manboobz, the only place on the internet I can interact with morons and not feel like an idiot for wasting my time. Also, holy shit, this got long. I’ll put a humourous kitty picture on the end to cure any suffering caused by reading this mess. Apologies to David if this gets stuck in moderation! Not sure if there’s post limits on length or whatever before they get caught in the net.
Nevermind that there consoles are already more female oriented (generally) with thinks like motion technology, and games that don’t involve violence and aggression (of course some women like those too, I’m just generalizing).
Hear that ladies? Phil’s here to tell you what you like because he’s an expert on women! He knows all the sexist stereotypes and everything! Though if you’re lucky, he might put you in the “exception” column. Otherwise, back to your non-violent Wii sports/exercise games with you!
No, wait, sports might be a bit too.. competitive. Exercise games it is then!
Harassment is one thing, but to then tell game companies that they should no longer be allowed to depict women in any sexualized manner (which is tough considering men can sexualize a women with a nice body and pretty face wearing cargo pants and a tank top) or in any way that puts women into stereotyped gender roles is ridiculous.
Hahahahahaha, no. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 intelligence.
People finding a video game character attractive =/= sexualising a character, it’s when the makers of the game make the character sexualised on purpose. If there’s a female soldier character (preferably more than one, if we’re talking fictional soldiers here) wearing cargo pants and a tank top just like her male counterparts, and she’s just as capable as they are, and she’s not just one giant walking cardboard cutout just there for eye candy, it means shit that someone might find her attractive (apart from the fact that the internet is about to get flooded with a hundred new instances of rule 34). I’m pretty sure lots of men are attracted to strong women. That’s not the problem.
The problem is when the character lives up to stereotypes, like making her weak, submissive and emotionally vulnerable for no good reason (if we’re talking soldiers here, that’s especially stupid), or the many other stereotypes there are for women, especially for strong, assertive ones.
Or they put her in armour/clothing that barely covers anything compared to her male counterparts. Or she’s just the token woman in the background doing fuck all so the creators can say “see, we totally have women in our games!”.
The only way “fixing” it is ridiculous is if you’re a dumbass. Making realistic, deep female characters is piss easy. You just have to treat them like human beings, not lumps of flesh with boobs and butts attached. This is something I could do when I was 15.
As one video puts it so eloquently there are “too many d*cks on the dance floor” when it comes to gaming. Nevermind that women make up at least half of all gamers, but whatever.
So? If women want to play games, any games, they should be welcome to do so without having to put up with harrassment and abuse. Hell, anyone should be able to play the games they want without having to put up with harrassment and abuse. You’d have to be a monumental moron to think that women are going to flood genres they don’t enjoy just to annoy men, drive them out, or try to “equalise” things artifically. That’s just stupid.
People just want to play what they enjoy, and not play what they don’t enjoy, without all the shit.
As for “Women make up half of all gamers”, you’re actually basically saying “See, women game! No problems to see here, move along”, while ignoring individual problems that come down to the fact that it’s a genre-based medium and cultural stereotypes (and, apparently, some random dude called Phil) tell us what our preferences should be. Half of gamers being women is a pointless statement when they’re being pushed away from certain “areas” of gaming by the men who don’t want them there, when they want to be (if only they were treated as human beings).
I suggest another approach. Instead of feminists getting up in a twist, continue with the shaming (via smack talking, since effective smack talking can shame a man publicly in ways that will more effectively shut him down), but then continue to show that women are strong enough to handle the “push” (yes even the a**hole inappropriate pushes) and remain cool about it instead push back by earning a niche in the competitive culture.
Would this fix everything? No, but I guarantee that many of the a**holes would have to respect a strong woman who, instead of quitting a video game tournament due to harassment, went on to do well for herself and then shamed every last one of the suckers who said something stupid to her during the tournament. Let them try and harass a woman like that, because all it will do is make them more marginalized and look more like fools.
Two long paragraphs just to say “stop whining and grow a thicker skin”? Really? Some nice victim blaming as a bonus, blaming someone for getting the fuck out of where she obviously wasn’t wanted instead of dealing with the fuckers that were doing the harrassment. Someone’s using slurs during a tournament or harrassing/abusing someone? Automatic disqualification, done. And keep doing it if they refuse to change, eventually they’ll get the point (or they won’t, but they’ll be gone at least).
Don’t blame the target of the abuse for “not doing more to stop it”, that’s fucked up.
And no, that doesn’t mean you have to get rid of a competitive atmosphere. Anyone (notice i’m using a gender neutral term here, because this applies equally to everyone, it’s not just a “woman thing”!) who doesn’t like a competitive atmosphere is already not going to be going to a tournament. You can also have a competitive atmosphere and still keep it welcoming and friendly to everyone. You can insult people without belittling them based on who they are or stereotypes, especially if the environment is such that everyone can have a giggle at how much you suck (especially yourself), or enjoy how much you just owned someone (including the person you just owned).
the competitive side of gaming (the male side)
Haha, no.
If me, the 50% of gamers that are male, and the other 49.99999% of gamers that are female can handle this sort of stuff without batting an eye, then why do the .000001% of feminist fe/male gamers feel that swift and sure action needs to be taken to completely revamp the culture?
Can you wash those percentages before you post them next time? They smell of arse. Also, having to tolerate shit =/= good. Lots of people are forced to develop defenses against this shit, especially women who have to put up with it every day, but that doesn’t mean that the problem is solved. They shouldn’t have to tolerate it in the first place. Again, you’re putting the pressure on the victims of this to solve the problem, not on the people actually creating the problem in the first place or those allowing it to happen.
You also seem to like singling out rape jokes/threats, but going by your logic, why bother? After all, according to you, “the other 49.99999% of gamers that are female can handle this sort of stuff without batting an eye”. Perhaps because it’s a shitty way to treat another human being?
Now, as far as other exclusion goes, the problem is that this is a facet of male gaming. It won’t go away until men go away.
Not surprised that your opinion of men is almost as low as your opinion of women.
I’ve seen this in circles of male friends, or at the workplace, where people push on the new person to see how they’ll react then give them a chance to prove themselves. It’s a male social dynamic, and I think females may have a hard time adapting to it if they’re not used to it or they don’t understand the purpose of it.
If “being a douchebag to someone to see how someone reacts to it” is part of male social interaction, where can I hand in my Man Card? Because if that was so, i’d want to officially quit the Man Club.
Luckily for us, that’s not the case, and some of us can manage giving people an opportunity to prove themselves and push them to do so without being douchebags about it. I know douchebags always have a problem understanding this, but not everyone is like you.
The problem with 1). is that no one can exclude you from gaming, at least online. When I was stalked by that fellow who didn’t like me turning down his offer to cheat, I just moved along and kept playing and eventually put him on ignore.
“Ignore it, it’ll go away!”
It’s actually really easy to exclude people from gaming, people do it every day. Just make them feel unwelcome. People don’t like to stay in places they aren’t welcome, even if they enjoy everything else about it. And not all of it can be ignored, if the game in question even has that function.
You also wouldn’t know harrassment or abuse if it exploded in your face. Especially if you think “one guy that stalked me a bit until I put him on ignore” is a fantastic example of it. It’s an example, sure, but compared to what other people, especially women, go through.. you got attacked by angry kittens.
…
This is all a moot point though, because even if there was only a single woman in the entire world and/or the history of ever who enjoyed violent and/or competitive games, that wouldn’t give everyone the right to be an arsehole just because they’re the majority. You don’t get to exclude people from something they enjoy just because you don’t like their gender (or race, or whatever), and/or you have some fucked up stereotypical view of them.
Also, not only do you have feminists who are against this culture of exclusion (that is, feminists of all genders), you have non-feminist women and non-feminist men who are. There’s a lot of male gamers, who would never consider themselves feminists in a million years, who are sick of this sexist (etc) shit and the fucked up attitude of their fellow gamers. The douchebags are the minority here (and even if they were the majority, that wouldn’t mean they get to tyrannise the rest of us).
Lastly, people like things. And the things they like don’t follow a set pattern (as divided by gender, or whatever), other than patterns enforced on them from the outside. By fuckwits like you.
…
Ok, bored now. Fingers crossed for no tag explosions. And as promised, a kitteh.
@Phil
So much wrong, let me try to parse it out.
A link to the video would be nice, but whatever, let’s address the real problem here. Yes, women make up at least half of all gamers, but they don’t make up half of the characters in a lot of games and they don’t make up half of the developers. And this is due to sexism in the games industry that makes it harder for women to become developers and that doesn’t want to put in female characters because players won’t “relate” to them, even though half of the players are women.
Motion technology is more female oriented, now? And here I could swear that the first thing everyone talked about when motion controls were invented was that you could now make games where you swung lightsabers around. And there have been several games where you use motion controls to swing swords or aim guns or whatever. They’re not very good games, but the problem there is with how crappy motion control still is.
Also, games that don’t involve violence and aggression have been around since the beginning of gaming. The first ever computer game was a tennis simulation, and I don’t mean Pong. Then we have puzzle games like Tetris, Klax, Columns, The Incredible Machine and dozens more; building games like Sim City, Transport Tycoon, Theme Park, and more; Point-and-click games that often have non-violent means of doing things, like Simon the Sorcerer, Monkey Island, Kyrandia, etc; Then there are games that while “violent” don’t have graphic violence, like Pacman(which was a huge hit among women), Super Mario Brothers, Kirby, Sonic the Hedgehog, Jazz Jackrabbit, etc.
The trend towards realistic violence is a somewhat recent one, so one could argue that games are more violent now than they were at their inception.
And this is all disregarding the fact that many women gamers like violent games. What they don’t like is douchebags harassing them.
No, you hear that, because you’re not paying attention. The problem is not, and has never been, women being depicted in a sexualized manner, the problem is women only being depicted in a sexualized manner. The problem is all sort of women characters being depicted in high heels and dresses or skimpy outfits, even when it doesn’t make any sense for them to be depicted that way. The problem is women getting badass armor in MMOs and then when they put it on it turns into a bikini. The problem is women being in stupid sexualized poses in the promotional media and even in the games themselves, while men are portrayed as strong and powerful.
Nobody wants sex to be removed from games, what we want is parity.
Bullshit! You’re conflating being spammed, which everyone is, with harassment that is specifically gender-based. Women are constantly harassed with sexual offers and by being told they don’t belong in the game, and that they’re bad players just because they’re women.
When women pretend to be men online, they get a lot less crap, and they seem to manage the “manly competition environment” just fine when they do, it’s just when they reveal that they’re women that the problems begin. And before you go “oh, why do they reveal they’re women, then?” I ask you, why should they hide it in the first place? Why should someone be made unwelcome just because of their gender?
Double bullshit! It’s not a facet of male gaming, it’s a facet of asshole gaming. Women get a lot more and a different variety of crap. Again, the problem is not one or two isolated incidents, this is systematic, this is women getting this everywhere they go. Again, when women pretend to be men, they don’t have to deal with half this shit, so the problem is clearly not with women not being able to handle competition, this is a problem with women not being able to handle a far greater amount of crap than men do.
I’m starting to sink in all the bullshit here, Phil, this is exactly what a lot of “Girl Gamers” are doing. It’s what Anita Sarkeesian is doing, it’s what the women who write articles about it are doing, it’s what the men who write articles about it are doing. They are speaking out against it, they are showing everyone that this crap is not appropriate an then assholes like you turn around and go “waaaah, they’re trying to take away our male culture, waaaah!”. But men don’t complain, right? They’re just expressing their manly opinion.
Yes, dude, women need to WIN GAMING TOURNAMENTS while being harassed a great deal more than other people so that assholes like you will deign themselves to grant them respect. Yes, that’s totally reasonable and not a double standard at all.
You don’t own gaming, you don’t own gaming culture and you don’t speak for other men.
I’m a man and I don’t appreciate being told by assholes like you and by the industry that I’m too shallow to be interested in women unless they’re dressed in skimpy outfits; or that I’m so sexist that I can relate to a robot or an alien but not a female character; or that I have to be an asshole or else I’m not a part of “gaming culture”, or that I have to play the game that other men tell me to play or else I’m unmanly.
You’re an asshole Phil.
Huh, ninja’d on a lot of my points by Shade, curse my slow typing.
Anyway, sorry for the wall of text, but I had to get that out.
Huh, ninja’d on a lot of my points by Shade, curse my slow typing.
Well I took a couple of hours to do mine (well, it took longer in total, because work D:), so I must be the slowest ninja in the universe. 😛 I guess we won’t be winning any prizes in the fastest blog comment posting competition.
So Phil… if women make up half the Gamers, and you think that men ought not be encouraged to abuse those women; if they ought to, “own the space”, because the presence of women are ruining it; if that half the gaming population says they find it hard to function in that space if they are known to be women… how is it that you think this is harmless?
Because what I’m seeing isn’t, a PART, I’m seeing it as a social tool to inhibit women. I’m seeing you argue for the continuation of that tool.
Harassment is one thing, but to then tell game companies that they should no longer be allowed to depict women in any sexualized manner
Citation needed.
What I see is requests to have female characters who are about more than boobs and butt. Who might reflect something non-objectifying in their design/function.
nita will hide behind the fact that she’s not using legal pressure to do so, but social pressure can work just as well, if not better.
Hide behind the fact? But men using social pressure to keep women out is just fine? Nothing wrong with that.
If me, the 50% of gamers that are male, and the other 49.99999% of gamers that are female can handle this sort of stuff without batting an eye, then why do the .000001% of feminist fe/male gamers feel that swift and sure action needs to be taken to completely revamp the culture?
So you think a miniscule number of people (1 in 100,000) is enough to make the furor we see here? This when you say that 1 in twenty (more more or less) is so insignificant in dealing with relationship patterns that they are below the threshold of concern in a matter which touches everyone? But 1 in 100,000 in a small subculture manages to get national attention?
Might be you have some confirmation bias going on.
Again, shaming is excluded, I’ll join in on that because I don’t like people like that either.
Again, you don’t agree. Shaming is meant to change the very culture you defend. Shaming is the “social pressure Sarkeesian will hide behind”. Shaming will, if it works, removed the things you say are just fine.
And that culture admits it has problems with women. The LAN convention in Texas that said women couldn’t come because it upset the dynamics too much, because the men who played get too upset when they play with women… that says the half of gamers who are men aren’t all fine with it.
It says the culture is toxic, and they like it that way.
This is arguably defensible, if it’s only one person doing the harassing If every time someone goes online as an apparently female character and gets harassed, there is no way to “ignore” them until they go away.
Bullshit. It’s there as long as people will tolerate it. I’ve been in the Army. It’s a pretty “male” culture. The women do just fine, so long as the unit culture doesn’t allow the sort of shit you say is impossible to eradicate.
It’s eradicable. It takes will, and social pressure, and sometimes the hammer of retribution.
I also think this is why the debate spirals out of control, because what you expect out of a person when you “push” them this way is for them to brush it off and push through to prove themselves.
This is where you fail to understand. The men who are doing this aren’t trying to haze women for a while and then let them into the club when they have, “proved themselves”. They are trying to make them leave.
If there’s one consistent tenet of MR activism besides hating women, it’s hating men.
Shorter Phil:
Women, KNOW YOUR PLACE and GET BACK IN IT!! Make dem gaming boyz deir sammiches!!
And of course they would like it that way, because when men (apparently) cannot control themselves when in the presence of women, it is women whose behaviour is subsequently controlled (in the above-mentioned case, controlled by exclusion……in other venues, controlled by curfews, chastity belts, purdah, etc.) not men’s behaviour.
Um, the penis only has sensory neurons and no intermediary neurons. It’s the latter type that are required to “think” as they are the type of nerve cells that make up the brain. The more you know!
lowquacks: If you don’t care then quit thinking and posting about my dick!
There aren’t enough Golda Meir’s in the world:
When there was a rash of rapes in Israel she was told a curfew would solve it, just make the women stay home and they’d not be raped. She said that was stupid. “Men are committing the rapes. Let them be put under curfew.”
@pecunium
Exactly!! Why is it that it’s women’s rights that need to be curtailed whenever men want to behave badly?!
I’d like to see what would happen if women took to throwing the words “creep” and “creepy” at every male gamer they happened to encounter. I’d seriously love to see the uproar.
Just to clarify, I am NOT an MRA. I actually respect myself, and I don’t feel the need to hate women in order to justify my failings in life….That’s what minorities are for, haha, not not really though.
That doesn’t mean I’m trying to say my opinions are more credible (yes, feel free to make the easy joke about that), but this has nothing to do with men’s rights or anything like that. I just like gaming, and I think developers should be free to express themselves in gaming. I don’t see what the need is for villifying male sexuality is and all of that.
Anyway, I can’t respond to all of the points, and it’s not like you guys like what I say anyway so I’ll try to keep this brief.
“””Yes, women make up at least half of all gamers, but they don’t make up half of the characters in a lot of games and they don’t make up half of the developers. And this is due to sexism in the games industry that makes it harder for women to become developers and that doesn’t want to put in female characters because players won’t “relate” to them, even though half of the players are women.”””
To copy you guys: Citation needed. How do you know that just because there are less women that this involves sexism. Also, how do you know that females don’t make up half of the characters? They may not in CoD but that forgets RPGs, or games like Harvest Moon and so on where there are a lot of female characters.
At any rate, why can’t it just be possible that there are less female developers because women generally don’t like to write computer code?
Maybe there would also be more female characters if women came into the industry and actually created content instead of just trying to get people to change it from the outside. I’m not aware of a single barrier to women entering the field, and while you insist sexism is keeping women out I’m also sure you won’t be able to find a systemic instance of women being excluded.
“””Motion technology is more female oriented, now?”””
It’s no secret that gaming became more popular among women and older people when motion technology took off. This is just a generalization, but yes men like motion technology too.
“””And before you go “oh, why do they reveal they’re women, then?” I ask you, why should they hide it in the first place? Why should someone be made unwelcome just because of their gender?”””
Maybe because revealing your gender tells everyone that you think you’re special because of your gender. You’re not “hiding” your gender if you don’t reveal it, you’re just not focusing on it because who cares?
“””Bullshit. It’s there as long as people will tolerate it. I’ve been in the Army. It’s a pretty “male” culture. The women do just fine, so long as the unit culture doesn’t allow the sort of shit you say is impossible to eradicate.”””
How is having the strictly regimented overbearing control in video games that we have in the military appealing? Sounds worse than women (and men) being made uncomfortable.
I served in the Air Force, which is noticeably less masculine, but that’s still how I base my experience of men “testing” others and being dbags or aholes as you put it. That’s even with the rules and restraints.
“””If there’s one consistent tenet of MR activism besides hating women, it’s hating men.”””
I’m just a misanthrope. 🙂
“””Women, KNOW YOUR PLACE and GET BACK IN IT!! Make dem gaming boyz deir sammiches!!”””
This is ironic considering that (some) women are the ones coming into male gaming culture and telling them how to properly create characters and what they should and should not be allowed to enjoy, harassment aside.
Just because men don’t want to bend to demands does not mean they’re trying to put women in their place. I think the majority of male gamers just wish women would adapt to the culture like they and everyone else had to, instead of complaining and trying to change it to suit their comfort level.
Of course, talking about this is difficult since saying this will make it seem like I’m just telling women to deal with excessive verbal assaults.
“””It’s eradicable. It takes will, and social pressure, and sometimes the hammer of retribution.”””
Okay, let’s all do that. So long as it doesn’t go too far and turn gaming into yet another PC culture where people are afraid to express themselves because we’re concerned only with making sure everyone’s comfortable.
So much for keeping it brief.
So you just hate women for shits and giggles then?
I’m just gonna leave this here.
Critiquing rampant sexualization of women ≠ villifying male sexuality.
This is basic fucking stuff, so do try to keep up.
It’s funny what you can justify as “a whole group of people just tend not to like a thing” when you ignore systematic discrimination like it’s not well-established as a social phenomenon.
Funny, that. It’s almost like you have to identify and examine problems with one toolset before you fix them with another.
Well aren’t you special!
“Systemic instance”
How fucking ignorant are you?
Since when was “teabagging” not a thing in multiplayer FPSs? How many male-coded names can you find on any given server—have you noticed? I’m guessing not, because it doesn’t even occur to you to think that male is regarded as the default gender, whereas female is the exception—as if you’re highlighting yourself and standing out just by being identifiably female. This is fucking male privilege 101 shit right here.
“Just because men are don’t want to bend to demands not to put women ‘in their place’ doesn’t mean they’re trying to put women in their place.”
Do you even realize how ridiculously ignorant you sound?
That’s literally what you just said, given the context of this entire discussion.
Translation: let’s all make sure the privileged white boys never have their jimmies rustled, we wouldn’t want them to feel like they can’t express their true, inner racist, sexist shithead selves.
After all, that would make them feel unwelcome, and what fun would that be?
Lern, pilotboy: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/11/faq-what-is-male-privilege/
Are you fucking kidding me with this? Okay, fine, let’s do this. Unquestionably the biggest RPG franchise in video-gaming is Final Fantasy. There have been, by my count, exactly two games (out of thirteen) in the main series with a female character in the lead role, VI and XIII. Both of those games, I’m sure entirely coincidentally, also placed much more of a focus on the ensemble cast and de-emphasized the role of the protagonist.
But let’s break this down by game (ignoring FFI, which lacked characterization, and FFXI, which was an MMO). Female characters:
FFII: One of three main characters, one of five guest star characters
FFIII: One of four main characters (as of the most recent remake; the original characters lacked personality)
FFIV: Three of twelve main characters
FFV: Three of five main characters (hey, a majority!)
FFVI: Three of fourteen
FFVII: Three of nine (jeez, did Square have a thing for female characters in threes or what?)
FFVIII: Three of six (three of nine if you count the flashback scenes, which I don’t)
FFIX: Three of eight
FFX: Three of seven (holy shit, this is actually a persistent pattern)
FFXII: Three of six
FFXIII: Three of six
Female characters have outnumbered male characters in a Final Fantasy game exactly ONCE. They’ve had equal representation only twice. Only 29 out of 80 main characters in the above listed games are female. This is the flagship franchise of the genre you want to claim has disproportionate representation of women.
You ask how I know that women aren’t half of characters in video-games? BECAUSE I FUCKING PLAY VIDEO-GAMES AND I’M NOT STUPID.
Joy of joys, he’s back! And he didn’t read my ginormous post of doom! Oh well. I’ll just add in a few thoughts between Tulgey Logger’s and Gametime’s thoughts to create an evil thought-mesh of random.. I don’t know where I was going with that.
I don’t see what the need is for villifying male sexuality is and all of that.
Since when is male sexuality defined by needing to see half-naked women 24/7? What about people who don’t have that need, or don’t have the need to see half-naked women entirely? Or is every guy straight and constantly horny in Philworld?
But even if that were true: inclusive, realistic, 3d female characters who are treated as human beings in games > male sexuality. That’s not villifying male sexuality, like Tulgey says this is basic shit where people want female characters to be treated as human beings. Not objects there to look attractive to straight, male gamers (or, at least, what the developers believe to be attractive to straight, male gamers) as a primary role.
Also, I always get a kick out of when people come into a feminist space to complain people are being anti-sexuality, because there’s a good chance that they’ve just yelled “you’re anti-sexuality!!!!111eleventy” to at least one sex positive feminist. I find that hilarious.
I’m not aware of a single barrier to women entering the field, and while you insist sexism is keeping women out I’m also sure you won’t be able to find a systemic instance of women being excluded.
Come on, this (along with the “male is default human” crap) is basic privilege shit. Go read Tulgey’s link. And I mean read it, not look at the url or the first page and get angry at it.
I’m just a misanthrope. 🙂
Oh, not another one.. “I hate everyone equally” isn’t a good excuse, or even a good thing.
This is ironic considering that (some) women are the ones coming into male gaming culture and telling them how to properly create characters and what they should and should not be allowed to enjoy, harassment aside.
This isn’t telling people what to enjoy, you can enjoy all the boobs, butts and half-naked ladies you want. But this is gaming, not porn. Gamers complain about poor characterisation all the time, why should reducing female characters to their sexuality and/or appearance be any different just because it makes some guy’s dick hard?
Of course, talking about this is difficult since saying this will make it seem like I’m just telling women to deal with excessive verbal assaults.
Except you did, we can even go back and look. Fucking page scroll bars, how do they work?!
It’s no secret that gaming became more popular among women and older people when motion technology took off.
Ever thought that maybe that was because that’s who it was primarily marketed to? Rather than young, straight, male gamers, for once?
Also, how do you know that females don’t make up half of the characters? They may not in CoD but that forgets RPGs, or games like Harvest Moon and so on where there are a lot of female characters.
Shorter Phil: “There’s plenty of female characters in the female-coded section of gaming, like Harvest Moon! Why aren’t you looking there! Obviously no women like shooters so don’t look there.”
So long as it doesn’t go too far and turn gaming into yet another PC culture where people are afraid to express themselves because we’re concerned only with making sure everyone’s comfortable.
OH NOES PC CULTURE.
I’m totally not going to lose sleep if prejudiced privileged arseholes feel like they’re being pushed out of gaming.
@Phil
ShadetheDruid has addressed this, but I’m going to add that If you think men can only be sexually attracted to female characters if they’re under-characterized, under-dressed and highly sexualized, then YOU’RE the one vilifying male sexuality.
@Gametime: I don’t know what Square’s thing is with the three-woman cap. Is there some Japanese folk tale or something we’re not familiar with that is limiting them to three women? Have they heard of the maiden, mother, crone motif in Western culture and remembered only that there’s three women? Are they jerks?
I think we need to look at other JRPG franchises and see if any of them have more than 3 women in a game. I think Persona 3 might, but it’s been years.
Oh, also, FF X-2 was a game in which the entire party were women … three of them.
The game play in that game involved changing clothes. /)<)
Looks like I was almost right.
Some Square games I remember:
In Chrono Trigger there were 3 female protagonists out of 7;
In Seiken Densetsu 3 there were 3 female protagonists out of 6;
In Secret of Mana there was only 1 female protagonist out of 3;
In Live-A-Live there was also only one 1 female protagonist out of 10;
OK, in Dark Cloud I remember there was 1 female PC out of I can’t remember how many;
In Dark Cloud 2 there are 2 PCs and 1 is a young woman;
In Rogue Galaxy there’s something like 8 people to set up with Jaxter and 2 of them are women.
In Shadow Hearts, there are 6 PCs and 2 are women;
In Shadow Hearts: Covenant, there are 6-8 PCs and 1 woman (the wolf is male);
In Shadow Hearts: From the New World there’s exploitative-sexy-white-Native-American woman, the pirate princess, and the vampire.
I think. I’ve been playing Skyrim and Mass Effect and the like.