The gaming enthusiast known as seanmalstrom seems to be on a personal crusade to challenge the stereotype of men as the “logical sex.” He does this mostly by 1) being a dude and 2) writing things that make no sense at all.
In a recent post on his blog Malstrom’s Articles News – no, that’s really what it’s called – Mr. Malstrom attempts to rebut a piece by John Walker of the gaming site Rock Paper Shotgun that challenged misogyny in the gaming world.
It’s not much of a rebuttal, but Mr. Malstrom makes a couple of, er, “arguments” that grabbed my attention. At one point he suggests that if game developers stop populating their games with sexy lady characters with giant boobs and long legs, American men will have no way to exercise their God-given right to ogle sexy ladies with giant boobs and long legs.
There is a great question I have yet to hear anyone in the Game Industry answer. If women cannot be depicted fantastical (big boobs, long legs, slaughters armies single-handedly) in fantasy entertainment, where can men go to see fantasy women? Women have their fantasy men from endless soap-operas, romance novels, chick flicks, and such. Are men not allowed to have fantasies in entertainment?
True, that is a question I’ve yet to see anyone in the game industry answer, largely because most of the people in the game industry, whatever their flaws, live in the real world, and in the real world images of sexy ladies with big boobs are not exactly difficult to come by.
Mr. Malstrom goes on to argue that men in the English-speaking world have the greatest need for sexy lady video game characters, because the women they run into on a regular basis in the real world are all fatties. In the Cold War era, politicians warned about a “Missile Gap” with the Russians. Today, apparently, we and the Russians have a Fatty Gap.
In Russia, it is stunning to see alcoholic bums of Russian men with model quality looks Russian women. In the same way, in the United States it is stunning to see wealthy, hardworking, handsome American men with an American woman who looks like a Troglodyte. Of course, this is just a generalization. The point is that the typical American male has a better worldwide value if they stop thinking the local obese women around them are ‘the normal’. They aren’t the normal worldwide.
If anyone needs fantasy depictions, it would be English speaking men who don’t have access to the worldwide standard.
Mr. Malstrom is also bothered by the suggestion that video game makers should try to make female characters more interesting. You know, with personalities and motivations of their own, and stuff like that. To Mr. Malstrom, there’s nothing more interesting about a women than her body.
What makes a woman interesting to men?
The truth is that interesting women needs youth, big boobs, long legs, long hair, and an hourglass figure to be interesting to men. The more women go away from this, the less interesting they become to men. This is why women when inevitably age, they become more and more invisible to men. It is just Nature at work. Ironically, for men the older they get, the more interesting they can become to women as their earning potential goes up. This balances out how most young men are invisible to women when they are younger. After the age of 25, men tend to become the more interesting ones compared to a woman of equal age. This is why mothers always advised their daughters to ‘snag him when he and she are both young’.
Indeed, Mr. Malstrom argues, men who insist that women be depicted as sex objects are doing women a giant favor.
And we should only hope that women wish to be depicted as sex objects for that is how they become love objects as well. No man wants to marry a women they aren’t attracted to. Last I checked, marriage rates were plummeting in the West. Perhaps journalists should strive for ‘positive change’ by suggesting to women to be depicted more as sex objects so they can attract a man for marriage before they get too old. That would truly help women and make men happier as well.
Mr. Malstrom concludes with a stirring call for women to stop being such fat fatties.
It IS tasteless for using women as sex objects to sell games. Why? It is because real life women should be sex objects to begin with. If that were the case, putting them on a game cover wouldn’t be selling the game. This used to be the case decades ago. Since obesity in women have skyrocketed and attractive women have diminished, putting attractive women on game covers definitely attracts men more than it should.
It IS sad that women can’t find themselves sensibly portrayed in the games they play. It is not because the women in the games are ‘too attractive’, it is because the women playing them tend to be ‘too fat’. It is sad for women that they are fat. It is also sad for men. What John Walker should do is to advise women to get in shape and try to look like the depictions of women that men are attracted to. This would be ‘positive change’ we could all get behind.
I hate to burst your bubble, Mr. Malstrom, but I don’t think there was any era of history in which women looked like this.
It’s probably just as well, as Lara here doesn’t seem to have eyelids and her head isn’t properly connected to her neck.
Note: Thanks to Tatjna for pointing me to Mr. Malstrom’s post!
Darn you, I came here precisely to post that. Ninja’d by the blogmaster himself!
And if you think I can help the person facing MRA harassment, email me and I will do my best. The greatest human rights movement of the 21st century, folks! Harassing women since [the dawn of fucking time]…
@eli, Sorry. Hugs from a stranger if they’re wanted; otherwise, just count me in for strewing LEGOs in the path of barefooted proto-MRAs whenever the situation calls for that.
Y’know, I had a miserable experience last night where I stepped on an unpopped popcorn kernel. I think I might be worse than Legos.
@eli
I’m sorry that happened to you. Hugs if wanted, and I hope they all fall in love with a really big cactus.
or maybe “it” would be better.
They stopped at a stoplight on a two-lane business highway next to me. My window was open because “HOT.” I had just played a funeral and I was in business dress. They start telling me what they want to do to me sexually. Then one of them realizes that I’m like “oh, dudes, she’s like, old” and then it’s what their grandfather wants to do to me sexually.
They tracked me like a mile down the road. Hurling stuff at me. At one point, they got ahead. I reached for my phone (which wasn’t even set for the camera), but I pointed it in their general direction and they speeded off. I ducked into the parking lot for a used book store with a nice owner who was happy to let me calm myself and I found a couple of books that I wanted.
I’m like, yeah forty-something old. This should not be happening to me. but it did happen to me today.
Eli: Ugh, what assholes.
Eli, so sorry you had to deal with that shit!
Eli, that blows. I’m sorry you had to deal with that, and I hope those little pissants get a dose of self-awareness one day.
@baroncognito
One of my fave chars, from one of my fave series. I heart Kate so much, and had mentioned her myself, rather obliquely 😉
Arrowette? Ouch. Some names should not be put into use, ever.
@eli: Sorry to hear what happened to you. The douchecanoes.
Huh. It’s like videogames are not the only place women are portrayed like that. Can’t he just watch porn or something? I mean, that seems more effective if he just wants to jack off.
O_O didn’t know that, Marie has a disappoint now.
@bookdragonette
I don’t know, you’ve brought out my Riza Hawkeye fangirl squeeness!!!!! She is the perfectest!!!!!! /fangirl mode
Um, hmmm. I know Huntress uses a crossbow in DC comics, but I don’t know if she’s a sharpshooter/ sniper kinda person. Also Tigress, also from DC* who I got the impression was a sharpshooter from what I’ve read of her, but it was only a couple books.
*link included cuz I think she’s rather unpopular.
@bahumbugi
Jedi hugs if you want them 🙁 That sounds icky.
@eli
Internet hugs if you want them 🙁 So sorry it happened to you.
Eli: I’m just gonna echo other folks here–so sorry you had to deal with that shit.
I knew you manboobzers would be awesome and you are. Bookstore guy was too. As he said “Why weren’t they in school?”
I’m pretty sure, knowing the practices, that they were seniors allowed to leave the campus for lunch.
On female archers–as noted, it’s often considered an acceptable ‘feminine’ combat role in comics. Doubly so, since it then becomes easier to justify the female superhero getting overwhelmed in close-quarters combat with a male villain in an encounter that has an unpleasant rape-y vibe.
And, hey, for bonus points, archer/sharpshooter types are easy to maim (crushed hand, blinded) in a way that takes them out of combat but doesn’t kill them, allowing for the ‘broken hero’ effect. Which just happens to be a favorite thing to do to female heroes in particular.
eli: Okay, yeah, that bookstore owner definitely has a clue. Nice to hear about someone in the comics community (my prior post shows how frustrated I’m getting with that same community these days).
@katz – no, I didn’t watch it, but it was all over the papers here, as you may imagine. 🙂
@eli – nthing what everyone else said. May their jocks be lined with cactus forever.
And, conversely, to sidestep the “would/wouldn’t hit a girl” issue. For whatever reason, it seems more acceptable to shoot at a woman than to hit one.
freemage:
I play a game called Battle of Wesnoth, that is open source, and my archers are always a little ambiguous in terms of gender. All of my elves are in that game. Is that unusual? My elves in that game are super archers.
And here’s one I drew. Her name is Camilla.
Ok, I totally bunged that. Many of my elves are female in that game.
And renewed thanks to all. I was actually kind of scared. There are a limited number of private schools these doods could have gone to. Dunno.
@katz
I like your picture 😀 Especially your archers boots.
@eli: sorry about the assholes 🙁
As far as the OP, this is what stood out to me:
Because when women complain about being treated as sex objects, it is apparently the “sex” part we are taking issue with. If we could just be treated as some other sort of non-human thing, that would be dandy.
katz, Camilla totally rocks! May I forward that pic to a friend? She wrote the Griffin’s Daughter series and I think she’d love it.
“No, I’m telling you, the “The Normal” from Wisconsin that put out Girth, Wind & Fire on Spare Change in ’84 were just one-trick power pop ponies. Call them “an important and audacious precursor to the Riot Grrl scene” all you want, but their one EP was mostly joke covers and was marred by some very ’80s production and guitar sounds.
The “The Normal” that really matters is the multiracial London octet that signed to Chrysalis in ’78 after a series of self-released tapes. Imagine early Style Council reimagined with a Can-like sense of experimentation and space – that’s Can circa Soon Over, Babaluma, not Can-the-jam-band – and a guitarist who memorably hummed all of her solos on their major-label debut into a kazoo after developing a nickel allergy just after laying down rhythm parts. That and favouring a revitalised-rocker look instead of the neo-mod thing that was stylish at the time were all that stopped them from being the massively influential group they deserved to be.
They toured here, briefly, as The UK Normals after legal pressure, but the flautist eloped with an ostrich farmer and was imprisoned after the two of them were found smuggling Quaaludes across state lines and the tour was cut short. I believe Crass were flown in on short notice to continue the tour.
Their “reunion” album with only one original member released in 1999 was awful, I’ll admit and the Y2K Bug concept dates it badly. I’d take Girth, Wind & Fire over that.
. . .No, Can up until after Tago Mago were definitely just a glorified jam band. A sort of shittier German Grateful Dead. Journalists don’t bother to investigate beyond early work and that’s why there’s all this acclaim for Monster Movie is scaring confused people off the whole Krautrock thing.”
Seriously tho, isn’t the whole “Russian/whatever women are so much hotter”, beyond being hard to quantify, just a sort of grass is greener thing combined with barely-hidden racism (Russian women are all tall thin blondes, right?). I’m reasonably sure US-made jeans were a highly sought-after luxury in late Soviet Russia, with the idea that if you wore them you could channel some of the glamour of attractive Americas.
Yeah, loquacks, I remember, back in the day. People on the street in Vienna, saying I was Polish. I’m not really tall 5’6″. There was something there. My thing today was kind of reminiscent. I’m not sure why, except it was the last time I felt really threatened.