They knew they might get a paddlin' for saying "SJW" but that's what the post implies, IMO.
DA and ME games are the first games I've played that you can romance men as a female lead.
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Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)
- Thread starter Persephone
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They knew they might get a paddlin' for saying "SJW" but that's what the post implies, IMO.
DA and ME games are the first games I've played that you can romance men as a female lead.
THIS. I love the lore and the world so much! And I can play as a women! And the games fun! And DRAGONS! It's all win
Taking sexualized designs out of video games where the sexualization is out of place for the character would MAKE WOMEN FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE PLAYING GAMES. Therefore it's a reasonable thing to discuss on a video game focused forum. While nobody expects video games to be the sole source of correcting entire cultural problems, there is nothing wrong with requesting the makers of said games to consider whether they want to be part of REINFORCING STEREOTYPES WITHOUT THOUGHT. And some of those makers, on personal reflection, realize that they do NOT want to, and then they adjust how they create female characters.
I have no idea what you're even saying.
You seem angry if anyone criticizes a dev. Critics who don't like content are not inherently using "humiliation" as a tactic to open a conversaton with devs. Perhaps you could post an example of "humiliating" conversation so I can understand what you're getting at?
Women who inherently "wouldn't post on a gaming forum" can hardly be a significant portion of "women who play video games". Why do you think we are talking about women "who wouldn't post on a gaming forum"?
So, which part of "all women" are you protecting from being spoken over by those women who DO post on a gaming forum? I am agog.
This. The idea that the vast numbers of women that play an rpg do so because of something so simplistic as romance rather than a combination of the same factors anyone else does is ridiculous. Maybe they really like the combat system, or the choices, or the story, or the characters, or the costumes, or all of the above. You wouldn't describe a male fan base of an rpg as only in it for a singular aspect like killing orcs or whatever.
So... you're so far removed from anything resembling empathy with your fellow human beings (who happen to be women) that you can't even fathom the idea that unequivocally disrespecting an entire gender is fundamentally unappealing to members of that gender?
Okay.
Some men in the West probably do want to be the pretty boy though? Quite often the pretty boy is thought to be the one that "gets the girls/attention". Or the rugged pretty boy. Music artists often reinforce this, from the point of view if you can find a good looking pretty band member, he'll have some attention all right. The FF15 crew are basically a boy band. While muscular physiques can be quite popular on men, it can be quite an acquired taste for some women for men to be going around looking like an Action Man figure. There's actually plenty of women who do not swoon over guys and their obsessions with gyms and looking like a walking six-pack. There is plenty of middle ground between having a massive beer belly and looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger back in the day.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-beast/201704/how-men-attract-women
https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201707/why-you-want-who-you-want
But no, you cannot pigeon hole people in life. Attraction is often subjective, and as I always say chasing relationships based solely on looks often ends badly. That is something men do tend to do far more often, and unlike in fantasy where they can get their "physical looks", the real world is far more about reality and diversity, not fantasy. While you undoubtedly may want some physical attraction to someone, personality often rises up. Confidence does too, hence why some socially awkward guys really do need to try and work on their confidence/mannerisms and not spend soo much time fantasizing about being Noctis.
Get a decent haircut, wash (I don't say that in a belitting way, it's just true some guys personal hygene is woeful), buy some nice fitting clothes, get in reasonable shape and work on your confidence and you'll be fine. Career? Yeah, well, it does matter too, but just do the best you can and the overall sum of your person and some financial stability will take you far. While this might not be the right topic for it, although it is in some senses given what I'm about to say, many male gamers need a brush down on reality, how to be a man, and how to improve themselves and not be bitter, hostile, resentful and angry men behaving like children. I did try and talk about this earlier, but to some it's obviously offtopic. I think its linked though, as there is undoubtedly many bitter, angry and resentful men getting lost in the worlds of fantasy and replacing real women with virtual women. If some people who claim they want to try and curb behaviour problems online with gamers/males, this is the kind of things we need to be talking about too. The underlying problems, not just taking surface potshots with name-calling. While that serves a purpose to try and put people in their place, I'm personally as I said earlier more interested in finding out what makes these people's brains tick, why they think like they do and what can be attempted to be done to re-educate.
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Not saying every character needs to be Bayonetta, but if they are going to make em sexy they should do it right, instead of "Iunno take a completely serious and otherwise non-sexual character and just rip their pants off cuz idgaf".
To add, I also think we need a lot more just good female characters to begin with. So 75% "Just a great character all around" Ellie, 25% "Sexy in a sensible and bad ass way" Bayonetta, and 0% "lol what are pants" Quiet.
I thought the romances were boring and dumb
This opinion brought to you by my vagina
The cynic in me imagined a Fox news report along the lines of: "Female opinions originate in the vagina: Should vaginas be banned? More at 11".
Thankfully it's still a satirical thought.
The discussion chain was about women who aren't into gaming and why that's the case. I highly doubt that women who aren't into gaming post on an exclusive board like this.
I can very much fathom the idea but I also see women cosplaying as Quiet or other characters that you'd regard as disrespecting an entire gender, so I don't know how all women feel about it.
I don't quite understand this linear continuum you're establishing, but alright.
I think instead developers should focus on depicting women realistically and not to treat 'sexiness' as some kind of slider they apply after the fact.
This sounds like a long-winded way of saying "women should just play other games".
The point is to have a diversity of media such that each party partaking in the media have options that represent their interests. You don't need to remove one option to enable another option. They are not mutually exclusive. It's about making the pool bigger, not eliminating parts of it.
You can't please all audiences with singular products. It's not possible, and attempts at doing so are usually poorly designed.
Here's a note you can collect in Keira Metz's hut:
Black eyeliner in a pinch
When deprived of professional products, one can mix up black eyeliner from crushed medicinal charcoal mixed with (fresh!) egg yolk and a drop of lavender oil (to keep contaminants at bay). Store the eyeliner in a cool place for at most 3 days, then make a new batch, because the old one has surely rotted. Ingest the remaining medicinal charcoal, for it can only do you good.
Woman in the witcher 3 wear makeup for the same reasons women in the real world wear it.
Hmmmmm I should make a point of that I don't really think of Bayonetta as being "sexy". Nor do, anecdotally, any of the several female friends that I've introduced the game to. She's not attractive, really, though she is, quite intensely, sexual.
I view her much more as the female equivalent to Dante or Kratos; just as playing those games result in a muscle bound, high testosterone power trip, Bayonetta, IMO, represents the same thing for women.
This is of course a controversial opinion, and is suuuuuuuuuuper subjective, but if I get to play as Leon and feel like a super manly and suave badass, I think women should have their opportunity to feel badass for being women, and enough people feel the same way that I think characters like Bayonetta add, rather than subtract.
Is Bayonetta everyone's cup of tea? No.
Sorry, but your vagina isn't allowed to have an opinion of its own unless a penis tells it it's okay.
The point I was trying to make is that it's strange seeing a bunch of guys looking warn/beat up from the world they live in and then seeing some women presented in a way that feels out of place, where they're presented to the player instead of being a PART of that world. Makeup/eyeliner is only one of those components that factors into that perception. If we were just talking about makeup alone it wouldn't be an issue.. but it's about a sum of things that equates to a shitty representation of women in comparison to their male counterparts in the game.
Like I said, the way some women in TW3 are framed, their body language and their physical appearance in comparison to males, often paints a really strange/out of place image of women.
At least that was my experience.
I'm not saying women are incapable of wearing makeup for themselves.
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Yeah. Interesting how your example is hypothetical, and I got a dozen women that aren't who are largely agreeing.
So again, what is the point of saying "you don't speak for all women" (of course we don't, no one speaks for ~all women~) other than trying to shut us down? Do you not realize how insulting and frustrating this is for us who ARE speaking out?
Make-up talk reminds me how many games with character customisation enforce gender stereotypes, though that's probably grounds for a separate topic and I'm not sure anyone has the energy for another one of those...
Ciri for sure gets beat up pretty good.
Facial scratches, a few nasty looking scars, an arm and torso wound (you cant see it, but it's there), dirty clothes, smudged makeup.
This is a whole 'nother ball of wax and gets into the many complex and varied reasons someone might cosplay such a character, up to and including:
- Being paid for it
- Ironically as a form of satire
- To draw attention to how stupid such costumes look on real women
- To wield one of the few powers women are given culturally (i.e. to be "sexy")
- To show off her costuming skills
- To feel proud of her own body
- To participate in a fandom and feel a sense of belonging
- To show admiration for a character, sometimes in spite of how she is treated by the artists who rendered her (see: slave bikini Leia)
At any rate, I find this diversion to be entirely pointless. It should be a matter of course that we don't treat any gender in a sexist or demeaning fashion, and not something up for debate or for questioning. I don't care what the numbers say with regards to how many people can stomach that crap, because from a basic, moral perspective, it is simply wrong to act against equality.
I was responding to the idea that this post: https://www.resetera.com/posts/696892/ is mansplaining because it didn't engage the issues women brought up here. I never said don't listen, but the issue as to what exactly doesn't appeal to women who aren't into gaming is up to debate.
At the end of the day it feels like some men don't think enough of us are complaining, so those of us who do say something don't count. Honestly, it reminds me of conversations about how women wanting to get rid of catcalling are hurting women who feel appreciated/empowered/whatever from it.
I have to wonder how many women have to talk about something before we're taken seriously. Or maybe we will never be unless we get formalized research results. (Which brings it's own set of issues.)
I guess my final word would be this:
I guess I'm just conflicted between these two broad viewpoints:
"I like it, people like making it, it sells, no one has to play or like these games, there are plenty of other games & it doesn't cause and contribute to sexism in any meaningful way" and
"I can see how it would be alienating and oppressive seeing sexualised depictions of your gender all the time, how it would reinforce the idea that this entertainment is not for you and how feeling excluded from great games you'd otherwise enjoy would suck"
I also feel like stronger representation of women in the gaming industry would fix a lot of these issues.
Anyway, cheers to everyone who took part in this discussion. I know that for many of you it's frustrating when someone like me reads your posts and doesn't agree with something you feel is very basic or obvious, or when it takes time to get to grips with the main point being made. I have to admit that I read the OP over 10 times just trying to understand it, honestly. It comes from such a different point of view than mine that I genuinely struggled to understand the basis of the points it was making.
- I get conflicted between the fact that I don't think a sexualised character design designed to appeal to men is in and of itself sexist vs the fact that I do think the excessive proliferation of them in certain genres when the same never happens to men is.
- I get conflicted between the fact that when you look at the top 10 grossing games on mobile, handheld, console and PC of 2016 there's very few games with explicit sexual designs or fanservice so most of the popular games these days are actually very female friendly vs the fact that entire major genres on console aren't female-friendly at all.
- I get conflicted between the fact that I like fanservice in games, it's a selling point to me and I buy games that have it vs the fact that I don't want women to be excluded from certain genres of games or the hobby as a whole.
- I get conflicted because I can see the harm that female stereotyping can have on women but I find it tough to pin sexual content in games as any kind of concrete cause of those stereotypes and thus struggle to see a specific causal link to specific harm done.
- I get conflicted because when a game story is worth taking seriously then I absolutely don't want fanservice or sexual designs (at least not out of proper context) vs the fact that I so rarely find that to be the case in games, which leads me to still wanting to defend sexualised designs in general.
I guess I'm just conflicted between these two broad viewpoints:
"I like it, people like making it, it sells, no one has to play or like these games, there are plenty of other games & it doesn't cause and contribute to sexism in any meaningful way" and
"I can see how it would be alienating and oppressive seeing sexualised depictions of your gender all the time, how it would reinforce the idea that this entertainment is not for you and how feeling excluded from great games you'd otherwise enjoy would suck"
I also feel like stronger representation of women in the gaming industry would fix a lot of these issues.
Anyway, cheers to everyone who took part in this discussion. I know that for many of you it's frustrating when someone like me reads your posts and doesn't agree with something you feel is very basic or obvious, or when it takes time to get to grips with the main point being made. I have to admit that I read the OP over 10 times just trying to understand it, honestly. It comes from such a different point of view than mine that I genuinely struggled to understand the basis of the points it was making.
Art is art. Some people get befuddled at others admiring certain things because it doesnt appeal to them on an artistic level.
Whoa whoa there, I am not angry and don't get why you seem to try to get an emotional reaction from my posts when there is none.
I just gave my point of view of the situation as I have seen it from growing up being a gamer. A lot of the geeks that thought/think themselves as rejects of society used to be the main audience for gaming in the 80s/90s and when gaming became mainstream they started getting called out and even humiliated by people like Anita Sarkeesian that came in to criticize and not contribute. Instead of having a conversation is was basically her and some other people like her telling them to be ashamed of their work because of sexualized characters.
It all boils down to:
"Instead of trying to see my point you attacked it."
You attacked my point because you didn't understand it instead of asking about it you falsely made an assumption to criticize that point ( I am mad a people criticizing devs?) you failed to understand.
I guess you kind of prove my point that you got angry focusing on one thing I said you didn't agree with, instead of having a conversation to understand it. It is what happens with critics a lot.
But there are plenty of women of all ages and different body types presented in the game.
Explain to me how having an overly sexualized character (eg. Quiet) in an otherwise non-sexual game is an artform?
Women's opinions are women's opinions. Some people get befuddled at women criticizing certain things because it doesn't appeal to them on a meaningful level.
You have taken a nintendo survey specifiying "the most excited household member to purchase a nintendo switch", and jumped to the conclusion that that means women don't own a switch, and then jumped to the further conclusion that women don't play games on the switch.
All posts of your regarding this nintendo factoid are based on poor reading comprehension and extrapolation of data that is unsupported by the evidence.
I was not angry.
However, I appreciate that you named Anita Sarkeesian as one of these people who "humiliate" dev. Thanks.
Criticism is contributing. There are actually quite a few developers who have stated that her work helped them rein in some of their more subconscious design choices. Critique is an essential part of every development cycle.
Furthermore, Sarkeesian didn't do anything that could be termed as "humiliating", unless applying basic feminist critique to consumer products (i.e. video games) somehow is "humiliating" to those who associate themselves with said products (which is itself its own problem that needs addressing). On top of that, in her own videos she states how it is okay to consume problematic things as long as you acknowledge the ways in which they are problematic and don't consume them completely uncritically, which is a pretty far cry from telling people to be "ashamed" of their work.
If you're this far removed from reality just from her basic feminist critique, I can imagine why we're having to retread the same ground over and over again...
Criticism is contribution. Criticizing a work for having sexist elements is not the same thing as criticizing a designer for being a sexist.
I wasn't trying to say that all women in the game fall into this category. Just that there were enough shitty/unrealistic representations early in the game to get me to stop playing, even after multiple attempts.
I had this same experience with TW1.
These types of threads are always so exhausting to read. It's always women explaining over and over why the over sexualization of female characters makes us feel objectified and unwelcome and some men trying to convince us that our feelings aren't valid.
Life is all about being conflicted at times, welcome to debate, learning and growing. You also won't line up with people's opinions all the time, so unless you're actually thinking or doing anything objectively bad/sinister/mean/degrading and so on you don't need to beat yourself up even if 20 people disagree with you. This isn't that simple a debate, even although to some it's over with one sentence. Human life and behaviour are often very complex, especially around sex and sexual behaviour. It's actually healthy you said "I get conflicted" multiple times, as it means you are actually thinking and challenging yourself, not just wanting to seek out reinforcement.
Have confidence in yourself to work things out, share your thoughts, and as long as you aren't actually a shitty person, enjoy trying to articulate your thoughts. If you know you are a decent person, treat others well and are confident about that, allow yourself to speak, learn and debate without fear. You may well change your mind on some things, it does happen from time to time even although most adults think by 20 they have the whole world sussed out and their opinions are 100% set in stone. People in their 30s and 40s can still be learning, and in some regards I'd say adults never stop learning. I just hope most manage to progress on from being literal children in an adults body, as that is one thing that aids towards soo much anti-social behaviour these days.
I think it's pretty telling that some gamers saw the honestly superficial, low-level, 101 media studies criticism from Anita as an attack. There's probably a few things at play:
- Tying your identity to your consumption of corporate-made media so that any criticism of the media becomes a criticism of you
- Not leaving the video game bubble and seeing the similar, and frankly more scathing, criticism applied to all forms of media
- Being unable to reconcile or recognize being a victim in some ways (bullying) and a perpetrator in others
- Going back to #1, being called sexist/racist/etc. is seen as worse than actually holding and exposing such views
I can appreciate this, since you are acknowledging that you are conflicted between your (selfish, but I don't mean that in a negative sense) personal desires, and the constrasting option, which would be beneficial to others but not inherently to yourself. That's understandable, because it means you would be "giving" your support, if you do, to another party.
Showing the causal harm can be difficult because this stuff IS pervasive, but harm is evident. I don't have the studies on hand just now, but huge percentages of girls under the age of 11 have already started dieting. Women draw themselves as fatter than their male partners draw them. Things like this are very prevalent.
I find people like that struggle to acknowledge critique of anything they have some form of investment in, even when that critique is intended to help them improve themselves (or their work). I guess that's what leads to point two: to avoid criticism/rejection/change they surround themselves with like-minded individuals who never seek to challenge them. This, in turn, makes them more intolerant to criticism, and so the cycle repeats...
I'm not sure how, or even if, you can break people out of that cycle. It usually has a lifetime of momentum behind it, for a start :/
- Criticism is contribution. Neil Druckmann himself said Anita's criticisms helped him improve the stories in his games.
- Anita never told anyone to feel "shame" for liking anything, you made that up. Hell, the very FemFreq slogan is literally, "Be Critical of the Media You Love".
- If Anita's milquetoast 101 feminist critique "humiliates" anyone, their ego is so fragile as to not be worth considering.
Well, I can happily say that I'm a decent dude. Have never harmed or harassed a woman in my life, in person or online. And the only fight I was ever in was on a sports field.
I'm in my 30s but I'm still reassessing my opinions every day, which is all you can do. I do feel like my age and nationality put me well out of touch with the younger, american progressives on here. I'm very much a socialist dude, but I grew up without any of the socially progressive stuff at all, even in uni. So these conversations don't come naturally to me. I'm also a single, sports-watching, golf playing guys' guy, so the female perspective on certain issues can be a bit alien as well.
That's fair enough.
I totally agree about the way young women see their bodies being a crisis, I just don't know what the main cause of it is. That's the kind of thing where I'd need to see some studies. I've never thought that a sexualised gaming character could contribute to that, but maybe I've been mistaken. I read the Guardian daily and I've seen articles like this which show that 36% of girls believe looks to be paramount but I'm not exactly educated about it.
As someone who's only played for 20min before giving up, the only women you would have met are (naked) Yennefer, young Ciri and maybe the middle-aged innkeeper of White Orchard. I really fail to see what you are referring to and it kinda seems like you wanna be angry with Witcher 3 for no real reason.
I've read the last few pages and while I honestly can't respond to everything here, I felt like I should add my thoughts.
I'm a woman who's been playing games since I was about 5, everything from Mega Man to Metroid to FF to Destiny, and love a thoughtful RPG.
1) Sexualization bothers me in video games mainly when it's not equally applied to both genders, or it breaks the logic of the world the game is in. For instance Cindy's design in FF15 pissed me way off. She's a mechanic for crying out loud and oil burns! Bare skin makes no sense.
2) I like the occasional romance line, but I play RPGs etc for that awesome sense of exploration. Some of my guy friends are honestly more into the romance aspect than I am, haha. So please never generalize that's the reason women like a game, it's reductive and reinforces stereotypes that women are one-note beings when it comes to games.
I'm a woman who's been playing games since I was about 5, everything from Mega Man to Metroid to FF to Destiny, and love a thoughtful RPG.
1) Sexualization bothers me in video games mainly when it's not equally applied to both genders, or it breaks the logic of the world the game is in. For instance Cindy's design in FF15 pissed me way off. She's a mechanic for crying out loud and oil burns! Bare skin makes no sense.
2) I like the occasional romance line, but I play RPGs etc for that awesome sense of exploration. Some of my guy friends are honestly more into the romance aspect than I am, haha. So please never generalize that's the reason women like a game, it's reductive and reinforces stereotypes that women are one-note beings when it comes to games.
Well that's part of it right? Improving yourself implies there's something wrong with you in the first place.
You bring up a good point that it very easily becomes a cycle. I don't know how you break people out of it. Maybe posters who felt they were part of it at some point might feel comfortable talking about how they escaped it.
Speaking of points of view based on the history of those who liked games a long time ago, I was a 12-year-old boy in 1990. I grew up engrossed in computer games, comics and Warhammer, found sanctuary from a rough school life in fantasy worlds, was as 'geeky' as humanly possible and yet at no point did I find myself feeling 'called out', 'humilated', told what to think or condescended to by Feminist Frequency. Mainly because at the point it came out I was in my thirties and used to hearing things from different perspectives. I agreed with large chunks of it, disagreed with others, found it entertaining and engaging and original considering we had rarely seen a feminist view of the industry at the time, and different viewpoints have value. The reaction to it was ridiculously out of proportion to one youtuber talking about things in games she found problematic, which then only gave it a wider audience in the industry similar to the Streisand Effect. If 'gamers' hadn't taken a single bloody opinion so personally to the point of being up in arms about it and issuing death threats it would never have had the influence it did. On my list of 'least constructive things in games' that sits about a gajillion entries higher than youtubers talking about tropes in computer games.
Media has critics. I don't read arguments in film or music or book reviews and feel like a reviewer from a different background that critiques something I like is insulting my worldview or specifically humiliating me, especially if they go to great pains to say that they enjoy that stuff too. How on earth can you claim Anita didn't contribute anything when some of the best developers on the planet took notice and say it helped? That's a damn sight more than the majority (not all- I know there's a lot of talented industry types reading Resetera) of us have done for the industry we love.
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Sure, if that's how you want to interpret it.
It's saying that like in all media it's important to provide a diversity of experience to suit the taste of all consumers. In gaming certain demographics are underrepresented and spreading awareness that those demographics exist is important because it will give impetus to producers to make products to fit those niches, or change products to appeal to wider user bases. We can do all of that without necessarily being subtractive to the total media pool. This has the additional perk of diluting concepts that have been normalized because of their prevalence and allowing other ideas to become a new normal. It's also not ignorant to the fact that certain tastes and audiences exist and are not inherently wrong. Their over-representation is misguided, and does have negative impacts and consequence, similar to all things when not done with some sort of moderation.
Thanks for sharing a bit of background, this is why sometimes simply assuming someone who thinks differently than you is some sinister hack isn't always the best leap of logic. Even if it is true sometimes when arguing with someone who doesn't think as you do. Picking up on signs is something we all try to do (this person thinks X, so maybe Y is true about them), but on a forum, it's even more challenging than face to face.
Different upbringings, different educations, sheltered life and so on can shape people, and they can still be incredibly decent but maybe not think 1:1 on everything.
Hopefully, through civilised debate you like others go away thinking about things to re-evaluate your own beliefs. That's not me suggesting you need to change your beliefs, just that being in a constant state of re-evaluation and self-critique isn't a bad thing.
Sometimes debate doesn't have an instant gratification either of someone being told they're wrong and doing a 180 within minutes. Especially the older people get, as it can become more difficult to see "aged minds" change their opinions/beliefs.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sideways-view/201610/resistance-change
Most of that is about change in the workplace, but there's other research out there on the difficulties of changing the minds of older people.
The below is a more poignant statement
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives/201205/changing-your-own-mind
Which is why I said you being conflicted is healthy. You need to argue with yourself. I truly do not think some people know how to do that, or have enough humility to admit it. As daft as me saying that might sound.
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