Gender roles in gaming?

There are always going to be differences in genders. To say that women and men are not different in both mind and body is to deny reality. This is not an issue. What is an issue is the huge amount of incredibly exaggerated stereotyping that is involved with both male and female video game characters. To avoid creating boring characters, developers create larger-than-life heroes and heroines... which people can't connect or relate to.

Back to the topic at hand.

Originally Posted by Misa Misa

How to do feel about the way women are portrayed in games in general? Do you feel woman are empowered in games? Do you feel they are undermined?

"Empowering" is nonsense. It's glorified daydreaming. Women are smaller and weaker than men and no video game is going to change that. In fact, women are now developing potentially fatal delusions where they think they can take any man in a fight, because anything else would be sexist. Of course, a video game might inspire a woman (or man) with values like heroism and duty (e.g. Halo), but this is of course not what we mean by "empowerment."

When feminists criticize the way women are potrayed in video games, they are actually using a fictional standard which assumes that in real life women participate in dangerous and physically demanding activities as much as men, and are physically equal to them, and so on. Therefore, women must be in the role of Sgt. Soap as often as men are. In reality things are very different, and video games actually portray women as unrealistically strong and capable (and attractive).

I play as a female character whenever possible, so obviously I have nothing against including them in video games.

How do you feel about the unrealistic proportions of females in games, for example, Ivy from Soul Calibur? Is the whole point in games to be an unrealistic fantasy as a form of escapism?

The women who complain about that sort of stuff are always hardline feminists. I don't know if most women care what some character looks like in Soul Calibur. You can also rest assured that the same feminists who complain about sexism and objectification won't hesitate to go out clubbing wearing sexy and revealing clothing (or, at the very least, won't object to other women doing so), so they are just throwing stones in glass houses.

And finally, do you feel there is any difference between male and female gamers?

A likely difference is that men are more "hardcore" about video games. They play more complex and competitive games, and are more interested in things like computer hardware and game modifications. Carefully hand-picking new components in order to play Shogun 2 is not the same as Angry Birds on your iPhone.

I would imagine that a similiar difference can be found in movies: while both men and women go to the cinema and buy DVDs, men probably watch more movies, and listen to commentary tracks and go through hours of bonus materials more than women.

In fact, this division seems to exist almost everywhere.

Originally Posted by Misa Misa

Also yeah, this video sums up some of my thoughts:

The Escapist : Video Galleries : Extra Credits : Diversity

That guy is like the King Retard of video game commentary, and his voice makes me want to destroy furniture.

Originally Posted by Pietro

Women are typically underrepresented in media in general.

This hasn't been true in a long time.

Originally Posted by ɹɐǝqıɹǝ

I find women are portrayed pretty inconsistently.

You will find this to be the case everywhere, including real life. The same applies to men.

Despite improvements made over the years, the majority of females tend to fall into stereotypical and/or supporting/subservient and "love interest" roles. Part of this has to do with the design of many games themselves: military shooters, for instance, don't really lend themselves to providing reasonable portrayals of gender.

So it would be reasonable if female soldiers were present in equal numbers? That doesn't occur in reality, and especially not in combat.

Originally Posted by Sam

What I find amusing is that if you ask a feminist what it is they want, what the ideal goal is, they essentially describe writing the character as a male, then giving him a pussy.

Feminists often wish to become caricatures of men, with all their vices and none of their virtues.

I was replying to Andross until it dawned on me that he is a complete lunatic with no grasp on reality. Then I started skipping all his posts.

Originally Posted by ghost4

You will find this to be the case everywhere, including real life. The same applies to men.

Of course it does, but this thread is talking about gaming. I mentioned as much in my post, but you curiously omitted that part of it.

Originally Posted by ghost4

So it would be reasonable if female soldiers were present in equal numbers? That doesn't occur in reality, and especially not in combat.

This is always a hard question, do we go for true authenticity or representation? It's the same question that the producers on Thor had to consider when they were thinking of including a black actor to represent one of the Norse gods. Considering how overwhelmingly pro-white culture the film already is, I'd say that authenticity can take a backseat to inclusiveness; it's just not representative of the social conditions of our current world to exclude certain segments of the population based on appeals to tradition or "realism".

Back to military shooters, I'm pretty sure that the female helicopter pilot you rescue in Call of Duty 4 makes up about 100% of all female characters in that genre of shooters made since 2007 or so, and while it's true that women don't serve nearly as much as men in the military, would it be all that hard to include at least a few, if anything to balance out the macho-testosterone factor a little bit? Does the effort of making new character models and animations for female characters really justify the symbolic invisibilising of the entire female sex?

Originally Posted by ghost4

"Empowering" is nonsense. It's glorified daydreaming. Women are smaller and weaker than men and no video game is going to change that. In fact, women are now developing potentially fatal delusions where they think they can take any man in a fight, because anything else would be sexist. Of course, a video game might inspire a woman (or man) with values like heroism and duty (e.g. Halo), but this is of course not what we mean by "empowerment."

Do you have a source for "women think they are physically stronger than men on average due to positive media portrayals", or are you just spouting bigoted nonsense? Furthermore, what is your reason for assuming that a) feminists believe "empowerment" relates solely to physical ability and that b) apparently all feminists share the same sorts of beliefs? Indulge me.

Originally Posted by ghost4

When feminists criticize the way women are potrayed in video games, they are actually using a fictional standard which assumes that in real life women participate in dangerous and physically demanding activities as much as men, and are physically equal to them, and so on. Therefore, women must be in the role of Sgt. Soap as often as men are. In reality things are very different, and video games actually portray women as unrealistically strong and capable (and attractive).

In all my studies of feminism (and they have been rather extensive), I have never seen a single credible feminist author or academic take the stance that all women believe they are just as physically adept as men. In fact, they consider it such a silly idea that the vast majority of them don't even waste time talking about it. Feminism, as a field, is far more concerned with securing things like equitable (not necessarily equal) treatment and rights under law, equitable pay in the working world, sanctum from physical and sexual abuse, and positive media portrayals which accurately represent women, as well as women's perspectives and social narratives. This applies even more so to the developing world, where feminist scholars and organisations have found their services even more necessary. In short, your notions about feminism aren't just horribly inaccurate, they're also approximately 25 years out of date and only represent the absolute extreme ends of the feminist discourse. Please come back when you know what you're talking about.

Originally Posted by ɹɐǝqıɹǝ

Of course it does, but this thread is talking about gaming. I mentioned as much in my post, but you curiously omitted that part of it.

So you agree that the principle applies to everything, but that we are talking about gaming, where the principle does not apply after all? Uh.

Of course female characters are inconsistent in video games. Alyx is not like Lara Croft, who is not like Faith, who is not like Zoey.

This is always a hard question, do we go for true authenticity or representation? It's the same question that the producers on Thor had to consider when they were thinking of including a black actor to represent one of the Norse gods. Considering how overwhelmingly pro-white culture the film already is, I'd say that authenticity can take a backseat to inclusiveness; it's just not representative of the social conditions of our current world to exclude certain segments of the population based on appeals to tradition or "realism".

If the Norse Gods are supposed to be the actual Norse Gods, it makes little sense to make one of them black. Current social conditions are irrelevant, and if you really must have your precious diversity quota filled then simply cast a black actor in some other role. And what does "overwhelmingly pro-white culture" mean?

While it's true that women don't serve nearly as much as men in the military, would it be all that hard to include at least a few, if anything to balance out the macho-testosterone factor a little bit? Does the effort of making new character models and animations for female characters really justify the symbolic invisibilising of the entire female sex?

There is realistically no place for women in those games as main characters participating in combat. And yeah dude, Infinity Ward was "symbolically invisibilising" women by not having them in a setting where they appear only rarely and therefore don't justify the time and expense required to model, animate, texture and voice them.

Do you have a source for "women think they are physically stronger than men on average due to positive media portrayals", or are you just spouting bigoted nonsense?

What makes that statement "bigoted nonsense"? What is "bigoted nonsense"? Actually, don't aswer.

I have personally witnessed on many, many occasions women claiming they can easily beat up men, or that women are equally good at soldiering if not better, and so on.

In all my studies of feminism (and they have been rather extensive), I have never seen a single credible feminist author or academic take the stance that all women believe they are just as physically adept as men.

The idea that women are the physical equals of men is constantly recurring among women. I have even seen feminists claim that there are no height differences between men and women, and not even a single person questioned this notion (it wasn't even a feminist forum, it was just a regular place).

Feminism, as a field, is far more concerned with securing things like equitable (not necessarily equal) treatment and rights under law, equitable pay in the working world, sanctum from physical and sexual abuse, and positive media portrayals which accurately represent women, as well as women's perspectives and social narratives.

Feminism has nothing at all to do with those things except for the last one.

This applies even more so to the developing world, where feminist scholars and organisations have found their services even more necessary.

LOL!

Please come back when you know what you're talking about.

LOL!

Originally Posted by John

Women, on average, aren't as strong as men.

Yes, thank you for repeating exactly what I just said.

Any given woman can do any task that any given man can.

This statement has nothing to do with what you are replying to.

So yeah, for all intents and purposes women are physically equal to men.

No, they are not.

Nothing unrealistic about strong women.

We are talking about averages, not outliers. And even when talking about outliers, video games still represent women unrealistically.

Dressing a certain way because you want to is very, very different from having a society that insists that you dress that way.

Again, no relation to what you are replying to.

Wow, sexist much? I know a fair number of female computer geeks.

It seems you are incapable of grasping the concept of averages.

Why can't fiction be the vanguard of equality?

The military is not a Women's Studies social experiment.

It's like you've only seen feminists from far off, on a cloudy midnight in a fog.

You don't have the faintest idea how much I've argued with feminists and listened to their mind-bewildering babble all over the Internet.

Being a feminist simply means that you want equality for women.

That is not feminism.

Originally Posted by John

No, I'm suggesting that people start writing fiction that treats women as people.

Currently most fiction is propaganda for mistreating women. I'm trying to stop that.

Feminists keep repeating absurd statements like this no matter what the circumstances actually are. Even if all fiction was approved by the feminist politburo, you would still complain. Feminism is dependent on complaining and playing victim, so you will keep doing it no matter what. Forever.

I think there should be a Women Fighting mode in Black Ops 2.

Originally Posted by Sam

(or, more sensibly, the scientists, see if you can make some alterations to our biology), not the artists.

...so people need to be biologically identical to have equal rights and opportunities?

lolwut?

Asking artists to pay lip-service to liberalism is little better then propaganda.

And is letting conservative ideology dominate any better?

And I guess if women want women's art, they should ****ing well start becoming artists!

Easier said than done. It's harder for women to become successful when the male-dominated society doesn't quite take them seriously.

Guys, this thread is going way off topic. If you want to continue the debate (in a way which is considerate to all people, and both sexes I should add), then I respectfully ask that you carry it over to the Serious Discussion forum. If we can, try to get back to the topic at hand, namely, representation of women in games (and more specifically, the questions Misa Misa opened with).

Once upon a time there was a forum thread that was about representation in games.

Edit: Ah too slow

Man/Woman Equality

Go there to continue any debate regarding equality between men and women.