Sexism in video games

[Azazel005]

I've noticed a trend of late, since my renewed passion for video games, something that I have had trouble drumming up people willing or able to discuss this issue with me... so I figured I'd plug it here and see if there were any takers.

Okay...

Lets get the obvious out of the way, video games are generally fairly sexist. It's an obscenely male dominated industry both in target demographic and people working hands on in the industry. This is somewhat a concern for me, though a concern I am familiar with. So much pop culture is pretty sexist so video games aren't exactly bucking the trend. Their nature though given that you "control" actions and characters moreso then any other kind of media makes presentations of sexism more obvious and sometimes more disturbing. I'd like to see that as a good reason to fight harder against such things in video games, but hey when your selling to men aged 20-25 which is the target demographic... I am not holding my breath.

Anyway that's not exactly the discussion I want to have, what is actually bothering me is due to the rapidly accelerating popularity of video games across the board, feminism is more and more taking shots at them and the surronding culture. In doing so going to great efforts to target some of the most vulnerable and easy targets as cruelly as they wish.

When video games where not so popular, no one cared that the female characters were often two dimensional fantasy figures. Maidens in distress or more recently buxom bad-ass'es with one line quips and far too little clothing. Now however the feminist community is lightning quick to engage the players and developers of such things with "brave" critique like...

"Horrid fantasies serving to titalate juvenilles or pale skinny social recluse virgins."

OR

"Pathetic perverts, living in a dreamland where a woman might actually be interested in them"

Neither of those are exact quotes, but over the last year or so I have expierenced ever increasing views of people willing to lay such claims in the name of feminism. It wouldn't bother me so much if many of these same people were up in arms about the latest James Bond film or any other of the thousands of pop culture fair that are swimming in sexism. These however are not as easy prey.

Lets be completely fair, there are MANY video game players that are nearly exactly what those two quote say (hell I know guys like that - perhaps not to those extremes but still). Men who have not had much history with women, or attention. As if there lack of charm or good looks and a desire to escape into fantasy where women will not ignore and ridicule them can be blamed? The game of love can be a very cruel and unkind one.

To me this is just shining bad light on the feminist cause. It's really starting to annoy me more then it should. I agree that all forms of media she be subject to scrutinity about prejudices, but this venomous blade that has been unsheathed often at people with so little expierence in such matters... I don't know I lost train of thought, it just pisses me off.

Thoughts? :p

[Odin]

That... is just so annoying.

Women having a cry because a fantasy female character isn't wearing enough clothes, or isn't "deep" enough? Come on!

The male characters are in many cases just as "bad"
By that I mean, they're totally unrealistic men that set an impossible standard for actual boys/men. But do the guys cry about it? Nope.

That's why they're not real... and if you try to live up to the standards of a character in a movie or a game, you're a fool :)

I have no problem with scantly clad women in video games, in fact sometimes it's fun to play as a skank because I'm not one in real life. It's the fun of fantasy!

And I'll always have my beloved Samus ♥
Man she's cool.

And, just one more thing... I totally play most video games just to perv on the male characters. Ha!

[Doc Faustus]

I find it funny that so many feminists think a scantily clad or nude female body is obscene or offensive. This smacks of a new breed of hypocritical Puritanism. Perhaps, yes, men are aroused by a scantily clad or nude female body. Shame on you, men! In the minds of the feminist status quo, eroticism and objectification are intertwined. Boticelli and D.H Lawrence would have a bone to pick with them for that. Looking at a sexy woman to be aroused by her image is exalting in the beauty of the carnal and physical woman. This does not mean that people who do so cannot see the intellectual or spiritual woman. It would be far more perverted to find intellectual and spiritual romantic comfort from a woman who isn't oresent in your life. It would take a more, sad, desperate ugly soul to do so and it would be difficult and blasphemous and might lead to the emotional neglect of real women in their life. Yes, videogames do portray women as attractive and well built. it's a visual medium. I don't think a fifty seven year old three hundred pound lady trucker who recites the poetry of Marianne Moore would be a better representation of womanhood or as captivating in a medium that focuses on the visual. If there is a context for this character's adventures that anyone would be excited by, someone should make that game, as is, I don't think it's out there. As for the female characters seeming one dimensional or dumb, I think bad writing is more at fault than an outright hatred of women. Badly drawn characters are the norm and I have yet to see a male videogame character who is a complete person. The closest thing to personality is angst in videogames. Contemporary feminism will hang itself whenever possible, provided so much as a shoelace. The patriarchy might be bad, but a world without sexual expression and other means of making the id healthy would be just as bad. We are human, we want to eat, fuck and burn things (though godwilling not at the same time). Everybody ignores it at their own risk and the risk of sounding retarded.

[Vodstok]

man, you like a mutha-fuckin' philosopher and shit!

Sorry, it popped into my head. To expand on what you said (Doc), what seems to be ignored is that more often than not, the repression of sexuality leads to perversion rather than the "exploitation" of it. Look at the number of people who openly admit to some sort of "perversion", guys who profess to like big boobs (guilty), or nice butts, or people like Urge who openly drool over attractive women. odds are, you arent going to find anythign weird or disturbing on their hard drive. Its when you get into repression that the true perversion comes out.

people tend to swinglike a pendulum, the more you swing in one direction,the farther you swing in the other. From personal experience (i used to work on PCs as part of my job), the outgoing "I love chicks" kind of guys, at worst, had straight up porn on their hard drives. Some of the more "straight laced" people however... Lets say i have seen my share of borderline pedo porn and beastiality on company owned computers.

what i am getting at is this: if you say you like Tomb raider because the puzzels are cool, but basicly you like big tits and guns, odds are you dont have too many skeletons in your closet.

[Azazel005]

Originally Posted by Doc Faustus

As for the female characters seeming one dimensional or dumb, I think bad writing is more at fault than an outright hatred of women.

It's an interesting point raised their and one I mention in the discussion that spawned this thread. Inept writing or even writing completely devoid of political senses in the spirit of the narrative is not necessarily conducive to sexism. Creation of a story is something of an organic process and one can't expect that it's always politically correct, especially if broken down and analyzed intensely. It can be prudent to observe the sexism and form discussions on it with respect the the narrative but to imply some sexist intentions is often unfair.

I really am by no means against the rather aggressive sort of feminism that sometimes comes to the fore, there is and always should be extremes on these issues, those extremes help offset opposing forces and hopefully bring a sort of balance. What is truly disturbing me, is the sort of behavior that allows people to waltz in on a self inflated sense of political and moral high ground... and subsequently commence a verbal battering against people who

a) They'd probably spend most of their life ignoring, laughing at or ridiculing.

b) Have often reverted to fantasy due to being unable to deal with women through no fault of their own.

I'm sure many of us know people like that.

Not that any such fantasies should by definition be sexist, I do not consider them directly attatched. Though it's not always an easy task to conduct one without the other tagging along, and hell we are talking video games here, they don't have Hemmingway sitting out the back handing them stories to work with.

Originally Posted by Vodstok

what seems to be ignored is that more often than not, the repression of sexuality leads to perversion rather than the "exploitation" of it.

Man, that reminds me of a whoollllle other rant... but I think one rant at a time should be enough.

[Doc Faustus]

Originally Posted by Azazel005

Man, that reminds me of a whoollllle other rant... but I think one rant at a time should be enough.

A whole other rant and a chance to plug my book. Check out my book Murderland Part 1: H8 if you're interested in themes of violence and the fruits of years of repression. Of course repression leads to perversions. Any true crime buff or lapsed Catholic can tell you that. I think it is an on target comment because it's a draconian and repressive society in which pixellated breasts are an offense to women.