[Kodiak]

I'm really happy to see someone talking about this in an intelligent and reasonable way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8I0W...eature=g-all-u

Five stereotypes often used in videogames that reinforce harmful ideas about women:

+Damsel in distress
+Fighting fucktoy.
+Sexy sideckick
+Sexy villainess
+Women as background decoration.

Worth discussing, worth improving.

Personally I think the best way to address these problems is if more women started developing games and contributing their ideas to the discussion.

[Deadbeat]

You could play as a respectable woman in Rainbow Six Vegas 2. This of course is a rarity. I dont think women starting to develop games will fix this, as it comes down to making games that cater to adolescent males to rake in the dough. The market is the reason its gunning for these tropes.

[Karsticles]

Are videogame males considered to be deep in comparison?

[Sqorgar]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but video games are probably not where anyone, male or female, should be getting their role models from.

[cj_iwakura]

Oh god, this was the new FF video?

I respect her, but I fear where this will go.

I hope she highlights some counterpoints.

[TheMan]

metroid, tomb raider (the new one), mirror's edge, BG&E, mass effect (if you so choose) all feature strong female characters that aren't over sexualized. so while those tropes that you list are common there are plenty of exceptions.

[OMT]

metroid, tomb raider (the new one), mirror's edge, BG&E, mass effect (if you so choose) all feature strong female characters that aren't over sexualized. so while those tropes that you list are common there are plenty of exceptions.

Zero Suit Samus.

[ProXimity]

Good thing my underwear is flame retardant.

[WonkersTHEWatilla]

They're right, but the audience for games are mostly male. Change that.

[User33]

She raises a lot of great points in her videos. A very intelligent woman from what I've seen.

[Dark Octave]

Zero Suit Samus.

As opposed to almost birthday suit Kratos?

[faceless007]

Personally I think the best way to address these problems is if more women started developing games and contributing their ideas to the discussion.

Even that might not do much as long as the big publishers don't want to make anything other than shoot em up/explosion fests to appeal to male 18-35ers, and keep female/family-oriented gaming relegated to the casual sphere.

[Dragonzord]

As opposed to almost birthday suit Kratos?

or skin tight shirt Chris Redfield
or stupid sexy Raiden skin tight suit
or the fact that Nathan Drake looks like he came out of an Abercrombie ad.

[Akainu]

I don't even like her. I hope you didn't except me to give her money?

[faceless007]

or skin tight shirt Chris Redfield or stupid sexy Raiden skin tight suit or the fact that Nathan Drake looks like he came out of an Abercrombie ad.

You know, if you really have a problem with those, you should try push back against them the same way feminists try to push back against objectified female characters.

[Pimpbaa]

Five stereotypes often used in videogames that reinforce harmful ideas about women:

They reinforce harmful ideas about women about as much as violent videogames reinforce violent behavior in gamers.

[onemic]

The problem with this is that tropes reside in the gaming universe in general, not just women. People of different ethnicities have the exact same problem, hell even the lowest common denominator, the straight white male character suffers from this exact same issue.(Of course not to the degree of women or minorities but some of the similarities still remain) the problem resides in making smart, normal videogame characters in general instead of sticking to dumb caricatures. Because honestly if the problem isn't seen as something that goes beyond the depiction of women in videogames, that subset of the larger issue will never be fully rectified as you'll just be cutting a stem rather than the root.

[Dragonzord]

You know, if you really have a problem with those, you should try push back against them the same way feminists try to push back against objectified female characters.

I do. I bought that Game of Thrones shitty game because you play an old dude.

[User33]

As opposed to almost birthday suit Kratos?

ZSS was designed for male sex appeal.

You honestly think Kratos was designed for female sex appeal?

[captmorgan]

They're right, but the audience for games are mostly male. Change that.

Hypothetically lets say the audience changes and women ask for/buy/make the same stereotypes. Whats the next step?

[OMT]

ZSS was designed for male sex appeal. You honestly think Kratos was designed for female sex appeal?

No, he was designed to give you as sexually potent an avatar as possible.

[etiolate]

Look, I'm glad the forum is talking more about this than it did in the past, but can we get a little more mature and realize tropes that reinforce unwanted stereotypes in games are not the sole property of one gender, nation or race? There's something chivalrous and patronizing about focusing it on women.

When I look at MMOs, the women are often sexed up, but so are the men. There's a lack of a single black human in World of Warcraft. For some reason, males get stuck looking dumb and oafish. The Draenei males in WoW and Norn males in GW2 have giant muscle-bound chests. Female characters in Tera are like some sort of perverted deviant art sketch. So are many of their male counterparts.

There's a lot heightened idealization in games due to too much influence from other medias that have the same issue of heightened idealization. (Namely, action films, and stuff like high fantasy roleplaying.)

This means that part of it is a product of pure escapism, the sort found in those sort of genres. The other part is a jarring lack of flavor to what sort of scenarios are acceptable as a videogame. Chibi Robo was a game about a family in financial trouble, and one maybe teetering on divorce. That's not a surprising plotline for a drama, but videogames rarely draw from that sector of media.

So when you look at the circular nature of Tomb Raider game --> Tomb Raider movie --> New Tomb Raider game, it's just a feedback loop.

[WonkersTHEWatilla]

Hypothetically lets say the audience changes and women ask for/buy/make the same stereotypes. Whats the next step?

That hypothetical is a bit of a reach, no? Are you suggesting a situation in which women would want to see the same stereotypes if the industry and audiences saw a paradigm shift to female focus?

On a tangential note, I do believe that these tropes are waning as the market becomes bigger, and the industry is not lacking in many strong female characters in games. Heck, just today Sony announced that one of the new Assassin's Creed games would star a female (and she's a minority too!) protagonist.

[Dark Octave]

Five stereotypes often used in videogames that reinforce harmful ideas about women

Role models in videogames? What about my black nephew that dresses up for Halloween as Nathan Drake, Link or Solid Snake? What character can he look up to and say "I wanna be this guy" and for it a) to be recognizable and b) not look strange. Nah, he stuck dressing up as a shitty side character with a fucking chicken popping out of his afro.

[7Th]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...in-video-games

This is kinda scamy, to be honest.

[mac]

This person is racist because they don't mention black people. Or white people. Or men for that matter. Her point is entirely invalidated.

[User33]

This person is racist because they don't mention black people. Or white people. Or men for that matter. Her point is entirely invalidated.

Grow up.

[CoffeeJanitor]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...in-video-games This is kinda scamy, to be honest.

Oh dear.

I don't see it as an issue to be honest, mostly because I'm not expecting maturity from video games. Its not exactly a highly respected medium.

[CadetMahoney]

Damsel in distress reinforces rape culture.

/inb4 rape culture. oh wait.

[Zabka]

Wow, that's a lot of money raised for a video series. That's awesome for her but the only video I'm interested in is the last one.

[etiolate]

I just realized this is a kickstarter for a do-it-yourself youtube about stuff that's been gone over many times.

[User33]

Damsel in distress reinforces rape culture. /inb4 rape culture. oh wait.

Man, you guys love your straw-man arguments don't you?

[shinobi602]

When females refuse to collaborate in these roles with developers, then come and talk.

As long as they willfully volunteer, I don't see room to complain...

[kittens]

I just found out about the Tropes vs. Women series last week, and I absolutely love it. I agree with the OP -- it's so nice to see someone talk about this in an articulate (and entertaining) way. Sexism and patriarchy are deep parts of patriarchal culture --> pop culture --> video game culture. We need to challenge patriarchal norms in video games.

[Gotchaye]

When females refuse to collaborate in these roles with developers, then come and talk. As long as they willfully volunteer, I don't see room to complain...

Huh? That's pretty sexist. Women don't have a hive-mind.

The intent or motivations of developers aren't the issue here. The problem is that games as a whole are offensive to or drive away (many) women. The problem with tropes like the damsel in distress isn't that the Damsel appears in a particular game, but rather that the Damsel appears in so many games, and each particular game is merely contributing to the larger problem.

The Bechdel test provides a good example for thinking about this. The idea is to watch a movie and see if it has at least two female characters who talk to each other about something other than men. That a movie doesn't have this doesn't mean that the movie is sexist, but the only plausible explanation for why movies as a whole fail this test so often (compared to a parallel test for male characters) is that the industry as a whole is sexist. It gets worse if you try to measure the degree to which movies pass these tests.

There are reasons why this sort of thing happens, but these reasons are not excuses. Yes, the market for console games is predominantly male (although perhaps this is partly because the games are designed for males), but the product of that market is still sexist, and it ought to not be.

[someguyinahat]

Personally I think the best way to address these problems is if more women started developing games and contributing their ideas to the discussion.

THEY DO.

They just tend to work on teams that develop casual titles that you don't play. Say what you mean and discuss tropes vs. women in console games, or AAA games.

[Kazerei]

Personally I think the best way to address these problems is if more women started developing games and contributing their ideas to the discussion.

Would be nice if everyone involved in developing games matured a little. There's too many dumb stereotypes in videogames.

[maomaoIYP]

I just realized this is a kickstarter for a do-it-yourself youtube about stuff that's been gone over many times.

Yup, hence it looks a little scammy.

[Photolysis]

Look, I'm glad the forum is talking more about this than it did in the past, but can we get a little more mature and realize tropes that reinforce unwanted stereotypes in games are not the sole property of one gender, nation or race? There's something chivalrous and patronizing about focusing it on women.

Agreed. Discussion of stereotyping both within games and the gaming community is welcome but it's getting tiresome only hearing about it happening towards a very specific group.

[HoodWinked]

core gaming demographic are teenage males, why the hell wouldnt they cater towards them.

[ShdwDrake]

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3...s-creed/731106

Ubisoft got your back.

[faceless007]

Look, I'm glad the forum is talking more about this than it did in the past, but can we get a little more mature and realize tropes that reinforce unwanted stereotypes in games are not the sole property of one gender, nation or race?

At the risk of getting off on a rant, I get really fucking sick of seeing this attempt to re-frame the debate in Every. Single. Gender. Thread. No one believes women are the only ones affected by negative stereotypes. No one one believes we should focus our attention on solving this problem to the exclusion of all other problems. No one believes unwanted stereotypes are the sole property of women. Not even feminists. Go ahead and ask one about male body issues or male objectification or racial stereotypes, there's a damn good chance they'll say "Yeah, that's also a problem, and we should work to solve that as well."

Yes, a lot of women tend to spend a fair amount of words and time, maybe even a majority of their time, on the way it affects their particular gender. You know why? Because it's their fucking gender. There's no obligation whatosever on their part to be equal-opportunity about every single social issue and injustice in the world, especially not when the deck is stacked so high against them in the first place. You have to start somewhere, and they've chosen that starting place. There's nothing hypocritical or inconsistent about that, it's just recognizing that time and energy is finite and you have to pick your battles.

For some reason we expect self-proclaimed feminists to take up the cross not only of their own gender, but of every group in the world with a grievance, lest they be accused of being hypocrites. They don't spend time dwelling on the vast injustice of beefcake male characters? Obviously it's because they're hypocrites, no need to pay attention to them. They write an essay about rape but don't mention false rape accusations? Obviously their priorities are in the wrong place and can be dismissed without comment.

But for some reason, anytime someone tries to bring up a uniquely female issue, the cries of "But what about men's rights/male objectification/prison rape/false rape accusations/etc" come up. It is literally impossible to have a discussion about a female-specific issue without someone coming along and trying to reframe it to being part of the larger discourse of humanity generally being pretty shitty and intolerant to itself, as if we didn't already know that really damn well.

If you really care so much about men being depicted unrealistically and as dumb buffoons in the media, SPEAK UP YOUR DAMN SELF. Nobody's stopping you! Write blog posts, make videos, get active! I'm not being glib about this, I'm sincerely saying, if that's what you think is worth fighting for, you should honestly do it. And contrary to what you may assume, you may find that the feminist community are your allies in your cause. They don't like to reinforce negative stereotypes of anyone (except maybe social conservatives). Many if not most of them are in fact keenly aware of the ways gender and racial and class and educational issues interact and know that they can't be separated that easily.

But I almost never see posters doing that. I've never seen a "Why are male video game characters so objectified?" thread or a "Why does this industry have such a problem with minorities?" thread. Instead certain posters think the most appropriate place to begin those discussions is in the threads that try to discuss the equivalent female phenomenon.

I can't help but wonder how much they really care about their own interests and male representations given that.

[etiolate]

At the risk of getting off on a rant, I get really fucking sick of seeing this attempt to re-frame the debate in Every. Single. Gender. Thread. No one believes women are the only ones affected by negative stereotypes. No one one believes we should focus our attention on solving this problem to the exclusion of all other problems. No one believes unwanted stereotypes are the sole property of women. Not even feminists. Go ahead and ask one about male body issues or male objectification or racial stereotypes, there's a damn good chance they'll say "Yeah, that's also a problem, and we should work to solve that as well." Yes, a lot of women tend to spend a fair amount of words and time, maybe even a majority of their time, on the way it affects their particular gender. You know why? Because it's their fucking gender. There's no obligation whatosever on their part to be equal-opportunity about every single social issue and injustice in the world, especially not when the deck is stacked so high against them in the first place. You have to start somewhere, and they've chosen that starting place. There's nothing hypocritical or inconsistent about that, it's just recognizing that time and energy is finite and you have to pick your battles. For some reason we expect self-proclaimed feminists to take up the cross not only of their own gender, but of every group in the world with a grievance, lest they be accused of being hypocrites. They don't spend time dwelling on the vast injustice of beefcake male characters? Obviously it's because they're hypocrites, no need to pay attention to them. They write an essay about rape but don't mention false rape accusations? Obviously their priorities are in the wrong place and can be dismissed without comment. But for some reason, anytime someone tries to bring up a uniquely female issue, the cries of "But what about men's rights/male objectification/prison rape/false rape accusations/etc" come up. It is literally impossible to have a discussion about a female-specific issue without someone coming along and trying to reframe it to being part of the larger discourse of humanity generally being pretty shitty and intolerant to itself, as if we didn't already know that really damn well. If you really care so much about men being depicted unrealistically and as dumb buffoons in the media, SPEAK UP YOUR DAMN SELF. Nobody's stopping you! Write blog posts, make videos, get active! I'm not being glib about this, I'm sincerely saying, if that's what you think is worth fighting for, you should honestly do it. And contrary to what you may assume, you may find that the feminist community are your allies in your cause. They don't like to reinforce negative stereotypes of anyone (except maybe social conservatives). Many if not most of them are in fact keenly aware of the ways gender and racial and class and educational issues interact and know that they can't be separated that easily. But I almost never see posters doing that. I've never seen a "Why are male video game characters so objectified?" thread or a "Why does this industry have such a problem with minorities?" thread. Instead certain posters think the most appropriate place to begin those discussions is in the threads that try to discuss the equivalent female phenomenon. I can't help but wonder how much they really care about their own interests and male representations given that.

It's not about taking up the cross for others. When you use a specific lens to view an issue with, you fail to see the whole of the issue. Theory is great for looking at something from a particular angle, but when people force a theory onto something that needs a wider viewpoint, it creates problems.

Simply put: if you try to understand the issue through one point of view then you won't understand the issue.

Also, I think I've seen the issue of the male stereotype here and there. Bald space marine hate is essentially that.

It's about broadening the lens with which you view problems. That's why I mentioned the feedback loop of highly idealized worlds.

[captmorgan]

That hypothetical is a bit of a reach, no? Are you suggesting a situation in which women would want to see the same stereotypes if the industry and audiences saw a paradigm shift to female focus? .

Honestly yes, I think people would be shocked with how much things stayed the same even with 50% female designers. I can only speak about the women I know but they are the first ones to slide the boob filter all the way over to the right. Whats the top selling book and movie for women right now isn`t it 50 shades of grey and twilight?

[Gotchaye]

Chiming in on faceless' post, it's a bit like when talking about a charitable cause someone will inevitably come along and say something like "why spend time and money on this when we could be feeding starving children in Africa?"

That's a terrible frame. And the effect of it, if not the intent, is to pull attention away from the charity in question but not towards charities that feed starving children in Africa. We are not actually coming up against the limits of what we could do to help the less fortunate. There aren't real tradeoffs here. Some people will happen to care a great deal about causes which are technically not quite as cost-effective as feeding starving children in Africa, and they should be encouraged to support these causes in preference to doing nothing.

This is obviously especially true when the spokespeople for the causes are the victims that need aid. Women are perfectly justified in complaining about the representation of women in games and not spending that much time talking about the representation of racial minorities in games. Other marginalized groups should also speak out. And everyone else should be generally supportive of anyone making a complaint like this.

[User33]

Chiming in on faceless' post, it's a bit like when talking about a charitable cause someone will inevitably come along and say something like "why spend time and money on this when we could be feeding starving children in Africa?" That's a terrible frame. And the effect of it, if not the intent, is to pull attention away from the charity in question but not towards charities that feed starving children in Africa. We are not actually coming up against the limits of what we could do to help the less fortunate. There aren't real tradeoffs here. Some people will happen to care a great deal about causes which are technically not quite as cost-effective as feeding starving children in Africa, and they should be encouraged to support these causes in preference to doing nothing. This is obviously especially true when the spokespeople for the causes are the victims that need aid. Women are perfectly justified in complaining about the representation of women in games and not spending that much time talking about the representation of racial minorities in games. Other marginalized groups should also speak out. And everyone else should be generally supportive of anyone making a complaint like this.

Literally spot on.

[Emitan]

Also, I think I've seen the issue of the male stereotype here and there. Bald space marine hate is essentially that.

...

Okay, I'm done with gender threads on GAF.

[Lissar]

Honestly yes, I think people would be shocked with how much things stayed the same even with 50% female designers. I can only speak about the women I know but they are the first ones to slide the boob filter all the way over to the right. Whats the top selling book and movie for women right now isn`t it 50 shades of grey and twilight?

Yes, people like to play as beautiful people. That isn't so unusual. But what is more important is creating three dimensional, interesting characters. While outward design is important, how the characters act and their role in the story is even more important of an issue.

But yes, Twilight is popular. :< I wish something with a more interesting female character would become popular, but I think in that case the main character being as bland as possible makes it easier for reader self-insert. *sigh*

Also, I think I've seen the issue of the male stereotype here and there. Bald space marine hate is essentially that.

I don't think people feel bald space marines are a negative male stereotype as much as they feel the devs are being lazy and boring.

[Femmeworth]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...in-video-games This is kinda scamy, to be honest.

Really?

[faceless007]

It's not about taking up the cross for others. When you use a specific lens to view an issue with, you fail to see the whole of the issue. Theory is great for looking at something from a particular angle, but when people force a theory onto something that needs a wider viewpoint, it creates problems. Simply put: if you try to understand the issue through one point of view then you won't understand the issue. Also, I think I've seen the issue of the male stereotype here and there. Bald space marine hate is essentially that. It's about broadening the lens with which you view problems. That's why I mentioned the feedback loop of highly idealized worlds.

I don't know what you're going off about. If you're saying anyone critiquing representations of women in games doesn't understand or appreciate the larger societal issues, I'd like to know what makes you think that, other than the stupid-ass metric of how many words they write or how many videos they make on the subject. Like I said, most feminists I've read/talked to are keenly aware of how racial/class/gender issues interact with each other. That doesn't mean they have to devote equal time or attention to them all equally.