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Study Says Sexualization of Female Video Game Characters Can Lead to Sexual Harassment.
- Thread starter IbizaPocholo
- Start date
RedVIper
Banned
Considering women were the ones more affected in this study it doesn't seem like it. Unless the girls were all lesbians.
MrCunningham
Member
"Sexualization" is such a broad word, if you get right down to it. A woman wearing long-non revealing clothes could easily be sexualized in the right mindset. The amount of sexualized fetishes that exist are pretty much endless.
epicnemesis
Member
I’m no scientist but that seems like a horrible testing methodology. There are so many variables in there that it’s almost impossible to draw any conclusion on anything.
The saddest part of this binary world we live in is the loss of the scientific method. “Null hypothesis can go fuck itself. We’ve got a conclusion we have to navigate the evidence to.”
Ol'Scratch
Member
Yes that study can go right next to the ones that say violent video games create mass shooters. What is happening to this place.
Saber
Gold Member
I think thats because sexualization is quickly losing its original mean. Its more about people being unconfortable with a character than really anything related to eye candy.
Take this new character, Gym Leader Nessa from Pokemon Sword and Shield. Shes basically a slim girl with nothing really sexually candy other than her attire, which is an atlethic outfit. Yet people feel offended by her, as if she has big boobs. I would put she at the same level as Misty with bikini in the Metapod vs Metapod episode.
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MrCunningham
Member
I use WaterFox as my default browser, and it goes to Bing instead of Google when I do searches. I did a search for this character and the first thing I found was sexualized fan art of this character in lewd positions. For some reason the Bing image search will always put "porny"-like images at the top of the search query, while Google image search will put that stuff at the back of its search queries (I have safe search turned off for both). It is so weird, but I am getting side tracked. It's like, Nintendo could make these characters as flat and curve less as they want, but some groups of people will still find it to be their fetishes.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
And I thought governments and schools cry they are broke.
When you got researchers spending time and money to find out results from people playing Ultra Street Fighter 4, the corporate coffers must be overflowing with riches.
When I was going to university, I shouldn't have done a business major and working for Fortune 500 companies. I should have taken a research route and get paid doing studies on The Effect of Tooth Decay While Waiting for Games to Load
Velius
Banned
Several reasons.
First and foremost the study did not control for any of the countless variables you have to qualify whenever you're doing any kind of regression analysis or statistical study.
Probably most pertinent though is the fact that they concluded that people who play sexualized video games are more likely to sexually harassed based on what people prefer. It's classic bullshit correlation error because it assumes that it's what they're playing that's making them like that, rather than them being the way they are influencing their decisions to play a game a certain way, which it clearly is.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
Wait, they determine this by... joke telling?
Chozofication_
Banned
Study says eating taco bell leads to racism against Mexicans once violent poops occur
MrCunningham
Member
I just had taco's last night. I have disgraced Mexican people everywhere. Sorry Mexico
Lionel Richie
Member
This person behind this study is a fucking imbecile just like anyone that takes it seriously so this is entirely irrelevant, but man oh man would I love to read what these jokes were.
GreenAlien
Member
From the study:
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Each slide contained a pair of jokes written in French. Odd-numbered slides contained two nonsexist jokes (e.g., “Why do sharks swim in salt water? Because pepper would make them sneeze!”), and even-numbered slides contained one sexist joke and one nonsexist joke. Sexist jokes were gender specific. That is, female sexist jokes were used for female partners (e.g., “Why is it called PMS? Because ‘Mad Cow Disease’ was already taken.”), whereas male sexist jokes were used for male partners (e.g., “What do you call a man who has lost his intelligence? A widower”).
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Dr. Claus
Vincit qui se vincit
Not to mention the journal they submitted this to, "Aggressive Behavior" is an incredibly low impact journal with almost zero standards. An impact factor of 2.216 is laughable at best. For those who don't know what impact factors are (copy/pasted from Wikipedia):
In any given year, the impact factor of a journal is the number of citations, received in that year, of articles published in that journal during the two preceding years, divided by the total number of "citable items" published in that journal during the two preceding years:[1]
For example, Nature had an impact factor of 41.577 in 2017:[2]
This means that, on average, its papers published in 2015 and 2016 received roughly 41 citations each in 2017. Note that 2017 impact factors are reported in 2018; they cannot be calculated until all of the 2017 publications have been processed by the indexing agency.
It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field; journals with higher impact factors are often deemed to be more important than those with lower ones.
In Layman's terms: Aggressive Behavior is a quite frankly worthless in its relevancy within its own field. Numerous other journals have ten times its impact factor and you can safely ignore this... rag of an "article".
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Lionel Richie
Member
Wow, yeah I can't see any solution other than killing every single straight man.
Unbelievable, this as low of an effort as any academic work can be. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, lazy efforts to drive home a bullshit narrative is pretty much modern lefty ideology right there.
Inspector 2211
Member
From the title of their study, it sounds like they had confirmation bias right from the start.
zenspider
Member
Because they don't account for, or respect male bonding.
Clown science. Honk honk.
Astartes
Banned
At least your straightforward. Camilla drawn by Cutesexyrobutts. You have his art as your avatar.
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"Participants (N = 211) played a video game with either sexualized or non‐sexualized female characters. After gameplay, they had the opportunity to sexually harass a male or a female partner by sending them sexist jokes."
There is no way to prove that the sending of the sexist jokes is directly related to playing the game.
On top of that there is a weird assertion that telling a sexist joke is the same as sexual harassment.
Furthermore the number of participants is small.
With the "joke = harassment" thing it's kind of strange because it almost becomes tricking the participants. You might see "What do you call a man who has lost his intelligence? A widower” and think that's quite funny and decide to send it. Then they are pulling a "gotcha" by asserting that sending the joke is sexual harassment?
Would a reasonable person really classify sending this message to a dude as "sexual harassment"?
What do you call a man who has lost his intelligence? A widower.
From there how can you even establish that the decision to send or not send the joke is based on the character's costume in Street Fighter?
What if you just really think the joke is funny? What if you don't think it's funny?
Remember, the participants were asked to send a joke to their partner and were then given a choice of only 2 jokes to send. One "sexist" joke and one regular joke. How is that choice influenced by the game you just played as opposed to just your sense of humor?
At best the study would be proving a connection between the character design and whether or not a participant finds a joke funny or not.
There aren't really any tangible findings here but rather an "interpretation" of data.
An interpretation that seems pretty flimsy to me.
Have a look at the data for yourself.
What I see there is that people are sending sexist jokes even when playing as a non-sexualized character.
Playing as a sexualized character increases that rate but not by much.
The median for sexist jokes from males to females is 1.71 for those with non-sexualized outfits and 2.19 for sexualized outfits.
Out of 51 men sending jokes to women, the 26 that played with sexualized costumes sent 0.48 more sexist jokes.
So 211 people were asked to play Street Fighter and then were offered a choice between ONLY TWO jokes to send to the person they had just played against.
As it turned out people chose the "sexist" joke more often after playing as a sexualized character.
This is therefore proof that sexualization of female characters can lead to sexual harassment (not jokes, harassment).
And you seriously ask why some people might discount the findings?
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
So if the same study with the same people instead shoveled the snow and they sent more sexual jokes after, that means shoveling snow means more sexual harassment?
Exactly.
Good methodology is an alien concept to them.
They're leading the witness, for goodness sake, and in such crass way, and it doesn't seem to have made any alarm bells go off. Neitehr their own, nor their peer reviewers',
This study suggests poor methodology makes for catchy headlines.
DunDunDunpachi
Patient MembeR
I should add:
Did they do a control group with sexualized male characters? One would think in order to prove that the sexualization of one particular gender leads to sexual harassment, you would need to determine that sexualization of the other gender did not have as profound of an effect.
For all we know, it could simply be the sexualization of videogame characters (male or female) that can lead to sexual harassment.
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It could be interpreted that way, if someone wanted to interpret it that way.
The connection here that the jokes are "sexist" and the outfits are "sexualized" is the trick. It's something that at least sounds like a connection.
So maybe a better comparison would be something like.
Ask 25 dudes to take a dog for an hour walk. Ask another 25 dudes to take a dog plushie around with them for an hour.
Then offer each dude a choice between a vegetarian meal or a meal with meat.
17 of the dudes with the plushie chose meat. However, only 15 of the dudes looking after the dog choose meat.
Therefore the study shows that looking after an actual animal reduces people's appetite for eating meat.
The study is a big pile of shite. On a number of levels.
MiyazakiHatesKojima
Banned
A disgraceful study that undermines the power of actual research methodologies.
FranXico
Member
Something that I might give the benefit of the doubt is a study where a correlation is sought between exposure to sexualized characters in entertainment and the development of sexist beliefs.
Not this "jokes are harrassment" garbage.
Typical "gender studies" pseudo-science.
Not this "jokes are harrassment" garbage.
Typical "gender studies" pseudo-science.
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GreenAlien
Member
They are not actually sending these jokes to a real human, but to a bot who answers negatively to "sexist" jokes and positively to neutral jokes.
I guess the harassment comes into it if the participant keeps sending these jokes.
From the study:
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The measure of online sexual harassment was the number of sexist jokes the participant sent to their partner, which could range from 0 to 8. When the participant sent their partner a sexist joke, the partner sent a negative scripted response (e.g., “I don’t like this joke”), and these responses became more negative every time a new sexist joke was sent (e.g.,“This joke is disgusting”). When the participant sent the partner a non-sexist joke, the partner sent a positive scripted response(e.g., “lol ^^”, “Haha, not bad!”).
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LegendOfKage
Member
Alternative finding for this study:
When female college students are presented with imagery that feminism constantly paints as socially unacceptable, women become increasingly more resentful of men, and are more likely to insult them or think negatively of them. This challenges the long-standing insistence that feminism is never about hating men, and seems to suggest that increased hostility towards males is a natural consequence of demonizing male sexuality.
When female college students are presented with imagery that feminism constantly paints as socially unacceptable, women become increasingly more resentful of men, and are more likely to insult them or think negatively of them. This challenges the long-standing insistence that feminism is never about hating men, and seems to suggest that increased hostility towards males is a natural consequence of demonizing male sexuality.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Bikini mods? lol.
Even without looking at the entire study, that stands out - why would seeing sexualized women make female participants send sexist jokes to men? Does feeling vulnerable or degraded increase female hostility or aggression towards men?
Those jokes also don’t seem like “harassment”, they don’t even seem particularly “sexist” - they’re boring garden variety jokes about gender - my wife said blah blah blah, my husband ... - not “p.c.”, but just expressing comic frustration with the opposite sex - what real people take offense?
Reminds me of a joke I just read, a couple says they named their son John Wayne - no, not after the actor, never he’s a horrible racist! - after John Wayne *Gacy*
The effect they’re measuring is also very localized in space and time - while or immediately after playing a video game with sexualized content, both genders, but women more than men, are more likely to prefer jokes with a pinch of sexist aggression in them. You can’t extrapolate to talk about “harassment” generally, like the shallow reporting on the finding does. At most, you might speculate that sexualization activates some network of associations in the brain, or releases some aggressive hormone, and that in real world settings, it could shift the mood of a person or group. That actually means the sort of provocative or revealing outfits women wear for “cosplay” aren’t just for fun, or “I wear the t-shirt that says ‘Take Me Daddy’ for *me*, to feel light and fun and confident!” - they would inherently prime onlookers, women more than men, to enter a gender-archaic state of mind. But it’s a finding strictly confined to online interaction - the jokes are being “sent”, not delivered face to face - and it does seem like a very plausible result, which doesn’t have the gender political implications one would hope, because it brings out the “worst” in women more than men. But you could also frame it as “playing games with lewd avatars relaxes men and women and makes them more likely to laugh at jokes about sex and gender”...
alabtrosMyster
Banned
I'm your daddy!
Or go back to the kitchen?
I guess, Anything that implies gender in some way
infinitys_7th
Member
It sounds like exposure to the "sexy bodies" activated a normal part of the brain, on both sides:
It's also hard to spin this as "video games give men soggy knees" when women were impacted far more than the men.
I wonder if the results were skewed by someone being Australian.
"Ay, quit Hadokening and fight me, ya cunt!"
It's also hard to spin this as "video games give men soggy knees" when women were impacted far more than the men.
I wonder if the results were skewed by someone being Australian.
"Ay, quit Hadokening and fight me, ya cunt!"
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GreenAlien
Member
Women aren't impacted more. According to the study, they like to harass males significantly more by default, with and without "sexist games". Thus, one could say that the study implies that feminism is bad and leads to more sexual harassment.
They didn't test what effects sexualized male characters have on women either.
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chaos789
Banned
Having we already went through this with regards to whether violence in video games contributes to real life violence. And the consensus was that there is no direct correlation. So the same could be said for sexual content in games as well.
And sexuality in video games is very rarely even expressed. Given the degree of violence shown in games, there is no direct comparison in regards to sexuality in games. Some anime inspired video game character with cleavage is not comparable to a video game character being decapitated.
An equivalent in sexuality to violence in video games, would be full on nudity with actual sexual intercourse occurring.
And sexuality in video games is very rarely even expressed. Given the degree of violence shown in games, there is no direct comparison in regards to sexuality in games. Some anime inspired video game character with cleavage is not comparable to a video game character being decapitated.
An equivalent in sexuality to violence in video games, would be full on nudity with actual sexual intercourse occurring.
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