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Tropes versus Women in Video Games

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Well, I didn't give her money and I'm not particulary angry but she tries to discuss a issue that I also think It need to be addressed. But she arguments and discuss in a way I particulary found flawed and absolutist, so I found the criticism (that is not hateful or mysoginist) valid, even If is not from bakers.

Good intentions are just that. You know what many say about this and the Road to Hell
 
zendavis said:
I don't care if you feel completely ill.

But since you are, I'll give you the benefit of a doubt that that's the reason you can't keep up. Is it that difficult to accept that Ueda's comment regarding the gender of the protaganist in SotC is an artifact of deep seated cultural associations related to gender that are backed by science?

No. My main contention isn't that since Japanese culture is inherently sexist we should celebrate the reinforcement of sexist conventions without comment. My main contention is by perpetuating the question of what century a foreign developer is from, Anita Sarkeesian ignores the baggage that developer carries due to their country of origin and offers an ultimately ignorant, xenophobic, and hollow opinion.
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Is there science to backup up the assertion that only a man would be capable of scaling a giant monster?
 
And even if you think that’s true (which scares the hell out of me), I don’t see you arguing for an accurate portrayal of everything in your fiction all the time. For example, most people seem fine without accurate portrayal of what personal hygiene was really like in 1300 CE in their medieval fantasy media. (Newsflash: realistically, Robb Stark and Jon Snow rarely bathed or brushed their teeth or hair). In real life, people have to go to the bathroom. In movies and books, they don’t show that very much, because it’s boring and gross. Well, guess what: bigotry is also boring and gross. But everyone is just dying to keep that in the script.
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Christina Ricci grew some some arm pit hair for a Victorian movie! :D
 
Oersted said:
this pretty much. but you know: women critizing videogames, male videogamers getting mad is somehow a given. Its hard to admit that we got a problem. So better attack the messenger, not the problem.
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In her case I think the messenger deserves to be attacked. It's obvious she presents herself and her stance in a way that practically begs for negative responses. Maybe her video game videos will be different but her previous ones were pretty cringeworthy.

Still wondering what her goals are for these videos.
 
For reference, here is the quote regarding changing the protagonist to a man:

Early in development, the main character in The Last Guardian was female, but the team ended up going with a boy. The reason: they thought it would be more realistic that he would have enough grip strength to be able to climb around, and because they wouldn’t have to worry about camera angles with a girl who wears a skirt.
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Because, you know, women just don't have the grip strength to climb around. That's why there are no women rock climbers.
 
UrbanRats said:
But Vita has no games!
i kid, i kid.
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Right! So only the hardest of the hardcore gamers actually have one. ;-)

J/k Vita, I love you like a firstborn

The muscle size thing is silly c'mon.
YEash women have less muscular power in general, but they also weight less, in general.. and Ico's and TLG'sa characters are childrens, so those physical differences have not really taken place yet.
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And on the flip side, there is quite literally not a single human male in existence with the grip strength that Wander displays in SotC, so it's not like Ueda is particularly interested in maintaining accurate grip strength when it comes to portraying male characters.

I literally cannot fathom how anyone can argue for accurate grip strength portrayals in Team Ico games with a straight face unless they are simultaneously decrying the lack of realism in SotC. The shocking hypocrisy!
 
zendavis said:
I don't care if you feel completely ill.

But since you are, I'll give you the benefit of a doubt that that's the reason you can't keep up. Is it that difficult to accept that Ueda's comment regarding the gender of the protaganist in SotC is an artifact of deep seated cultural associations related to gender that are backed by science?
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Don't worry, when I said ill I meant it for dramatic effect, those personal attacks didn't take all that long did they? When you bolded backed by science there you completely missed the point, which is that talking about minor physical differences between the muscle mass of an average small child of either gender is completely and hilariously irrelevant when compared to the overwhelming leaps in logic that are being asked of us in a typical video game. Climbing giant monsters? Sure! Girl's climbing giant monsters? GTFO of here with that nonsense, that's not science.

No. My main contention isn't that since Japanese culture is inherently sexist we should celebrate the reinforcement of sexist conventions without comment. My main contention is by perpetuating the question of what century a foreign developer is from, Anita Sarkeesian ignores the baggage that developer carries due to their country of origin and offers an ultimately ignorant, xenophobic, and hollow opinion.
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I'm not tremendously concerned with defending Sarkeesian but really the country of origin has nothing to do with whether a given peice of work can be considered as part of a wider pattern of sexist tropes or not. Yes there may be an explanation for why it's more prevalent in some cultures rather than others but that doesn't offer any form of justification in any way that matters.

TLDR: Team ICO making a game that perpetuates sexist tropes is just as relevant a datum point as Epic (or whoever) making a game that perpetuates sexist tropes and bringing cultural background into it actually undermines the point by muddying it in with cultural relativism.
 
zendavis said:
There is science to say that a man would be capable of scaling any vertical face more efficiently.
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They didn't make the protagonist male because he'd be able to climb more efficiently, they did it because "they thought it would be more realistic that he would have enough grip strength to be able to climb around".
It doesn't matter that a man would potentially have greater ability to climb than a woman, the problem is the assertion that it is completely unrealistic that a woman would be incapable of climbing the colossi. Where is the science that proves that? Given there is no evidence that even a man could manage it in real life, it seem silly suggest there is evidence that a woman couldn't.
 
"A boy who has horns growing out of his head is perfectly fine but a girl who can climb things AND wears pants? No way, get that fantasy bullshit out of my realistic video games."
 
Wrestlemania said:
For reference, here is the quote regarding changing the protagonist to a man:


Because, you know, women just don't have the grip strength to climb around. That's why there are no women rock climbers.
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So you're saying a man in equal physically conditioning to a woman wouldn't be able to keep up to the woman?
 
zendavis said:
What Science says:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8477683

Strength and muscle characteristics were examined in biceps brachii and vastus lateralis of eight men and eight women. Measurements included motor unit number, size and activation and voluntary strength of the elbow flexors and knee extensors. Fiber areas and type were determined from needle biopsies and muscle areas by computerized tomographical scanning. The women were approximately 52% and 66% as strong as the men in the upper and lower body respectively. The men were also stronger relative to lean body mass. A significant correlation was found between strength and muscle cross-sectional area (CSA; P < or = 0.05). The women had 45, 41, 30 and 25% smaller muscle CSAs for the biceps brachii, total elbow flexors, vastus lateralis and total knee extensors respectively. The men had significantly larger type I fiber areas (4597 vs 3483 microns2) and mean fiber areas (6632 vs 3963 microns2) than the women in biceps brachii and significantly larger type II fiber areas (7700 vs 4040 microns2) and mean fiber areas (7070 vs 4290 microns2) in vastus lateralis. No significant gender difference was found in the strength to CSA ratio for elbow flexion or knee extension, in biceps fiber number (180,620 in men vs 156,872 in women), muscle area to fiber area ratio in the vastus lateralis 451,468 vs 465,007) or any motor unit characteristics. Data suggest that the greater strength of the men was due primarily to larger fibers. The greater gender difference in upper body strength can probably be attributed to the fact that women tend to have a lower proportion of their lean tissue distributed in the upper body.

Unless you've got a better reason for why Ueda may think that?
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You're right. I was imagining things. No female climbers exist.
 
Wrestlemania said:
They didn't make the protagonist male because he'd be able to climb more efficiently, they did it because "they thought it would be more realistic that he would have enough grip strength to be able to climb around".
It doesn't matter that a man would potentially have greater ability to climb than a woman, the problem is the assertion that it is completely unrealistic that a woman would be incapable of climbing the colossi. Where is the science that proves that? Given there is no evidence that even a man could manage it in real life, it seem silly suggest there is evidence that a woman couldn't.
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Don't want to get caught up in this subtopic but thought that was worth pointing out.
 
rCIZZLE said:
In her case I think the messenger deserves to be attacked. It's obvious she presents herself and her stance in a way that practically begs for negative responses. Maybe her video game videos will be different but her previous ones were pretty cringeworthy.

Still wondering what her goals are for these videos.
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Given the mountain of rape and death threats she's received over this, do you really want to argue that she deserves to be attacked? No one deserves to be attacked, that is honestly just awful. If you think she's worthy of criticism, that's fine but just, idk, think about the words you are using and what they suggest.

As for her goals, I'd say they are to 1) Bring more awareness to the problem of sexism in video games and, 2) Hopefully educate and change the minds of game devs and players. Why else would she do them if not to effect change that she thinks is positive and necessary?
 
Htown said:
You're right. I was imagining things. No female climbers exist.
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Does this really have to do with the overexaggeration that no female climbers exists or that female climbers in equal physical conditioning simply aren't as effective as men. That's the point Ueda was getting at and the science backs that up.
 
Why does it matter whether or not women are on average physiologically weaker in certain areas than men? That might be a general trait but there's no reason every piece of media has to reflect it, or that outliers can't exist. Men on average are not the ripped testosterone-raging dudebros so prominent in FPSs but we accept that as a natural convention of the medium, and there actually exist heavily muscled and strong women in the world, but for some reason it's considered too unrealistic to ever portray one.
 
Kinyou said:
Just because Person A is better at thing X than Person B, doesn't mean that Person B is totally incapable of doing thing X.
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Quote me where I said that? That's why I went out of my way to write that in general that if you have a man and a woman who do exactly the same training, the man on general will main a higher level of strength. This doesn't mean a woman will need a wheel chair to find her way around the world. I'm not even sure how you've managed to make that leap. Now if you want to find some scientific proof to the opposite, feel free to post it.

The question is why Ueda would think what he does. I'm offering one answer. Unless you're all content with just calling him sexist and leaving it at that.
 
idlethreats said:
Given the mountain of rape and death threats she's received over this, do you really want to argue that she deserves to be attacked? No one deserves to be attacked, that is honestly just awful. If you think she's worthy of criticism, that's fine but just, idk, think about the words you are using and what they suggest.

As for her goals, I'd say they are to 1) Bring more awareness to the problem of sexism in video games and, 2) Hopefully educate and change the minds of game devs and players. Why else would she do them if not to effect change that she thinks is positive and necessary?
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Did you even read what the quote that led to that response or did you see "attacked" and decided I meant rape and murder? I very obviously meant criticism.

Wouldn't a better way to approach the problem be spend equal time (unsarcastically) showing both good and bad examples? That way if someone who is actually interested in the medium could make a positive impact by showing there's money in feminist-friendly games. Her previous videos almost completely lack this and in some cases have cherry picked examples to make it seem like the problem is worse than it actually is.
 
zendavis said:
Does this really have to do with the overexaggeration that no female climbers exists or that female climbers in equal physical conditioning simply aren't as effective as men. That's the point Ueda was getting at and the science backs that up.
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Bullshit.

Nothing you posted in any way disqualifies a female character from performing climbing tasks in the way that you're twisting the evidence to make it appear.

zendavis said:
What's the science say?
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Not anything near what you think it's saying.
 
Htown said:
Bullshit.

Nothing you posted in any way disqualifies a female character from performing climbing tasks in the way that you're twisting the evidence to make it appear.

Not anything near what you think it's saying.
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Where was I trying to disqualify a female character from performing climbing tasks in the way that you're twisting the evidence to make it appear? Unless that's just what your broken brain sees.

Actually, what I'm doing is showing why it isn't outlandish that Ueda would choose a male character instead of female one. Keep up.
 
Seriously, it's utterly stupid. It's like saying that because men are generally faster than women, and the current women's 100m world record is 1 second behind the men's world record, that it makes sense to disqualify women from being the star of a video game where running is the focus.

It's utterly retarded, and I'm done trying to show you why.
 
zendavis said:
The question is why Ueda would think what he does. I'm offering one answer. Unless you're all content with just calling him sexist and leaving it at that.
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Or you could read my earlier post where I said that this is simply yet another example of a wide spread series of systemic cultural assumptions about gender, not simply "OMG Ueda sexist".
 
Oersted said:
this pretty much. but you know: women critizing videogames, male videogamers getting mad is somehow a given. Its hard to admit that we got a problem. So better attack the messenger, not the problem.
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People aren't attacking the messenger (I'm excluding the trolls), people are criticizing her methods and the videos she released so far. Like bhlaab wrote, the decontextualization of tropes is completely arbitrary and that's the only way she approaches the argument.
Is Super Mario sexist because it uses the damsel in distress trope (according to her yes)? No, since it's just a little plot device, nothing more. It's not like Miyamoto made the game to show how women are useless and men always save the day. How can you take her seriously when this is what she does?
Those tweets are just inflammatory and childish.
 
Damsel in Distress is definitely sexist, but isn't misogynistic and it is something people people want in their entertainment. Ueda reasoning is some weird stuff, as Japanese devs like to say weird stuff in interviews to justify things (e.g. HD towns), but at the same time it is perfectly reasonable. He, a man making games for men, probably decided it would be best for the vision he was working for if the main character was a little boy and not a little girl. Ico would go on to become considered a classic. Moreover, from what I can tell most female gamers or even male gamers inclined to find sexism in games didn't give a fuck about that and enjoyed the game. Mainly because they approached videogames as gamers, not feminists. These two things are exclusive to a degree, when it comes to the details. This applies to music, movies, etc as well. This is why most people don't listen for misogyny in old christmas songs, like Anita might. It is called baggage and you carry it with you when you go to the theater.
 
zendavis said:
Does this really have to do with the overexaggeration that no female climbers exists or that female climbers in equal physical conditioning simply aren't as effective as men. That's the point Ueda was getting at and the science backs that up.
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Let me make this clear. This argument stems from the statement that the director of the game made that it was more realistic for a boy to climb around than a girl. You quoted "SCIENCE!" that said men have stronger upper bodies. This doesn't eliminate that a girl COULD climb around. Efficiency has nothing to do with it. And besides, average doesn't tell the whole story. There is overlap. There are many many women with much better grip strength and climbing ability than me, than even you. So being more realistic isn't a real issue. It's that he doesn't think women can do it, but women can do it. Maybe less women than men. But still. Look at the cute little girl rock climbing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uatDyctBZok

Oh! All that above+ your entire argument is really dumb because the protagonist is a CHILD and children are pretty much equal in that regard. Dimorphism doesn't really rear its head until puberty.
 
Htown said:
Seriously, it's utterly stupid. It's like saying that because men are generally faster than women, and the current women's 100m world record is 1 second behind the men's world record, that it makes sense to disqualify women from being the star of a video game where running is the focus.

It's utterly retarded, and I'm done trying to show you why.
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Okay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_world_record_progression

Women in general on marathons are significantly slower than seconds. Does this disqualify women from being the start of a videogame where running is the focus? I'll answer that with a resounding no.

But does Ueda putting a male character in place of a female character make him sexist? I'll answer that with a resounding no as well.

There's this weird inability to grasp this for some of you.

Do any of you seriously think that Ueda believes that women couldn't climb a rock wall?

Spoiler: For all his running and climbing around, Yorda saves Ico's ass big-time at the end.
 
Ueda should have just said that he did not want a female to be the main character and leave it at that instead of making retarded reasons.

On a slightly related point ICO is far more then a dude escorting a a women around. And its definitely not a game about a strong man saving the useless damsel in distress.
 
zendavis said:
Quote me where I said that? That's why I went out of my way to write that in general that if you have a man and a woman who do exactly the same training, the man on general will main a higher level of strength. This doesn't mean a woman will need a wheel chair to find her way around the world. I'm not even sure how you've managed to make that leap. Now if you want to find some scientific proof to the opposite, feel free to post it.

The question is why Ueda would think what he does. I'm offering one answer. Unless you're all content with just calling him sexist and leaving it at that.
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But that's the sort of the logic which Ueda seemed to have used. Just because men are more capable of climbing doesn't mean it's enough reason to switch the protagonist, since women are still capable of climbing
 
idlethreats said:
You do know that she's a big fan of video games right? She even owns a Vita for crying out loud! (And it was not purchased for the sake of this project either) And you know she's on the hook for producing at least one video that focuses on positive examples of women in video games?
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LONNb.png

that's a great reason to buy a console!
 
Kikujiro said:
People aren't attacking the messenger (I'm excluding the trolls), people are criticizing her methods and the videos she released so far. Like bhlaab wrote, the decontextualization of tropes is completely arbitrary and that's the only way she approaches the argument.
Is Super Mario sexist because it uses the damsel in distress trope (according to her yes)? No, since it's just a little plot device, nothing more. It's not like Miyamoto made the game to show how women are useless and men always save the day. How can you take her seriously when this is what she does?
Those tweets are just inflammatory and childish.
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Riposte said:
Damsel in Distress is definitely sexist, but isn't misogynistic and it is something people people want in their entertainment. Ueda reasoning is some weird stuff, as Japanese devs like to say weird stuff in interviews to justify things (e.g. HD towns), but at the same time it is perfectly reasonable. He, a man making games for men, probably decided it would be best for the vision he was working for if the main character was a little boy and not a little girl. Ico would go on to become considered a classic. Moreover, from what I can tell most female gamers or even male gamers inclined to find sexism in games didn't give a fuck about that and enjoyed the game. Mainly because they approached videogames as gamers, not feminists. These two things are exclusive to a degree, mainly when it comes to the details. This applies to music, movies, etc as well. This is why most people don't listen for misogyny in old christmas songs, like Anita might. It is called baggage and you carry it with you when you go to the theater.
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Again I don't really have interest in defending Anita Sarkeesian but I can't help but notice that people keep either misunderstanding or misrepresenting the main point. The point is not that these individual games or movies etc. are sexist and therefore that is a bad thing without any other context. The point is that there is a consistent and pervasive pattern of tropes that occur across all media that depict women in a negative way and that this pattern is reflective of and contributes to general underlying assumptions about gender in our society. Highlighting instances of these tropes is simply an effective technique to show substantive evidence of this pattern in a way that is not as easily dismissed.
 
Wrestlemania said:
It is when you're someone who is being paid to study and produce content on the portrayal of women in games.
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She even owns a Vita for crying out loud! (And it was not purchased for the sake of this project either)
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i still find dumb to buy a 250$/€ console for just one game (and i did, i'm dumb but at least the game was already released) but i was referring to the bold part
 
Kinyou said:
But that's the sort of the logic which Ueda seemed to have used. Just because men are more capable of climbing doesn't mean it's enough reason to switch the protagonist, since women are still capable of climbing
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Look. Lets say Back To The Future. Marty could easily have been a girl too. But they went with a male character. Were they implying that females could never be time travelers? Were they implying that females couldn't drive?

By using a male character in his videogame, he isn't even remotely implying women aren't capable of climbing a rock wall. He just decided that a male character would be a better fit to his vision.
 
pants said:
I find it really strange that people decide to buy a game based on the gender and demographics of the protagonist first and foremost, instead of you know, gameplay.
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You'd find it less strange if fewer protagonists looked like you.
 
zendavis said:
Look. Lets say Back To The Future. Marty could easily have been a girl too. But they went with a male character. Were they implying that females could never be time travelers? Were they implying that females couldn't drive?

By using a male character in his videogame, he isn't even remotely implying women aren't capable of climbing a rock wall. He just decided that a male character would be a better fit to his vision.
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But they started off with a female character and then made the switch. I don't think that happened during the production of the BttF movies.

And he explained why they switched to a boy, not because it fits more to his vision but because it wouldn't feel realistic to see a girl climbing around.
 
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