Just my 2 cents: Videogames and Sexism part 2
[Note from Wololo: Given the controversial nature of this topic, let me remind everyone that the opinion of the bloggers here are their own. I am ultimately the one who hits the “publish” button, but that doesn’t mean I fully agree with what the blogger writes. It means however that I think their opinion deserves to be heard. If you disagree with a given article on this site and want to give your own point of view through a post here, get in touch with me via pm on /talk!]
Disclamer: Given the controversy surrounding this topic, I would like to ask reader to have a little patience and wait for the next part for the conclusion of this series. I’m not here trying to entice conflict or beat a dead horse, I’m just trying to show some alternative more neutral point of view more based on facts and research, as I believe some arguments presented here are often overlooked regarding this subject. The idea here is to focus more on the causes than in men and women conflict of interests per se. Stick around, I think it will be worth it 😉
This is the second part of this article, if you ended up here I would recommend reading part 1 (https://wololo.net/2015/07/30/just-my-cents-videogames-and-sexism-part-1).
On part 1, I talked about the general dislike of geek culture by the mainstream media and society in general but now I will talk more specifically about women in that context and how it translates to videogames. To better illustrate that, I would like to comment on a popular american TV sitcom: The Big Bang Theory.
At first glance, one could think TBBT paved the way to geek culture to be more mainstream. Although partially true, it does it only on a superficial level, and at the cost of much self-loathing, as the characters are deemed way too much as losers for their geeky traits and inability to get laid. See, as much as the series revolves (actually, revolved) around geeky subjects like cosplay, videogames, movies and academia, more often than not they are portrayed as childish and something to be ashamed or to be hidden.
But more concerning is the relationship dynamics between two of the main characters Penny and Leonard. I will try to summarize that in the images below (before any pointless feminazi flame wars begin, I would like to point out that being promiscuous and/or financially unstable isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it’s just theoretically less desirable from a good exclusive serious relationship point of view):
Although there is more to it for both characters, just what I listed above seems to be sufficient for the consensus that Leonard is the loser and should be thankful to get a girl like Penny. That is basically saying that geeks have to be grateful to get a girlfriend (or get laid at all), because they are less than the average joe, as their geekyness is something to be embarrassed about. Obviously there is a hypocritical behavior from Leonard to pursue the female equivalent of a hunked male quarterback, but I will get to this later on.
It’s also worth noting that as the series gained more popularity, it devolved into yet another generic coupling sitcom, watering down the geekyness little by little. It seems that this is necessary to appeal to the masses, which in itself is further proves that geeks are not that well accepted as a general rule.
These supposedly inverted values in Penny and Leonard relationship dynamics are just an epitome of geek marginalization in pop culture, and videogames are a great part of that. Geeks love videogames so much that back in the day they were wiling to carry stigmas and put up with being scrutinized and berated just to have their beloved hobby. People tried to say that videogames made them violent, commit crimes and be antisocial, but nothing was enough to keep them from playing.
As the years went by, all kinds of people, including women, started to see what geeks knew all along: videogames are freaking awesome! And also, many bad myths about it are little by little falling. So, in respect to women and videogames, what happened as a general rule was basically this:
Sadly, that’s when everything seems to go wrong. First of all, although this is not true anymore (http://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ESA_EF_2014.pdf), the videogame industry was built on the shoulders of young men since the 80s, and until the late to mid 90s, they kept target that audience, growing with them until recently (http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/12/2/5143856/no-girls-allowed), and it was that demography who made videogames bigger than Hollywood.
So, it’s only logical the tendency from major AAA titles and their publishers to cater to that specific demography needs rather than any other.
So there were the young and adult male videogame lover geeks who had put up with all that. But then, in the last 10 years or so, the feminist movement seems to target specifically videogames that are targeted specifically to young and adult males. And the same women that had always associated videogames with losers and man-children. One recent example being Mortal Kombat X.
Recently, Mortal Kombat production manager stated that they would make women more “realistically proportioned”, as in less oversexualized, because Mortal Kombat mantra “has always been realism”. Seriously, let me quote:
The mantra for this game has always been realism; heading towards a more realistic look … So the same thing applies to the proportions where we try to bring things back in per se to where they should be.
Seriously? Mortal Kombat X always looks for realism? Oh sorry, I didn’t get that from humanoid reptile breaking another fighter skull, which gets up and continues to fight by the way.
It is obviously a publicity stunt, and a shallow way to please feminazi pressure, for various reasons.
Firstly, fighting and other violent videogames genres are traditionally played by young and adult males (http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/141/videogames.asp). No breast or butt shrinkage will change that and make more females play the game as there are way more complex and deep factors to take into account, like neurological and cultural differences (http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/09/11/220748057/why-women-like-me-choose-lower-paying-jobs).
Secondly, although they claim to aim for a more “realistic look” to avoid women objectification, I don’t see any male character with a beer gut or receding hairline. They are all hunked greek gods with unattainable physical shape, with huge arms, chest and six-pack abs. Talk about double standards.
Lastly, it assumes that only man can objectify the opposite sex, and when women do that, that’s just “feminism”, even with the very same arguments that would make men simple plain women-objectifiers. One example being how Magic Mike XXL (a movie about male strippers) is being considered “feminist” while heavily objectifying men (http://www.xojane.com/entertainment/5-feminist-lessons-from-magic-mike-xxl). This is not feminism, this is feminazism.
The problem with that kind of double standards and hypocritical measures is that it has the opposite effect, as it creates anger and frustration against feminazism, which is often confused with true feminism. It causes the same men (and geeks) to mistakenly repel the idea of feminism and women in gaming, as it seems to target exclusively what they like, and sometimes on games that very few women play in the first place, and by the same group that years before saw videogames as losers refugee not long ago.
That kind of thing tends to create some misguided misogynist reactions rather than repress it, and even going to the extreme of creating anomalies like Gamergate, which is a moronic “movement” that seeks to repel diversity in videogames and to harass influential women in videogames (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/13/gamergate-hits-new-low-with-attempts-to-send-swat-teams-to-critics and http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/03/zoe-quinn-gamergate-interview).
So, does all that mean that women themselves are the cause of all of that? That they are all to blame? That geeks an young men have their reason to be misogynists and are innocent? Absolutely freaking not! By no means, nothing I said here tries to justify any kind of sexism and harassment toward women, or any other group for that matter. I’m just trying to show that there is prejudice against many more people that it seems.
What I’m trying to point out is that much energy is directed not to the source of the problem, but for its consequences, and at that point, the damage is already done, and to keep following that path will divide men and women further much rather than bringing them together, because feminazism entitlement hurts true feminism. My point is that contrary to popular belief, both men and women can be (and are) victims of sexism.
So, what is the cause? Who is to blame? How do we solve this? Well, I will give my insight on these topics on part 3, so stay tuned once again. I hope you are enjoying so far.
I’ll say I agree that the Big Bang Theory pretends to be a show for geeks, but it turns out it’s actually mocking them more than anything else. A “real” good show “by geeks, for geeks” is Silicon Valley 🙂
Thomas Middleditch is an amazing actor. That guy can pull off anything.
So how do I downvote this?
This article is stupid, please post something people actually give a *** about.
What’s stupid about it specifically? Constructive criticism is good, but just a random insult is not helping you making a point.
It’s heavily biased and has not yet directly addressed the purported subject matter. As a rule of thumb you shouldn’t write “feminazi” if you’re addressing sexism in media, for example – there are surely some crazy “feminists,” but that sort of terminology is a bit of a turnoff. Not to say I hate it, but I do want to see where it’s going since to some extent it is brushing aside the very issues it is intended to address.
I have to concur with you on this one and I totally understand where you are coming from. Most of the information is indeed incorrect and downright wrongly worded. This is going to turn into a debate site at this rate rather than a console mod site.
Instead of simply saying the information is wrong, I would like you to ellaborate, with sources please.
Not to be harsh but by saying: “Two cents” the author was informing you that it will be biased, he’s assessing the situation from his point of view and no disrespect but just because you hate seeing a word and its a “turnoff” doesn’t make count as constructive criticism for improving an article.
Acting as if certain forms of sexism aren’t common in the fighting game community for example, or that men are equally objectified in media with the same amount of harm, is simply objectively wrong. Saying “I’m biased” does not exempt you from criticism of your position.
The thing is that it is hard to separate feminism with the feminazi behavior. I will address that on part 3, stay tuned.
I do agree with you, but it is difficult to address legitimate feminists and not the “crazy feminists” (feminazis). If you have any suggestions, I will be glad to hear.
This part “and even going to the extreme of creating anomalies like Gamergate, which is a moronic “movement” that seeks to repel diversity in videogames and to harass influential women in videogames ”
That’s not true at all. And he admits the media slanders nerds, then uses the media opinion of nerds!
Well, swatting women is against them in my book.
Please do more research than looking at gawker articles before writing something like this please
I like this website but these articles are garbage
How do you know that gamergate is the one that is swatting them..You believe guardian and its source without questioning them.I just read those articles,you are asking us the proof that gamergate have nothing to do with that while on the other hand your articles doesn’t give people any proof that gamergate did it.i can write an articles about how you harrass people on the street and when you said im wrong,im gonna ask for a proof that im wrong.There are no concrete evidence from the article that you link
Just because you don’t care about the topic, it doesn’t make it “stupid”. In order to benefit from you, you should point out what is “stupid” logically and reasonably and give your point of view objectively, instead of making random subjective claims and insults.
I might not agree fully with what the author says, but I’m really glad wololo is giving voices to people like this in such topics.
Thanks. Muygoal is exactly that. Also, I would love to hear where you disagree.
I like your articles, that guy up there is probably just a “gimme access to pirated vita games already!” person. The arsehole should respect others options and offer up a reason that this is “stupid and boring”. I thought they were both great reads.
Thanks for deleting my comment ^^ I can see you really want people to debate this. lol
Wait what, now it’s up again lol I take that back. But why it is awaiting moderation while these show up fine? O_o
I’d also like to apologize, but when you see a comment that big get deleted, you’d get touchy too 😛
Yup. The site has some weird caching mechanism and people often complain about their comments being deleted. Just to be clear: I very rarely delete comments, unless they contain an insane amount of offensive words.
Comments that are put under “moderation” might randomly appear or disappear for you depending on your browser, until they actually get approved, which is a manual process and can take up to 24h depending on how busy I am.
Again, to be clear, unless you’re extremely offensive, I will NOT delete anyone’s comments, even (especially?) if I disagree with you.
So you approve those childis “first” comments too?
I agree about the clear double standards in many mainstream feminism or women that claim to be feminists, which most of the time doesn’t really try to solve a problem either for society or women in general.
But I also do find that in video games especially, when it comes to male and female, the female characters tend to be more focused on the “sexy” part, more body revealing, more tight clothing etc.. comparing to men characters, all you have to do is google “male game character” and “female game character” to see the dramatic difference when it comes to emphasizing the shape of all the body.
For now it’s not yet clear what is your main idea from all this is, I still find the points you’ve made here to be secondary comparing to what I might expect from part 3, so yeah, I would love to see part 3 and give my input on the matter.
I actually gave my input but I don’t know where my comment went.
His point is that they’re both objectified, just in different ways. One could argue they are the sexual ideal of a human driven society.
Woman with gigantic breats, and a slim figure. Good looking men, with rock hard abs, funny one liners, good hearts, and blah blah.
When it comes down to it, all media characters are generally unrealistic to some, or many degrees, but the elements of characters that the majority of games show are based on the ideal desires of the target audience/sex. Fighting games tend to show both extremes because it is masculine to have huge muscles, but also generally attractive to the majority of our societies mindset.
It doesn’t mean it applies to everyone, or that it’s true, but do keep in mind, this type of direction is not exclusive to video games. It just so happens to be one of the more popular mediums that allows for artistic exaggeration of basic human sexual desires. Strong man attractive. Big breasted woman attractive.
If anything, we should also be questioning as well why all these heroes of games are always so perfect in the visual department, or perfectly flawed. My point is, every inch of these characters are not realistic. And yes, the cater to a particular audience, but they are merely an exaggeration of desire.
Dragon’s Crown is a good example of the mockery in this artistic department.
I don’t know. It seems like you are the only one not enjoying it as people are responding quite well. This is the most stupid comment and is not constructed in a smart way.
It is stupid because its long-winded and meandering nature serves to obscure its point.
What do sports and Big Bang Theory explicitly have to do with sexism and video games? They are examples that serve to prove the writer’s point… What is his point? One that he does not have the nerve to state clearly.
This is an inflammatory piece, despite its long winded nature and tangential arguments serving to somewhat obscure this.
This belongs on 4chan.
I’m trying to provide some background on geeks and geek culture, which videogames are a great part. On part 3 I will address matters more directly, like its causes and possible solutions.
My goal here is to try to give a more deep background on the issue instead of the usua “man vs women”. Stay tuned.
You might want to read up on Gamergate. It was a reaction to attacks against the gaming community by the games media. They had been attacking them for years like the “entitled gamer” articles surrounding Mass Effect 3, culminating in a dozen coordinated “gamers are dead” articles in September 2014.
It has nothing to do with harassing women or opposing diversity.
If you check the links, you will see that your statement is not entirely true =]
If we check the links from the very media you admit slanders nerds, for their opinion on nerds? Seems self defeating.
Facts are facts. If you can prove they didn’t do what is claimed, I will gladly retract.
Just because I *** hate Polygon, here is your counter fact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlPLEf5z-g4
Thats exactly my point. The current approach feminists have to gaming does more harm than good.
Officially, Gamergate is not about that. But the members of it harass women and oppose diversity constantly, under the name of ethics and all that stuff. Even if the original goal was honourable, the people who call themselves Gamergaters are abusing it.
This.
I don’t think I’d use the word ‘members’ because there is no official organization. As you said, you just need to call yourself such and you are.
That’s why “feminist” label gets pretty much obsolete right now. All people, smart enough to distance themselves from that toxic nest of snakes call themselves “equilitarian”. And I like a doctrine of equality between everyone a lot more, than “More right to women! Because we are oppressed!”.
If you think this you’d be surprised how many college level students still identify strongly with this movement.
While I do agree with you, feminist still seems to be the mainstream term.
Yes, feminism is still mainstream, but with people like Anita Sarkeesian I’m sure that it’s reputation will be destroyed completely. Because now feminism isn’t about women’s rights, it’s about matriarchy and censoring.
And censoring in video games disgusts me the most, just like censoring any other work of art. Developer should write the script the way he wants it to be written, not constantly worrying “What if female character gets into trouble here? Would that *** off feminists?”.
While I do not fully agree with every point you have made I feel I have to say my piece of some points:
1 – While the industry was mostly built by male GAMERS, female devs have been around since the inception of the industry: Brenda Romero and Roberta Williams. Most of the feminazi compalaints however, edge on the fact that there are “no female protagonists” when in fact, all during the 90’s and early 2000’s most notable videogame protagonists ARE female *and* I’ve compiled a list of female protagonists (mostly main) for my Master’s Thesis (that I’m about to drop, for personal reasons) and I didn’t have enough room for all of them.
2 – You state your distaste for “harassers” yet use the list of years that was compiled by such people. List that is, by the way, fundamentally wrong. Women have been gaming since the 90’s (I had female gaming friends during the nineties. Quite a few.), the media just never bothered with it. Women are gaming now, the media just like to spin them as victims of everything from the atom bomb to a broken nail, everything is the fault of those dirty, misogynistic, harassing, male gamers. Most women gaming in the modern age are all in the mobile platform though, they play investigative point-n-clicks and puzzle games. The media are just trying to shove them into the mainstream, unware of what most women like to play. Sure, there are quite a few women who play MMO’s, MOBAs, RPGs and the like, but they are still a minority. The ESA studies are fundamentally flawed in that respect, they do not make this disctinction.
3 – You claim “Gamergate” is a harassing movement and then cite Polygon and an interview with a person who hasn’t made a game (Twine isn’t a game engine, as much as the indie royalty would want you to believe that), is known to have abused a forum of depressed male gamers for easy publicity and is basically a welfare child who’s living off the cash of others for no work… yeah, I’m going to say you probably have no idea what you’re talking about there. And I’m not pro or anti-gamergate. I am one of those who thinks both sides are beyond stupid and use them as a fodder for *** and giggles. But I actually do try to fact-check and go to the sources and use logic to extract the truth out of two really moronic narratives.
4 – We agree that TBBT was ***. Good. I thought I was the only one who thought that show was offensive AND exploitative to nerds and geeks.
5 – Yup, Netherrealm did that. Can you blame them? It’s amazingly positive publicity! The extra sales made up for the extra refunds after the game came out and was broken as heck 😛 HOnestly, it’s just like Mad Max: Fury Road: cash-in on a popular trend, make millions of dollars and get remembered for being this philontrope who helps the cause of women in the West.
6 – SPEAKING OF that, feminism has run it’s course in the West. You have a woman in charge of dictacting the economic policies of Europe, you have a woman running a very powerful emerging country (Brazil) and you have a woman running for the White House. Tell me exactly how the patriarchy is oppressing them? You know WHERE feminism is needed? The middle-east, african and some countries in Asia. You know where modern Western feminism is NOT going? There. Because it requires self-sacrifice and dedication. And all these trust-fund, social studies holding aristocrats aren’t going there. You know why? Because it requires them DOING something. I mean, *** on Twitter and getting paid is FAR easier and less life-threatning 😛
Well, this is all for now. If you would like to continue this debate, I’d be glad to!
You make a few (number 4) but I don’t agree with 6. To say that the feminism has run its course in the west is like saying there’s no racism. 1 woman running for president doesn’t mean women aren’t persecuted. Right now a black man is president but black man are still dying in the street. Also not that there a many African countries where women whole high positions of power. Liberia had a female president in 2006, I don’t remember seeing Hilary even close to a ballot then except by Bill Clinton.
And whilst your second point might be true looking a pop culture in the period can reflect how society felt about “female nerds”, they went from Sharon Stone flashing skin to Mr Robot where we have women stand out as much more than fanservice. There HAS been a sort or emergence of females in gaming, alas the problem is no one is pointing out what the author is, that it was a male dominated world and NOT because the men were forcing out the women but because there was no interest. But now that gaming firms are making billions and CS has evolved from mysterious background magic to a key component in our live you can see theres an emergence in all aspects, especially gaming.
The article might be flawed in some places but his overall point is very valid, there are too many people attacking the industry without even UNDERSTANDING it.
edit: A few good points
Feminism has achieved all it had to achieve in the West and you prove my point by saying:
– Black people are still dying in the streets. So are White people. And Asians. And others that don’t fit a preconceived racial group made up by the internet. People kill people, this is an undisputable fact. Problem is, if someone of color/different sexual orientation dies, it is racism/homophobia (or God help you, both). If a White person dies… eh, who cares? Double standards working at its finest.
Example: Charlie Hebdo: French comic writers get killed for doing their job.
Normal people: Wow, those monsters killed them!
Internet Feminism reaction: Man, those white people *** deserved it. (let’s blissfully ignored the other people that weren’t white that got killed too)
Are women persecuted? Sure. In the western world I’d say that man and women have it almost as hard, not totally but that will change as the older people die and the newer generations take over, feminism is not needed. In the other parts of the world though, sucks to be a woman there, especially in very conservative Arab countries. That’s where feminism is needed.
– You completely missed my point on 2. This entire discussion is based on the premise that :
“there aren’t female gamers because there aren’t enough female protagonists”
Which is QUITE OBVIOUSLY ***. There were tons of female protagonists in the 90’s and early 2000’s:
– Lara Croft – Action 3rd Person
– Jade (Beyond Good & Evil) – Action 3rd Person
– Cate Archer (No One Lives Forever) – FPS
– Heather Mason (Silent Hill 3) – Horror Game/Action 3rd Person
– Jill Valentine (Resident Evil 1/3) – Horror Game/Action 3rd Person
– Claire Redfield (Resident Evil 2/CV) – Horror Game/Action 3rd Person
The list goes on. MUCH LONGER.
What the media fails to realize is that the reason why females aren’t as much into CORE games is because it’s not their thing. Female gaming is HUGE on mobile because the games there ARE of their interest. And no amount of agenda and narrative pushing is gonna change that.
But in the end we agree on the final point: too many people criticize this industry without knowing it.
Ok, you its seems I didnt put my point as clearly enough:
When a black person is shot in the street, that’s not a racial crime, when a *** guy is beaten up it might not be a homophobic crime, in both examples we’re dealing withing the eventuality.
However if we delve deeper and find out that the black person was shot BECAUSE he was black or the homosexual was harrassed BECAUSE of his sexuality then theres an issue. Thats my point, just because you have women in prominent does NOT mean that feminism has run its course because some women at still at a disadvantage (especially in the workplace) BECAUSE they are women. Thats the problem with society that brought out the feminist movement, not because there werent enough women in government or there werent enough female characters games but because a male driven society had place women BENEATH them and thats not something having a female president can change.
With regards to number 2 you said “List that is, by the way, fundamentally wrong.” the list isnt fundamentally wrong, its easy to name some mainstream games but put them in a table and compare with the number of games with male protagonists but thats not what I’m concerned about.
The point is, to say that there hasnt been a sudden focus on the more “nerdy” aspects of society is a lie. The focus we see on gamers and nerds now is AMAZING, 15 years who could have predicted that ESPN would consider video gaming a sport. Nowadays its like so many people want to be involved in the industry and they don’t even fully comprehend it. There might have been female gamers 3 decades ago but NO ONE cared, it was still just for nerds.
I can see you still live in the 90’s. The world I live in is totally different from yours and your poor English makes it almost impossible for me to understand certain things you are saying, but I’ll stand by my point. Feminism is useless in developed countries in 2015. And let me scoff at the notion that middle-class *** on Twitter can fight for the rights of women and racial minorities. You’re delusional, just as they are. Because guess what, that’s all that’s left of the feminist movement.
“its easy to name some mainstream games but put them in a table and compare with the number of games with male protagonist”
HAHAHAHAHAHA. You poor fool. Do not start this with me. I researched this for University. I saw the numbers, and after careful study, I even came to ANOTHER conclusion: female protagonists are usually more memorable and more well-developed than male protagonists. Like Arthanis said by quoting awful Polygon: that’s a fact (but I’m better than them because I actually research and do fact-checking.)
But you know what, I’m gonna let you feminist-loving, Polygon-loving people duke it out. I am honestly tired of talking to a wall. If you guys wanted a debate, you’d debate: I gave you numbers and figures,I gave you facts. All you can say is: the internet says otherwise! Honestly, this isn’t worth my time, or patience.
Typhoon_Neon, I disagree that in developed countries, feminism (equalitarism?) is useless. I think that sexism is still strong, but not as open. Stay tuned for part 3 when you see my point =)
1. rude
2. You presume because I make a few typos I cant understand the nonsense you’re spewing. Last time I checked you said you were from a European country which is pretty far from the poster child for the current social trends. Stop punking out by attacking me and ignoring the topics. Not everything here might be about the USA but you’ll be foolish to assume an annoying large percent of people keep a close eye on whats going on there and from the news I’ve seen, feminism is far from dead. Just because you see the wrong people fighting on twitter doesnt mean a movement is dead.
3. Are you sure about your female protagonist points, cause ti’d be nice see how many of them are more memorable that the number of male protagonists, if you’re going to make a point like that, at least use a list.
@Darkshadow
1 – It’s the internet and I don’t know you, if you grind my gears the wrong way I am perfectly entitled to be rude to you. Not only did you ignore all my points, you offered no counterpoints except saying: racism exists, it’s bad. When I was trying to say that sometimes the problem isn’t underlying racism or sexism, but sometimes human nature. And honestly, to debate with someone that a) writes poorly, b) has an opinion but can’t substantiate it with information and parades it as a fact *** me off. You do no research, you trust your biased internet sources that lie up the wazoo and you feel like you can dismiss what someone who does research says because of it? I have honestly lost interest in this little debate and I honestly forgot this topic even existed, until my email reminded me.
2 – It’s not typos that makes your text unreadable. It’s the lack of basic grammar. It’s bad enough to have to read lots of text with poor eyesight, it’s to have to endure awful grammar to understand what is even being said. I’m not English-native and I try to have the best English possible, I just expect people who write long texts to have a readable text.
3 – Yes I am sure. I’ve done my goddamned research, I don’t read Polygon/Kotaku/RPS or some other awful “game journalism” website and act like they preach gospel. These people aren’t journalists they are salesmen/women trying to sell you a worst world than the one that exists so that you feel afraid and insecure and join their ranks or perpetually offended. I am not going to post a list however, because the last time I started doing it you just said “you’re wrong because I say so” with no proof and went on your own little rant.
I’m out.
….youve managed to:
1. Restate a point I made earlier about the eventuality being different from the cause.
2. Remind me about the benefits of proof reading.
3. Provide none of the lists to show your “research”.
4. Remind me the internet is mean and
5.Keep insisting you have better things to do and yet you keep checking the box that says “Notify me of follow-up comment by email.
At the risk of not taking my own advice, and since you’ve refused to further this discussion in anyway, are you by any chance a 45 year old lonely grade school teacher learning about the internet?
You’ve managed to:
1 – Decry discrimination while discriminatinfg yourself (don’t you love hypocrites?), read your own point 5
2 – Congratulations.
3 – I started to do it, then you went and acted like you were better and smarter than me, so why even bother? Even if I did you’d just cry sexism and run off to read the biased sources you always do.
4 – Welcome to the internet, we have cookies and chocolate milk but also people who have better to do than to waste their time debating with people who have no interest in listening, i.e. you.
5 – I actually do not tick the box, I just keep having this *** sent to me. Trust me, if I had the choice NOT to read your verbal diarrhea, I would have taken it!
And you should have taken your own advice and kept your little mouth shut, no I am not. I am under the 30 range and I am in a pretty happy and lasting relationship. See this is where I could be you and throw assumptions and assume *** about you I have no way of knowing just to insult you. But I won’t. Because I am better than that, and clearly better than you.
If you ever actually want a debate, approach it in such a way that won’t *** off the person trying to debate with you. You brought nothing to the table (except your preconceptions and prejudgements and discriminating attitude), spouted nonsense with no way to support it and acted like you are smarter than me because you can use a forum to speak your voice.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an original Xbox to softmod.
Ciao.
@Darkshadow
You know what, I’m going to be the better man here: I apologize for all my earlier detracting statements towards you.
I only maintain that you do know not how to deal with a debate/argument, and advise that you should not put yourself in the position to be in one, as stuff like this is bound to happen again.
I honestly have better to do than to keep arguing about first-world problems on the internet.
Have a good one.
(p.s. this comment will likely appear before my last angry lashing out at you because that one is still awaiting approval – yay. – so you should probably keep that in mind before saying that I apologized and lashed out again, it’s simply the commenting system that’s borked)
Man, you will LOVE part 3.
Kudos for getting exactly my point.
Typhoon, I think you will like part 3, stay tuned. About your arguments:
1 – I agree with you, but women are a far minority on the field. About the protagonists, they are often sexually exploited. Part 3 will cover that
2 – I never said there is no women in gaming, and not even a minority. But raw numbers aren’t a good metric. Wait for part 3
3 – The polygon article I used was pretty big. I used it just because of their information that men were a vast majority and that nowadays women are close to 50%, nothing else.
4 – Thanks =]
5 – We agree it was a publicity stunt, but do you have any source that it made the game actually sell more? I have been seeing much more backlash for their potential buyers than not. I would like to see some sources on that.
6 – While I do agree that are few women in positions of power, I do not think it’s is enough. You talk about Brazil (I’m brazilian) but it seems you have no idea how strong sexism is here. In part 3 I will show how women as a group is not as favored as you think. Stay tuned por part 3 =]
1 – I’m pretty sure I can counter that when it comes. For every Kasumi from DoA there is a Jade, Cate or Claire. And you should probably make a distinction between sexualization and idealization (power fantasy) because that is a pretty big detail.
2 – I never said you did. I said the media you quote did 😛
3 – Polygon is always wrong and misinformed. So no, I will not accept them as a source. They title themselves a “progressive” website which is already a huge no-no. If you use that as selling point for your website, then your content has to be awful. Also their editor in chief is Ben Kuchera, an awful human being.
4 – =]
5 – Catering to feminsm sells, period. I dunno if it will be trackable but looking at stuff like Mad Max and Magic Mike XXL, I’m sure we can agree a few sales will be had from that, especially considering all the drones that read Kotaku and Polygon.
6 – Sorry bro, I’m from Europe. Sexism isn’t as strong here. heck, in Portugal it’s easier to get a job as a woman than a man. I’ve been looking for a job for 3 years and my girlfriend found one in 6 months (we have the same level of studies and both are finishing a Master’s). So pardon my skepticism. If I can correct my point, I’d say that DEVELOPED countries do not need feminism. Those in development do. But again, guess where modern feminism is not going to go 😛
Waiting for part 3 😉
As for 3 –
I would like to add for the sake of context that while women do indeed make up a majority of what the article considers “Gamers”, we cannot simply leave it at that. Digging in a little further and finding out how they found those numbers we see that women largely play more social games where as men play more hardcore games, generally.
http://blog.apptopia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Demo-Graph-1.png
Yes these are generalizations, but they speak to different markets. Candy crush is not Call of Duty any more than Farmville is the Witcher.
http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/december12010/Fig_03.png
http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/december12010/Fig_02.png
http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/december12010/Fig_04.png
http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/december12010/Fig_05.png
http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/december12010/Fig_06.png
http://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs036/1102527936265/img/45.jpg
Adding female characters to “hardcore” games isn’t going to move a significant number of units into female hands anymore than adding guns and *** to candy crush with move a significant number of units into male hands. They are simply seperate markets. Yes, there is overlap and yes some women enjoy hardcore games. I welcome them. but they do not make up the core market for those games,.
Man, it’s like you copied content from part 3. Stay tuned 😉
This is exactly what I’ve been saying, but they’re ignoring my points. Thanks for backing me up here 😛
Since I can’t directly reply to darkshadow’s rebuttal to the point about female protagonists in video games (because I’m an idiot when it comes to using the comments section), I’ll just leave this right here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXMoLCA3GQ4
Now in musical form 😀
: |
we all have freedom of speech, and this is technically an article. That’s pretty much all I say so far.
While this does have its target audience (I suppose), it doesn’t look like it’s the (majority of currently present) readers of this blog.
I’m not sure who you are trying to attract with these things (and, most importantly, how you’re going to keep them here afterwards), but please don’t overdo it, wololo. Part 3 already falls into “stretching it” category for me personally.
It may be one of the most important first world problems, but if the scale of the problem is so big that it can’t be expressed in one article and has to be shoved several times in the faces of people coming here to seek entirely different information, maybe it deserves its own blog somewhere else, like Tumblr or Reddit. 4chan won’t do, I assure you.
> OP proceeds to examine how TBBT and modern media stereotype the modern need/gamer as an antisocial losers with woman problems
> takes the word of the same media in describing gamergate as antisocial harassers who hate women.
OP, you’re wrong about gamergate. I’d try to convince you, but going by the fact that you used terms like feminazi and stuff. I’m sure the feminists will hound you to death and harass you until you apologize.
See ya in a few weeks when you finally join gamergate.
As I stated before, I just used the term feminazi because of the lack of a better one. I accept suggestions.
As for gamersgate, it doesn’t matter what they claim to accomplish, but what matters is what they indeed do. They do harass women, and it doesn’t matter that it is a retaliation.
Also you are generalizing when you say that gamersgate represent all geeks I wrote about, which is plainly wrong.
How do you know it is true then,let me guess you think they harrass women because you read it from the guardian.it is like me getting my news about liberal from FOX news.
“and even going to the extreme of creating anomalies like Gamergate, which is a moronic “movement” that seeks to repel diversity in videogames and to harass influential women in videogames ”
You admit that media has been slandering nerds, then take the media’s opinion of those nerds? That is NOT what gamergate is about and you couldn’t be more wrong, signed – a long time viewer of this site.
It matters little what they are about. What does matter is what they do. Ifyou can prove that the said cases of harassment were not true, I will gladly retract.
That sounds like trying to prove a negative. How fun is that.
How about you prove gamergate is harassment first.
Try again OP.
I think the whole problem is not that Gamergate did something, but the fact that you’ve written in your article “Not all feminists are feminazis who make the real feminists look bad”, followed by “Gamergate exists for the sole purpose of repelling diversity in videogames and to harass influential women in videogames”
If you wouldn’t mind me quoting you, “Talk about double standards.”
I see your point and I agree. But the point is that even if it’s not that bad, the point is exactly that it creates this kind of controversy and do not address the real problem. Stay tuned =)
My sister is a female gamer and I’m proud to be her brother. She whoops my butt at Call of Duty every time.
What the heck is gamergate?
BTW, that picture of the female above completely turns me off. She is not hot and not attractive to me at all.
There’s a metric ton of strawman in this.
Why do we complain?, the Game Developers Choice Awards had honored Anita Sarkeesian with a prize for her “helping in the video games industry ‘advance to a better place’ through advocacy or action”.
So, there we are, the industry got scared and honored one of the main promoters of hate and breach in video games community. If I recall correctly, in her videos and blog post the comments are disabled or blocked. A curiosous thing from someone that wants to bring good things to video games, but she fails in doing so.
Also, she would present a large list of articles from extreme feminist, totally unrelated with video games or “geek” behavior. But, as she blocks any kind of comment, suggestion or correction, everything stays so biased, so wrong and so exagerated that men are objectifying women everywhere with everything for no apparent reason.
Thanks to YouTube and Google, there were lots of lighted people that recognized her scam and appointed clearly to every one of her statements (and destroyed them with simple logic and well documented unbiased sources). To this day, she hasn’t ever replied to any of the reports made from her fantastic and unsupported statements, nor she ever admited that her “research” was biased and wrongdone.
I don’t have direct proof that these reported cases of harassment are all false, but I can prove to you that one of the most well-known victims of GG, Brianna Wu, is a professional victim that, among other things, accidentally posted a slanderous thread about her own self, while signed into her own account, on her game’s steam forum: http://theralphretort.com/wp-content/uploads/Selection_999023.png
And let’s not talk about Zoe Quinn who you can find more about here: https://press.gamergate.me/dossier/
As a long time reader I don’t think that social issues should be on this site at all- it’s unnecessary and suggests the site is trying to turn into a more mainstream gaming site, which makes no sense to me. Regarding the article:
It doesn’t seem like you researched GamerGate at all, rather, you were just quick to parrot mainstream media narrative instead of going straight to the source. Mind you, if you actually took more than five seconds to research, you would find all their hubs with well documented sources (reddit’s kotakuinaction subreddit comes to mind), especially sources countering the notion that the movement was built on harassment, which it isn’t. It seems you’d rather prefer the same media you dislike to accurately reflect gamergate. Although wololo distances himself from your opinion and states he does not necessarily agree with it, I cannot see how this is good for gamers and the gamer identity at all (as gamergate is a widespread signal that the gamer identity is being whitewashed and redefined, and people need to fight back- and you are burying said movement), due to the fact that you’ve been given a soapbox to preach your ill-informed opinion to those who don’t know what is going on, which is effectively poisoning the well. Wololo’s message that your opinion deserves to be heard implies he believes similar about gamergate. As important as the topic of women & gaming is, a site of this nature isn’t the right place to discuss it. This is something left for bigger places, given that the very nature of it is about gamers uniting (no matter the side, the principle remains the same). Instead, the can of worms has been opened, so to speak. I’ll rather go elsewhere for hacking news.
Anyone who uses the term “feminazi” in a remotely serious manner, does not actually understand anything that radical feminists say, or why they say them.
I suppose it was naive of me to expect any reasonable discussion on the topic. Congrats on pandering to the anti-woman crowd.
Please, explain to me how this self-called “radical feminists” are tolerant women fighting for equality when they demonstrate harassment and hate with their double standards.
They are called feminazis because of the harassment and persecution towards men for their self laziness in being successful.
Well said, and extremely accurate.
“Radical feminists” say the things they do because they’re selfish, deluded manipulators who don’t care who they step on to increase their privileges. Mystery solved.
They’ll spout out false stereotypes about men all day, and stoop to any fallacy to advance their sexist gender war.
Any truth that doesn’t agree with her sexist, self-serving double standards is branded “anti-woman”, and ignored.
They’re unwilling to consider any truth that doesn’t help them amass power. They want to go so far to tell men who we’re “allowed” to be attracted to, while they pursue whatever shallow desires they want.. They don’t even halfway attempt to understand the gender they’re sexistly attacking.
They might be the most bigoted scumbags on earth.
“going to the extreme of creating anomalies like Gamergate, which is a moronic “movement” that seeks to repel diversity in videogames and to harass influential women in videogames”
I can understand that you were explaining the feminist side of gamergate, but “creating”? It’s more like they only labeled it.
Gamergate started with ethics in gaming journalism, where journalists were doing what bloggers do, and that’s not journalism. What happened later is, since Zoe Quinn was involved in the whole mess up, feminists decided “Look, she seems oppressed”, and decided to force the target on themselves, so while people were claiming fairness, they were claiming “Fairness? But we are oppressed”. Since Gamergate was not about feminists, it’s normal to ignore them since “what are they talking about?”
Now this cancer grew too much.
There seems to be a lot of comment wars here, but regardless I’m really enjoying these articles. It’s pretty interesting to see someone’s opinion on these kind of discssions, and it helps that you bring sources for evidence instead of just blabbering on about what is wrong with these people.
Looking forward to part 3.
Suddenly bob(the fat one) from tekken seems like a step in the right direction
great article, no more people nothing about this game.