Sexism in video games.

[Slafstopia]

There's a simple solution: we ban gendered entities from the media.

But no, really. I think we should take up the option for an issue similar to this debate I got a while ago - don't add quotas for races and genders, just reward the progressive and equal shows.

[Dakini]

Considering the number of posts that have been all "Oh, but having a muscly guy is sexist!" it's hard to tell.

I was gonna say "It's sexist because it's just an opportunity for misogynistic snifits to look up her skirt" and make a big joke out of it, but with such a concise reply I'd feel bad.

Hehe. Fair enough.

[Ostroeuropa]

There's a simple solution: we ban gendered entities from the media.

But no, really. I think we should take up the option for an issue similar to this debate I got a while ago - don't add quotas for races and genders, just reward the progressive and equal shows.

There's a problem with that.
If the shows are shittier (Surprisingly, gender has very little impact on anything at all that makes a story good. Whodathunk it? gender? completely inconsequential?)
If the plot is good, the characters are developed etc. The gender of the individuals doesn't matter.

Now, say you have two shows.

1. Good plot, Good development, White Male Hetereosexuals
VS
2. Middling Plot, Meh development, Rainbow of Diversity

If you reward the second batch, it's going to inevitably make it possible for a slightly shitter show to be more profitable.

The flip side to that argument is that good writers will then see the writing on the wall and just make their characters a different gender or color.
Since it impacts literally nothing.
But what about already established shows? Some are pretty darn good. We can't up and make House an Asian transgendered woman.

[The Steel Magnolia]

You mean comprehensively researched videos that point out the existence of disturbing trends?

I mean it's not dissertation level but it's fairly well done for an internet piece.

Uh?
Comprehensively researched?
Fuck.
It's like you people don't even bother looking up rebuttal videos to your own stuff.

The ones i've seen have been riddled with errors. As in, the kind of shit a google search and 5 minutes can figure out.
Seriously. Go watch a rebuttal to sarkeesians videos. Don't just watch her and assume because she says shes a feminist and speaks feminist-cant that she knows what the hell she's talking about.

If it's so easy then I'm sure you'd be willing to provide a summary.

[Ostroeuropa]

Uh?
Comprehensively researched?
Fuck.
It's like you people don't even bother looking up rebuttal videos to your own stuff.

The ones i've seen have been riddled with errors. As in, the kind of shit a google search and 5 minutes can figure out.
Seriously. Go watch a rebuttal to sarkeesians videos. Don't just watch her and assume because she says shes a feminist and speaks feminist-cant that she knows what the hell she's talking about.

If it's so easy then I'm sure you'd be willing to provide a summary.

She gets release dates wrong.
The thing she said about Crystal? Never happened. Completely fucking fabricated. (Ofcourse, she doesn't cite sources either.)
Pretty much every figure in her video is wrong. Dates are wrong, sales are wrong, number of games in a series is wrong, any time she uses a number, go check it.
I've seen a 1 hour rebuttal to her 10 minute video because she got so much wrong in such a small amount of time that somebody could spend a half hour correcting her, and the other half hour basically saying shes an idiot. (switching between the two.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgaYBsUb5e4
That video.

[Zavea]

when it comes to design of video game characters, i think what's important is just making a good character regardless if they're man, woman or cthulhu.

metal gear solid is a good example of this, i feel. while it's guilty of sexualizing most of its female characters to a certain extent one might notice that they all have their merits, abilities (i mean meryl is a respected soldier, EVA was a super spy and naomi was a genius scientist, just off the top of my head), stature in the story and are in control of their own lives.

so, let's take the stereotypical oversexualized, one-dimensional female character archetype, which i gotta say is becoming a lot less common as game devs wake up to new ideas and trends in game design. it seems to me that it's generally the consequence of bad writing and character design rather than like... misogynistic or sexist tendencies.

[Dakini]

If it's so easy then I'm sure you'd be willing to provide a summary.

She gets release dates wrong.
The thing she said about Crystal? Never happened. Completely fucking fabricated. (Ofcourse, she doesn't cite sources either.)
Pretty much every figure in her video is wrong. Dates are wrong, sales are wrong, number of games in a series is wrong, any time she uses a number, go check it.
I've seen a 1 hour rebuttal to her 10 minute video because she got so much wrong in such a small amount of time that somebody could spend a half hour correcting her, and the other half hour basically saying shes an idiot. (switching between the two.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgaYBsUb5e4
That video.

So a video which doesn't cite sources and starts off with "feminists are authoritarian and the same as the religious right"? Then references the thunderf00t video (which someone in the thread already linked and was already rebutted twice in this thread alone) and claims that Anita S. has participated in skeezy behaviour (while linking to a petition to get himself a television show).

Oh, and a bunch of the comments include such nice things to say about Anita S. such as "she's a cunt".


Yeah, I'm not watching more than an hour of this shit.

[Ostroeuropa]

She gets release dates wrong.
The thing she said about Crystal? Never happened. Completely fucking fabricated. (Ofcourse, she doesn't cite sources either.)
Pretty much every figure in her video is wrong. Dates are wrong, sales are wrong, number of games in a series is wrong, any time she uses a number, go check it.
I've seen a 1 hour rebuttal to her 10 minute video because she got so much wrong in such a small amount of time that somebody could spend a half hour correcting her, and the other half hour basically saying shes an idiot. (switching between the two.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgaYBsUb5e4
That video.

So a video which doesn't cite sources and starts off with "feminists are authoritarian"?


Yeah, I'm not watching more than an hour of this shit.

Sources are in the bum-bar. (Specifically the star-fox thing)
Other videos are linked also, some of which have sources.
You'll note he said far-left feminists are authoritarian. That's completely true. The gail dines drones are no different from the moral conservatives.
It's nice to know though, that if you want to succeed at youtube feminism all you gotta do is make so much shit up and get so much wrong, that any rebuttal is too long for people to sit through. I wonder if that works in other fields? Probably.

[Dakini]

So a video which doesn't cite sources and starts off with "feminists are authoritarian"?


Yeah, I'm not watching more than an hour of this shit.

Sources are in the bum-bar. (Specifically the star-fox thing)

That's the only thing there are sources about.

Other videos are linked also, some of which have sources.

The thunderf00t one which was already discussed in this thread and rebutted? Yeah. Right.

You'll note he said far-left feminists are authoritarian. That's completely true.

Except not.

The gail dines drones are no different from the moral conservatives.

What the fuck is a gail dines drone?

It's nice to know though, that if you want to succeed at feminism all you gotta do is make so much shit up and get so much wrong, that any rebuttal is too long for people to sit through.

Dude, I listened to the first 10 minutes of this crap. He speaks way too slowly and is way too boring to be using video as a medium. He could probably learn to express himself clearly and concisely, but he'd rather hear himself talk so he doesn't.

There's no way you need one hour, 12 minutes and 17 seconds to "debunk" a video that's what, 20 minutes long? This guy doesn't know how to get to the point. That's his problem.

[Ostroeuropa]

Sources are in the bum-bar. (Specifically the star-fox thing)

That's the only thing there are sources about.

Other videos are linked also, some of which have sources.

The thunderf00t one which was already discussed in this thread and rebutted? Yeah. Right.

You'll note he said far-left feminists are authoritarian. That's completely true.

Except not.

The gail dines drones are no different from the moral conservatives.

What the fuck is a gail dines drone?

It's nice to know though, that if you want to succeed at feminism all you gotta do is make so much shit up and get so much wrong, that any rebuttal is too long for people to sit through.

Dude, I listened to the first 10 minutes of this crap. He speaks way too slowly and is way too boring to be using video as a medium. He could probably learn to express himself clearly and concisely, but he'd rather hear himself talk so he doesn't.

There's no way you need one hour, 12 minutes and 17 seconds to "debunk" a video that's what, 10 minutes long? This guy doesn't know how to get to the point. That's his problem.

Link me the rebuttal?


EDIT:
Nevermind, wrong search word. Got it.
I've already been over that in these posts:

viewtopic.php?p=15589824#p15589824
viewtopic.php?p=15589897#p15589897

Can you explain to me why Sarkeesian needs an entire video series to state the incredibly obvious and make out it's well researched?
Other than this broad point, every single fact she brings up that can possibly be verified objectively, is fucking wrong.
(Release dates, etc.)
I've become convinced shes a professional victim.
She states the blindingly obvious, uses feminist phrases while purposefully throwing in a bunch of factual errors and trolling the shit out of everyone, people snap at her, and then BAWWWWWWS and then idiots give her money. As well as people too caught up in ideology to notice they are being played.

[Novislavia]

There has to be a better word than feminism that doesn't sound like its all female superiority-ish. What about equalism?

Then everyone is happy.

EDIT: That may of been a tad off topic. I apologize.

[Shaggai]

There has to be a better word than feminism that doesn't sound like its all female superiority-ish. What about equalism?

Then everyone is happy.

EDIT: That may of been a tad off topic. I apologize.

The problem with using "equalism" is that it applies to practically every issue.

[Genivaria]

There has to be a better word than feminism that doesn't sound like its all female superiority-ish. What about equalism?

Then everyone is happy.

EDIT: That may of been a tad off topic. I apologize.

Oh god this crap again?

[Novislavia]

There has to be a better word than feminism that doesn't sound like its all female superiority-ish. What about equalism?

Then everyone is happy.

EDIT: That may of been a tad off topic. I apologize.

Oh god this crap again?

I'm sorry. I mean I'm not against feminism, I think we should all be equal. But it could at lest help their image a bit.

[Sommorragh]

No idea what you're talking about. I don't know if I've played the game in question.

Star Wars: The Old Republic.

In which you can literally shock (This is exclusively for one female character) and beat your companions causing them to cry. It's legitimately terrible.

Done by the same company that you advocate as 'progressive'. They're just a little less bad than most other development companies.

So violence against men is okay, but against women is not?

[Nailed to the Perch]

Oh god this crap again?

I'm sorry. I mean I'm not against feminism, I think we should all be equal. But it could at lest help their image a bit.

As I've said the roughly 7,843 previous times this has come up, I'm really not concerned with marketing feminism to people who would oppose it solely because it has "fem" in the name and that makes it sound like it's about icky-poo girls. Those people would never be good allies anyway, so we might as well just wait for them to die off.

[Ifreann]

Star Wars: The Old Republic.

In which you can literally shock (This is exclusively for one female character) and beat your companions causing them to cry. It's legitimately terrible.

Done by the same company that you advocate as 'progressive'. They're just a little less bad than most other development companies.

So violence against men is okay, but against women is not?

Obviously.

[Nailed to the Perch]

Star Wars: The Old Republic.

In which you can literally shock (This is exclusively for one female character) and beat your companions causing them to cry. It's legitimately terrible.

Done by the same company that you advocate as 'progressive'. They're just a little less bad than most other development companies.

So violence against men is okay, but against women is not?

How in the hell did you get that from anything he said?

[Novislavia]

I'm sorry. I mean I'm not against feminism, I think we should all be equal. But it could at lest help their image a bit.

As I've said the roughly 7,843 previous times this has come up, I'm really not concerned with marketing feminism to people who would oppose it solely because it has "fem" in the name and that makes it sound like it's about icky-poo girls. Those people would never be good allies anyway, so we might as well just wait for them to die off.

Well no, but some good PR never hurt anybody.

[Ifreann]

So violence against men is okay, but against women is not?

How in the hell did you get that from anything he said?

What else could it possibly mean? Clearly video games are actually all sexist against men.

[Dakini]

Can you explain to me why Sarkeesian needs an entire video series to state the incredibly obvious and make out it's well researched?

If you read this very thread, it's pretty clear that it's not incredibly obvious to a lot of people.

Other than this broad point, every single fact she brings up that can possibly be verified objectively, is fucking wrong.
(Release dates, etc.)

Except not... since release dates seems to be the only issue, the "etc" is pretty bullshit here.

I've become convinced shes a professional victim.

That's nice.

She states the blindingly obvious, uses feminist phrases

"uses feminist phrases" what the fuck does that even mean?

while purposefully throwing in a bunch of factual errors

Not really.

and trolling the shit out of everyone,

I liked her stuff before the sexist fuckheads on the internet threatened to rape her en masse.

people snap at her,

Fucking seriously?

Here's the Tedx talk she gave about the online harassment she faced. Here's an article describing the harassment (which includes censored drawings of her being raped, screenshots of her wiki page after vandalism and a screenshot of a game someone made where you can punch her in the face).

This isn't fucking "snapping".

This is a fucking harassment mob.


Get a fucking clue. Seriously.

As well as people too caught up in ideology to notice they are being played.

Yes, we're being played by getting a nice video series she's been starting to release.

[Nailed to the Perch]

As I've said the roughly 7,843 previous times this has come up, I'm really not concerned with marketing feminism to people who would oppose it solely because it has "fem" in the name and that makes it sound like it's about icky-poo girls. Those people would never be good allies anyway, so we might as well just wait for them to die off.

Well no, but some good PR never hurt anybody.

I do not consider, "Good point, girls ARE icky-poo! Let us change our name to appease you, douchebags of the world! After all, our job is to appeal to you, right?" to be particularly good PR.

[Dakini]

Oh, and if anyone wanted a link to the second part of the Tropes vs Women in video games here it is. Since someone was complaining about how the games in the first one were old (because it was about a history of the damsel in distress), this is part two.

[Libertarian California]

This reminds me of an ironic story. The other day, my sister bought a Batman game. The only female in the entire game is Catwoman, and she is displayed in the most sexualized manner possible, and my sister did not care at all.

Different types of people, I'm guessing.

[Neo Art]

Well no, but some good PR never hurt anybody.

I do not consider, "Good point, girls ARE icky-poo! Let us change our name to appease you, douchebags of the world! After all, our job is to appeal to you, right?" to be particularly good PR.

I mean, look at what we're dealing with here. The argument was that a woman who discusses sexism in video game culture shouldn't be listened to because she got a RELEASE DATE WRONG.

The argument literally is "your claim that a hypersexualized storyline in which rescuing a, presumably heretosexual female, whose sole purpose in the plotline is to allow for heroics centered around the male hero, is a profoundly sexist because it continues the image that women exist only in relation to men, and only as narrative tools in their story, the only one worth following, and must remain helpless until rescued, doesn't count, because you said Tomb Raider came out in May and it came out in EARLY JUNE!

CHECKMATE FEMINISTS!"

This is, literally, what people think is an argument.

I'll reitterate my earlier statement. Absolutely fucking pathetic. This is what NSG has become.