Sexism and Misogyny in Gaming

[fillow]

[Jinsai]

The whole "fake geek girl" concept is central to this in some way that I'm having a hard time putting my finger on. There is the idea that video games (and nerdy hobbies in general) are the sole property of men, and when a woman shows interest in that hobby they are seeing it as an invader in the club house, with some kind of ulterior motive?

I actually used to believe that there was a small subset of this sort of person, based entirely upon one person I knew... and now that I've encountered this term, she actually did seem to fit the stereotype of the girl who wanted to string along nerdy guys who would worship the ground she walked on. She was really the only real world example I've encountered of that sort of thing though. Maybe it is more common than that, but to assume that any girl who has a nerdy hobby is feigning it is... I don't know if it's malicious, but it sounds paranoid at the very least.

[allegro]

You can't "fake" that shit, though. No way. Sit down and play Halo with her, then it all falls apart.

It just sounds like a sausage fest that SOME boys don't want invaded.

Females were ALWAYS involved in the nerdy hobbies.

edit: This is interesting

[Dra508]

edit: This is interesting

Wow, reminded me of a guy I dated when I was 15 who was into D&D. Now, that I think about it, I'm not sure I was ever offered an opportunity to play with him. Hmmmmmm. In other related news, I work in a field dominated by men. 99.9% of them don't treat me any different then their male colleagues. There was this one guy, who said straight to my face "you're pretty nerdy for a pretty woman." Wait wut?

[Iran_Ed]

It just sounds like a sausage fest that SOME boys don't want invaded.

I had a conversation with a friend, and felt like i should put this here.

This entire situation is just bringing out all the toxic "gamers" who are the stereotype of what people who don't know anything about gaming think the community is. For years I've watched the fanboy wars and then the rise of Call of Duty and I've just been disgusted. Some of these guys treat gaming with an almost cult like mentality. When someone says something disparaging about gaming they go off. Now you have women shining a very bright light on the sexism in both games and in the journalistic aspect of the business. What you have are a bunch of guys who for probably the first time in their lives are being told their social views of the world, and the worlds portrayed in games aren't realistic. These attacks on women feel like guys trying to preserve what I'm sure they think is one of the last frontiers of their masculinity.The boundaries men will cross to not feel emasculated are amazing.

I'm no expert on any of this but, that's just how i feel.

[Wretchedest]

Gamergate is just really sad to me. It's the sort of thing that just seems like some big bad made up boogie man, but holy shit, when you dig deeper there are really a lot of these guys and they all have this really bizarre similar retoric about hey we're misunderstood, if you would only listen. and then you listen and it's just as fucked up and weird and convoluted.

If they cared about journalism They'd be all over Gmae Informer and IGNs asses. Hell Game Informer literally has financial ties to the top game retailer in the United States. they don't give a fuck about that. They're a bunch of psycho assholes looking for attention about something that absolutely does not matter.

It's especially sad becaue i feel like gaming HAS been doing a better job letting women in. Surely my gaming group has an almost even blend, and I feel like I've seen less of it around in general. This nonsense has just gotten out of hand

[Jinsai]

I ask this as a serious question about some of the complaints that Anita Sarkeesian brings up in her videos. The portrayal of women in hyper sexualized manners... I'm not sure if the complaint is upset particularly with a lack of sexualized male characters to balance the portrayal, but I started thinking about it...

Male characters in video games are almost always fit and stereotypically attractive. You rarely see a portrayal of a lead male character in a video game who is not, in some basic way, portrayed in a manner which would be appealing to straight females.

If you were to even try to hypersexualize a male character in a video game in a manner that would actually appeal to straight women, how would you do it?

[orestes]

When Stormfront is one of your defenders, it's time to close up shop.

[xmd 5a]

When Stormfront is one of your defenders, it's time to close up shop.

It was only a matter of time. Extreme right-wingers birthed the hashtag and have infested it from day one. When A Voice for Men (practically the male-supremacy version of Stormfront) signed on, I pretty much knew Stormfront wouldn't be far behind.

And look at the kind of people who are prominent voices in the "movement":
http://medium.com/@poopsockholmes/th...te-ba39f8fd485

[WorzelG]

As a woman who is 41 and considers myself a gamer, of a generation where it's not the done thing so I've had some flack from people, family whatever, the one thing I want to scream at people involved in the gamergate hashtag is 'they're just fucking games for gods sake'. Like who gives a fuck that Anita whatever her name is has a video complaining about sexism in games, don't fucking watch it. It makes me hate the human race how nasty people can get on the Internet

[jmtd]

This thread is great. Thanks for all bring great people.

[DigitalChaos]

The whole "fake geek girl" concept is central to this in some way that I'm having a hard time putting my finger on. There is the idea that video games (and nerdy hobbies in general) are the sole property of men, and when a woman shows interest in that hobby they are seeing it as an invader in the club house, with some kind of ulterior motive?

I actually used to believe that there was a small subset of this sort of person, based entirely upon one person I knew... and now that I've encountered this term, she actually did seem to fit the stereotype of the girl who wanted to string along nerdy guys who would worship the ground she walked on. She was really the only real world example I've encountered of that sort of thing though. Maybe it is more common than that, but to assume that any girl who has a nerdy hobby is feigning it is... I don't know if it's malicious, but it sounds paranoid at the very least.

You can't "fake" that shit, though. No way. Sit down and play Halo with her, then it all falls apart.

It just sounds like a sausage fest that SOME boys don't want invaded.

Females were ALWAYS involved in the nerdy hobbies.

edit: This is interesting

Eh, it goes back to like 15 years ago when it started to become cool to be a geek. You saw stores like Hot Topic carrying all those video game and random geek culture shirts. Any scene is going to get "posers" in it. The reasons differ for each person. I saw many girls AND guys do it. The ones who do it in an effort to be attractive to others is kinda weird and is what gets the most negative attention, especially when they have no desire to pick up the skills. But if someone demonstrates their geek cred... then stfu already. Proving your geek cred is also something that gets prompted no matter what sex you are.

That said, the majority of people who actively call out people for posing are posing themselves. The rest don't really give a shit unless they are the social failures that are only able to "interact" with someone via keyboard.

[littlemonkey613]

If you were to even try to hypersexualize a male character in a video game in a manner that would actually appeal to straight women, how would you do it?

To me this conundrum is one of the biggest proofs of how deeply entrenched in patriarchy society is. There is no equivalent in terms of longstanding mythos or institutional power when it comes to straight female desire.

Like, when it comes to the lead male characters being stereotypically attractive, its likely when making their designs, what woman would think was very low on the list of priorities. Man culture defines what makes an attractive man as well. You can recognize this when girls like stuff like Twilight, or boy band boys and shit. There is so much rage and anger at the fact that its impossible to understand how a girl could like guys that "look like girls" or who "look gay" and shit. Look at any comments on any youtube video of a boy that teenage girls are crazy about and you will see the straight male anger.

Constant hypersexualization, being a common form of oppression for minority groups can only really exist within a dynamic that is already so fucked up and lopsided. What would it look like? Idk.

To me what is interesting to think about is the fact that there would still be a clear difference. If you successfully designed a male video game character like that, they wouldn't make up this like ridiculous percentage of all male video game characters like it is when it comes to female characters.

It's all pretty astounding to me. Like I play League of Legends and its just like wtf... like some of the female design characters are cool and I have no problem with a "hypersexualized" character if it is like innate to their personality, their lore or if there is a cool reason for it. The problem is obviously that it is a logic applied to a percentage of female characters that is like absolutely disgusting and warped to the point of practically defining female characters in gaming.

What really bothers me is that idk how or when society will stop automatically associating the female body with sex. I hate that paradox its like the worst. So many scantily clad female characters obviously has to be pointed out because the trend is steeped in this horrible misogyny, but then those arguments by virtue of their nature also enforce the idea that exposed female body parts are like synonymous with sex, which is half the problem to begin with. I've been trying to come up with a way to argue against the constant hypersexualization without falling into the trap of implying things I don't even agree with but its really hard and frustrating.

u.u

Idk if this all made any sense but this is a really hard topic

[tony.parente]

what the fuck? the lengths people will go to in order to spread hate never fails to surprise me.

@slave2thewage
I'm very late to this party, but that is just trolls trolling trolls trolling trolls. I know it's a hateful place but that place is probably the most LGBTQ 'friendly' place I have ever been on in my entire life...at least sexually friendly. That place is splattered with 'trap' threads. Also fun fact, Moot also has a romantic connection with Ms. Anita Sarkeesian. If you hop onto /r9k/ the place is practically in ruins due to Moot flooding the place with 'sjw' mods, to the point to where Moot actually had a mini meltdown and went off on everyone there last week.

Here is a halfway decent rundown of what's been happening. Heads up: this write up is very much in the spirit of /b/ circa 2004-2010, so just understand it's factual info being put forth in that style of humor or whatever.

https://encyclopediadramatica.se/M00...erGate_Sellout

[Aladdinsanity]

So... it's been what? 7 months since this thing set off? It apparently hasn't let up much at all and now it's even gotten to the point where congresswoman Katherine Clark of Massachusetts has openly stated that the FBI needs to it a priority.

http://jezebel.com/rep-katherine-cla...e-a-1690599361

[WorzelG]

I think the actual online services need to step up and start policing their own sites properly. I think twitter really sucks for allowing this shit to happen. They always hide behind the 'free speech' mantra, but does that even apply to privately owned sites?

[thelastdisciple]

So this Medium story has been going around about a guy who posed as a feminist critic for sites like The Mary Sue. It's quite an interesting read, it covers some article he submitted about sexism regarding FFVII and how he was bullshitting about all of it and lots of people ate it up.

Thoughts?

https://medium.com/listen-to-my-stor...0aa#.zf93br5qi

Has the Sarkeesian bubble burst yet?

To quote American McGee:
"Those who critique games looking for sexism commit the same fallacy as those who trust headlines promoting the idea of sexist games (and gamers). You cannot know an issue by reading a headline - you cannot know a game by looking at its butts."

[tony.parente]

I saw that and it's beautiful. Welcome to 3rd wave feminism.

[Jinsai]

Sarkeesian is a horrible flag carrier for feminism. I don't even want to get into addressing her "points," because it's ludicrously easy to tear them to pieces, but she does a disservice to anyone actually concerned with feminism by bolstering herself as a leading figure for a cause that she barely understands.

Sexism is a very big issue in video games (and every other form of popular culture that primarily sells itself to straight men), and it's only made worse by having clueless opportunists like Sarkeesian cash in on it.

But the stupid form of modern internet discourse has rendered anyone who is irritated by her bullshit some "reddit mens-rights-activist" sort... I hate our inability to call something what it is, especially when it's flagrantly stupid.

[Sallos]

Thankfully this was lost battle from the start, the supposed sexism and misogyny in gaming never was a problem. Meanwhile competent women developers will continue to produce quality games, such as portal, and the misogynistic game community will continue to consume it. The biggest problem is the dumbing down of games, specially FPS and even RPGs, but thank god for indie games and kickstarter for giving the possibility for non casual gamers to enjoy a challenge.

[Volband]

Thankfully this was lost battle from the start, the supposed sexism and misogyny in gaming never was a problem. Meanwhile competent women developers will continue to produce quality games, such as portal, and the misogynistic game community will continue to consume it. The biggest problem is the dumbing down of games, specially FPS and even RPGs, but thank god for indie games and kickstarter for giving the possibility for non casual gamers to enjoy a challenge.

There is literally a site, which evaluates every single female League of Legends champion skins whether it's sexist (=shows too much skin, big boobs, whatever bullshit) or not. Haha, some people take shit way too seriously. I mean, even my local town in the summer is filled with underage girls wearing those jean-skirt thingies which shows half of their bare ass, but hey, we can't have this: http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/...20150722103118

The one thing girls actually really suffer for is voice comms, but it's mainly a console territory. However, you can't really do anything with a bunch of teenagers who are trying to win the e-peen contest. They WILL go nasty if they hear there's a girl in the game, and some of the girls (understandably) even like the attention.

[Sallos]

There is literally a site, which evaluates every single female League of Legends champion skins whether it's sexist (=shows too much skin, big boobs, whatever bullshit) or not. Haha, some people take shit way too seriously. I mean, even my local town in the summer is filled with underage girls wearing those jean-skirt thingies which shows half of their bare ass, but hey, we can't have this: http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/...20150722103118

The one thing girls actually really suffer for is voice comms, but it's mainly a console territory. However, you can't really do anything with a bunch of teenagers who are trying to win the e-peen contest. They WILL go nasty if they hear there's a girl in the game, and some of the girls (understandably) even like the attention.

I could be wrong but i think you can make your own LoL skins and sell them. Let them make "appropriate" female skins/models instead.
But then we'd be hearing how no one is buying the less appealing skins and that something should be done about it. With that being said, yes you can make kickass female characters without showing to much cleavage.

[Volband]

I could be wrong but i think you can make your own LoL skins and sell them. Let them make "appropriate" female skins/models instead.
But then we'd be hearing how no one is buying the less appealing skins and that something should be done about it. With that being said, yes you can make kickass female characters without showing to much cleavage.

There are methods to use third party skins, but those are not official. I never really cared about those splash arts. I wouldn't want every single female character to be portrayed as a gracious goddess, so if the creators of the artworks want to slap a nice booty and titties onto them, go ahead. I don't even get how can anyone get offended by that.

But hey, this is how the latest female champ looks like: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vexxpvUBwc8/maxresdefault.jpg One of her quote is "How could I settle with only one man? They break too easily.", so now we have a strong, independent, curvy woman as well!

[Sallos]

There are methods to use third party skins, but those are not official. I never really cared about those splash arts. I wouldn't want every single female character to be portrayed as a gracious goddess, so if the creators of the artworks want to slap a nice booty and titties onto them, go ahead. I don't even get how can anyone get offended by that.

But hey, this is how the latest female champ looks like: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vexxpvUBwc8/maxresdefault.jpg One of her quote is "How could I settle with only one man? They break too easily.", so now we have a strong, independent, curvy woman as well!

When i think of curvy i don't think of muscles...that one is more buffed than i am.
Even though third party skins are not official, there are some pretty cool ones, check this one out:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=572178011

Yes is from Dota, just realised that now.

[Space Suicide]

Sarkeesian is a horrible flag carrier for feminism. I don't even want to get into addressing her "points," because it's ludicrously easy to tear them to pieces, but she does a disservice to anyone actually concerned with feminism by bolstering herself as a leading figure for a cause that she barely understands.

Sexism is a very big issue in video games (and every other form of popular culture that primarily sells itself to straight men), and it's only made worse by having clueless opportunists like Sarkeesian cash in on it.

But the stupid form of modern internet discourse has rendered anyone who is irritated by her bullshit some "reddit mens-rights-activist" sort... I hate our inability to call something what it is, especially when it's flagrantly stupid.

I've AlWAYS had an issue with her. What makes her even more of a nuisance is if you actually tried watching her videos and complaints. I forget what the topic was or the game (I tuned out her carrying on after a bit) but she was flat out clueless about the game she was talking about. Like she didn't even know shit, she hadn't even played it. I'll see if I can find it on YouTube. If I find it I'll post it.

[KarenLeslie]

I've AlWAYS had an issue with her. What makes her even more of a nuisance is if you actually tried watching her videos and complaints. I forget what the topic was or the game (I tuned out her carrying on after a bit) but she was flat out clueless about the game she was talking about. Like she didn't even know shit, she hadn't even played it. I'll see if I can find it on YouTube. If I find it I'll post it.

My favorite example of her cluelessness is her complaining about a character wearing a revealing outfit on an E3 badge last year. The character was Rise Kujikawa...whose entire storyline in Persona4 is about coming to own her sexuality as a pop star. At first she hates feeling on display as a star and quits the entertainment industry, only to realize she misses singing and dancing and there is a part of her that likes wearing sexy outfits, because she knows that's not all she is. Her whole character is about making a choice to be sexy because she enjoys it, not because she's forced to.

So yeah, this "expert" at women's portrayal in videogames was obviously unfamiliar with one of the few characters whose entire storyline is about taking agency over her feminine sexuality. Nice job!

[thelastdisciple]

Interesting points re: the disconnect between what female musicians are doing vs. what's deemed problematic in gaming surrounding the SAME subject matter.

[Wretchedest]

FF7 remake, big outdated tropes going on here lol