Feminism

[clyde]

It seems to me that a lot of this thread has been defending points, but I have no clue what the original arguments are that are being defended.

It has turned into rambling.

[thestalkinghead]

 Yes, I wonder how women learn to identify with male characters. Hmmm.

 

You lost me completely. I'm not quite sure what you're trying to argue but it sounds like a straw man to me.

 

well i think we have got to the semantic part of the argument i just don't think you can truly identify with someone whose life is so different, sure I can try and understand what it would be like to be a woman, but i wont actually understand unless i lived the life of a woman, obviously I'm not saying that i totally understand the life of a space marine but i do know what it is like just to walk into a room and interact with people as a man, i really have no idea of what it would be like to enter a room as a woman and interact with people (the devil would be in the details the nuances and subtleties of being a woman) and that is what i mean when i say i can't truly identify with a woman, and i think saying i could would be reductive and generalised

[I Saw Dasein]

So what? One of the cool things about media in general is that you can learn to understand people you wouldn't really understand on your own. Like, wouldn't a game that showed you what it was like to enter a room as a woman and interact with women be really interesting for you? 

 

If anything, your argument seems to support the idea that games should be more diverse. 

[Zeusthecat]

So in effect, we already have games that are explicitly made for both genders, and that explicitly appeal to stereotypes about those genders. What I think most people and most feminists want is for those games in the middle--the 80% of mainstream games that are not explicitly targeting either gender--to be more inclusive and more representative of the actual market for Video games. The fact that there already are games that explicitly target both genders does not make up for the basic unfairness in the way mass market Video games treat women.

 

I would add that these stereotypes cause games to be much more dissonant than they otherwise should be. When I turn on the news and hear about the crazy goings on in the world and people being rescued from certain death it pretty much never has anything to do with gender. There are powerful women and men shaping the events of the world, men rescuing men and women, and women rescuing men and women. I honestly have a very hard time thinking of any real life examples of some burly man coming and rescuing a helpless, innocent woman. Maybe that happens but I doubt it ever happens in the highly romanticized way it does in video games. It makes games much more un-relatable when that is the dynamic they choose to focus on.

[thestalkinghead]

So what? One of the cool things about media in general is that you can learn to understand people you wouldn't really understand on your own. Like, wouldn't a game that showed you what it was like to enter a room as a woman and interact with women be really interesting for you? 

 

If anything, your argument seems to support the idea that games should be more diverse. 

exactly, my non gross woman game, but i wouldn't pretend that i can actually identify with a woman just because i played a game as a woman

[feelthedarkness]

our current era is defined by media that bears no resemblance to people's real lives. this forum exists as a monument to fantasy!

 

i think you need to let go of some of these ideas about gender. 

[youmeyou]

well i think we have got to the semantic part of the argument i just don't think you can truly identify with someone whose life is so different, sure I can try and understand what it would be like to be a woman, but i wont actually understand unless i lived the life of a woman, obviously I'm not saying that i totally understand the life of a space marine but i do know what it is like just to walk into a room and interact with people as a man, i really have no idea of what it would be like to enter a room as a woman and interact with people (the devil would be in the details the nuances and subtleties of being a woman) and that is what i mean when i say i can't truly identify with a woman, and i think saying i could would be reductive and generalised

 

It need not be reductive to identify with a female character, or any character. It completely depends on how the story is told. Some of the most interesting games out there right now are entirely about putting the player in the shoes of someone they may not necessarily have any experience with; in fact gaming is the perfect medium for this when you think about it.

 

Games like Mainichi, Cart Life, Howling Dogs, Papo Y Yo, and Papers Please all offer alternative and often incredibly powerful non-traditional perspectives by allowing you to see the world through the eyes of characters as far away from the space marine as possible. And this is the stuff that excites me more than any other facet of gaming. The potential to walk into a room as someone who you never imagined you'd ever understand and gain even a kernel of understanding, of comprehension about another human being, this is absolutely something I'd like to see more developers strive for, not brush off as impossible or not worth the attempt.

[Argobot]

Can we just switch rails here and talk about what an amazing game Mainichi is? Probably the most emotionally powerful story that I've ever seen in a video game (I'm hoping/expecting that Gone Home will be equally powerful).

[thestalkinghead]

It need not be reductive to identify with a female character, or any character. It completely depends on how the story is told. Some of the most interesting games out there right now are entirely about putting the player in the shoes of someone they may not necessarily have any experience with; in fact gaming is the perfect medium for this when you think about it.

 

Games like Mainichi, Cart Life, Howling Dogs, Papo Y Yo, and Papers Please all offer alternative and often incredibly powerful non-traditional perspectives by allowing you to see the world through the eyes of characters as far away from the space marine as possible. And this is the stuff that excites me more than any other facet of gaming. The potential to walk into a room as someone who you never imagined you'd ever understand and gain even a kernel of understanding, of comprehension about another human being, this is absolutely something I'd like to see more developers strive for, not brush off as impossible or not worth the attempt.

 

maybe there should be a game about what it is like to be a woman/man made by women and men, that tries to pass on real life knowledge and experience of being the opposite sex, it would be hard to do because there a subtle differences in the way that men interact with women of how women react to women, vise versa

an example could be that there could be a lesson for women about how there is potentially a fight but most likely some kind of power/dominance maneuvers between men when they interact but especially when they first meet  and if you miss these power plays and maneuvers or just get dominated you will basically forever have lost some respect from the man you were interacting with and any male observers, there is probably a similar experience with women interacting with other women but i couldn't go into any detail on that.

 

but i wouldn't want it to be like cart life or papers please, i think they are a bit to simplistic and also tedious to play

[I Saw Dasein]

g. there could be a lesson for women about how there is potentially a fight but most likely some kind of power/dominance maneuvers between men when they interact but especially when they first meet  and if you miss these power plays and maneuvers or just get dominated you will basically forever have lost some respect from the man you were interacting with and any male observers, there is probably a similar experience with women interacting with other women but i couldn't go into any detail on that.

I really have never had that experience, as far as I can remember. The men I interact with aren't generally engaged in a power/dominance dynamic. It's interesting how your idea and experience of what it is to be a man is so different from my own.

[thestalkinghead]

I really have never had that experience, as far as I can remember. The men I interact with aren't generally engaged in a power/dominance dynamic. It's interesting how your idea and experience of what it is to be a man is so different from my own.

 

well there are Alpha males in existence, but generally these things are with meeting new people and especially if one or both have something to gain, but once the power dynamics have been sorted out (friends) men are comfortable in their place

[feelthedarkness]

maybe there should be a game about what it is like to be a woman/man made by women and men, that tries to pass on real life knowledge and experience of being the opposite sex, it would be hard to do because there a subtle differences in the way that men interact with women of how women react to women, vise versa

 

This sounds like a game that would just reinforce gender stereotypes, when this larger conversation is about how damaging gender stereotypes are.

 

Also, one of the big problems in the industry is there is an extremely low professional participation rate among women, both on the production and journalistic end. I'm sure it was covered in this thread, but when they were testing The Last of Us, ND had to INSIST they include any women, because the testing company had none. 

[feelthedarkness]

Can we just switch rails here and talk about what an amazing game Mainichi is? Probably the most emotionally powerful story that I've ever seen in a video game (I'm hoping/expecting that Gone Home will be equally powerful).

 

I've been meaning to check this out. 

[thestalkinghead]

This sounds like a game that would just reinforce gender stereotypes, when this larger conversation is about how damaging gender stereotypes are.

 

Also, one of the big problems in the industry is there is an extremely low professional participation rate among women, both on the production and journalistic end. I'm sure it was covered in this thread, but when they were testing The Last of Us, ND had to INSIST they include any women, because the testing company had none. 

i guess it would depend on whether you could notice more similarities between the genders or whether the game only showed how different they are, but yeah games made by women would be much better for making a game that appeals to women and if done well appeal to men also

[Nachimir]

A thing I see a lot in discussions of gender, race and privilege is people arguing from the concept of an equal world, i.e. "That's sexist against men" or "This is racist against white people".

 

(Bear with me, the following is about a fucking excellent definition of equality that I think is highly applicable. Apologies for length).

To give a non-gendered, non-racial and hopefully less controversial example, a very good piece I saw in the past week is about the concept of equality being applied to cyclists on roads in the UK. It's asserted that, due to the law, cyclists and drivers should treat each other as equals on the road, when the reality is that drivers are a heavily privileged class of road user. This includes biased legislation, and the hegemony of most road users being car drivers, but in the most direct way, their privilege when set against cyclists is that of having two tons of metal surrounding and protecting them during collisions.

 

Anyone familiar with UK equality legislation should understand that equality is not about treating people equally. Equality is about understanding people’s disparate needs and allowing them to achieve the same goals.

This approach is empowering and egalitarian, and it is a fine basis for a civilised society. It is what enables people to contribute to and gain from the world that we build; whether it is a blind person learning from a web page being electronically spoken to them, a wheelchair user being able to go to the theatre, or a woman gaining a seat on an all-male company board.

Sadly, this approach is but a distant oasis from the desert of attitudes that govern our road space.

 

This is a great concept of equality, but it eludes a lot of people. To most of them, the concept of people treating each other as equals and just getting along seems fine, but to put it in a really unvarnished way, in practice it cements attitudes that let drivers get away with killing and maiming cyclists. Essentially, the tone argument is systemically levelled at people on two wheels, and the best response I've seen to it, in any context, is this:

 

No, you be nice, I'll be honest.

 

When it comes to equality, it's sadly often asserted in what's demanded or expected from people despite disparate circumstances, rather than what's accorded to them. The solution is to be conscious of and compensate for privilege, rather than deny it:

 

The idea that everyone should be held to an equally high standard of conduct, and the idea that everyone should be apportioned an equal level of responsibility, are both fundamentally flawed.

The generalised activity of getting from A to B requires neither training nor regulation; what requires these is the act of operating a heavy and powerful vehicle. It is the ability to amass kinetic energy that presents danger and, therefore, it is this that demands responsibilty. This is why we train, test and licence people who choose these vehicles.

Roads exist, of course, to allow people to get from A to B. The choice of vehicle, and the choice of responsibility that goes with it, is fairly free. The idea that we should train everyone to the same standard in order to transport themselves is another example of being at odds with equality legislation: it is treating people as equal, rather than understanding their different needs and enabling them to achieve equal goals.

 

A few months ago, after about an hour of conversation, a guy said to me and my friend Liz "Hey, you know what worries me at the moment? The amount of misandry around, in adverts and stuff". He repeatedly raised examples of things he saw as sexist against men, and I repeatedly responded: "In a perfect world, yes. That would be sexist. As it is, my life is pretty easy just because I'm a middle class white guy, and however badly produced it might be, I'm happy and comfortable enough in my life to have some humour punch up at me".

 

The assumptions over gender and sexism that led that man to cry "misandry!" treat people as if they are absolute equals

 

rather than understanding their different needs and enabling them to achieve equal goals.

 

(Edit: At the root of it, his motives were basically laudable: He wants a world where everyone is respected. The assumptions he based those motives on don't take privilege into account though, and that inherently reinforces existing inequalities).

 

I guess what I'm saying is that if life is a road, most men are given cars to drive on it, and women get one of these to scoot through the traffic on, and are told they're not trying hard enough when they can't keep up:

 

Sexism is inherently ingrained into me by virtue of what I am and where I was raised. One of the things I want to always do is become less sexist. Going back to the original argument: Swapping damsels for chippendales would be equally sexist in an equal world, but that's not the world we live in. This…

 

 

… does not demean me or my gender, it does not reinforce any negative or superficial stereotypes that limit me, it does not present an image or attitude that others expect me to conform to. While I'd prefer it if pugs were the only option in Spelunky, having one of the Damsel-McGuffins be a man is in no way damaging to me. The semiotics of a woman being rendered helpless, knocked out and used as an object are very, very different to that.

[dibs]

Well said Nachimir.

[BigJKO]

you said that, and if you think i said that you are wrong

You probably mean well, but you need to step back, (apply punctuation) and think about what you're saying in a thread dedicated to feminism. This is a very complex, sensitive subject, that a lot of people are very personally invested in, and right now you're coming at with the broadest, insulting sledgehammer. The keywords for a subject like this is to read/listen before commenting. Maybe you already have, but my recommendation is to go back and read the entire thread before making your point. You might learn some new things. You might even find that some of the things you're thinking about have already been said in a more thoughtful manner.

..there needs to be a point where we can just say we have moved on

..actually i would like if if we could just make games for men exclusively and women exclusively and just be fine with it

[thestalkinghead]

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[BigJKO]

Brilliant.. I'm done.

[thestalkinghead]

i think equality should be about fairness, not literally treating everybody exactly the same, and example would be the olympics/paralympics, where people are treated fairly not exactly the same, and to be fair and to allow people to compete with their peers it split's up disabled athletes into the paralympics so it isn't unfair and splits up men and women also so it isn't unfair, whereas if all the athletes were treated literally equally all of the athletes would be competing in the same events, which would be unfair to the paralympic athletes and also unfair on women because they couldn't compete with the male athletes in many sports (especially the high profile ones like track and field) because female athletes can't overcome genetics

 

 

any way

@BigJKO

 

you can split up and misconstrue my words all you want, you know you are wrong, stop being so childish

[Twig]

thestalkinghead: Your posts are extremely fucking difficult to read. I didn't really want to make a big deal of this, but I find myself skimming over or skipping them 90% of the time. Please use capitalization and punctuation and don't use run-on sentences. Thank you.

[TychoCelchuuu]

I didn't really want to make a big deal of this, but I find myself skimming over or skipping them 90% of the time.

You're not really missing anything.

[thestalkinghead]

thestalkinghead: Your posts are extremely fucking difficult to read. I didn't really want to make a big deal of this, but I find myself skimming over or skipping them 90% of the time. Please use capitalization and punctuation and don't use run-on sentences. Thank you.

i have been told, punctuation, grammar and spelling aren't really what i am good at, and i just had to look up run-on sentences on google

[Gormongous]

i think equality should be about fairness, not literally treating everybody exactly the same, and example would be the olympics/paralympics, where people are treated fairly not exactly the same, and to be fair and to allow people to compete with their peers it split's up disabled athletes into the paralympics so it isn't unfair and splits up men and women also so it isn't unfair, whereas if all the athletes were treated literally equally all of the athletes would be competing in the same events, which would be unfair to the paralympic athletes and also unfair on women because they couldn't compete with the male athletes in many sports (especially the high profile ones like track and field) because female athletes can't overcome genetics

 

thestalkinghead, I'm having a lot of difficulty engaging with your arguments, even beyond the formatting issues. You post something perfectly fine like that, but then your examples of "fair" representation in games are pretty stereotypical and sexist. Not to mention, when people say as much, your responses tend to argue right past their point. My last post was about pigeonholing people into stereotypes, but you answered with a bunch of platitudes about "embracing differences." Maybe you need to stop posting and just read for a bit. That might help you with the whole "typing things you apparently don't mean" thing that somehow warrants insulting BigJKO twice out of nowhere.

[thestalkinghead]

This is amazing. Obviously the solution to sexism is just get over it and realize that what women want is to eat chocolate in a game..

stalkinghead, you've really outdone yourself there.

 

 

thestalkinghead, I'm having a lot of difficulty engaging with your arguments, even beyond the formatting issues. You post something perfectly fine like that, but then your examples of "fair" representation in games are pretty stereotypical and sexist. Not to mention, when people say as much, your responses tend to argue right past their point. My last post was about pigeonholing people into stereotypes, but you answered with a bunch of platitudes about "embracing differences." Maybe you need to stop posting and just read for a bit. That might help you with the whole "typing things you apparently don't mean" thing that somehow warrants insulting BigJKO twice out of nowhere.

 

i didn't insult BigJKO out of nowhere, above that is what he said i said, and i said nothing like that at all, then if you go back a page, he split up two paragraphs i had written into two lines to again claim i said something i didn't say, i am not typing things i don't mean, BigJKO was twisting what i said into his own twisted beliefs

 

i was using stereotypes and tropes as shorthand, you can't expect me to answer the question "what would a woman game be like?" with an actual full working description of the game and its themes, i wasn't imagining some horrible sexist game about hot chicks making out and having a slumber party, i was imagining a more serious game where relationships would be the main focus and as an example of one of the things that might happen was that they ate chocolate, it is other people minds that twisten a short game description into a sexist game