Feminist Frequency

[Gormongous]

Oh, shit. We're in the weeds people. WE'RE LOST IN THE WEEDS!

 

Yeah, I'm sorry. It's three in the morning here and my dreams of finishing the last four episodes of Martian Successor Nadesico tonight have been shot to hell. I'll go to bed and leave sane people to talk this one out.

 

Believe it or not, I've been really happy with the last couple pages of this thread. Though we sometimes disagree, we're having a mature discussion in good faith. It's far removed from last night, which left me feeling like everything was shit forever, myself included.

[Faegbeard]

To use your own argument, it seems reductive to classify humans as either 'good' or 'evil' when they're much more varied than that. Someone might have good intentions towards others and still unknowingly participate in systems that hurt others.

 

If I actually wanted to talk about morality properly and not just in passing I wouldn't have used an umbrella term like that.

 

I don't see much difference here. When talking about race, gender, and class, a word like "privilege" that signifies the systemic advantages possessed by certain members of society allows for a greatly expanded dialogue on these social forces, just by reducing the verbiage common to all these subjects down into a single word. It's not meant as a label or an insult, which you seem to be concerned over, and anyone using it like that is doing it wrong.

I fail to see how being reductive allows for greatly expanded dialogue, at least in depth or meaning.

 

 

Believe it or not, I've been really happy with the last couple pages of this thread. Though we sometimes disagree, we're having a mature discussion in good faith.

 

Agreed. I also want to point out that my Original Beef™ (Not to be confused with Historical Beef) with Tycho's comment was mostly over the, "Anyone who disagrees with a single word she said needs to reevaluate their life, basically," as I feel like that's an extremely poor way to approach a pretty much anything, especially in an open forum of discussion.

[Nachimir]

Here's rape culture: http://www.salon.com/2013/03/08/can_men_be_taught_not_to_rape/

[chummer]

If I actually wanted to talk about morality properly and not just in passing I wouldn't have used an umbrella term like that.

Seemed worth pointing out at the time I was writing it as I was connecting it to previous statements, but now just reads off-point. Fair enough.

 

 

I fail to see how being reductive allows for greatly expanded dialogue, at least in depth or meaning.

While I might not agree with Gormongous that a short hand will lead to deeper discussion, I would agree with "Anyone who knows the word will understand the significance and anyone who doesn't will benefit from an explanation." While 'privilege' may not capture all the nuances, it's a useful abbreviation. To bring it back to games, starting off a description of a game by identifying its genre (Metroidvania, Rouge-like) is a crude shorthand by itself, but gives me a framework to start with.

...I feel like that's an extremely poor way to approach a pretty much anything, especially in an open forum of discussion.

That's not an unfair assessment, but I don't think people were responding to your beef, but rather the fact that you said "The concept of "Privilege" is also a thing that doesn't really exist here. I'm lucky that I wasn't born into squalor and that's about it."

 

Edited for clarity, but I probably failed.

[Faegbeard]

While I might not agree with Gormongous that a short hand will lead to deeper discussion, I would agree with "Anyone who knows the word will understand the significance and anyone who doesn't will benefit from an explanation." While 'privilege' may not capture all the nuances, it's a useful abbreviation. To bring it back to games, starting off a description of a game by identifying its genre (Metroidvania, Rouge-like) is a crude shorthand by itself, but gives me a framework to start with.

 

Fair enough.

 

It may just be a culture difference but such an abbreviation has never been necessary for me or anyone I know (as far as I'm aware) which is probably why I don't really see the point in it's existence as a term.

 

That's not an unfair assessment, but I don't think people were responding to your beef, but rather the fact that you said "The concept of "Privilege" is also a thing that doesn't really exist here. I'm lucky that I wasn't born into squalor and that's about it."

 

Just sayin'. It was also before the privilege thing.

[tronhound]

I live in Melbourne and I hear that shit all the time. You're just keeping good company.

 

Are you referring to a woman's clothing being the reason for rape? I also live in Melbourne and use to live in Qld, the only time I've ever encountered it was when it was all over the news after that Muslim guy made the comparison to uncovered meat.

 

Edit: After watching the video twice and reading some of the comments in this thread I just don't understand why everyone thinks she's hit the nail on the head. All I see is a few cherry picked examples and what seems to be an unnecessarily in-depth analysis of the plot in the Mario games; the Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom has been kidnapped by a dinosaur and you must take the whole of an Italian plumber to save her. It seems insane to me that anyone could attempt to use this as any kind of argument for anything.

[Laxan]

Edit: After watching the video twice and reading some of the comments in this thread I just don't understand why everyone thinks she's hit the nail on the head. All I see is a few cherry picked examples and what seems to be an unnecessarily in-depth analysis of the plot in the Mario games; the Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom has been kidnapped by a dinosaur and you must take the whole of an Italian plumber to save her. It seems insane to me that anyone could attempt to use this as any kind of argument for anything.

 

I guess you could consider it cherry-picked, but she did state she'd talk about counterexamples in the part 2 video so this argument may be a bit premature. And even so, I don't think a trope has to be present in every instance or even in the majority to still exist and have an impact.

 

While the plot of Mario is ridiculous, it's arguably the most mainstream and influential video game series of our time. So it's less about people taking the storyline to heart, and more about how these tropes and gender stereotypes could have an influence on society (especially in the kid demographic Mario is aimed at).

[castorp]

Her 'cherry picked' examples number in the hundreds so I don't see your point here. Do you mean she 'cherry picked' the worst offenders and that's unfair, do you mean she should have randomly chosen any game and look for the trope or should she have let the

decide?

As for Mario as an example, I think it's perfect. Mario is one of the oldest still active and probably the most known video game figure in the world, his games are probably the most played, and in most Mario-games the archetypal male (a plumber) rescues the archetypal female (a princess) out of the hands of a decidedly male villain. As Sarkeesian pointed out, it's two men fighting over the woman-object. That it's in this silly and cute and unreal world just makes it more problematic I'd say - even in Mushroom-Kingdom women's roles are limited to that of the men's price, but you don't notice it right away because it's all fun.

Oh come on, you just wanted to link to that video, again.

! I see your point though, it is a lot more fun than everything else, especially this thread.

[tronhound]

I guess you could consider it cherry-picked, but she did state she'd talk about counterexamples in the part 2 video so this argument may be a bit premature. And even so, I don't think a trope has to be present in every instance or even in the majority to still exists and have an impact.

 

While I generally disagree with every point she makes I will be watching the rest of the series and I look forward to seeing what she does with part 2. I can't help but feel that given the time and money someone could just as easily build a case for any trope they want in video games, such as; "look how often business people need to be saved" and "look at how violent men are they will kill hundreds of people with no remorse".

 

While the plot of Mario is ridiculous, it's arguably the most mainstream and influential video game series of our time. So it's less about people taking the storyline to heart, and more about how these tropes and gender stereotypes could have an influence on society (especially in the kid demographic Mario is aimed at).

 

While I think it's completely insane, lets take a deeper look at the story in Mario games. The princess is, as far as we know, born into extreme wealth and essentially handed life on a plate. Upon being kidnapped by the baddest villain in the land, her fellow upper class citizens couldn't do a damn thing to save her and the task was completed by an overweight middle class nobody who works as a plumber and is likely an immigrant. This isn't the story of a damsel in distress, this is the story of the uprising of the underprivileged middle class proving their worth. 

[Joewintergreen]

Are you referring to a woman's clothing being the reason for rape? I also live in Melbourne and use to live in Qld, the only time I've ever encountered it was when it was all over the news after that Muslim guy made the comparison to uncovered meat.

 

Edit: After watching the video twice and reading some of the comments in this thread I just don't understand why everyone thinks she's hit the nail on the head. All I see is a few cherry picked examples and what seems to be an unnecessarily in-depth analysis of the plot in the Mario games; the Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom has been kidnapped by a dinosaur and you must take the whole of an Italian plumber to save her. It seems insane to me that anyone could attempt to use this as any kind of argument for anything.

Yes, though not as blatantly as that guy - less "she was raped because she was wearing those clothes" as "that's awful, but you really shouldn't dress like that and be alone at night".

 

Re your edit, she did indeed pick examples of the trope the episode was about. The Mario thing isn't an unnecessarily in-depth analysis, it's showing Peach as an example of a character who only ever exists as an example of the trope, and giving appropriate context for that.

 

This episode just illustrates the trope, it's not really even being used as an argument for anything yet. It seems like the only disagreements you could really have with what's in this video are "I disagree that this trope exists!" which after watching the video would basically require doublethink, and "Yeah, but sexism isn't as big a deal as you're making out". You can't really argue that she's exaggerating by cherry picking examples, because her assertion isn't that x high percentage of games use the trope, she's just telling you what the trope is.

[Joewintergreen]

While I generally disagree with every point she makes I will be watching the rest of the series and I look forward to seeing what she does with part 2. I can't help but feel that given the time and money someone could just as easily build a case for any trope they want in video games, such as; "look how often business people need to be saved" and "look at how violent men are they will kill hundreds of people with no remorse".

 

If it's a real trope that exists, of course they could. So what? This isn't about those tropes, it's about "tropes versus women". It's in the title, there.

Also, it's not about building a case for those tropes. There's nothing to build. They very clearly exist and are prevalent. Did you mean a case against those tropes? 

[tronhound]

Oh come on, you just wanted to link to that video, again.

! I see your point though, it is a lot more fun than everything else, especially this thread.

 

Your post is weird you're quoting yourself for the post itself? Anyway I took a look at some of the examples in the tumblr page you linked and it really just seems more like a list of female characters in video games. To begin with I think it's worth knocking out any kind of game that is a beat em up, everyone single one of these games consisted of either 'rescue your girlfriend' or 'avenge your family member', nothing went into these stories, they were targeted at young boys so a rescue your girlfriend thing is the obvious choice.

 

The list is a joke though! I haven't played the majority of these games, but from the ones I have played the women in them are hardly powerless. Maria from GTA3, She's the main antagonist. Maybe I haven't made it far enough in Borderlands 2 but Lilith kicks ass and is extremely powerful (not to mention it's her boyfriend you have to save). Rinoa is the leader of a rebel group, it's just unfortunate she became possessed by a sorceress. Meryl escapes from a cell, beats the shit out of the guard successfully goes undercover for a large period while helping your character - who eventually get's put in a cell and needs Otacon to help him get out. Aeris (spoiler) lets herself die (/spoiler) because the power her life-force is the only thing powerful enough to summon holy and save the planet (it is worth mentioning that Cloud loses his shit at one point in the game and Tifa becomes the lead and she saves him?). Are women simply not allowed to be present in the storyline of a video game, or is anything at all happening to them considered a trope that is negatively reflected in society?

 

You can argue with this all day really, but it's really not worth the time and effort in my opinion. Any kind of negative stereotype against women in video games is a drop in the ocean compared to something like Barbie dolls.

[Joewintergreen]

Wrong about Maria, you're thinking of Catalina

[syntheticgerbil]

...say, the merging of civic and military commands in the former Roman Empire, the disintegration of public authority, the growth of affective power structures, and the ossification of the Germanic tribe into a system of vassalage whenever we want to talk about something involving feudalism. Anyone who knows the word will understand the significance and anyone who doesn't will benefit from an explanation.

 

Reading your posts is like someone shitting in my ears. Good news is, I won't be anymore! (I can also miss out on your trollbait title targeted at me as well, classy!)

[Laxan]

Rinoa is the leader of a rebel group, it's just unfortunate she became possessed by a sorceress.

 

There's only a finite amount of times you can say this before it sounds ridiculous. In most of these cases, regardless of the actual storyline, the women are used in place of a macguffin. Justifying this use through supposedly necessary plot events seems like lazy writing and a complacent view of cultural influence. So while there may be nothing wrong with an individual kidnap storyline, there is something odd that there are hundreds of examples of this trope being used again and again by the industry.

 

Are women simply not allowed to be present in the storyline of a video game, or is anything at all happening to them considered a trope that is negatively reflected in society?

 

Strawman aside, it's this over-reliance of certain archetypes, such as the damsel in distress, that is the issue. 

[BigJKO]

While I generally disagree with every point she makes

 

I don't understand this. You disagree that any of her examples are examples of Damsels in Distress?

[Malice Song]

This isn't the story of a damsel in distress, this is the story of the uprising of the underprivileged middle class proving their worth.

That, in its continuous occurence, is actually the problem from what I've gathered.

Your post is weird you're quoting yourself for the post itself? Anyway I took a look at some of the examples in the tumblr page you linked and it really just seems more like a list of female characters in video games. To begin with I think it's worth knocking out any kind of game that is a beat em up, everyone single one of these games consisted of either 'rescue your girlfriend' or 'avenge your family member', nothing went into these stories, they were targeted at young boys so a rescue your girlfriend thing is the obvious choice.

I think that is actually part of the point that is brought up. Whether it's in this case a valid point or not might be debatable, but (ignoring that regressive crap thing for a moment) simply stating the trope is used in that genre of game, quite regularly even, is quite accurate.

 

The list is a joke though!

Yes, it is. I've put perusing it off until now, but I agree completely, it's a desaster.

That said, I think the list is meant to illustrate how widespread the trope is and while it fails on that front imo, the fact that the video series exists and women apparently feel misrepresented in video games, does not. So, considering that I am in a position where I am likely to just not see all the occurences, I can take the complaint at face value. If a woman feels like she is misrepresented in gaming, I don't think I'm in any position to tell that she isn't. So that alone probably merits a closer look. Also fwiw the video youmeyou posted was a bit of an eyeopener for me, would recommend viewing.

[BigJKO]

It's an almost endless list of actual examples of the trope. How does it fail to illustrate how widespread it is?

[Jake]

This thread is terrible and also fascinating. I kind of hate it but I can't stop reading it, or posting in it.

Also, this is only tangentially at best related but is interesting to me...

edit:"Culture is a one way street" strikes me as a very silly hypothesis. It's clearly untrue when it comes to things like how people dress, talk, eat, fuck, dance, and drive. I don't see why it would be untrue when it comes to how people treat women.

... Enhance.

fuck

It's amazing how much people basically "learn how to have sex" from porn at this point. By which I mean, learn what you're "supposed to do," not how it works medically or practically. I wonder what the percentage of kids who saw porn online before they had their first sex ed class is at this point? The number has to be high, and it's weird. There are many distressing reddit threads with examples too small and dumb to be made up for karma. We live in a messed up time. The end.

[Argobot]

It's amazing how much people basically "learn how to have sex" from porn at this point. By which I mean, learn what you're "supposed to do," not how it works medically or practically. I wonder what the percentage of kids who saw porn online before they had their first sex ed class is at this point? The number has to be high, and it's weird. There are many distressing reddit threads with examples too small and dumb to be made up for karma. We live in a messed up time. The end.

 

 Probably most? I've read so many articles about the effects porn have had on the way young people date or understand each other sexually and it's both fascinating and depressing. Especially since so much porn (and let's be honest, most other media...like video games!) is targeted at straight men, it's reinforcing a very narrow-minded, male-centric idea of what sex is and how to do it, which, is also extremely depressing and problematic.

 

 

So yes, everything is messed up and sad and dumb, but at least more and more people are becoming aware of how our media and culture influences gender norms and are trying to work against it, so, positive?

[Malice Song]

Wasn't it like 106 entries? Not sure where I got that number from, might be wrong. In any case, besides the point, I would not want to tell her to dig up every single example for the trope there is, that would be silly.

Then again, it feels like that's what happened and where it fails. Haven't played all of the games on the list I still recognize a few cases that are quite a stretch at best, especially with the definition that was actually given in the accompanying video. The more I think about it the more ridiculous the latter part actually is.

It doesn't help that in several cases the same character is listed about half a dozen times, either.

I don't know, maybe I'm not getting something (again), but from where I stand that list looks as forced as it possibly could.

This thread is terrible and also fascinating. I kind of hate it but I can't stop reading it, or posting in it.

Like The Thing, isn't it?

I have to strongly disagree, though, this thread is brilliant and imo important.

I can't speak for everyone, obviously, but from my point of view I'm male and like to think I'm somewhat modern and don't have a worldview set in antiquated standards. However, that also means that that the subject matter (misrepresentation of women in video games) is one that doesn't directly affect me. I think it's not that hard to become desensitized or flat out overlook a lot of that stuff and as a result take a defensive stance ("I never realized this, but I'm not sexist, so this can't be that bad, because if it was, it would reflect badly on me yada yada" - or something like that). The video series and this thread are imo important, because they make me confront a problem that i may or may not have been aware existed and thus encourages me to reflect on the topic and question my stance on it. I don't want to put words into your mouth here, but saying this thread is terrible implies to me that we shouldn't even need to have a discussion about this and that everyone who doesn't outright agree on all points is a bit of a sexist pig. Maybe I just misunderstood you (seems to happen to me a lot), but imo it's a rather positive thing that we can have a rather civilized discussion about that topic, which - at least in my case - is helping to clear some things up and reevaluate a point of view on the topic here and there in a positive way.

[BigJKO]

Then again, it feels like that's what happened and where it fails. Haven't played all of the games on the list I still recognize a few cases that are quite a stretch at best, especially with the definition that was actually given in the accompanying video. The more I think about it the more ridiculous the latter part actually is.

It doesn't help that in several cases the same character is listed about half a dozen times, either.

 

A few cases? First of all, which cases and to what degree are they a stretch? Second of all, let's say those few cases you found in the list are not good examples of damsels in distress how does that invalidate the entire list of examples? Again, how does the list fail? Because it digs up a long list of examples of the trope? That's sort of the point of the list.

 

And it's each instance of a game that exemplifies the trope, which is why some characters are mentioned multiple times. Because not every character is always a damsel in distress, it's more helpful to name the specific game.

[Argobot]

I can't speak for Jake here or anyone else, just myself, but the reason I find this thread so incredibly frustrating and therefore kind of terrible is the fact that virtually no one has denied that female representation in games is a problem--I think we all agree on that--but a lot of people seem to have a hard time accepting the objective facts in this video (leaving off the 'regressive crap' comment, I think the video factually demonstrates that there are a lot of women who are written as damsels in video games) for kind of nitpick-y reasons like 'well x character in y game wasn't a damsel this one time, etc...' If you're honest about wanting to understand the issue, then you should try and just listen and not come up with excuses for why something doesn't count or how this one example invalidates the entire argument.

 

Ignoring any of the analysis, comments, or opinions that Sarkeesian expressed in the video, I hope we all at least agree with her statement that there are clearly a lot of female characters written as damsels and that it is part of a larger problem of how women are represented in media.

[Malice Song]

If you're honest about wanting to understand the issue, then you should try and just listen and not come up with excuses for why something doesn't count or how this one example invalidates the entire argument.

Yeah, I kinda have to agree here. Which is why I'm not going to elaborate on that list, in the end that probably is nitpicking and ultimately not very helpful. Point of the series for me as a viewer is to learn something afaik, not to go for the easy targets. Should try to do that. Follow up episodes should be helpful.

Kind of easy to lose track of the main issue, thanks for pointing it out.

[Nachimir]

It's amazing how much people basically "learn how to have sex" from porn at this point. By which I mean, learn what you're "supposed to do," not how it works medically or practically.

Probably most? I've read so many articles about the effects porn have had on the way young people date or understand each other sexually and it's both fascinating and depressing. Especially since so much porn (and let's be honest, most other media...like video games!) is targeted at straight men, it's reinforcing a very narrow-minded, male-centric idea of what sex is and how to do it, which, is also extremely depressing and problematic.

This kind of fascinates me. I'm not sure how I managed to avoid it, though it probably has to do with the way the religion I was raised in pathologised sex, at some point pathologised masculinity (or the performance of machismo at least) in my mind too. I was also home taught by parents too embarrassed to talk to me about sex, so had a mixture of books along with secretive looking at porn to learn from. With the former, I got pretty lucky in that I found quite an accessible gynaecology textbook that included stuff on the hidden bits of the clitoris, before that information was particularly widespread or talked about. By the time I got to watching porn videos, a lot of what was going on in them seemed ridiculous and I managed to build a fairly healthy form of masculinity without all the ersatz-alpha bullshit.

As far as I've picked up from friends, sex education in formal contexts in the UK is universally terrible and deals with little beyond the mechanical and biological facts of it. Nothing social and nothing about pleasure.

It depresses me a lot to read about teenage girls on British estates letting boyfriends be verbally, sexually and physically abusive to them because cultural context has led them to think that's just the way relationships work. The lad culture that correlates to that is repellent. As I grow older, I'm finding that if other guys start that kind of strut up around me, it can be fairly easy to puncture it and humiliate them, and it seems like a good thing to do.