Women Studies

[seanbooker]

 Hey guys, I'm in a Women Studies class and I have to do a presentation on video games and how they relate to the idea of Women Studies. It's pretty open ended. I mainly have to talk about how women are depicted in the industry and the games - either positively or negatively. Preferrably I would try and show both sides of the coin during my presentation. I was hoping you guys could help me with finding articles and examples online. These would either be of cases of sexism towards gender (women are always big boobed or whatever) but also maybe some articles where we see the rate of female gamers or organisations helping towards this. I'm literally just asking for links that I can go and read through to put something together so if you've come across something then please let me know.

P.S. The class isn't just about advocating for women so if you come across something sexist towards guys and what not please let me know too.

[Patrick R]

 

I'd also recommend looking through the Feminism thread but...ehhh, maybe not the 5 or so most recent pages.

[seanbooker]

 

I'd also recommend looking through the Feminism thread but...ehhh, maybe not the 5 or so most recent pages.

Thanks a lot!

[JonCole]

Here's a relatively comprehensive collection of articles including and pertaining to the Penny Arcade Dickwolves debacle -

 

http://debacle.tumblr.com/post/3041940865/the-pratfall-of-penny-arcade-a-timeline

 

It's a comic that exemplifies rape culture in the enthusiast games space, and a series of reactions that both defend the right of the comic creator to create whatever content he likes and attack the fact that PA doesn't take a more progressive, role-model-type position in the space.

[Maveree]

Unfortunately, I don't know of an article off the top of my head that could detail this better, but...

 

Chell from Portal 1 is by no means a damsel in distress, nor an overly sexualized female character made with the intentions of providing eye candy. (Though, with Portal 2 she had an overhaul that made her fall back into that stereotype.) I'm not going to lie - I do appreciate pretty female characters as main characters, but I felt like such a point if expanded upon could be pretty solid; the fact that most females represented in games are attractive or sexualized. Without a doubt, the same goes for males, but not entirely. They are backed up with characters like Mario (who could forget 'im?) and a small handful of others.

 

Everything else posted thus far sounds good to me, too!

 

(Edited to fix a link.)

[seanbooker]

Here's a relatively comprehensive collection of articles including and pertaining to the Penny Arcade Dickwolves debacle -

 

http://debacle.tumblr.com/post/3041940865/the-pratfall-of-penny-arcade-a-timeline

 

It's a comic that exemplifies rape culture in the enthusiast games space, and a series of reactions that both defend the right of the comic creator to create whatever content he likes and attack the fact that PA doesn't take a more progressive, role-model-type position in the space.

 

 

Unfortunately, I don't know of an article off the top of my head that could detail this better, but...

 

Chell from Portal 1 is by no means a damsel in distress, nor an overly sexualized female character made with the intentions of providing eye candy. (Though, with Portal 2 she had an overhaul that made her fall back into that stereotype.) I'm not going to lie - I do appreciate pretty female characters as main characters, but I felt like such a point if expanded upon could be pretty solid; the fact that most females represented in games are attractive or sexualized. Without a doubt, the same goes for males, but not entirely. They are backed up with characters like Mario (who could forget 'im?) and a small handful of others.

 

Everything else posted thus far sounds good to me, too!

 

(Edited to fix a link.)

 

Thanks so much guys!

[subbes]

Have you considered doing your own homework?

[TychoCelchuuu]

Have you considered doing your own homework?

the fuck would anyone do their own homework for, that's like, so 1990s.

[Ben X]

Chell from Portal 1 is by no means a damsel in distress, nor an overly sexualized female character made with the intentions of providing eye candy. (Though, with Portal 2 she had an overhaul that made her fall back into that stereotype.)

 

You mean because they made her look a little less strung out she's now an overly-sexualised female, despite the fact that the player can barely see her face at any point?

[Maveree]

You mean because they made her look a little less strung out she's now an overly-sexualised female, despite the fact that the player can barely see her face at any point?

 

Well, when you're running amuck causing an A.I. distress as you try to escape a testing lab, you don't really have time to apply make-up. And I never said she was overly-sexualised, simply made more aesthetically pleasing; eye candy. Regardless of if a player can see her or not, she was still remodeled to look more attractive. Not to mention, they also changed her body type to be curvaceous.

[TychoCelchuuu]

You mean because they made her look a little less strung out she's now an overly-sexualised female, despite the fact that the player can barely see her face at any point?

I saw my face fairly often in Portal 2. Maybe I dick around with portals more than most people, because I guess you don't have to see yourself if you just straightforwardly solve puzzles, but whenever you make infinite loops that you just run around in or whatever, you get to see yourself from all kinds of angles. In addition to getting a haircut and makeup in Portal 2 in what was obviously an overtly sexual/attractive manner, Chell also stripped down from the frumpy test suit into a form fitting tank top.

[Twig]

simply made more aesthetically pleasing

In that she looks like a human being instead of an ungodly polygonal mess god THOSE EYES how terrifying.

 

(The only thing weird about the new Chell is the apparent eyeshadow. That's weird. (Also I liked the messy hair from the original model. Shame.))

 

EDIT: Hah, she's actually http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/193/chellp1p2.jpg'>less curvy from the front. More curvy from the side. (That ass, etc.) She's wearing tighter clothes, though. I guess that makes her more curvaceous in some sense. WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY SATURDAY MORNING COMPARING PORTAL CHELL MODELS I GOT SHIT TO DO. WE OUT.

[BadHat]

Oh god those eyes.

 

Maybe portals never existed and the game is actually the struggle of a person with extreme double vision.

 

[Ben X]

I never said she was overly-sexualised, simply made more aesthetically pleasing; eye candy. Regardless of if a player can see her or not, she was still remodeled to look more attractive.

 

You said she fell back into the "overly sexualised female character made with the intentions of providing eye candy" stereotype here:

 

Chell from Portal 1 is by no means a damsel in distress, nor an overly sexualized female character made with the intentions of providing eye candy. (Though, with Portal 2 she had an overhaul that made her fall back into that stereotype.)

 

Personally, I think it makes all the difference if the player is actually able to experience something as to whether it can be integrated into an interpretation of a game, especially if you're using terms like "eye-candy". From what Tycho says, though, maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention in this case.

 

Anyway, here's the devs' explanation for it, and some earlier redesigns.

[TychoCelchuuu]

That's not a very good explanation because it doesn't explain when or why she got her hair done or what compelled her to put makeup on.

[Ben X]

Not sure if joking. It's not a diegetic explanation, just the devs' ostensible reasons for doing it. 

 

I guess when you stay in one of those hotel room things you get auto-makeovers? Or Wheatley got bored and did it? Perhaps it's one of those things that just don't have an in-game explanation, like how HL2 evolved Barney (and Eli and Kleiner) from being a load of guard clones to one individual.

[TychoCelchuuu]

No, I don't mean an in-game explanation (that's irrelevant), I mean an explanation from the developers that explains whose idea it was to give her a session in a beauty salon in between games and why they thought this was a good thing to do.

[Ben X]

Ah, ok. Yeah, they just talk about why they changed the clothes, not the make-over, which is a shame (and I can't find them saying anything specific about that). I guess maybe it ties into her being more stronger and pro-active in this one - she's not exhausted and bedraggled anymore, she's the chosen one who killed GLaDOS. Or perhaps they did decide to make her more attractive to the player; I hope not, because that's a pretty lame design choice. I do think the P1 design is the more interesting of the two, but then keeping everything the same would have been dull too...

 

Having said all that, looking at this in-game shot from P1, the difference doesn't seem so extreme - lighting seems to be softening out her tired look...: http://www.giantbomb.com/images/1300-1776452

 

EDIT: oh, a better fiction-explanation I found is that the Party Escort Bot made her look nice for her party.