[Luis Dias]

What I'm saying is that the whole thing is a sham. Objectification? Everything in fiction is. Every cahracter in fiction serves a purpose - to provoke some kind of response. What does it matter what kind of response it is?

Ceci n'est pas une pipe. I think you are absolutely confused about this subject and you should educate yourself a little more before trashing the concept. Now let me take you seriously for a moment here. Yes, games are technically filled with objects (meshes? sprites? mp3 voice overs? all of those combined into a single thing?) whose purpose is to effect us in some way. Perhaps they are just there to guide us, or to stop us, or to be a barrier we have to overcome, etc.

We are not discussing objectification at this level. We are discussing objectification at the level of what the relationship between the object and the "player object" is within the game. That is, we are discussing what is represented, not the fact that it is a representation. Objectification deals with the idea that certain objects are not only literally "objects" that are created to make an effect, but that they are represented as only things that are there to make an effect. Objectification can be, for instance, the representation of women whose only purpose in life is to give you a sense of [insert anything here], without any further kind of representation of any sense of own want, own agency. Contrast it with the existence of characters who give you a sense of existing exactly as they are designed even if you weren't there to be effected by them (and still make sense).

Women objectification deals, therefore, with the male gaze, they are determined by it. Women's dress are the way they are because they assume the male gaze. Men's representation never leave this impression. They are the way they are for their own ego's sake, not some kind of assumed "women's gaze". And so on and so on and so on.

[MP-Ryan]

Could someone please split the entirely-tangential-and-not-really-relevant discussion about whether or not dogs are more sympathetic than people out of the thread about sexual objectification and gender stereotypes in games?  Many thanks.

[TrashMan]

What I'm saying is that the whole thing is a sham. Objectification? Everything in fiction is. Every cahracter in fiction serves a purpose - to provoke some kind of response. What does it matter what kind of response it is?

Ceci n'est pas une pipe. I think you are absolutely confused about this subject and you should educate yourself a little more before trashing the concept. Now let me take you seriously for a moment here. Yes, games are technically filled with objects (meshes? sprites? mp3 voice overs? all of those combined into a single thing?) whose purpose is to effect us in some way. Perhaps they are just there to guide us, or to stop us, or to be a barrier we have to overcome, etc.

We are not discussing objectification at this level. We are discussing objectification at the level of what the relationship between the object and the "player object" is within the game. That is, we are discussing what is represented, not the fact that it is a representation. Objectification deals with the idea that certain objects are not only literally "objects" that are created to make an effect, but that they are represented as only things that are there to make an effect. Objectification can be, for instance, the representation of women whose only purpose in life is to give you a sense of [insert anything here], without any further kind of representation of any sense of own want, own agency. Contrast it with the existence of characters who give you a sense of existing exactly as they are designed even if you weren't there to be effected by them (and still make sense).

I'm not talking about objects or meshes. I'm talking about every CHARACTER, every "individual" in a game or work of fiction is there to fill a specific role. They are all "objects".

Own wants? Own agency? What do those have to do with wardrobe?
Now I have been requesting normal, full-covering armor for females on every RPG forum for years, but even dont' see the connection to the "wants" or "agency".
Now I don't care if women run around in loincloth, as long as there is loincloth for male characters too (and likewise, proper armor for both.)

When you get down to it, 99% of all characters are flat and shallow. Male characters too. It doesn't even matter why.

Women objectification deals, therefore, with the male gaze, they are determined by it. Women's dress are the way they are because they assume the male gaze. Men's representation never leave this impression. They are the way they are for their own ego's sake, not some kind of assumed "women's gaze". And so on and so on and so on.

No?


The purpose a cahracter (or representation) may serve might be different. But does it matter?
Don't tell me women don't want to be good-looking and thin. Don't tell me men don't want to be well-built.
Fantasy is fantasy

Also, there is one difference between men and women in that men are more..physical. Women are more emotional. In general at least.
That's why a womans variant of "male gaze" is less obvious. Becasue it's more tied to behavior than apperance

[MP-Ryan]

While most characters in games are objects in the sense that they are flat, without personality and serve only as background pieces or plot devices, there is a disturbing trend in that prominent female characters in games (remember what the thread is about) are still more often depicted and written as sexual objects that assume the male gaze than male characters are depicted as sexual objects assuming the female gaze.

You made this very point using an egregious example yourself - armour and clothing is an obvious go-to concerning sexual objectification in games.  There is literally no purpose to rendering female characters in scant clothing and male characters covered up other than an assumption that the females are there, in part, to be simply looked upon.  Wants and agency are relevant because females are often depicted as having none - they are often simply scantily-clad setpieces that are otherwise treated as without gender at all.  Take almost any scantily clad female character from a game and ask if there is anything about that character that makes her female other than her clothing in the game and a too-often-submissive demeanour.  It's often true of males as well - take away physical depiction of male supporting characters and they suddenly have no quintessential gender either.  The difference is that female characters are depicted as such almost exclusively by how they are dressed and will be looked upon; males are the assumed genderless default.

As for your example of the female gaze - obviously there are many examples of media that assume the female gaze; games just typically aren't one of them, and this is a thread inherently about games.

[Luis Dias]

MP is absolutely right, and by no means would I ever suggest that the "woman-gaze" does not exist. Male objectification is real, but it's in such stark contrast with the other one that it's ridiculous to even compare the two. Think about it, you brought the only big time "success" in the past ten years of a female fantasy "saga" in here, and let's not even dwell on the fact that it is terrible.

I would even suggest that the forthcoming "Shades of Grey" movie will possibly have the same success (or more!) than Twillight. It has some advantages over it (first, it actually has a plot, character arcs, interesting characters, and it is filled with current thematics, one of which is precisely whether if feminism ideology is right or wrong... I could develop this further, after all I *did* read the novel and it fascinated me ... uuhhh.... from an ideological point of view - no really).

[SkycladGuardian]

If we want to talk about gender objectification in games, you may also want to include the male issue here. True, the woman gaze is not nearly as prevalent in gaming as it is in TV shows, movies or the music business.
However, male objectification in games is existant, and it is rampant. We're just socially and culturally "trained" not to recognize it so easily. Basically, male objectification comes down to the concept of male disposibility. According to this concept, men are not regarded as human beings worthy in itself, but only in respect to their immediate use to society. They are taught and trained to disregard their personal well-being in favour of the service to others (family, company, country, fellow soldiers). To make it easier for men to accept their disposibility, society has come up with a variety of concepts like love, respect, honour, glory, martyrdom, heroship etc.
One social effect of male disposibility is that we don't take the suffering of men as serious as the suffering of women and children. This starts with the well-known phrase "X people have been killed, among them y women/children.", continues with the accepted movie standard of male cannon fodder prevalent in every action movie, whereas the wounding or killing of a woman receives far more screentime and attention in the script, and it ends with serious life-threatening consequences, when for instance Boko Haram goes on a killing spree in Nigerian catholic schools killing dozens of boys, and the international community doesn't give a **** until girls were affected; and I don't want to belittle or negate the suffering these girls must have been or are still going through, I just want to point out an outrageous double standard.
Now back to games. Over 90% of all male characters appearing in mainstream games are there simply to die by the hands of the player. They are cannon fodder. Just like many to most female characters in games are damsels in distress to be rescued or are there for the eye candy.
And while nobody really cares that there are tons of games around, in which the main gameplay mechanic is to kill men, there is no notable game which requires the player to kill or harm women by the hundreds. It is impossible, unthinkable. It would be social suicide for every person affiliated with this kind of game.
These are my 2 cents. I believe that we won't come very far in the discussion of gender stereotypes/objectification if we look only at one half of the problem. Both sexes face their problems, injustices and difficulties, though they are different ones.

[MP-Ryan]

-snip-

This is pretty similar to a point I've been making over in the Spiderwoman thread in GD, and I made on page 1 of this thread.

The fundamental difference in this thread is that Luis is specifically talking about gender objectification in games, and by far the best and most egregious examples of gender objectification in games concern female sexual objectification, to the point where they make up a very large part of the most egregious examples that they are the most useful to talk about to make the point.

We're not ignoring certain aspects of gender objectification here; for the purposes of responding to TrashMan, female examples were just the best to use for the moment.

[AtomicClucker]

Yep, and is one of the prime reasons we're having the discussion in the first place. Games do have a have a running theme of objectification, to say they don't is like pointing out that roads don't have potholes.

But my question is when will the arguments end and progress be made? Because the one recurring theme in objectification centered arguments is a decisive lack of solutions to the problem. Censorship, pressuring developers into unneeded politically correct stereo types (i.e. token black guy who gets knocked off), and feigning ignorance are not answers. Most Internet Feminists contend that the male culture has to be changed: more rational minds have actually pulled the can off the Internet Feminist lid and decided the real problem was not merely stagnation, but a woeful lack of feminine identity in the development of games and enfranchisement in Gamer culture.

Browbeating creates resent, and frankly, a lot of Internet Feminists are good a brow beating, piss-poor on actually elbow grease. And in many ways, the effort to get more representation and enfranchisement would require a more thoughtful and dual-gendered drive to achieve it. Most Twitteristas and Tumblrs (and their equivalent MRAs) would actively mock this because they damn know well it would undercut their soap-box and chorus of shrieking.

[NGTM-1R]

A critic is not required to be able to write Moby Dick to critique it. A doctor is not required to be able to cure a disease to diagnose it. Saying "you can't do better" is, was, and forever shall be not an argument for the quality of a thing.

This concept that people able to identify problems are somehow making them worse you seem to be pushing is one that's so breathtakingly crazy I don't know if you're serious. Conversations like this one are progress, because we weren't having them five years ago. When the gaming public talks, eventually companies must listen. We're at the talking stage. We're waiting for signs of the listening stage. Until then, we keep talking.

[AtomicClucker]

Critics can also be criticized on the fairness and reputability of their points. Most sane and rational critics have all found the problem, but fully acknowledge that Internet drudgery has made the problem worse, rather than better.

And yes, I'm actively calling out the Internet Feminists on this: There's been a serious problem within the Feminist movement of over-criticism and expecting others to do the work . When a part of the Third Wave thought for a moment, "hrm... perphaps we can be a real activist instead of a talking point..." they got a rude awakening when the older Second Wave, cathartic and slow from years of saber-rattling, didn't take very well to the idea of action over words.

The vein of Third Wave feminism I actively support is action and progression over saber-rattling. Mere discussion can enlighten, but what about action? Imagine games that are made and distributed by women to the mass audience of gamers. That's called being an activist. My real hope is when I can look up a development studio or publisher that is overwhelmingly lead and run by women, making games and being successful at it. More women have been pulled into the game market, and even for more "hard core" gamer types, we'll bound to see more women migrate there as well as the market increases.

We can debate endlessly, but the real problem is getting more women into the industry, and where we stand now, that needs to start happening rather than the cyclical flare ups whenever Anita Sarkesian posts a video. The industry is heavily slanted towards men, and industry with more women will change the culture. Simple in decree, hard in practice. At this current rate, camps are happily entrenching themselves rather than trying to reach out. I would argue that Anita has helped to polarize the community more than helping it.

And Anita isn't the type of Feminist who would be inclined to make a game. And we need more women making them.

[TrashMan]

Take almost any scantily clad female character from a game and ask if there is anything about that character that makes her female other than her clothing in the game and a too-often-submissive demeanour.  It's often true of males as well - take away physical depiction of male supporting characters and they suddenly have no quintessential gender either.  The difference is that female characters are depicted as such almost exclusively by how they are dressed and will be looked upon; males are the assumed genderless default.

This is silly.

What makes a male a male or a female a female?
Their gender. That's it.
what else are you looking for? Behavior? There isn't such a thing really as "100% male/female behavior", especially not for background characters.

You made this very point using an egregious example yourself - armour and clothing is an obvious go-to concerning sexual objectification in games.  There is literally no purpose to rendering female characters in scant clothing and male characters covered up other than an assumption that the females are there, in part, to be simply looked upon.  Wants and agency are relevant because females are often depicted as having none - they are often simply scantily-clad setpieces that are otherwise treated as without gender at all.

Wants and gender are irrelevant for both.
In general, what do male characters have in terms of those? Not much. They are big, burly (or fat) meat shields.
As for apperance, sometimes the differences are deliberately blown up to makes males and females stand ot more (especially in games with a more distnat camera/view).
I personally find all men looking like roided up bears in so many games UGLY. While I always vote for more body types in games and various clothing options, that in itself really isn't a big problem. It's that simple. It may go on someones nerves, jsut like scantly clad females, but really, it's not an important social issue at all.

[Luis Dias]

@AtomicClucker:  Consider we live in the age of KickStarter. There is simply no excuse for someone not to put work on this. Given the amount of money that was given to Sarkeesian by that same monstruous community that apparently doesn't exist anymore and whose Name Shall Not Be Named (... sigh...), I'd say there's definitely a market for these intentions. Go for it. What are you waiting? You cannot bring the excuse of depending on the big corporations anymore.

[Luis Dias]

Christina Sommers talks about this in her latest video. She's snarky but good:

[haloboy100]

Blatently;

I think anyone who examines this much into sexual themes in video games is subconsciously projecting their own masculine and/or effeminate insecurities.

That isn't to say that sexism doesn't exist, at all. I just think that video games is definitely not the medium to fight the crusade. Art is a reflection of our culture; punching the mirror will just get you an embarrassingly broken hand. Turn around and fight the battle outside.

[The E]

Christina Sommers talks about this in her latest video. She's snarky but good:

Ah, yes, I wondered what the american right wing thought about this. Which apparently is that there is no actual misogyny problem, that games explicitly aimed at teenage males and serving teenage male stereotypes are perfectly alright.

I mean, this is rather blatantly confirming all the points the gamergate idiots are making. It's a video that these people will point to and say "Look, there are scholars who agree with us, our points are valid, you and your social justice warrior hipsters with social studies degrees are WROOONG". Is this because they are, or because it's a good marketing move to make the conservative cause more appealing to a demographic that isn't inclined to vote conservative?

[karajorma]

If the idiots who caused gamergate believe that the American Right are on their side, they're bigger morons than I thought.

And I was already only willing to measure their IQ in double digits.

[Luis Dias]

Perhaps leaving out the right-wing left-wing dychotomy and actually listen to what people have to say is something that can be productive, yeah? I mean, I haven't dismissed any of Anita's points with a handwaving "bah she's a left wing moron who thinks in marxist-feminist lines how can people think these folks are on *their side*?"

I don't know, I think it's rather useful to listen to multiple points of view. And I also underline how Sommers is quoting far more scientific literature in 5:00 than Anita in her entire hours long series on games. Perhaps it's because she's actually a scholar who understands the value of empiricism. And The_E, regarding this particular point, for all your rant I didn't catch one single counter you had against the video. Just blatant ad hominem.

Regarding the right wing co-opting #gamergate, I think that should have been obvious. If you have the entire game journalism siding with left-wings and dismissing an entire group as "mysoginist monsters" and so on, what would you expect the more clever ones from the right wing to do? That right wing guy "Milo" something is skating this one too, gathering a ****ton of new "fans". Well, if you alienate half your audience, others will be more than pleased to cater to them. That's called the "marketplace of ideas" and it's something some of these feminists simply do not understand. They think they can bully their way into everyone's minds, and lo and behold it just doesn't happen that way.

[The E]

Look, Luis, her entire point is a regurgitation of "There is no problem, I looked at games for a bit and talked to a couple of gamers and they didn't immediately attack me or cause me to hate women, so I don't see what the issue is". In other words, her entire piece is tailor-made to fit the narrative the idiotic side of this whole debate has been pushing. It's all a feel-good thing for that side of the debate to point to and say "look, an actual woman who calls herself the factual feminist agrees with us! There is no problem here, honestly!"

The counter to her points are the entire work of Anita Sarkeesian et al on the subject. Sommers says there is no problem. Her entire point seems to be that everything is OK, that games targeted at the teenage male demographic do not need to incorporate better representations of female characters because the demographic that buys them isn't interested in those topics. This, IMHO, is a misunderstanding of the general point of the debate here. She says that hardcore games do not need better representation of females because women are not hardcore gamers. That's a rather stupid thing to say IMHO, because the entire point here is to make games more inclusive, more welcoming to everyone, and through that arrive at better games for everyone.

See, if one side says "There's no problem at all, everything's mostly fine", and the other says "Well, actually, there are quite a few things wrong if you take a closer look", and the first side responds with "THERE IS NO PROBLEM YOU STUPID *****, AND WE WILL RAPE YOU UNTIL YOU AGREE", then I know which side I will support. Yes, I know that there are sane, rational people on the side of "there is no problem". Unfortunately, they're getting drowned out by the "STUPID ***** RAPE" people, and the usual talking points they come up with are not at all convincing to me.

Is it useful to listen to other points of view? Yes, absolutely. But Sommers' point of view isn't new. It's a summary of what gamers apparently want to hear. It's a feel good piece, a "you're right to believe this" piece, a "not all gamers" piece. Her characterization of the abusers and STUPID ***** RAPE people as psychopaths makes that clear.

[666maslo666]

I certainly dont agree with her that there is no problem but I do think the problem is overblown and is less acute or common than many self-proclaimed feminists and "social studies hipsters" would have you believe, so the truth is somewhere in the middle. And I tend to I agree with her about death threaths and such, anyone who attracts the attention of the internet in a slightly controversial way gets them and so they are not indicative of a problem with gaming community at large, unless a sizable part of this community actually sends them, which I dont believe is the case. Also her description of gender imbalances in gaming at the beginning likely reflects reality. And I dont think bringing the left-right dichotomy into this is productive at all.

[Luis Dias]

Look, Luis, her entire point is a regurgitation of "There is no problem, I looked at games for a bit and talked to a couple of gamers and they didn't immediately attack me or cause me to hate women, so I don't see what the issue is". In other words, her entire piece is tailor-made to fit the narrative the idiotic side of this whole debate has been pushing. It's all a feel-good thing for that side of the debate to point to and say "look, an actual woman who calls herself the factual feminist agrees with us! There is no problem here, honestly!"

This is a misrepresentation of her video on such a scale that I am baffled. And why are you pushing for this narrative of "gun ho mysoginists agree with her she's just playing this part" I don't *care* what the thunderf00ts think about her. You clearly have no clue about who this woman is (hint, she was a liberal feminist in the 70s that was disillusioned with a lot of **** that happened in the 80s and 90s and has been pushing against this "post-second feminist wave" for decades now, and she has had a lot more harrassment than Anita could ever dream of), and you just mansplain her away as some "right wing parrot" who says things the gamergate crowd likes.

The counter to her points are the entire work of Anita Sarkeesian et al on the subject.

Sommers never says "there is no problem". She could be more generous but she does admit they bring good points regarding sexist tropes and so on.

She says that hardcore games do not need better representation of females because women are not hardcore gamers. That's a rather stupid thing to say IMHO, because the entire point here is to make games more inclusive, more welcoming to everyone, and through that arrive at better games for everyone.

That's fine. I even think she would agree with this, but it was unstated so you have a point here. The problem is that Anita is not merely claiming that "you know, we could be a lot more inclusive here, it would be so nice for everyone", she is claiming that there's a huge mysoginy problem in games and that this mysoginy affects the world outside of it. Sommers is countering that particular line. There is no link whatsoever regarding portrayal of women in games in a "mysoginistic" fashion and an increase of mysoginy in young males. She makes the perfectly reasonable point that this is the least mysoginistic generation ever, coinciding with the fact that it is the most "gamerish" generation ever. It doesn't fit, just like the huge violence in games didn't affect violence in the real world.

Now, here's where I agree with you: mysoginy in games is bad *per se*, just like racism in games (or tv or movies or whatever) is bad *per se*. You don't need such studies linking games with reality to reach this conclusion.

See, if one side says "There's no problem at all, everything's mostly fine", and the other says "Well, actually, there are quite a few things wrong if you take a closer look", and the first side responds with "THERE IS NO PROBLEM YOU STUPID *****, AND WE WILL RAPE YOU UNTIL YOU AGREE"

Yes, definitely everyone who disagrees with Anita is a mysoginistic psychopath. Of course they are. It's not like there are millions of people who disagree with Anita (I am not exagerating here, she has multiple million views, and I don't think it irrational to infer some millions of those are critical of her), and it's not like it's obviously inevitable that a small percentage (0.5%? 1%?) of those are loud immature brats or just downright psychopaths. No, of course not, let's paint them all like the psychos they truly are. *ALL OF THEM*.

This is the biggest mistake Anita and all of the more "progressive" bloggers and opinion makers made here. They conflated criticism with mysoginy. Anita only addresses the worst parts of her haterz, and by doing that, she is only admitting the existence of "trolls and monsters", ignoring perfectly reasonable and polite but firm disagreements with her. She never addressed any criticism. She merely states "I'm so persecuted, look at these twitter trolls, therefore I am right". This further fuels frustration and anger, it's like she found this perpetual machine of offense taking. I kind of admire her in a machiavellian way (I even hope she's being deliberate at this, the alternative is that she's really stupid and unaware of the monster she is creating with her selective behavior).

The end result is that anyone who agrees with her conflates people who disagree with her with the kind of shout you are stating here. Let me just ask you this question: Did I ever sound like someone who is gonna threaten anyone of rape if they disagree with me? Did Sommers sound like that kind of person? Why are you painting everyone with the lowest common denominator?

...then I know which side I will support. Yes, I know that there are sane, rational people on the side of "there is no problem". Unfortunately, they're getting drowned out by the "STUPID ***** RAPE" people, and the usual talking points they come up with are not at all convincing to me.

They are being deliberately drowned by Anita and people like her, who only highlight and admit those kinds of people as their only critics. Actual scholars and thinkers in the best enlightenment fashion actually engage their best critics and ignore the trolls, for they are the "noise" that is in the way to reach truth. Not Anita. She does the exact opposite.

Is it useful to listen to other points of view? Yes, absolutely. But Sommers' point of view isn't new. It's a summary of what gamers apparently want to hear. It's a feel good piece, a "you're right to believe this" piece, a "not all gamers" piece. Her characterization of the abusers and STUPID ***** RAPE people as psychopaths makes that clear.

Are you saying people who threatened Anita with rape aren't psychopaths or behaving like ones?