Tropes vs Women in Video Games

So anti gay propaganda and ridicule would be tolerable if we could just convince the brutalos to not physically harm homosexuals?

edit: decided I'm a little uncomfortable posting about something personal

Quote from Steppenwolf

Wow you have completely missed my point. And here i thought i couldn't have marked it more clearly as sarcasm (except for putting actual sarcasm tags on it).

My point is that shaming people for their sexuality is a bad thing. Imagine for a moment Anita's video was about gays and the things that they find erotic. It would be a scandal in this day and age and rightly so! Remember the "they eat da poo poo"-video?

But apparently it's A-OK to shame heterosexual males for having sexual desires and preferences BECAUSE RAPE CULTURE.The undertone of all these videos is "How dare you pig disgusting men to get turned on by that filth!". And she comes of as so misguided because she identifies herself with sexualized female depictions. It's so ridiculous. Of course a gay men who checks out some random pics of muscular male bodies does NOT think of me. That would be so absurd. But it is how Anita's thinking process works going by her videos.

If you think she is trying to shame men for having sexual desires, you're very much missing the point of the videos. Go to about 17:00 in the Women as Background Decoration video, that sums up a lot of her point in the span of a few seconds. Exploring sexuality in games is a natural progression, but the ways it is expressed at the moment is showing women as what is a sexual object, not as people.

I see as always we get the circular argument going. Say what you want but to me video game characters arn't people. Period.

And Anita Sarkeesian wanting to decide for others what is "healthy & normal sexuality" goes hand in hand with shaming everything that she doesn't approve off. Not sure what else to tell you if you can't see that. It's not different from the twisted and paranoid thinking behind Russia making anti "gay propaganda" laws to protect their youth from "filthy, degenerate and dangerous" influences.

Quote from Steppenwolf

I see as always we get the circular argument going. Say what you want but to me video game characters arn't people. Period.

And Anita Sarkeesian wanting to decide for others what is "healthy & normal sexuality" goes hand in hand with shaming everything that she doesn't approve off. Not sure what else to tell you if you can't see that. It's not different from the twisted and paranoid thinking behind Russia making anti "gay propaganda" laws to protect their youth from "filthy, degenerate and dangerous" influences.

I wouldn't exactly compare her thinking on what is healthy sexuality on propaganda, her reasoning is backed up by studies, which she references in the video. I could say that eating only cheetos is a healthy diet, but that simply isn't true. Of course people in video games aren't real, but their portrayal does have real world consequences

Quote from Marcem

Of course people in video games aren't real, but their portrayal does have real world consequences

Yeah fuck you Infinity Ward, look what you're doing to Iraq!

Quote from Marcem

I wouldn't exactly compare her thinking on what is healthy sexuality on propaganda, her reasoning is backed up by studies, which she references in the video.

Confirmation bias

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I could say that eating only cheetos is a healthy diet, but that simply isn't true.

False equivalence

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Of course people in video games aren't real, but their portrayal does have real world consequences

Bullshit

Quote from Steppenwolf

Confirmation bias

Alright, then can you give me evidence to the contrary?

Quote from Steppenwolf

False equivalence

Yeah, you're right, seeing women as sub-human is completely healthy, regular behavior, and the concept of sexual health (in a conceptual sense, not actually talking about STDs and stuff) is a complete myth.

Quote from Steppenwolf

Bullshit

Just like that anti-gay propaganda (or any propaganda, or societal norm), eh? Surrounding people with a concept such as the objectification of women has had a very concrete effect upon people, simply look at the extremely defensive (many times creepy) reaction to these videos, or the #yesallwomen twitter thing a little while back.

Simply stating logical fallacies isn't an argument in itself, by the way.

Quote from Marcem

Alright, then can you give me evidence to the contrary?

Anita has no authority to decide what is healthy sexuality and what is not. Period. Stay the fuck out of peoples bedrooms! That goes to homophobes and people like her alike.

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Yeah, you're right, seeing women as sub-human is completely healthy, regular behavior, and the concept of sexual health (in a conceptual sense, not actually talking about STDs and stuff) is a complete myth.

You like Anita make shit up. I don't even know what mental hoops you jump through to come to the conclusion that sexualized depictions make women subhuman in the aficionados mind. Ther's a thousand fetishes and things people get of to. BDSM is pretty popular or so i heard (among males and females) but surely a women being a submissive slave for sexual pleasure is completely sick in your mind and even more sick the people who jerk off to such depictions. The biggest crime however is to look at big breasted fictional characters in video games.

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Just like that anti-gay propaganda (or any propaganda, or societal norm), eh? Surrounding people with a concept such as the objectification of women has had a very concrete effect upon people, simply look at the extremely defensive (many times creepy) reaction to these videos, or the #yesallwomen twitter thing a little while back.

It's the same old "video games turn people into psychotic killers"-argument recoined to fit the feminist agenda. Correlation does not imply causation. Like killers who played games had issues to begin with so have misogynistic gamers or girls who feel objectified by depictions of sexy game characters.

Quote from Steppenwolf

Anita has no authority to decide what is healthy sexuality and what is not. Period. Stay the fuck out of peoples bedrooms! That goes to homophobes and people like her alike.

Yeah, you're right, seeing women as sub-human is completely healthy, regular behavior, and the concept of sexual health (in a conceptual sense, not actually talking about STDs and stuff) is a complete myth.

You like Anita make shit up. I don't even know what mental hoops you jump through to come to the conclusion that sexualized depictions make women subhuman in the aficionados mind. Ther's a thousand fetishes and things people get of to. BDSM is pretty popular or so i heard (among males and females) but surely a women being a submissive slave for sexual pleasure is completely sick in your mind and even more sick the people who jerk off to such depictions. The biggest crime however is to look at big breasted fictional characters in video games.

Quote

Just like that anti-gay propaganda (or any propaganda, or societal norm), eh? Surrounding people with a concept such as the objectification of women has had a very concrete effect upon people, simply look at the extremely defensive (many times creepy) reaction to these videos, or the #yesallwomen twitter thing a little while back.

It's the same old "video games turn people into psychotic killers"-argument recoined to fit the feminist agenda. Correlation does not imply causation. Like killers who played games had issues to begin with so have misogynistic gamers or girls who feel objectified by depictions of sexy game characters.

So, I'm just going on a limb here, but you're really just afraid of games changing, aren't you? Your only argument is that Anita is "making shit up", but she has time and time again backed up her argument with proven studies and actual psychology. This isn't about whatever fetish you may have, this is about societal problems where because of the constant reinforcement of seeing women as sexual objects, many people think it's okay to treat them like shit. Just fucking read anything that was tweeted with the #yesallwomen hashtag, and better yet, the #1reasonwhy hashtag. There is a problem here that needs addressing, and taking a look at what what we're making is just about the only way we can try to fix this very clear issue of sexism within the industry. But whatever, you're probably just going to dismiss this once again by saying every argument is made up if they don't support your beliefs.

Quote from Steppenwolf

Bullshit

Did you watch and pay attention to the whole video? Because the argument you're making is one she covered directly near the end. Your media consumption does, in fact, affect you, and the more you think that it is actually mere entertainment with no consequences, the more vulnerable you are to being affected. That's not a videogame specific thing, that's an all media thing, from advertisements to action movies to word gender associations. I remember seeing a study about how Germans and Spanish people described bridges. In German, bridges are feminine. Not by nature, necessarily, but simply by language. In Spanish, on the other hand, bridge is a masculine noun. When asked to describe the same picture of a bridge, Germans described it with feminine terms like "graceful," and Spaniards with masculine ones like "strong." "Key" is the opposite, masculine in German and feminine in Spanish. When asked to describe the same picture of a key, the Germans described it as "sharp" and "useful," while the Spanish described it as "shiny," and "lovely."

I'm sorry to break this to you, steppenwolf. Your purchasing decisions are probably also influenced by ads, even the dumb stupid ones you consciously dislike.

Thank you Jetsetlemming and Marcem for some more educated posting. Seriously considered leaving the forum, found myself too baffled to even respond.

That's the thing, is there something like a cultural determinism acting on the individual and his desires, or on the contrary, do every individual act on the basis of his own free will in an existentialist point of view ?

No more than 5000 words guys

Ah, feminism....

Really what it all boils down to is the feminist position that women are inferior and men are superior. Which is ironic since it's the exact opposite of what they claim to believe. This gaming stuff is a minor example but you have situations like:

• "If I'm drunk and a man's drunk, he needs to be of stronger constitution, better judgement and stronger resolve than me, or he's a rapist".
• "If a man and I both consent to sex and I get pregnant, he's more capable than I am so he needs to pay for whatever choices I make regarding the fetus/baby".
• "I want to live in a world where I can wear whatever I want and go wherever I want and nothing bad will ever happen to me".

Because rather than being careful where they go and who they associate with, taking measures to assure their ability to defend themselves, acknowledging that criminals do crime, they instead choose to throw a tantrum and just demand men create the world they want to live in since they admit they can't do it themselves. Same goes with this.

Seriously?! What the hell is going on in here!

"Really what it all boils down to is the feminist position that women are inferior and men are superior. Which is ironic since it's the exact opposite of what they claim to believe."

Where do you get this crap from? Please elaborate on how women being inferior is "the feminist position".

I'd say the feminist position is that in the modern world (where we can to a large extent disregard physical strength which was mentioned), neither sex is inferior or superior, and the only thing standing in the way to actual equality (equal pay etc.) are basic attitude issues, stemming from, among other things, tropes in media.

Quote from Daze

Thank you Jetsetlemming and Marcem for some more educated posting. Seriously considered leaving the forum, found myself too baffled to even respond.

Videogames, like the other tech industries/products, attracts/is full of a lot of fairly sheltered white boys. I don't necessarily blame them for their views, as much as I just find it sad. They're like the dirt poor people on government aid in the South who constantly vote Republican: They grew up in and are every day surrounded by a culture that tells them that the things they're fighting are pure evil, and will take away what little they have if they lose that fight.

Feminism isn't anti-man, and it sure as hell isn't "women are inferior" (lmao dude what), any more than "anti-racist is code for anti-white." Nerdy boys would thrive in a feminist world, as they would be free of the stifling, strangling implicit demand of masculine gender roles put upon them. Sadly, they're convinced that in a feminist world their already poor chances of getting laid would drop to nil.

Thankfully I'm in a long term relationship with a woman and can thus betray my gender without fear.

lol stay classy. so educate

Quote from Jetsetlemming

Thankfully I'm in a long term relationship with a woman and can thus betray my gender without fear.

We will be there if you need any beers, a good LAN on quake3, smoke some joints and shout at sports on tv ..............

Quote from Daze

Seriously?! What the hell is going on in here!

"Really what it all boils down to is the feminist position that women are inferior and men are superior. Which is ironic since it's the exact opposite of what they claim to believe."

Where do you get this crap from? Please elaborate on how women being inferior is "the feminist position".

I did, with examples as well, but you decided to take something out of context without reading further. Same as Jetsetlemming. Thus, I see no reason to continue this with you.

Quote from SpronyvanJohnson

I did, with examples as well, but you decided to take something out of context without reading further. Same as Jetsetlemming. Thus, I see no reason to continue this with you.

Those are not examples of feminism, they are random critical sentences written by you, a non feminist. And are you seriously saying we should NOT strive for a world where anyone could go anywhere, dressed anyhow, and feel safe?