Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Oh, I was referring to the violence discussion, as the two are largely comparable.

So what you're doing is slamming someone for not having evidence for his claims with a claim that has no evidence?

Not sure how you can misunderstand it...it's...simple. If you don't have proof, you don't assume anything. Is there proof? No. Assuming a correlation therefore is foolish. If you don't have direct proof, all you can do is to look at evidence to back up your opinion. In this very case, due to being directly comparable, you can look at the violence discussion that proved there not being a correlation. This isn't a formal proof / disprovable as you can never directly cross-relate an issue, as similar as it might be. It's used to debunk opinions, not facts.

I don't think you have made a convincing argument as to why sexism and violence are directly comparable here. They are different in a few ways. Violence is often an active thing (punch punch), Sexism is often not active (bias bias). Violence is strongly discouraged by society. Sexism isn't as strongly discouraged and in some places is accepted.

It's like how an AD can convince you to eat a hamburger, but an AD likely won't convince you to kill someone. (Outside of some other odd examples. Such as ADs for the army.)

nomotog wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Oh, I was referring to the violence discussion, as the two are largely comparable.

So what you're doing is slamming someone for not having evidence for his claims with a claim that has no evidence?

Not sure how you can misunderstand it...it's...simple. If you don't have proof, you don't assume anything. Is there proof? No. Assuming a correlation therefore is foolish. If you don't have direct proof, all you can do is to look at evidence to back up your opinion. In this very case, due to being directly comparable, you can look at the violence discussion that proved there not being a correlation. This isn't a formal proof / disprovable as you can never directly cross-relate an issue, as similar as it might be. It's used to debunk opinions, not facts.

I don't think you have made a convincing argument as to why sexism and violence are directly comparable here. They are different in a few ways. Violence is often an active thing (punch punch), Sexism is often not active (bias bias). Violence is strongly discouraged by society. Sexism isn't as strongly discouraged and in some places is accepted.

It's like how an AD can convince you to eat a hamburger, but an AD likely won't convince you to kill someone. (Outside of some other odd examples. Such as ADs for the army.)

This. Sigvatr saying that they are comparable does not have to mean it is so.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Bullockist wrote:
I do think that there is always a fantasy element of games that is failed to be taken into account by the pro group. […]In RL i would never harm a horse.

Stuck in the “Monkey see, monkey do” interpretation of influence, are you not?
That is just not how it works!

No, just not stuck in the women as victims thing.
As i have explained before, I grew up in a very feminist family (ffs my sister was a grey overall baby). That feminism was very much in the mold of country women ( you fix it yourself) instead of whinging about it. I feel blessed that i grew up with 2 so capable women as it clears my head to this patriarchy gak. In my mums and my sisters head there is no patriarchy, that is a ridiculous concept, all there is is a chance for women to improve themselves through their actions, not by over analysing the status quo and blaming gak on men.
I particularly like talking to country women as the whole gender boundary to tasks idea doesn't seem to exist and they just do what has to be done.Country women get gak done.(whilst the women in city universities argue over weird arse semantics.)

The only way for women to improve their lot is to DO, not act the victim and act like society is trying to destroy them.

In my house growing up, monkey see, monkey do was in action, just a lot different to whatever bs you were thinking.
I'll give you an example I was working in a charity shop with a young girl we had a wardrobe to lift, she pulled the whole "i can't lift that it's too heavy I'm a girl schtick" and i said ( due to the influence of my family) "yes you can, lets just lift it you and me" and fething lo and behold she did.
she could do it , just thought she couldn't and the "monkey see monkey do" interpretation i grew up with showed her she could.

So feth your patriarchy, all that does is depower women. Women can do anything, why inflict them with the idea that the whole society is against them when it isn't? BY declaring a patriarchy exists all you are saying is society creates what women can do and essentially depowers women.

WHAT A LOAD OF gak.
Women can do whatever they want.
keep your gender guilt bollocks,

In my family women do what they want
and tend to be quite forceful
I don't identify with the "women as victims" mentality at all.

nomotog wrote:


I don't think you have made a convincing argument as to why sexism and violence are directly comparable here. They are different in a few ways. Violence is often an active thing (punch punch), Sexism is often not active (bias bias). Violence is strongly discouraged by society. Sexism isn't as strongly discouraged and in some places is accepted.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

This. Sigvatr saying that they are comparable does not have to mean it is so.

You two are at a misunderstanding. You rushed to conclusions and didn't notice the important distinction. I never compared sexism and violence. I compared the suggested cause / effect for media benefiting those two, i.e. habitualization. Habitualization was the claim made by pro-violence activists and it is the same claim made by pro-sexism activists. It's highly important to be able to differentiate between those two or else you cannot understand the issue and it's even more important to stop looking at it with a very strong bias.

 Sigvatr wrote:

nomotog wrote:


I don't think you have made a convincing argument as to why sexism and violence are directly comparable here. They are different in a few ways. Violence is often an active thing (punch punch), Sexism is often not active (bias bias). Violence is strongly discouraged by society. Sexism isn't as strongly discouraged and in some places is accepted.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

This. Sigvatr saying that they are comparable does not have to mean it is so.

You two are at a misunderstanding. You rushed to conclusions and don't noticed the important distinction. I never compared sexism and violence. I compared the suggested cause / effect for media benefiting those two, i.e. habitualization. Habitualization was the claim made by pro-violence activists and it is the same claim made by pro-sexism activists. It's highly important to be able to differentiate between those two or else you cannot understand the issue and it's even more important to stop looking at it with a very strong bias.

And we're explaining why we feel a comparsion with violence is not apt; violence is (generally) not accepted in society, whereas sexism to a much greater extent is. Thus, the causal relation may very well be there in the case of sexism but not violence, because violence is not encouraged in everyday life.

We've only said this like three or four times already.

I think that they are making an argument that media(or maybe all of society) doesn't affect people. Not really sure what they are saying though.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


And we're explaining why we feel a comparsion with violence is not apt; violence is (generally) not accepted in society, whereas sexism to a much greater extent is. Thus, the causal relation may very well be there in the case of sexism but not violence, because violence is not encouraged in everyday life.

We've only said this like three or four times already.

Again, you're rushing to conclusions. You already are one step further. You got it backwards: you perceive anything as problematic (i.e. sexism) and then look for anything that might benefit it or, in general, fit your idea. That's a very flawed perspective as you are not neutrally looking at things, instead, you actively want your initial thesis to be reaffirmed. This almost invalidates any findings by people who want to prove anything and would never make it past any review. The only thing you could prove with such an attitude is that individual motifs can be found in other forms of media...and then, you're at a dead end.

The correct way would be to do it the other way around: you look at media and then prove that media have a direct influence on attitudes, then go more specific and explicitely look at a special motion, e.g. sexism, identify motifs in one media and then show how those motifs lead to a change in behavior / attitude in any individual. You then setup a large field study over one generation and then evaluate the findings. You could then use those results to make well-funded arguments on the matter and present them as actual findings.

Those are the two ways of looking at the problem and tackling it. The latter is the tool to pick if you want to get actual results. The former serves merely as personal reaffirmation.

sexism isn't generally accepted in society.

the causal relation might be totally distorted by the views you went in with.

WOmen have the chance to do anything, feth up and let them do it.
"victim mentality" is actually so much more sexist than anything else and propogated by the movement. ridiculous.

While I generally agree with you, Bullockist, the thing with that is...

It kinda lets guys off the hook really, doesn't it? I think it's probably a bit of both at the end of the day. - The big, important changes and things may need to be driven by your average women.

But, it might ease the road a tiny little bit if guys were to follow Wheaton's Law a bit closer.

 Bullockist wrote:
I'll give you an example I was working in a charity shop with a young girl we had a wardrobe to lift, she pulled the whole "i can't lift that it's too heavy I'm a girl schtick" and i said ( due to the influence of my family) "yes you can, lets just lift it you and me" and fething lo and behold she did.
she could do it , just thought she couldn't and the "monkey see monkey do" interpretation i grew up with showed her she could.

I am a bit confused. You seem to say that having examples of women being active and getting stuff done rather than standing helpless is great for feminism, and yet you seem to oppose that to the push for women in video games to be shown as more active and getting stuff done and less being helpless.
I mean, your whole message could be taken as an argument for why the Damsel trope is bad!


Sigvatr, just to understand where you stand, a few questions:
- Do you believe that there are a bunch of unconscious bias about women in society in general?
- Do you believe that the sexist tropes used in video game exists as a results of those bias?
- Do you believe that challenging those tropes and explaining what is wrong with them may challenge people to face their bias, and possibly allow them to counter-act them better?
- Do you believe that being exposed to a lot of video games where the gender expectations are reversed and subverted can reduce those bias?

For me, I would answer yes to all question .

 Sigvatr wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


And we're explaining why we feel a comparsion with violence is not apt; violence is (generally) not accepted in society, whereas sexism to a much greater extent is. Thus, the causal relation may very well be there in the case of sexism but not violence, because violence is not encouraged in everyday life.

We've only said this like three or four times already.

Again, you're rushing to conclusions. You already are one step further. You got it backwards: you perceive anything as problematic (i.e. sexism) and then look for anything that might benefit it or, in general, fit your idea. That's a very flawed perspective as you are not neutrally looking at things, instead, you actively want your initial thesis to be reaffirmed. This almost invalidates any findings by people who want to prove anything and would never make it past any review. The only thing you could prove with such an attitude is that individual motifs can be found in other forms of media...and then, you're at a dead end.

The correct way would be to do it the other way around: you look at media and then prove that media have a direct influence on attitudes, then go more specific and explicitely look at a special motion, e.g. sexism, identify motifs in one media and then show how those motifs lead to a change in behavior / attitude in any individual. You then setup a large field study over one generation and then evaluate the findings. You could then use those results to make well-funded arguments on the matter and present them as actual findings.

Those are the two ways of looking at the problem and tackling it. The latter is the tool to pick if you want to get actual results. The former serves merely as personal reaffirmation.

I'm quite aware of how to formulate a hypothesis correctly, thankyouverymuch.

Where in this thread have I argued that video games DO increase sexism? All I've done is to point out that your counter-arguments as to why it wouldn't aren't as solid as you seem to believe. That's the entire point; I'm saying it could (i.e. requires more studies) affect the levels of sexism, you are adamantly denying that it could.

As for the claim that sexism is not accepted in society, my response will have to wait until I'm at home, but suffice it to say that I find the claim hilariously naïve.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Where in this thread have I argued that video games DO increase sexism?

I am not arguing with anyone personally in this thread, I'm arguing general motions.

@Ox:

I don't want to get my personal opinion in this thread. It often doesn't go hand-in-hand with what would be logical and would cause confusion among users which would then lead to contiously explaining my posts. Like, for example, despite there not being any proof for motifs in media leading to a change in behavior among humans, we still don't let our 7 year old daughter watch adult movies (i.e. violent, not the *other* adult...).

The main problem of the entire discussion is that one side, moreso than the other, lets itself be overwhelmed and overimpress by personal opinion, turning the entire discussion into an even stinkier piece of poo-poo. No need to further mud the waters. We already have our resident "MY OPINION IZ BETTER ZAN FACTS" poster.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
All I've done is to point out that your counter-arguments as to why it wouldn't aren't as solid as you seem to believe. That's the entire point; I'm saying it could (i.e. requires more studies) affect the levels of sexism, you are adamantly denying that it could.

Given the counter-argument is largely 'prove it' I think it is pretty solid. Hitchen's Razor and all that.

Some more scientific studies would be nice, though.

At first I was like, "Man this doesn't belong in OT. Which mod moved this to OT?"

And then I read the last couple pages and I was like "Oh I get it. Man, Dakka Mods know the score. Those guys are amazing!"

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
That's the entire point; I'm saying it could (i.e. requires more studies) affect the levels of sexism, you are adamantly denying that it could.

Incorrect. I am stating that there is no proof for any correlation and that due to the suggested influence effect being the same as in comparable fields, i.e. violence, it is irrational to assume that there is an actual influence.

 daedalus wrote:
At first I was like, "Man this doesn't belong in OT. Which mod moved this to OT?"

And then I read the last couple pages and I was like "Oh I get it. Man, Dakka Mods know the score. Those guys are amazing!"

Yep, that's what I was thinking too.

 Bullockist wrote:
sexism isn't generally accepted in society.

the causal relation might be totally distorted by the views you went in with.

WOmen have the chance to do anything, feth up and let them do it.
"victim mentality" is actually so much more sexist than anything else and propogated by the movement. ridiculous.

I think its more that sexism isn't talked about once you leave certain areas (like schooling). My experience is that it certainly exists, at varying degrees, and both men and women can fall prey to it depending on circumstances. I just read this earlier today http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2983870/Realistically-better-b-job-night-Senior-female-surgeon-says-sexual-harrasment-rife-doctors-young-women-risk-careers.html and it wasn't very surprising or shocking to me. Women can do anything, they don't always have the chance to, though.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
That's the entire point; I'm saying it could (i.e. requires more studies) affect the levels of sexism, you are adamantly denying that it could.

Incorrect. I am stating that there is no proof for any correlation and that due to the suggested influence effect being the same as in comparable fields, i.e. violence, it is irrational to assume that there is an actual influence.

And we're disputing your argument that the fields are comparable. I'll give you that you've been clear on arguing the irrationality though, missing that was sloppy of me.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Where in this thread have I argued that video games DO increase sexism?

I am not arguing with anyone personally in this thread, I'm arguing general motions.

Yes, that's why you quoted me specifically and mansplained ( ) how creating a hypothesis works, I'm sure.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


And we're disputing your argument that the fields are comparable. I'll give you that you've been clear on arguing the irrationality though, missing that was sloppy of me.

We're not arguing the former - that's important. Violence and sexism are two vastly different subjects. I merely stated that the reasoning for why media might have a influence on both, i.e. its effect on those two topics, is the exact same and that therefore, assuming that there is a connection for one whereas it's been proven that there isn't for the other doesn't make much sense.

Yes, that's why you quoted me specifically and mansplained ( ) how creating a hypothesis works, I'm sure.

You brought the motion up I wasn't trying to "teach" you or anything in person, but felt that making a short explanation on how this works was necessary because I have seen others not being aware of how it works and because of a few detail-misunderstandings before. All good :*

 Sigvatr wrote:
I don't want to get my personal opinion in this thread. It often doesn't go hand-in-hand with what would be logical and would cause confusion among users which would then lead to contiously explaining my posts.

Okay, then do you think any of those claims should logically be believed true, or logically believed false, or all be considered undetermined?

 Sigvatr wrote:
Like, for example, despite there not being any proof for motifs in media leading to a change in behavior among humans, we still don't let our 7 year old daughter watch adult movies (i.e. violent, not the *other* adult...).

I am confused now. Are you letting her watch the other adult movies?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Okay, then do you think any of those claims should logically be believed true, or logically believed false, or all be considered undetermined?

Everyone should believe what he wants to believe. That is my point. On a more global level, it would be more logical to assume that there is no correlation as for the reasons pointed out above, but such a level only becomes interesting when you want to make blanket statements or explicitely refer to it. In a discussion, an opinion is an opinion.

 Sigvatr wrote:

I am confused now. Are you letting her watch the other adult movies?

Oh, absolutely. There's no better age to get used to what is expected from you as a woman than 7!





/e: It's a joke guys. Come on.

 Sigvatr wrote:
On a more global level, it would be more logical to assume that there is no correlation as for the reasons pointed out above

No correlation between sexist tropes in game and sexist bias in society? But then again, on that more global level, what about those other questions?

Answering those reliably would mean that I'd endulge in a lot of studies and ground work on that matter and with my current schedule, I can't dedicate so much time to it. Some aren't possible to discussed on a higher level anyway as they explicitely demand one's opinion.

Sexist content in games exist because sexism is a thing in society as well; as is the case with any media. Media reflects society, not the other way around. I, personally, think that there might be a bias towards women as most gamers are male by a large margin. Similarly as to why e.g. there's always a woman on a box of diapers - you cater to the main demography.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Answering those reliably would mean that I'd endulge in a lot of studies and ground work on that matter and with my current schedule, I can't dedicate so much time to it. Some aren't possible to discussed on a higher level anyway as they explicitely demand one's opinion.

Sexist content in games exist because sexism is a thing in society as well; as is the case with any media. Media reflects society, not the other way around. I, personally, think that there might be a bias towards women as most gamers are male by a large margin. Similarly as to why e.g. there's always a woman on a box of diapers - you cater to the main demography.

Yea Gender based marketing is really common in video games, more commonly catered towards men but there are video games that try to cater towards women they just aren't as common and generally aren't the AAA games like game of duty.

The industry probably does it because gender based marketing works from a business perspective, don't believe look me look at the Twilight series. Made lots of money for those involved and very clearly marketed towards women (more specifically teenage girls).

Edit: The fact that the main character of Twilight was a teenage girl and most main characters of video games are dudes are not coincidences.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Sexist content in games exist because sexism is a thing in society as well

That was actually one of the questions .

 Sigvatr wrote:
Media reflects society, not the other way around.

Sure, but changing media can change society, I believe.

 Sigvatr wrote:
I, personally, think that there might be a bias towards women as most gamers are male by a large margin.

I do not believe people watching a comedy like Welcome to the jungle are male by a large margin, but the bias was strong and broad in that movie . Well, nothing that would be so bad in isolation, as usual, but given how this is so prevalent in so many movies… So, I do not think gamers being mostly male is the sole reason, even though it certainly is a contributing factor.

 Blood Hawk wrote:
The industry probably does it because gender based marketing works from a business perspective

Do you mean the pink tax ?

Yeah, it works and it is very, very sad.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Do you mean the pink tax ?

Spoiler:

Yeah, it works and it is very, very sad.

It isn't just that, in entertainment especially a lot of products have specific targeted demographics ahead of time and the choices made about the product are done to cater to what the stereotypical person in that demographic wants.

A few examples: All the hosts on the View are women and the commonly have female guests and talk about issues that the stereotypical American women cares about, video games with masculine male protagonists and sexy female costars, and the twilight books that were very popular amongst teenage girls.

All of these have more specific demographics that they cater to.

This is often done because once again from business perspective this works.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Sure, but changing media can change society, I believe.

That's a logical fallacy. Media and society aren't mutually exclusive, in the contrary, media are part of society. Thus media can never change a society, a society always has to change on its own. A very common thought experiment is North Korea. If North Korea suddenly had access to international media, it would be very likely that a social revolution would break loose in the near future. One could quickly say "See? Media changed society!" but that would be wrong as in the end, it's people actively doing something to change their circumstances.

...and in the end, it would be a very different case as portrayed before in this thread.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Sure, but changing media can change society, I believe.

That's a logical fallacy. Media and society aren't mutually exclusive, in the contrary, media are part of society. Thus media can never change a society, a society always has to change on its own. A very common thought experiment is North Korea. If North Korea suddenly had access to international media, it would be very likely that a social revolution would break loose in the near future. One could quickly say "See? Media changed society!" but that would be wrong as in the end, it's people actively doing something to change their circumstances.

...and in the end, it would be a very different case as portrayed before in this thread.

So giving people the impetus to change something isn't changing anything at all whatsoever?

Further, if media is part of a society changing media would per definition change society, as part of it will have changed.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


So giving people the impetus to change something isn't changing anything at all whatsoever?

Where does this "media" come from?

 Blood Hawk wrote:
It isn't just that, in entertainment especially a lot of products have specific targeted demographics ahead of time and the choices made about the product are done to cater to what the stereotypical person in that demographic wants.

Yeah, I know. It is just both funny and sad when they do this on stuff that was previously completely gender-neutral because there is no damn reason for it to be gendered.

And I would like to provide a quite funny unexpected counter-example with My Little Pony : Friendship is Magic, which was targeted both at young girls and adults, mostly neckbeards .

 Sigvatr wrote:
That's a logical fallacy. Media and society aren't mutually exclusive, in the contrary, media are part of society.

Up until here, alright.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Thus media can never change a society, a society always has to change on its own.

You lost me here. If media are part of a society and media change, a part of society has changed, hence society has changed. Even assuming the strange idea that one part of society cannot change another part of society.

 Sigvatr wrote:
A very common thought experiment is North Korea. If North Korea suddenly had access to international media, it would be very likely that a social revolution would break loose in the near future. One could quickly say "See? Media changed society!" but that would be wrong as in the end, it's people actively doing something to change their circumstances.

It is funny you should say that, because you basically said “If you manage to give every North Korean access to the international media, the North Korean society would change”, which seems not that far away from “If you manage to make mainstream video games break all the sexist tropes, you will get video games players to change”. If I understand what you said well, you are saying the media are just giving people the will to change, but then they force the change themselves. I am okay with that. If video games breaking the sexist tropes just give people the will to be less sexist, and they do the change themselves, the starting point is still getting video games to break the sexist tropes, the end result is still people being less sexist, it is all the same to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also