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.

It is regrettable that there are not more female main characters in games that are not a "me too" of a prior successful male character.

What few there are usually a bit ummm... exaggerated in behavior or looks (Lara Croft springs to mind).

I personally like to treat everyone as gender neutral as possible just for the utility of it (good habit for keeping married men out of trouble).
I have found when getting on good "friend" terms with ladies at work they have commented that being nice but not responding to flirtation upset them to no end.
They thought I was gay at first and some of the guys thought so too when I did not take part in the "manly man look at that woman" moments.

Everyone wants to be included and treated "special" in a nice way and do not like to be treated like everyone else.

Women still lag behind in being paid equally for the same job of a guy: the culture especially in business has not caught up just yet.

I personally want "differences" between sexes to be minimized in being pointed out or ignored altogether but you cannot treat a woman as a man or a man as a woman so in some small ways you cannot really win in making all things equal unless you treat both groups different than they are used to.

X-com, you are "commander" you could be he or she, the troops: I swear I get more women than men.
Mass Effect I think did well to create a consistent male and female persona for the games.
I like that some of the highest rated games are inclusive in interest to either sex which shows they are getting a clue that there is money to be made if you can make it interesting for anyone.

I am worried of "over adjustment" where the "equality" striven for goes too far and shifts the balance the other way.

I am getting a little sick of seeing so many shows and yes, games that portray the man as a "meathead" where the long suffering smart woman has to help him navigate this confusing world so some turnabout is being felt.

I think that the most irritating thing for women is that men make many assumptions about women and implement things without getting further information and irritating them to no end because it is not even intentional.

Got a Roman Catholic background so Sisters of Battle: power armor nuns is an incredibly scary concept.

Games are different than a movie.

You have to make or buy the 3D models or sprites for each.

I would be very interested to see how a conversation with a natural 5' character and another 6' 3" would go.
The camera angles would be comical.

It all boils down to cost savings and if there is perceived value in giving all that choice for either sex.

Skyrim made a very good attempt of giving all the variety you would want but there was some height restrictions.

My wife has a friend that is 6' 5" in height and she is proportionate to her size (not a stick). Let that sink in for a minute. She is super strong and is enormous up close. Torso is a bit intimidating (or impressive depending on your outlook) since it is at typical face level and proportionate to her size. Give her a warhammer and she would scare the heck out of any would-be warrior.

People come in all shapes and sizes this character is a bit over the top (Vasquez from Aliens) but she knows how to make the other guy look like a wimp:

I swear a cartoon or game character we should try to make as androgynous as possible to be inclusive.

Just watch a child focused cartoon, see a few.
With my parental non-clinical opinion I could not witness more media that tries to define male and female roles, models and behavior.
Any product that tries to shoe-horn a gender bias, just do not buy it or give it a means for funding.

It all boils down to "not caring" or not making a point of it, why feel a need to "put a bow on it" in the first place?

Do not call your boy "slugger" do not be afraid to wrestle with your daughter, get your boys pets, a chance to nurture.

Games reflect what we have trained into our kids to be an interest.
So action, social interaction, relationships, puzzles and "spatial" relationships are not the specific skillset of a gender: it is common across both it just needs to be given a chance.

These videos are of interest but makes no attempt at pointing to root cause.
Here is an area specific to the industry: http://www.techwell.com/2012/10/culture-shock-battle-sexes-software-development
We are still at a stage where there is not enough female representation that an all male development staff has no clue on how to write for a female audience.
All it takes is hiring one, the rest will follow.

It is far easier to make a video to criticize the industry rather than just say to your viewers have respect for each other and question what behavior you are trying to promote.

 DarthOvious wrote:
One thing I've noticed though is it is never asked whether boys and girls tend to have these differences to begin with biologically. There was a documentary in Norway questioning why more women weren't in traditionally male dominated jobs. This question was asked especially because Norway is considered to be one of the more gender neutral countries of the world, however there was still a lack of women employed in certain jobs like Engineering.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70 What was found was actually quite interesting. Biology may play a part in what careers people may choose to go for.

I had looked at a few articles and have read things citing that "boys development is more focused on physical aspects as for girls it is more social".
I did not cite it or quote it because it is exceptionally hard to find a scientific controlled study on tendencies of a given gender that is definitive.

Health, body type, those have real "mechanical" demonstrable differences in gender that would have some impact on behavior (we all play to our strengths).

Right now the barrier is the cultural climate of insufficient mentoring or a sense of "belonging" than a gender aptitude for a given job.
Men are still not exposed to women enough to treat them as one of the group: they still think they are someone to be given special treatment; trying to be inclusive but achieving the opposite.

It is funny how in an effort to be thoughtful, men alienate women. Another victim of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".

Many preferences in play, dress and social interaction could be attributed to "social construct" since we all had parents that made decisions of what got pushed in front of us as kids.

The role of attraction has to have some nod of the head toward furthering the species so certain combinations would not result in off-spring. (Women and children first is species best practice).

I could assert that the "new social construct" with adoption and legalized same sex marriages and the legal rights that follow has allowed for successful non-traditional families. They contribute to society and create contributing citizens. The gender of the individual has less relevance today.

I have less concern for "girly/manly" behavior than the honesty of it and how easily it is "allowed".

It is back to two distinctions:

The male and female role of furthering the species; we are not at the level where a male can carry a baby to term BUT we are able to take an X chromosome and with some cloning tech a new viable baby can be produced in a woman without a man's input. It would be interesting to dig further on what could be done to create a Y out of an X if wanted.

We then get into what would be considered "social" distinctions of gender behavior with no regard to biological gender:

Lipstick lesbians, "butch" lesbians, cross-dressers, hermaphrodites, gay, metrosexual, bi-sexual, those who have undergone a sex change so in all regards are that gender but are unable to create children through "normal" biological means.

The list seems endless to me due to the endless need for labels and assigning a "culture" to each of these groupings.

We can then look at these "tropes" are created by a "culture" that has monopolized the business and more diversity would be needed for the varied viewpoints. I would be interested as well in the ethnic diversity in these various groups as well.

It is self fulfilling that a more social oriented person who can see they do not visibly fit in with the existing group would be hesitant to join. It requires one to bite the bullet, get in there and mentor the next applicant that attempts to join.

It only takes one. In my work though, I have found the one women tends to like being "special" in that way and when we hired another woman she was less than accepting of her (nasty in fact) so from my work experience I find "normal" women to be their own worst enemy.

"Trope": A common or overused theme v.s. women
= An overused theme against women

The "discussion" is taking two choices of games developers and slapping labels on each of them. The "vs" also sets the tone for antagonism, is there intent for opposition or hostility? Really?

I think just by the names given, make them offensive, I wonder who came up with the label?

Is their overuse in itself offensive?

Ms Male Character: One script or role was made and the look and sound of the character is configurable. Who is to say that the original character was created as an aggressive gender neutral? Many of these games are action so a "genteel" character is not a good fit.
Changing the packaging for the same game to make it attractive to another target audience with no change to the core game dynamic is offensive no matter if "they put a bow on it' or not.
Summary: To even try to make a distinction of a gender behavior would be a failure from the start.

Smurfette Principle: The one token character. That has been an attempt at being inclusive, not exclusive to gender but to race as well in past media product. By just having one character that stands out from the rest draws attention to the difference. To be "special" for no reason can be wrong when we wonder what the motivations were to put them in the game.
Summary: Two choices here: the character is special because it suits the plot or bury all the characters in huge variation of gender, race and body types.

I think the true issue is not enough variation in programmers to defend the choices made. If Masseffect was made by all female programmers what would be said then?

 sebster wrote:
*That so many games have just one of these groups, and very few have all girls with one guy is problematic for the industry as a whole, but not for individual games.

It seemed you agreed with what was said that as long as the "special" character has a critical purpose within the story other than some group representative.

Your quote above has me thinking of another trope: "the harem" the one guy with a bunch of women after him, typical plotline for Japanese anime like Ranma 1/2 (great male/female gender role confusion).
What if the Smurfette trope is just the strong female lead and a harem of men? You could read stuff like this with Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake character.

I think to say that some of these tropes that started as ... misguided, may have been repurposed today.

My fear is that the inequity may have gone on long enough that the feminism movement will not stop at equality and feel justified in pursuing more.

Manchu wrote:
Anita Sarkeesian's videos simply bring up topics; they don't attempt to silence anyone else. This is a key difference between her and many of her detractors.

It can be because of the cultural inequity that goes both ways that guys get so "butthurt" about her videos: I personally dislike how TV shows typically portray guys as the stupid man-child that the woman has to steer around like another of her kids. For guys to point out things they do not like, it tends to be perceived as whining and I would receive more ridicule from men than women. The man-rage is because many guys do not have a clear path on the new expected man behavior (more correctly "person" behavior) and it still looks bad pursuing any "man's rights" movement. It is a jealousy on their part that these "issues" are pointed out and the question remains "what am I as a guy supposed to do about it?".

I treat my female co-workers like any other "person" I work with and no special treatment other than what their position deserves.
It appears to bother them to no end.
I must wear pants, no shorts in the summer, women get to wear skirts (and do not give it a miss).

What I get at is that a "person" should be treated the same to be inclusive and fair.
Like any human being, if a group can get special privileges over others they are happy to accept it, yet get upset if there is a cost.

I am a quality engineer, I have to point out things that are wrong, but my real job is avoiding the problem to begin with and address root-cause.
The "starting the discussion" is alright and all but giving more air time to potential solutions is the way to go.
There are more high profile representation of women in the tech sector than ever and I cannot wait to see how that progresses with the added diversity.

As pointed out a trope is "valid" it is already out there (the horses are gone, closing the barn door is pointless), attacking how relevant it is now compared to five years ago is a more productive discussion.

As has been pointed out, these "gender roles" are more elements of our cultures.

There will always be ways to divide groups of people from others by pointing out what makes them "different".

These discussions seem too "sensitive" looking to find offence in perceived bias or pigeonholing.

I really do not care how anyone behaves as long as they "play well with others" and think that would further the cause for humanity more than any named group of people ever could because in the end they have agendas and tend to only be inclusive to those they represent.

Funny, my wife said she liked me when I first met her working together in the summer. My buddy liked her and kept trying to help her lift things and do stuff for her and I just treated her like "one of the guys" and only helped when asked. It usually boiled down to matters of technique than brute strength anyway so she did not need or want any real help. I asked why it meant something to her back then and she said "it felt like respect". Calling her the "Big Amazon" (5' 10") got mixed reviews as well.