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Here's an example:



The "nice guys of okcupid" has images of self-proclaimed "nice guys" from OKCupid, a dating website, with what they have said and voted for overlaid on top.

Here's an explanation:

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/01/sympathy-for-the-nice-guys-of-okcupid/266929/

Ugh, no. That article is almost CNN-like in its execution.

You're not making a lot of sense.

Isn't the entire purpose of a dating site to eventually have sex? I know some people have had success with them (my cousin met his wife of 4 years now on eharmony I think), but most males on it at least are just trying to scratch an itch.

 Manchu wrote:
You're not making a lot of sense.

The article exists not to explain the "Nice Guys of OKCupid", but rather to make excuses for them.

The second half of the article is facepalm inducing.

 Amaya wrote:
Isn't the entire purpose of a dating site to eventually have sex? I know some people have had success with them (my cousin met his wife of 4 years now on eharmony I think), but most males on it at least are just trying to scratch an itch.

And there's nothing wrong with that. But you should at least be honest about it.

 Amaya wrote:
Isn't the entire purpose of a dating site to eventually have sex?

According to whose standards? Oh that's right:

 Amaya wrote:
but most males on it at least are just trying to scratch an itch.

I'm not sure I agree. The guys I know using these sites are looking for more than sex. But they are definitely looking for their hot girl reward.

Some connections:

- the damsel trope portrays women as the reward for bearing hardships
- the White Knight image is generated by the damsel trope
- the Nice Guy ® is the candid White Knight, laying out the real story
- the damsel trope therefore encourages dudes to see considerate behavior as a hardship


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:
The article exists not to explain the "Nice Guys of OKCupid", but rather to make excuses for them.

Nah, the article doesn't excuse their behavior at all. If anything, I think it shows how positive goals, like seeking companionship and intimacy, can be twisted into gendered hatred.

 Melissia wrote:
Ugh, no. That article is almost CNN-like in its execution.

Really? Even when it says;

See, the site seemed to say. You're not single because you're 'too nice'. You're single because you're a jerk.

Critics of the Nice Guy™ are right on at least one thing: Nobody "owes" you sex, no matter how nice you are, how much money you spend on them, or how close a friendship you have.

What these men lack in their lives isn't just sex, but all the things that sex stands for in our culture: intimacy and connection with other people, affirmation of our own value and desirability, and love.

But if it's wrong to assume that if you treat someone nicely enough, they'll eventually fall in love with you, surely it's also wrong to conclude that if someone is a serial sexual reject, it must be because they're a jerk.

What part(s) did you feel were CNN-like?

Here's an article about the experiences of a person from within the industry:

http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/remember-mes-surprising-connection-to-facebook-and-why-its-protagonist-had

Relevant parts for this discussion:

By the time Remember Me was shown to prospective publishers, it was too late to change Nilin from a woman to a man, and this was enough to cause potential backers to abstain from publishing the game. “We had some that said, 'Well, we don't want to publish it because that's not going to succeed. You can't have a female character in games. It has to be a male character, simple as that,'” Morris told the Report.

Even if Morris had changed Nilin to be male, that solution produced its own drama. “We wanted to be able to tease on Nilin's private life, and that means for instance, at one point, we wanted a scene where she was kissing a guy,” Morris said. “We had people tell us, 'You can't make a dude like the player kiss another dude in the game, that's going to feel awkward.'”

Morris chuckled. “I'm like, 'If you think like that, there's no way the medium's going to mature,'” he said. “There's a level of immersion that you need to be at, but it's not like your sexual orientation is being questioned by playing a game. I don't know, that's extremely weird to me.”

Mind you I don't entirely agree with his reasons for having a female character as the main, but even still it sheds some light on the industry. A very negative light.

Or to quote an article from TheMarySue: "To put it mildly, [there is] a pervasive, industry-wide assumption that female-led gains don’t sell and therefore are not worth the risk, and that even if you do make them you probably shouldn’t spend too much money on them [...]" There is an attitude in the video game industry to inherently devalue what women want. It is by no means unique to the video game industry-- it also exists in film as well, for example.

It certainly shows the field of difference that can and does exist between those who physically make the game itself and the pencil pushers who want to sell it. Especially since the game's concept is on its face awesome.

Although, the article also shows the opposite side of the coin as well:

“The world we were building was much more about emotion, intimacy, identity, and the way technology would intersect those. It just felt like the other side of the coin, the yin and the yang, and it just made sense to us that it would be a female character.”

So yeah. His reason's aren't pure but it's still useful for us. Kind of harks back to Cracked's #3 actually. Maybe it's not just about male sexuality, but how we express emotion. All the big guy hero's tend to be kind of stoic (Master Chief immediately springs to mind) at least in their demeanor. Guys only show emotion when they're pissed, or their girlfriend just died (in which case they're still kind of pissed). Women are seen as being more emotional (in both the positive and negative senses of that word).

 Melissia wrote:
Mind you I don't entirely agree with his reasons for having a female character as the main, but even still it sheds some light on the industry. A very negative light.

You mean its a stagnating industry that keeps rehashing the same plot lines and titles year after year with little innovation?

 LordofHats wrote:
It certainly shows the field of difference that can and does exist between those who physically make the game itself and the pencil pushers who want to sell it. Especially since the game's concept is on its face awesome.

As usual its the pencil pushers that are more concerned with a regurgitating a format that is successful and not taking risks

I wouldn't be surprised if some women reject female leads unless written extremely well under the belief that they are being pandared to.

 Amaya wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised if some women reject female leads unless written extremely well under the belief that they are being pandered to.

That's because there has been a history of half-assed pandering in the media.

(also fixed the typo, pandered, not pandared, was going to make a pun but it wasn't even remotely funny)

This is the point that you have to keep in mind: "acceptable" isn't the same thing as "unproblematic."

The goal of critical thinking is not to suck the fun out of everything you and other people enjoy.

Red panda communism? IMO games should have gender neutral leads. Let players decide.

 Amaya wrote:
IMO games should have gender neutral leads.

Yeah, I agree -- outside of licensed characters at least. For example, you can and have to play Catwoman for some parts of Arkham City but overall it's Batman's story and switching him out for Batgirl (or even Robin for that matter) would not make for a better game.

 Manchu wrote:
About #4, I think this one helps contextualize the anger even guys who consider themselves open-minded have with feminist critiques. For example, after watching the damsels vid I thought to myself, "given that I agree with everything she said why do I still feel like she was hostile?" There was a gap between my rational and emotional reactions. In some way, and I admit to having trouble articulating this, I think this is related to the fine line between being decorated and being decor. I think this also comes up in that sleazy "Feminism v. Facts" vid where that guy attempts to rehabilitate the damsel trope by saying Sarkeesian doesn't value healthy relationships.

About #5, I really agree with LoH's notes on this one -- all popular media, including video games, do tell men that a beautiful woman is their just reward as part of a successful male life. And so this is inextricably bound up with many a man's definition of success and feeling of self worth. So it's not simply that men feel they are owed a beautiful woman but more importantly that men feel that a successful man is owed a beautiful woman. Otherwise successful single guys that I know have a lot of self-doubt wrapped up in being single -- and it's toxic: not having a beautiful wife or girlfriend throws everything else they've accomplished into doubt.

These examples show how feminist critiques aren't necessarily out to "get men" or somehow "even the score" (as per Monster Rain asking what an acceptable ratio of object-to-subject portrayals of female characters would be earlier ITT) but rather how uncritical use of narrative structures like the damsel trope have negative consequences for women and men.

I wasn't the one who started the conversation about numbers, if you'll recall. I simply asked what the acceptable ratio would be after you mentioned a numerical disparity.

/waits for several paragraphs of semantic distortion about how that's not what you said.

I think that okcupid tumblr has hurt my brain a bit...

May be needing to rethink stuff.

 Monster Rain wrote:
I wasn't the one who started the conversation about numbers, if you'll recall. I simply asked what the acceptable ratio would be after you mentioned a numerical disparity.

It wasn't a conversation about numbers. I mentioned what should be an obvious disparity, you started in on ratios. When I directly asked you whether you meant it as a cap and trade solution -- i.e., if there are X non-objectified female characters how many objectified ones is the industry allowed -- you ignored the question. Care to answer it now?

 Manchu wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
IMO games should have gender neutral leads.

Yeah, I agree -- outside of licensed characters at least. For example, you can and have to play Catwoman for some parts of Arkham City but overall it's Batman's story and switching him out for Batgirl (or even Robin for that matter) would not make for a better game.

Ooo, I wouldn't bring comics into this discussion. If anything has misogynistic overtones it is western comics...

http://thehawkeyeinitiative.com/

As for that story I mentioned. Fortunately a couple of posts earlier have highlighted a new word, so I don't need to embarrass myself too badly. However, I will caveat this as, since it's a true story, there will no doubt be plenty of me rationalising and making excuses. So yeah, sorry.

It was the first night out with some other new people at a new job in IT back in 2008/9. So there were a bunch of us round a table and I started mansplaining about techy stuff to one of the girls there who was a trainee Project Manager. Basically, I was making a twit out of myself in doing it, without noticing until one of the other guys whispered to me and said, "dude, she's a techie."

I then realised how much of a jerk I'd been. So yeah, that's kinda a proof I suppose that there is still an issue.

There's a couple of other experiences about the topic which, luckily for me, don't really involve me. Someone in another area I worked told me about how at various workplaces she kept getting dragged out to do all these 'Women in Technology' presentations internally and at local schools and things despite being perfectly content to just sit there and code stuff like everyone else. Now, is that actually not helping anyone if she's really does not want to do public speaking? Wouldn't she have been better just being treated by anyone else with just a casual, "anyone wanting to look to impress the boss anytime soon by volunteering for this?"

Now, I do think things have improved, even in the few years since I made a jerk out of myself on that night out. I mentioned it earlier in the thread but, people like Ada Lovelace are now getting more recognition.

I, personally, think that people like Felicia Day (even though I think there is some controversy about her????) is doing some gap bridging too. Or have I just gone off on a tangent there?

Yeah. She's been in the news for awhile because of the success of The Guild but last year some idiot on Destructoid got drunk (according to said idiot) and posted some comments about whether or not she was relevant and equated her to a glorified booth babe. Fortunately he got the boot within a matter of hours.

I dislike Felicia Day. Her acting hasn't impressed me and for some reason every other comment about her is how how she is...at the risk of invoking the "2/10 would not bang" meme...I just don't see it.

 Amaya wrote:
at the risk of invoking the "2/10 would not bang" meme

That's Cracked's # 4.

Not sure how you mean that. Do you mean that guys saying that an attractive girl isn't attractive or that the first thing a guy does is judge a woman's appearance?

Pretty much both. More obviously the second. But the first one, too: I mean she's obviously not unattractive. She's no super model, either. We justify making such distinctions based on her career choices: as an actress, she's selling her appearance. Therefore, with all the other conventions of consumerism in tow, we get to be as harsh as we want. Even guys who generally are uncomfortable with the thought of viewing women as decoration find it less problematic when talking about actresses.

I think the notion that actresses rely on their appearance to be successful is very outdated. I can't think of a particularly famous actress who is renowned for her acting ability that is particularly stunning. If anything the most attractive ones are lambasted as being mediocre and never become extremely successful despite their good lucks.

I also think the only reason anyone thinks they look as a good as they supposedly do is because that message is constantly shoved down our throats by the media.

 Amaya wrote:
for some reason every other comment about her is how how she is...at the risk of invoking the "2/10 would not bang" meme...I just don't see it.

Now, if a male did this would he be accused of objectifying her, or of basing his opinion of her on her physical appearance?

 Amaya wrote:
I think the notion that actresses rely on their appearance to be successful is very outdated.

I agree very much. Doesn't get in the way of the "would not bang" meme.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Now, if a male did this would he be accused of objectifying her, or of basing his opinion of her on her physical appearance?

I think Amaya is a dude.

I meant outdated in the sense that it simply isn't true.

Kate Winslet is flat out unattractive (imo) and I don't see how anyone outside of a select few would honestly say she's a particularly attractive woman. Who cares? She can act, that's all that matters. If anything incredibly attractive actresses would be detrimental to a film as it would be harder for audiences to relate to them as they would be so idealistic.