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You almost never see a game where a characters power comes from someplace other then their weapon.

Side effect of most games being the equivalent of action movies. Violence is definitely a trait most commonly associated with men, but even in less violent media you'll see that the way a female who is 'strong' is often strong because she is confrontational, i.e. using violence or threatening it in the abstract to enforce her strength.

It's a common tactic used by writers when attempting to write a strong female character because I think they take the 'strong' part a little to literally. A character can be strong while being physically pathetic, but mainstream media usually completely skips that over because it's harder to get people behind the idea. Strength of character/person is most commonly associated with physical actions. Emotional or spiritual strength is regularly played down and given less importance (at least in western media). Usually in the form that having it means nothing if you're unwilling/unable to take action.

EDIT: Just think of the number of idealists in fiction who need the cynical 'realist' hero to come in and beat the bad guys to actually solve the problem of the week.

If we are going to talk about female gender stereotypes in gaming then we must also talk about male gender stereotypes as well. Whilst I do agree that women do draw a short straw when it comes to legitimate, respectful protagonists in the game we should not automatically exclude sorting out some of the god-awful male protagonists as well.

I'm not a fan of Anita, she has a very strong bias towards women which turn a lot of men away, she baits trolls and then acts as though male gamers are misogynistic pigs, she has gained lots of money through her Kick-starter, yet most of her videos are just her talking in front of a green-screen. You would of thought that she would of traveled around interviewing game designers, market researchers ect.. who work for the big companies such as EA, asking them about sexism in video-games and what is being done to counter it. It seems as though she is only in it for the money.

The best way to counter sexism in the gaming industry is to stop buying games from the big companies, buy indie games instead. I have found tons of great indie games that are not at all sexist.

 MetalOxide wrote:
If we are going to talk about female gender stereotypes in gaming then we must also talk about male gender stereotypes as well. Whilst I do agree that women do draw a short straw when it comes to legitimate, respectful protagonists in the game we should not automatically exclude sorting out some of the god-awful male protagonists as well.

Well talk about it. It would be more on topic then some of the posts. What male stereotypes in games do you feel are harmfull?

Manchu wrote:
Did turn up an on-point if preachy webcomic:

Spoiler:

That's an excellent example of one of the prime failings that comes up so very often in "feminist" critiques: the unwarranted assumption that the feelings and preferences of the particular woman (generally the one making the complaint) can be extrapolated to all women.

Note how the female viewpoint character (correctly) notes that being a "muscle bound hulk" is a power fantasy. What follows is a fascinating indulgence: in order to make Batman attractive to a female such as herself... she basically draws bishonen Batman.

Now, there is no denying that such an aesthetic has a great appeal to many girls and some women, the notion that it is one that is universal to the female sensibility is... difficult to support.

Put another way: Hugh Jackman from The Wolverine,


Is his characterization and physique a "male power fantasy"? Yes.

Is he also the subject of attraction for at least some women? ... Yes.

This is one of the most nagging problems that hampers useful discussions about things like "what should female miniatures look like?" "How do we get more women into games?" All too frequently a strange spectacle will ensue where a product (for example, the Kingdom Death Pin-Ups) that is un-self-consciously enjoyed by women (q.v. the early kickstarter campaign comments) will be decried as a product solely for the enjoyment of men.

Manchu wrote:
I generally agree with you regarding shallow characterization in video games. It's related in two ways: First, I think that on balance a gender-swappable character is less likely to be deeply characterized. Second, or perhaps more specifically, there's the distinction between (strong female) characters and strong (female characters).

But I ultimately think it's a separate point. My concern is that the "transvestite" approach actually reinforces the default quality of maleness in video games rather than confronting it because it merely disguises the continued preeminence of maleness as gender neutrality. Instead of using bows, developers and publishers use breasts to signal femaleness. The message is that women are free to live up to being men, which strikes me as similarly disempowering if more insidious.

That's a good point, and well made, and I think an important part of improving the overall state of the gaming industry. My only response is that optional genders is just part of a small solution, to be used in specific situations (where the character is not deep).

Wolverine sexy. Yes I can buy. That sexual objectified? Nope not in that pose with his claws out. You can be sexy without being objectified.

Irony here being that Wolverine was initially designed to be gruff and unappealing (back in the 80's) XD

 Talizvar wrote:
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.

You can make a believable and good female action character. Lara Croft is the iconic version. Samus is another. I'm not sure if it's that practical to craft two equally well drawn character as potential protagonists in the game, though (most games don't have one, so...)

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 don't think it's a problem if a cast of characters has only one woman, or one black guy or whatever other minority*, it's only a problem when that token character has no character elements beyond their gender. So if the female acts all girly, and uses her womanly wiles as a power in game, then you've got problems. But if one character happens to be a girl, but her place in the team relates to a skillset entirely independant of her gender, such as being the sniper or the explosives expert, then I don't think there's much of a problem.


*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.

Well the thing that coined Smurfette Principle was namely that the Smurfs were a large cast and a huge society with... One woman (eventually two but still) and her claim to smurfiness was being a chick.

It's mostly a dead trope today though. Most large casts have multiple leading women (dear lord Fire Emblem). Ones that only have one or two, usually only have a half dozen characters anyway. You can kind of expand the trope to include the common trend for the 1/3 female to male ratio common in fiction tho.

 Alexzandvar wrote:
Half naked male? Male power fantasy. Half named female? Sexist. She is the queen of double standards. Not to mention the queen of scammers for taking her over goal kickstarter money to take video game footage from OTHER PEOPLES VIDEOS WITHOUT THERE PERMISSION to use in her reviews.

That's not necessarily a contradiction. Arnold Schwarzenegger paraded around half naked, and his major audience when he was a body builder or a movie star was men. He represented a male fantasy.

Similarly, in lots of computer games there might be male torsos on display but it would be a mistake to think that it automatically means it's service for potential female gamers.


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 Alexzandvar wrote:
See: The idea of a strong women being a "Man with boobs" and a weak women being "Outright sexist" so, yeah its hard to tell what she wants when her argument contradicts itself.

Like the distinction with fan service, there are also distinctions when it comes to power. Having a female character act in a typically machismo style, kicking down doors, firing a big machine gun and just meeting every problem with a healthy dose of excessive violence will likely be seen as a 'man with boobs'.

For actual female strength, think of characters like Ripley from the Alien series. She's tough, resourceful, and doesn't back down to anyone or any situation.


That said, much of the problem above is kind of hard to solve, because dammit one of the things gaming is genuinely great at is big, dumb ultraviolence. Survival horror and RPGs and the like can do other kinds of protagonists and we need those types to flourish and include a wider variety of heroes, but there should always be plenty of scope for insane ultraviolence with male and 'male with boobs' lead characters.

 Buzzsaw wrote:
That's an excellent example of one of the prime failings that comes up so very often in "feminist" critiques: the unwarranted assumption that the feelings and preferences of the particular woman (generally the one making the complaint) can be extrapolated to all women.

Super-muscled comic book physiques do not constitute a power fantasy for each and every man. You nonetheless can admit that they constitute a male fantasy. Similarly, bishonen characteristics might not constitute the fantasy of each and every woman and yet still be called a form of female fantasy. I don't deny that bishonen Batman is, as you put it, an "indulgence." But that's kind of the point: beefcake Batman is also an indulgence. And indulgence is a matter of viewpoint.


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 sebster wrote:
My only response is that optional genders is just part of a small solution, to be used in specific situations (where the character is not deep).

As a purported solution gender issues in video games, it strikes me as a false flag. Also, I wonder if it's not so much that it's only applicable to shallow characterization as it is that it's another excuse to reinforce the status quo in video games -- that is, not only that male is default but that characters are shallow.

Manchu wrote:
Well, without even saying being violent is masculine, it's still an interesting point in the context of video games. Are violent female characters generally thought to be "stronger" (in what sense?) than non-violent ones? To rephrase it, does being violent somehow make a female character less problematic? I think the obvious answer is no but a lot talk about "positive" female characters centers around their combat badassery. Samus is a good example here. Now, perhaps that's because so many video games are primarily violent such that being strong in a video game is the equivalent of being violent? Maybe, but (with reference to the webcomic I posted earlier) if video game violence is presumptively based in male fantasy, then aren't female characters who find their strength in violence simply extensions of that same male fantasy (e.g., Lollipop Chainsaw)?

This is a really good point, and may be something inherent to action games and action movies alike. Violence is simply the way things get done - just as in GTA where stealing cars and machine gunning people is the basic means for the character to move events forward, putting on an Iron Man suit and blowing stuff up is the basic way for the hero to advance things in the Iron Man films.

So when you put a female character in that situation, in that kind of movie or game, then any empowerment is going to be seen through her own ability to commit violence. At some point, I suspect this becomes an impossible problem to solve, either we accept this or stop enjoying fiction based around lots of violence. Perhaps the better answer is to look to other forms of media to find our female heroines.

Or reconsider saddling masculinity with the characteristic of violence, which I think is rather harmful to men (rape being thought of as a "masculine" crime, for example).

 Buzzsaw wrote:
That's an excellent example of one of the prime failings that comes up so very often in "feminist" critiques: the unwarranted assumption that the feelings and preferences of the particular woman (generally the one making the complaint) can be extrapolated to all women.

Note how the female viewpoint character (correctly) notes that being a "muscle bound hulk" is a power fantasy. What follows is a fascinating indulgence: in order to make Batman attractive to a female such as herself... she basically draws bishonen Batman.

Now, there is no denying that such an aesthetic has a great appeal to many girls and some women, the notion that it is one that is universal to the female sensibility is... difficult to support.

I think there is a general tendency in that direction - some feminist literature is better understood when you replace 'not what women want' with 'not what I want'. But it's a point that only goes so far, there are general things that tend to appeal to either gender as a whole, and those things that are most commonly preferred have a habit of showing up in media aimed at that audience. And so when games are full of things that are typicaly male and not female power fantasies, we conclude they're primarily geared towards male consumers. And when the gaming public is increasingly female, that gets to be seen as a problem.


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 LordofHats wrote:
Well the thing that coined Smurfette Principle was namely that the Smurfs were a large cast and a huge society with... One woman (eventually two but still) and her claim to smurfiness was being a chick.

Exactly. It isn't just there being one chick, but that her personality was nothing more than 'chick'. She wasn't brainy smurf (who happens to be a chick) or grumpy smurf (who happens to be a chick).

It's mostly a dead trope today though. Most large casts have multiple leading women (dear lord Fire Emblem). Ones that only have one or two, usually only have a half dozen characters anyway. You can kind of expand the trope to include the common trend for the 1/3 female to male ratio common in fiction tho.

It has definitely gotten a lot better. Not just in the ratio, but also that women who are included tend to be more than just chicks these days. There's lots of other stuff I'd think of as a lot more problematic than the smurfette principle these days.


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Manchu wrote:
As a purported solution gender issues in video games, it strikes me as a false flag. Also, I wonder if it's not so much that it's only applicable to shallow characterization as it is that it's another excuse to reinforce the status quo in video games -- that is, not only that male is default but that characters are shallow.

If it was the only solution, sure. But a hypothetical future gaming land, where there was a lot of games with well written male and female characters that covered a vast variety of different human experiences, and where in cases where a game wasn't based around a particularly deep character then there was customisation to make the character as much (or as little) like yourself as you please, well that only strikes me as a good thing.

Shallow characters are to an extent a necessity produced by the nature of games. As I mentioned earlier, characters are defined by how they will act, but a video game is looking to give the player free agency so there's only so much characterisation you can give before you start limiting the player. That's why the GTA stories have always fallen flat for me, after a story cutscene about some personal drama, I get control and try to drive my car in to a helicopter.


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Manchu wrote:
Or reconsider saddling masculinity with the characteristic of violence, which I think is rather harmful to men (rape being thought of as a "masculine" crime, for example).

In one sense violence isn't inherently masculine. Men are much more common violent offenders, but its far from exclusive.

But on the other hand, violent media is far more commonly a male fantasy. We don't just tend to place men in violent roles in media, that media is almost always made for the consumption of a mostly male audience. And that reflects a basic reality in what men and women want in their media.

 Lynata wrote:

At least the one in Dragon Age had different hair and facial hair than the apparent industry standard, though.

Out of nowhere with this gak etc, and blatantly late to the party but I felt the need (Desire? Nay... NEED) to tell you about how much I hate this picture. I am normally pretty chill when posting on this site, more bemused by the confrontations I find myself in than anything, but this picture legitimately elevates my choler, because it is so stupid. I get the impression that at least some of it might be tongue in cheek (If only due to Mario being there), but I still fething DESPISE this picture.

Also I've never watched one of Anita's videos. Off topic etc.


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 Medium of Death wrote:

Tbh I'm not sure the girl in the black and white segment actually is Anita. She looks and sounds subtly different.

Manchu wrote:

 Buzzsaw wrote:
That's an excellent example of one of the prime failings that comes up so very often in "feminist" critiques: the unwarranted assumption that the feelings and preferences of the particular woman (generally the one making the complaint) can be extrapolated to all women.

Super-muscled comic book physiques do not constitute a power fantasy for each and every man. You nonetheless can admit that they constitute a male fantasy. Similarly, bishonen characteristics might not constitute the fantasy of each and every woman and yet still be called a form of female fantasy. I don't deny that bishonen Batman is, as you put it, an "indulgence." But that's kind of the point: beefcake Batman is also an indulgence. And indulgence is a matter of viewpoint.

And?

I don't mean to beg the question, certainly there are also men that would prefer a bishi Batman and women that prefer beefcake, and every permutation in-between. But so what? Again, the comic you posted is an excellent example of a phenomenon in feminist discussion: the woman in question, aggrieved by the male power fantasies (in the medium that exists to sell boys power fantasies !) redraws Batman to comport with her preferences. In the process she re-conceptualizes Batman in way that makes the male comic fan uncomfortable.

So often we see this in these discussions: the idea that products that exist, that have a market, that have a following, that are, in their current forms, popular, ought to be subject to revision to fit the idiosyncratic wishes of the particular "feminist" complaint. Here, feminist in "" because, again, the complainer generally does not feel the need to determine if other women actually like the thing she dislikes.

Simply put: these heroes are not power fantasies by accident. To continue with the Batman point, Batman has been in comics since 1939 (we're almost at Batman 75!). The current look and feel of Batman is a result of market testing, internal DC politics, writers and artists collaborations, and so on. DC comics only recently relaunched their entire comic universe (the New 52) and tried many new looks and feels for their old, established characters, but not Batman. Alone (I believe) out of the DC line-up, Batman and his history remained un-retconed (mostly): because as he exists now, he's the most popular DC character.

Put even more simply; money talks and bull...t walks. Assuming, arguendo, that success at being a power fantasy is sufficient for X males and is attractive for Y females, and B males would be receptive to a different concept (bishonen, for example) and C females would now find that alternalte character attractive, then the current relationship is:

X+Y>B+C

And in all reasonableness, the potential pool of Batman buyers is probably much greater then the people that would actually financially support the alternate view. In the end, we're not talking about art that exists on its own and for its own sake: we're talking about commercial products that at some point have to justify the expenditure to make them (in the case of video games, very expensive investments).

Let's be clear, comic book movies right now aren't dark and gritty because Hollywood is full of big fans of the Dark Age of comics: they are darker and grittier because X2 and The Dark Knight were a) darker and grittier, and b) made truck-loads of money. And because the tail of the Schumacher Batman movies were a) lighter and funnier, b) horrendously bad and c) flops. Add to that the failure of lighter movies like Green Lantern and you can understand, if not condone, the darkness creeping into movies where it is (IMO) a detriment, like the Spider-Man movies and Man of Steel (ugh).

 sebster wrote:
But a hypothetical future gaming land

Sure, in a hypothetical world without problems we won't need to carefully consider purported solutions.

 sebster wrote:
Shallow characters are to an extent a necessity produced by the nature of games.

I really disagree. Most games are extremely linear and agency is illusory. This is the well-made point of BioShock. Very few video games have so much player choice as to make shallow characterization a necessity. (Skyrim is an example.)

 sebster wrote:
And that reflects a basic reality in what men and women want in their media.

I'm a bit wary of this kind of argument. I don't think that markets simply reflect realities. I think they also generate realities.

 Buzzsaw wrote:
certainly there are also men that would prefer a bishi Batman and women that prefer beefcake, and every permutation in-between. But so what?

This is basically my response to your last post.

 Buzzsaw wrote:
we're talking about commercial products that at some point have to justify the expenditure to make them

Ah here's your real argument: gender bias pays the bills.

Manchu wrote:

 Buzzsaw wrote:
we're talking about commercial products that at some point have to justify the expenditure to make them

Ah here's your real argument: gender bias pays the bills.

That is a gross misrepresentation of my point, and coming from someone that has repeatedly accused another poster of misrepresenting them, particularly galling.

Please demonstrate how it is a misrepresentation.

I mean, to directly quote you (again), "money talks and bs walks."

 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.

Brienne of tarth is the only believable woman who fights I have ever seen, piss off Charlie's angels, Lara croft and all that girl power bs, give me a war torn brute of a woman and have her kick the hell out of a dozen men, not some 90lb 5'1" blonde anorexic knocking people across the room

 Talizvar wrote:
What if the Smurfette trope is just the strong female lead and a harem of men?

But it isn't. The female-led harem is a separate trope or, as you say, perhaps developed from a separate trope. But its existence does not foreclose the existence of the Smurfette Principal.

 Talizvar wrote:
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.

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.

Manchu wrote:
Did turn up an on-point if preachy webcomic:

Spoiler:

I can't remember if that's from 'dumbing of age' or another comic by the same web comic writer. The web comic writer is david willis. A friend showed his comics to me. They're actually usually pretty good. I don't think he always specifically writes the characters to his thoughts though so that might just be that one character's opinions. In 'dumbing of age' his characters have a lot of negative and positive traits. He's actually a good web comic writer. His stuff is pretty funny and awesome sometimes. Lots of emotions are to be had from his stuff. Don't take one strips worth of his comic as the whole thing. He has like over 10 years worth of written comics though a lot of characters feature in multiple comics and many are similar.

nomotog wrote:

 MetalOxide wrote:
If we are going to talk about female gender stereotypes in gaming then we must also talk about male gender stereotypes as well. Whilst I do agree that women do draw a short straw when it comes to legitimate, respectful protagonists in the game we should not automatically exclude sorting out some of the god-awful male protagonists as well.

Well talk about it. It would be more on topic then some of the posts. What male stereotypes in games do you feel are harmfull?

Way too many male protagonists are over-masculine; typically violent, have some form of attention deficit disorder, way too over muscular, typically Caucasian and hardly ever portrayed showing any kind of remorse or sorrow for killing people. I would like to see male characters in a wider range of body-shapes and ethnicity and more of a focus on weaknesses and emotion as well.

Some people claim that over-masculine men are part of a male power fantasy, I disagree. I think that many young men (and women) are conditioned in to thinking that over-masculinity is a male power fantasy by big companies because it is easier and cheaper to produce goods if people are made to believe that they all want the same thing.

Manchu wrote:
In what sense is gender not bound up in gender roles? Are you conflating gender with sex?

I don't think so, but I do think they're remarkably similar. A man indulging in female gender roles doesn't become a woman somehow, and the reverse is also true.


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 sebster wrote:
That's not necessarily a contradiction. Arnold Schwarzenegger paraded around half naked, and his major audience when he was a body builder or a movie star was men. He represented a male fantasy.

So what's the female equivalent of that? What's the female fantasy?

If I had to base my opinion solely on the women I've gamed with, I'd say it actually is the stripperific waif-fu practitioner. Back in my college days of MMOing, that's what the overwhelming majority of females in the guild I ran with made, despite options to not do so. It's what my girlfriend continues to make, going out of her way to make her toons as hot as possible. Even Felicia Day, who identifies herself as a feminist and has quite a lot to say about objectification, has said that when the character options allow it, she basically makes herself with larger lips and breasts.

The thing pushed as the feminine ideal these days is perfection. You have to be physically attractive to men, talented, have a boyfriend/husband and when the time comes be a good mother. And none of the rest counts if you aren't physically attractive to men.

There are probably a few other conditionals you could throw on there, but that's the gist of it.

 MetalOxide wrote:
Way too many male protagonists are over-masculine; typically violent, have some form of attention deficit disorder, way too over muscular, typically Caucasian and hardly ever portrayed showing any kind of remorse or sorrow for killing people. I would like to see male characters in a wider range of body-shapes and ethnicity and more of a focus on weaknesses and emotion as well.

Part of what's bad about the gender binary is it restricts men, too. I think men get gender-policed a lot more than women, for some reason. I want to say it's because if you're a man doing feminine things you're making a lie of the whole system, whereas if you're a woman doing masculine things it's only logical because masculine > feminine.

(and just to note that both masculine and feminine in this context are completely arbitrary signifiers that we place on things, not intrinsic to the things themselves)

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
The thing pushed as the feminine ideal these days is perfection. You have to be physically attractive to men, talented, have a boyfriend/husband and when the time comes be a good mother. And none of the rest counts if you aren't physically attractive to men.

Who's that idea pushed by?

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.

Are you complaining about not being able to wear a skirt to work in the summer?

Manchu wrote:
Are you complaining about not being able to wear a skirt to work in the summer?

No I think they just want to wear shorts rather then a hot and itchy suit.