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.

sirlynchmob wrote:
You're still on that 99% that you made up? interesting

So, how did you understand that 99%? 99% of WHO do WHAT?

sirlynchmob wrote:
up 5% in 2 years in some significant growth, apparently games are more appealing to women. There you go, I demonstrated that you are wrong.

Nope, you just showed women were more interested in games than they used to. You did not show whether this sexualization and the damsel tropes helped, or mitigated, or had no influence whatsoever on this phenomenon.
I could just as well say that this proves the fact women really, really want to emulate me because they think I am so cool .

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:
You're still on that 99% that you made up? interesting

So, how did you understand that 99%? 99% of WHO do WHAT?

sirlynchmob wrote:
up 5% in 2 years in some significant growth, apparently games are more appealing to women. There you go, I demonstrated that you are wrong.

Nope, you just showed women were more interested in games than they used to. You did not show whether this sexualization and the damsel tropes helped, or mitigated, or had no influence whatsoever on this phenomenon.
I could just as well say that this proves the fact women really, really want to emulate me because they think I am so cool .

you stated this remember?

Do you not agree that female representation in game includes way too much sexualization?
And that there are way, way more damsel in distress than dude in distress?
And that this makes game less appealing to women?

if it makes games less appealing to women, than why are more women playing? more women across all genres, do you have anything other than your opinion to back it up? You can say whatever you'd like, it doesn't make it right. It's just your opinion you have no evidence to support anything you're claiming.

sirlynchmob wrote:
you stated this remember?

Yeah, I do. You did not answered. And you left the relevant part out of your quote.
99% of WHO do WHAT?

sirlynchmob wrote:
if it makes games less appealing to women, than why are more women playing?

Because more and more of them learn that I do play video games.
Now let us be serious, that sexualization and damsel tropes both are not some recent evolution. If anything, they are receding (MOBA being quite the exception, I guess). So, how you can link the increase of women players to the fact those factors are not off-puting to them is beyond me.

sirlynchmob wrote:
It's just your opinion you have no evidence to support anything you're claiming.

That never stopped you, actually.

SO still no evidence for anything you claim. Prove it, show that those factors are off putting to any significant population. 2 people is not enough for that claim.

sirlynchmob wrote:


that's why I listed 4 sources, there's more but I figured 4 different sources should be enough to prove the point.

Check the primary source of all these "different sources"

sirlynchmob wrote:
SO still no evidence for anything you claim.

You definitely have comprehension issues.
99% of WHO do WHAT?

sirlynchmob wrote:


if it makes games less appealing to women, than why are more women playing? more women across all genres, do you have anything other than your opinion to back it up? You can say whatever you'd like, it doesn't make it right. It's just your opinion you have no evidence to support anything you're claiming.

Because more older women have got involved due to the influx of casual and social games on portable devices and social media. Last I checked Candy Crush had no characters of any kind in its actual gameplay, female or otherwise.

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:If anything, they are receding

I'm not so sure about that. The first generations of computer games were actually extremely innocent in that quite often you did not even have human characters at all, but just some animal or other sort of creature. Of the rest, the majority was platformers with minimum story and sports games. There's not even much room for sex or sexism to slip into a game, aside from blatantly offensive stuff like the infamous Custer's Revenge. At best, the only sort of criticism that could spring to mind was the usual prevalence of the default white male as the player character (though exceptions like Giana Sisters did exist even back then). It was "kids stuff", really. Very different from what's being sold today. Only with the advent of better graphics and more story-intensive stuff do we actually see games attempting to portray living, breathing worlds - complex simulations where you can portray actual societies - and studios attempting to capitalise on the appeal of digital bodies made available to serve the player's interests.

Rather, I would believe the rising interest in video games is quite simply an interest in the medium itself, as a consequence of society having changed sufficiently to allow more and more women to break with traditional gender expectations when it comes to hobbies/pastime. That many games aren't made with them in mind or even objectify women would not affect this general fascination. It's like asking why American movies are popular in countries that do not dub them - arguably, just because people have to watch them subtitled does not mean that no-one will watch them. Though obviously, their popularity might be even greater if they'd get a proper dub.
Also, see my previous comment regarding a mental checklist. I wouldn't be surprised if this - considering both the pros and cons of a product, and making a decision based on a personal threshold of how many cons one would be able to cope with and still have fun - is the approach most players take when buying and playing games.

 Lynata wrote:
Only with the advent of better graphics and more story-intensive stuff do we actually see games attempting to portray living, breathing worlds - complex simulations where you can portray actual societies - and studios attempting to capitalise on the appeal of digital bodies made available to serve the player's interests.

Okay, were you talking Pong old, or Duke Nukem 3D old ?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Lynata wrote:
Only with the advent of better graphics and more story-intensive stuff do we actually see games attempting to portray living, breathing worlds - complex simulations where you can portray actual societies - and studios attempting to capitalise on the appeal of digital bodies made available to serve the player's interests.

Okay, were you talking Pong old, or Duke Nukem 3D old ?

Duke Nukem definitely tried to capitalise on the appeal of digital bodies to serve the players interests, amiright?

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl 6 wrote:Okay, were you talking Pong old, or Duke Nukem 3D old ?

More like the time in-between the two.
I can see where you're coming from, though.

But even so, I still have a feeling that it's both more widespread but also more "insidious" now. Back then, you had a few games deliberately go for shock value, Postal-style, both with violence as well as with boobies. Nowadays, you have stuff like bikini armour in "family friendly" games (WoW) and other sexualised portrayals being considered standard, and perhaps that is what makes it harder to discuss as it's not as "in your face" anymore. Some might see it as a step forward as it's not as crass anymore, but it could also be seen as a step backwards in that it leads to acceptance of sexism just because it's been scaled down a bit and gaming itself has become "mainstream". I mean, look at what advertisement is doing to our society due to its prevalence / amount of exposure.

Gaming felt so much more innocent 10 years ago.

 Lynata wrote:

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl 6 wrote:Okay, were you talking Pong old, or Duke Nukem 3D old ?

More like the time in-between the two.
I can see where you're coming from, though.

But even so, I still have a feeling that it's both more widespread but also more "insidious" now. Back then, you had a few games deliberately go for shock value, Postal-style, both with violence as well as with boobies. Nowadays, you have stuff like bikini armour in "family friendly" games (WoW) and other sexualised portrayals being considered standard, and perhaps that is what makes it harder to discuss as it's not as "in your face" anymore. Some might see it as a step forward as it's not as crass anymore, but it could also be seen as a step backwards in that it leads to acceptance of sexism just because it's been scaled down a bit and gaming itself has become "mainstream". I mean, look at what advertisement is doing to our society due to its prevalence / amount of exposure.

Gaming felt so much more innocent 10 years ago.

It was quite innocent before this whole scandal came up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lynata wrote:

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl 6 wrote:Okay, were you talking Pong old, or Duke Nukem 3D old ?

More like the time in-between the two.
I can see where you're coming from, though.

But even so, I still have a feeling that it's both more widespread but also more "insidious" now. Back then, you had a few games deliberately go for shock value, Postal-style, both with violence as well as with boobies. Nowadays, you have stuff like bikini armour in "family friendly" games (WoW) and other sexualised portrayals being considered standard, and perhaps that is what makes it harder to discuss as it's not as "in your face" anymore. Some might see it as a step forward as it's not as crass anymore, but it could also be seen as a step backwards in that it leads to acceptance of sexism just because it's been scaled down a bit and gaming itself has become "mainstream". I mean, look at what advertisement is doing to our society due to its prevalence / amount of exposure.

Gaming felt so much more innocent 10 years ago.

It was quite innocent before this whole scandal came up.

Asherian Command wrote:It was quite innocent before this whole scandal came up.

What scandal? The one where an indie dev did not receive positive kotaku reviews in exchange for sex, in spite of the internet immediately jumping to conclusions instead of doing a simple google search based on the names of the indicted, which is somehow supposed to condemn the entire industry based on a single incident?

The real scandal is how the gaming community has reacted to it. And I maintain that this is merely a symptom of an issue that has been festering like a cancer for decades.

Which is rather obvious, considering that the topic of "sexism in games" is not being hotly debated since about a week or two, but for several years.

 Lynata wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:It was quite innocent before this whole scandal came up.

What scandal? The one where an indie dev did not receive positive kotaku reviews in exchange for sex, in spite of the internet immediately jumping to conclusions instead of doing a simple google search based on the names of the indicted, which is somehow supposed to condemn the entire industry based on a single incident?

The real scandal is how the gaming community has reacted to it. And I maintain that this is merely a symptom of an issue that has been festering like a cancer for decades.

Which is rather obvious, considering that the topic of "sexism in games" is not being hotly debated since about a week or two, but for several years.

No more of the journalism problem that it is dying. and there is no reason to listen to it.

Not the Zoey Quinn issue.

And also the issue with Nintendo going down in numbers, and same with Microsoft with the XBOX one.

But yeah the entire sexism in games has been talked about for years. It has gotten better but we can improve further.

One of the things the bugs me about this issue is that even having a moderate point of view, often gets you labeled as some kind of 'white knight', or political correctness crusader: making a big deal out of nothing. People get annoyed by the tumbler style PC thuggery, which seems to state that all depictions of attractive women and breasts are sexist, and need to be censored. If the objectification of women were a line then this would be one extreme, and it's understandable why people see this as oppressive. But the other extreme is really no better: total wanton objectification and sexualization of all women for the sake of it. That is just as oppressive (and not only to women).

I like looking at women as much as any man. I think characters like Witchblade are awesome-cool, I've got nothing against boob-plates. But I don't want everything to be like that all the time. Partly because it has been done to death already, but mainly because it's embarrassing. Sometimes I would like to be able to show people a thing I'm interested in without it looking like pornography. I don't want to censor anyone, I'd just like creators to show a bit more imagination and range sometimes.

 Smacks wrote:
One of the things the bugs me about this issue is that even having a moderate point of view, often gets you labeled as some kind of 'white knight', or political correctness crusader: making a big deal out of nothing. People get annoyed by the tumbler style PC thuggery, which seems to state that all depictions of attractive women and breasts are sexist, and need to be censored. If the objectification of women were a line then this would be one extreme, and it's understandable why people see this as oppressive. But the other extreme is really no better: total wanton objectification and sexualization of all women for the sake of it. That is just as oppressive (and not only to women).

I like looking at women as much as any man. I think characters like Witchblade are awesome-cool, I've got nothing against boob-plates. But I don't want everything to be like that all the time. Partly because it has been done to death already, but mainly because it's embarrassing. Sometimes I would like to be able to show people a thing I'm interested in without it looking like pornography. I don't want to censor anyone, I'd just like creators to show a bit more imagination and range sometimes.

I'm afraid your balanced views are not wanted here. We only allow varying degrees of righteous indignation

 Smacks wrote:
One of the things the bugs me about this issue is that even having a moderate point of view, often gets you labeled as some kind of 'white knight', or political correctness crusader: making a big deal out of nothing. People get annoyed by the tumbler style PC thuggery, which seems to state that all depictions of attractive women and breasts are sexist, and need to be censored. If the objectification of women were a line then this would be one extreme, and it's understandable why people see this as oppressive. But the other extreme is really no better: total wanton objectification and sexualization of all women for the sake of it. That is just as oppressive (and not only to women).

I like looking at women as much as any man. I think characters like Witchblade are awesome-cool, I've got nothing against boob-plates. But I don't want everything to be like that all the time. Partly because it has been done to death already, but mainly because it's embarrassing. Sometimes I would like to be able to show people a thing I'm interested in without it looking like pornography. I don't want to censor anyone, I'd just like creators to show a bit more imagination and range sometimes.

Agreed. I mean I don't watch an anime like Black Lagoon because of Revy. I don't watch it for revy's sexy costume. Because I encounter that look every SINGLE DAY. Well partially I do because she's a badass. And is dressed to kill.

Personally Modern feminism movement makes little sense. It should recast their names as Egalitarians but we are side stepping here.

But anyway so I think that we just need realistic artistry, but we don't have to get rid of the boob plates. Just as we don't need to get rid of shirtless men.

I would like to see women fighting against me.

Because currently I feel evil for only killing men.

And I know that will send haywire grenades down the tubes of some feminists. "YOU CAN KILL WOMEN! THATS SEXIST!"

How? Isn't it sexist to only kill men?

One of my pondering is that by not including women enemies it is objectifying to female characters? It's because enemies have the most power and agency of any NPC. They get to directly oppose the player. They aren't simply there to be acted on, they get to act. Not letting women be enemies, means they are pushed into less active roles.

nomotog wrote:
One of my pondering is that by not including women enemies it is objectifying to female characters? It's because enemies have the most power and agency of any NPC. They get to directly oppose the player. They aren't simply there to be acted on, they get to act. Not letting women be enemies, means they are pushed into less active roles.

Wouldn't the same be said about men then?

If you make it both sexes I don't think it really matters. Its a skin. Its an NPC. You fight them. Showing both genders can be evil, that is not really objectifying the female sex at all. That is just making a new skin.

Its not the thought behind it.

 Asherian Command wrote:

nomotog wrote:
One of my pondering is that by not including women enemies it is objectifying to female characters? It's because enemies have the most power and agency of any NPC. They get to directly oppose the player. They aren't simply there to be acted on, they get to act. Not letting women be enemies, means they are pushed into less active roles.

Wouldn't the same be said about men then?

If you make it both sexes I don't think it really matters. Its a skin. Its an NPC. You fight them. Showing both genders can be evil, that is not really objectifying the female sex at all. That is just making a new skin.

Its not the thought behind it.

I am confused on what you are saying, or what you think I was saying.

nomotog wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

nomotog wrote:
One of my pondering is that by not including women enemies it is objectifying to female characters? It's because enemies have the most power and agency of any NPC. They get to directly oppose the player. They aren't simply there to be acted on, they get to act. Not letting women be enemies, means they are pushed into less active roles.

Wouldn't the same be said about men then?

If you make it both sexes I don't think it really matters. Its a skin. Its an NPC. You fight them. Showing both genders can be evil, that is not really objectifying the female sex at all. That is just making a new skin.

Its not the thought behind it.

I am confused on what you are saying, or what you think I was saying.

OH I thought you were making the argument that if we put a female character that we shoot at in a game it would be in someway objectifying. Sorry my fault its midnight here. I probably need to sleep.

 Asherian Command wrote:

nomotog wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

nomotog wrote:
One of my pondering is that by not including women enemies it is objectifying to female characters? It's because enemies have the most power and agency of any NPC. They get to directly oppose the player. They aren't simply there to be acted on, they get to act. Not letting women be enemies, means they are pushed into less active roles.

Wouldn't the same be said about men then?

If you make it both sexes I don't think it really matters. Its a skin. Its an NPC. You fight them. Showing both genders can be evil, that is not really objectifying the female sex at all. That is just making a new skin.

Its not the thought behind it.

I am confused on what you are saying, or what you think I was saying.

OH I thought you were making the argument that if we put a female character that we shoot at in a game it would be in someway objectifying. Sorry my fault its midnight here. I probably need to sleep.

It's OK. Communication is hard. I think I sound like some kind of nut when I say that, but it's true.

 Lynata wrote:
But even so, I still have a feeling that it's both more widespread but also more "insidious" now. Back then, you had a few games deliberately go for shock value, Postal-style, both with violence as well as with boobies. Nowadays, you have stuff like bikini armour in "family friendly" games (WoW) and other sexualised portrayals being considered standard, and perhaps that is what makes it harder to discuss as it's not as "in your face" anymore. Some might see it as a step forward as it's not as crass anymore, but it could also be seen as a step backwards in that it leads to acceptance of sexism just because it's been scaled down a bit and gaming itself has become "mainstream".

I have troubles integrating games like Tomb Raider into this narrative.

 Asherian Command wrote:
I would like to see women fighting against me.

Because currently I feel evil for only killing men.

Which kind of games are you playing? Because many, many of them will allow you to fight and kill women.

I got what you were saying. The portrayal of women as 'weaker' and unable to defend themselves is a sexist stereotype. If all fighters were male then you could say that the game was playing into those gender stereotypes. Unfortunately when we do get strong female characters, they are invariably the sexy femme fatale type: running across roof tops and doing roundhouse kicks in high heels. Though having said that, the depiction of men in the 'action' genre also tends to be quite shallow and one dimensional.

 Smacks wrote:
One of the things the bugs me about this issue is that even having a moderate point of view, often gets you labeled as some kind of 'white knight', or political correctness crusader: making a big deal out of nothing. People get annoyed by the tumbler style PC thuggery, which seems to state that all depictions of attractive women and breasts are sexist, and need to be censored. If the objectification of women were a line then this would be one extreme, and it's understandable why people see this as oppressive. But the other extreme is really no better: total wanton objectification and sexualization of all women for the sake of it. That is just as oppressive (and not only to women).

I like looking at women as much as any man. I think characters like Witchblade are awesome-cool, I've got nothing against boob-plates. But I don't want everything to be like that all the time. Partly because it has been done to death already, but mainly because it's embarrassing. Sometimes I would like to be able to show people a thing I'm interested in without it looking like pornography. I don't want to censor anyone, I'd just like creators to show a bit more imagination and range sometimes.

It's not like that all the time. It's not even like that close to all the time. It's certainly common, but it's far from the only way women are portrayed in video gaming.

This overstatement of the case - both by people being genuine and by people like Sarkeesian - is a large part of the backlash, I think. Your argument is that you just want variety; they would counter that there already is a lot of variety.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Lynata wrote:


Because currently I feel evil for only killing men.

Which kind of games are you playing? Because many, many of them will allow you to fight and kill women.

May we have a list? I can only think of 8 games where women are a standard enemy, along with their male counterparts.
That's not many; that's actually quite tiny compared to the majority of games out there.

 Seaward wrote:
It's not like that all the time. It's not even like that close to all the time. It's certainly common, but it's far from the only way women are portrayed in video gaming.

This overstatement of the case - both by people being genuine and by people like Sarkeesian - is a large part of the backlash, I think. Your argument is that you just want variety; they would counter that there already is a lot of variety.

I agree that there is a lot of variety, but there is also a tenancy for situations to worsen if left unchecked. For example reality TV is frankly utter mind-numbing garbage, but because it appeals to peoples inner nosiness, it consistently sucked in enough viewers, to the point where it was hard to find anything else. By the same measure, I have no doubt that "sex sells". It's the lowest common denominator. So I think there does probably need to be a bit of resistance to keep things in moderation.

 Smacks wrote:
One of the things the bugs me about this issue is that even having a moderate point of view, often gets you labeled as some kind of 'white knight', or political correctness crusader: making a big deal out of nothing.

One of the things that bugs me about this issue is that if you disagree with those crying out "misogyny" or "patriarchy" for even half a second often gets you labelled as some kind of woman hating rape culture-supporting MRA supporter, often for when you don't make a big deal out of everything.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
May we have a list?

It is going to be pretty long. I am going to start with every fighting game with a female character (i.e. almost all of them), all moba with a female character (i.e. almost all of them), all multiplayer FPS with a female character. Then, Diablo, Diablo II, Diablo III, Path of Exile, Streets of Rage, Warcraft III, Starcraft, Starcraft II, the Hitman series ( ), every GTA game, the Saint Row's series, the Postal series, the Left 4 dead series (well, zombie women anyway), every Elder's scroll game I guess, every Heroes of Might and Magic I guess …

Fighting games don't really count; those women are not enemy NPCs as you can play as them, not to mention that they are actual characters
I mean games that feature women as a generic enemy type that actively try to kill you. Not as neutrals, not as civilians, I mean they will find you and shoot you. The saints row games where indeed among the 8 I was thinking of. Well, 2 and 3 anyway. Never played 1 though.