Feminism Thread

[BaneTheBrawler]

i'd be more impressed by the 45% statistic if it specified what types of games theyre playing. somehow i dont think candy crush and farmville appeal to quite the same demographic as, say, call of duty, fallout, the last of us, etc.

[Shade]

First this is all kinds of lol for a question. Games are about what people want to be, not what they actually are.

I guess we all wanna be gritty white dudes, good to know.

This includes things like farmville and bejeweled. There is no doubt in my mind a huge majority of fb games are played by women. For consoles it's shit like rpgs and the sims (which have female characters).

Maybe it skews the numbers but how much? You can't actually say either. The point is that they do play games, and I don't believe that if you eliminated facebook etc it would dwindle to some tiny insignificant fraction. All the girls I know play games. They have a presence on the internet, you see lots of them at cons. They write an awful lot of fanfic. You're here and I'm here, on an FFXI forum talking about it, but you're still going to say chicks only play games that don't count as games lol?

But is it disparity? (more further)
And is it discussion to say: "white characterz lolz" with absolutely no follow-up?

But is it 99%? I don't imagine anyone counted (it'd be quite hard and tedious to, tbh), so that's just going from subjective perception, which is subject to a lot of biases, most saliently the confirmation bias.
Getting hard numbers would be quite hard.

I checked numbers for the US (wikipedia, too lazy to find bettar sauce):
- 80% white (including hispanics, because srsly, hispanics are white)
- 12.4% black
- 4.4% asian (<- now this number surprised me)
- .8% native american
(not 100% because multiracials)

And I don't have to remind you that you guys have an unusually high non-white population for a western country (owing mostly to slavery), so when you factor in all the western world and account for some statistical deviation, it shouldn't be surprising that 85%-90% characters are white.


Problem is, you'll always face accusations of catering to teenage boys.
Idealised male protagonist? "You always feature male leads! Misogynists!"
Idealised female protagonist? "Objectification! Misogynists!"

With the discourse that some modern feminists hold, devs just can't win. Kasumi* and Lara Croft* are "sexual objects" (because they arbitrarily decided so), but Snake* and Dante* are not (because they arbitrarily decided so).


*sorry if my references are dated, I've not played offline games much since the PS2 era.

Hey, Im Canadian, but you cant tell me, with all the border spats between the US and Mexico, and the attitude towards immigrants, legal and otherwise, that being hispanic is exactly the same as being white.
And well yeah its not literally 99%. And I didn't mean white people, or even white guys, just what I said... rugged white dudes. Aren't you even a little tired of seeing this guy as often as we do?



I guess I just don't understand the sheer resistance to the concept. How exactly would things be worse if games ended up being a bit more diverse a bit more often? I like variety, personally.

I talked about how dev studios are pressured to not have female leads even when they do want to. When you're told you cant have a female lead bc "You can't make a dude like the player kiss another dude in the game, that's going to feel... awkward" that is literally actually catering to the teenage dude mentality. Games with female leads statistically do less well than games with male leads, but games with female leads also receive much less marketing, could have smaller budgets, and the game might just plain suck, so its hard to nail down a single reason for that. Bioshock: Infinite and The Last of Us were both told "you cant put a woman on the cover" despite the characters having prominent roles in the games.

And for the record.... idealization is not the same as objectification. We have an amusing video that says pretty much what I have to say on the subject:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vide...cation-And-Men

[Ksandra]

I guess we all wanna be gritty white dudes, good to know.

You were the one that asked using the defense that we're "not all gritty white dudes." What we are is completely irrelevant. Unless you insist what people want to play is a bunch of fat asses that can jump a centimeter. They cater towards what the demographic is going to find attractive, not what the demographic looks like. To think otherwise is to not think like a business person.

Maybe it skews the numbers but how much? You can't actually say either.

...so you agree that there was no point in you posting the statistic then?

The point is that they do play games, and I don't believe that if you eliminated facebook etc it would dwindle to some tiny insignificant fraction. All the girls I know play games. They have a presence on the internet, you see lots of them at cons. They write an awful lot of fanfic. You're here and I'm here, on an FFXI forum talking about it, but you're still going to say chicks only play games that don't count as games lol?

Putting words in my mouth. Where did I say girls play games that don't count as games? fb games either a. don't have avatars at all (ie. candy crush) or if they do give a gender choice (ie. farmville). These are still games, but clearly these aren't the games people like you are bitching about. Or are you trying to say fb is under representing female characters? These are not "irrelevant games," they are "irrelevant games" to the topic since there is no gender issues involved in them.

I also said the non fb games tend to be rpgs and games like the sims. (So dunno why you claim I said women don't play games.) Going to restate a word in that sentence: TEND. I know you're gonna wanna come bursting in here talking about the CoD females or w/e. I'd like to know the actually percentage of CoD females though without some silly study that says "47% of women play games!" without saying which types.

Heck, I'll even give you that I used to play TF2 religiously back in the day. But I never felt I needed to be a female in order to play it. Guys seem to have no issues playing female characters (hi2umanthras), why do we have to have issues about playing male characters? For that matter, how many CoD females are upset they can't play females in it?

Hey, Im Canadian, but you cant tell me, with all the border spats between the US and Mexico, and the attitude towards immigrants, legal and otherwise, that being hispanic is exactly the same as being white.
And well yeah its not literally 99%. And I didn't mean white people, or even white guys, just what I said... rugged white dudes. Aren't you even a little tired of seeing this guy as often as we do?

Are you trying to shit on Chris Redfield?

I guess I just don't understand the sheer resistance to the concept. How exactly would things be worse if games ended up being a bit more diverse a bit more often? I like variety, personally.

I don't think anyone is resisting it. If games come up with a strong female lead, go for it (Lara Croft). We just don't think it's worth getting panties in a twist over it. Tomb Raider would be just as fun, though less bouncy, if it had been Indiana Jones' model instead.

Bioshock: Infinite and The Last of Us were both told "you cant put a woman on the cover" despite the characters having prominent roles in the games.

Kevin Levine (bioshock creator) decided to not have Elizabeth on the cover. He was not told he couldn't put her there. He did the marketing study and realized she shouldn't be there:

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/1...inite-box-art/

And this is the kind of thing we're referring to. Getting panties in a twist over a box cover. Really?

[Charismatic]

Ksandra, have I told you that sometimes I think I love you?

Also, I would like to point out that I have not seen a single study which calls out women as a high percentage of the gamer populace that shows them also having strong preference for retail games.
Browser games and free to play phone games are what these chicks tend to play most. Fuck, man... my grandma plays those and even though she now recognizes herself as a video game player, I sure as fuck don't.
This is the discrepancy and trying to deny what we ALL know only makes you look foolish, Shade.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out why you can go to the facebook fan page or official page or whatever for pretty much ANY triple A game and find that most of the fans that post on there are male and draw a couple of (probably pretty valid) assumptions.
I mean, it'd be one thing if it was just a few of them but I actually spent one weekend going over the FB pages of big name games and trying to see what level of female activity I could find and its staggeringly low for damn near every game.
Now, this doesn't necessarily MEAN anything but it sure does trend well with any of the studies that actually show what kinds of games women tend to actually play.

[Galkaeater]

The world isn't ready for a ginger protag.

[Churchill]

Hey, Im Canadian, but you cant tell me, with all the border spats between the US and Mexico, and the attitude towards immigrants, legal and otherwise, that being hispanic is exactly the same as being white.

The worst thing you can do is pretend to be intelligent or convey and enlightened viewpoint and subsequently butcher the English language.

[BaneTheBrawler]

nah. the worst thing you can do is be Canadian.

[Ksandra]

nah. the worst thing you can do is be Canadian.

implying canada exists

[BaneTheBrawler]

implying canada exists

implying murica doesn't wear a hat

[mightyg]

Imagine if America was like Mexico is now and how Canada would handle it. Oh the implications. Good luck with that border hombre. Do you think the Quebecois would put Spanish on their signs? Le taco camion?

[Charismatic]

Yooo!

[mightyg]

That shit was just as bad as the Anita vids.

[Plow]

That shit was just as bad as the Anita vids.

they pretty much all are, but just like the anita vids, people that agree find them ZOMGAMAAAAAAAZING

[Rhinox]

enjoy

[Kuya]

Wiki'd Warren Farrell. I think i'm gonna look more into his work. Sounds like excellent academic work.

[Charismatic]

Warren Farrell is the man.
Its hilarious how many feminists hate him even though he's done more to advance women's rights than they ever will.

[archibaldcrane]

Wiki'd Warren Farrell. I think i'm gonna look more into his work. Sounds like excellent academic work.

Seems like it.

A link regarding his "date rape is exciting" quote.

http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/c..._their_context

[Biggz]

Holy shit if that video is even a mild representation of actual feminists then they are some fucking psychos.. Almost makes me want to attend an event just to troll the shit out of them.

[archibaldcrane]

People in power's first reaction is always to shout out dissenting voices. Both sides, etc.

[Kuya]

Holy shit if that video is even a mild representation of actual feminists then they are some fucking psychos.. Almost makes me want to attend an event just to troll the shit out of them.

No more than the comments on that video represent MRAs or whatever, i hope.