Women's representation in Video Games

Anita Sarkeesian’s second entry in her series Tropes vs Women in Video Games

[MikeyDucati1]

It is my strong belief that the feminist are just as sexist as men. If they weren't, there wouldn't be a feminist movement in the first place.

[cyguration]

Ehh, that's way off base.

I don't agree with extremist (on either side) but equal rights for anyone shouldn't be denied, and poor portrayal and exploitation of any category of persons should not be tolerated, no matter the medium or the industry.

[MikeyDucati1]

I don't think so. Women have equal rights. Where does that come from? Since when women don't have rights? The feminist movement is absurd. The same thing told to minorities about getting off their butts and start building their social economic structure should be the same thing told to these feminist groups. You want to be respected? Have respect for yourself. Everyday I see strong women who are not even a part of this feminist movement doing what any man can do and they are respected for it. Feminist movement seem to be afforded to those women who are jealous of other women. It's like the thing with booth babes. Feminist complain about that. But no one is forcing those women to apply for that job. They know they can use their looks to get ahead, so they do it. Feminist movement is so misguided.

[Blacktric]

"and poor portrayal and exploitation of any category of persons should not be tolerated"

You are right. They should just throw the creativity out of the window and keep pumping strong and individual female characters in games, books and movies for the sake of catering to the feminists and clueless whiteknights.

[cyguration]

@Blacktric,

It's not just that...my comment was more wide sweeping.

How about the way they portray all Arabs in games as well? Towel-wearing bullet sponges who speak a violent language with extremist views.

For now, though, only feminist seem to be speaking up for themselves but it doesn't mean I agree with everything they represent, but I do understand why a lot of female gamers would feel resentment toward the gaming industry.

[coolbeans]

"and poor portrayal and exploitation of any category of persons should not be tolerated"

"They should just throw the creativity out of the window and keep pumping strong and individual female characters in games, books and movies for the sake of catering to the feminists and clueless whiteknights."

An axiom vs. a hyperbolic, sarky retort. It's unfortunate to know the latter's heavily favored to win in any case on this site.

[Blacktric]

>An axiom

Right...

[coolbeans]

"Right..."

Now the follow-up being an unsophisticated one-word counter. Heh..it's like you live and breathe n4g's playbook.

[Blacktric]

Thanks. But at least I'm not the one gloating around with my elementary school level deduction skills and misusage of a word I learned not too long ago. If you want an actual debate, you can always try encouraging to start one, rather than using cheap retorts and strawman to reply an obviously sarcastic reponse to someone's personal opinion while trying to pass your views as a fact... It's a sad thing that being a mod doesn't help hiding one's insecurities.

[coolbeans]

"But at least I'm not the one gloating around with my elementary school level deduction skills and misusage of a word I learned not too long ago."

Misusage...you mean axiom? If you're going to convince me something like "and poor portrayal and exploitation of any category of persons should not be tolerated" does not fall under AT LEAST one of the three typical meanings of the term by all means you can enlighten me. And if my deduction was indeed elementary, what does that say about the construction of your first response?

"If you want an actual debate, you can always try encouraging to start one, rather than using cheap retorts and strawman to reply an obviously sarcastic reponse to someone's personal opinion while trying to pass your views as a fact..."

Start one? Why couldn't you initiate that with the person you responded to? I just decided to drift into this article and felt like calling out your tawdry attempt to counter cyguration's comment.

Press my view as a fact?

http://www.palzoo.net/file/...

I haven't even stated any on here.

"It's a sad thing that being a mod doesn't help hiding one's insecurities."

Sorry you feel that's what my previous comments displayed--though I don't see how driving home my point shows a failing of hiding my supposed insecurities. IF you believe you've received some sort of unfair treatment from this back-and-forth, I recommend PM'ing Cat about it.

[cyguration]

...And this is why I usually don't get involved with debates involving feminism.

Argument breaks out and the issues were never even brought up once.

-___-

[hazelamy]

there's a feminist movement so women get equality with men.
because despite what you may think, we don't.

"Did You Know That Women Are Still Paid Less Than Men?

On average, full-time working women earn just 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. This substantial gap is more than a statistic -- it has real life consequences. When women, who make up nearly half the workforce, bring home less money each day, it means they have less for the everyday needs of their families, and over a lifetime of work, far less savings for retirement."

you wanna know where that comes from?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/e...

so don't tell me there's equality and there's no need for feminism.

if most men got paid less than women do for doing the same jobs then maybe there'd be a masculinist movement, but right now the inequality works in your favour so there's no interest from men to change anything.

[MikeyDucati1]

Okay but when a woman divorces a man, he is forced to pay alimony. If a woman takes a man to court over child support, more than likely that man will have to pay no matter how much he supported his family.

Even that stat you listed is way off because in another poll I have read that women are making more than men. They even had articles about the epidemic of men becoming house husbands. So just stop it with your narrow self serving perspectives. Things are balanced. What women don't have in one aspect, they have in another that men don't. Vice versa.

The movement is heavily misguided. Women are equal. They are capable of doing everything a man does. All these fake movements are just opportunities for people to cry foul. That's all. "No interest from men to change anything"...that's silly. What do men have to change when the women are the ones with the problem? Oh don't tell me the government is entirely ran by men either.

[rextraordinaire]

While I believe feminism has it's place on earth and all, I also believe that those tropes found in video games are not as harmful as the author would like us to believe.

Of course, a damsel in distress is not the best way to portray strong independent women, but does it mean we should get rid of the cliché? I don't think so. Those characters can coexist with better representations of the modern liberated woman.

Take Jack from mass effect 2: I'm sure the author could find something to say about her being an abused woman with sexualized clothing and all, but in my opinion, Jack could be a shirtless guy with the same story background and it would make no difference about how much of a bad-ass that character is. But since Jack is a woman, then (according to the author as I see it), the character would be a sexism problem? That's a strange logic. Anyway, I guess I'll just stop here.