This is a discussion on Gender and Biohazard. within the Viral Research forums, part of the Central Laboratory category:
Originally Posted by Member_of_STARS
I have an extraordinary chance to witness a wide spectrum of methods children are being raised, because I know all of their parents (I grew up ...
I have an extraordinary chance to witness a wide spectrum of methods children are being raised, because I know all of their parents (I grew up in a 300p village), so its easy to see how certain kids were raised, and how did the parents raise them. The reason I set media and peer pressure as a distant second to parenting, is that without exceptions, parents that actively raise their children and maintain a strong influence until the kid leaves for college, grow up into functional members of society, fun, polite, and generally the awesome kind of people. Out of these 300 people, Im actually witnessing an emergence of two potential world champions or even olympic champions in the future. Can you believe that?
On the flipside, there are also families whos kids have a weak link to their parents, a weak influence from their families, and peer pressure along with some media influence is allowed to have a much higher effect on them, and they are drinking way too much, they are borderline stupid and they will grow up into insignificant idiots who will never leave the tha village and will spend their lives as lumberjacks with the only hobby being vodka and cheap beer, beating up their wive(s) and kids.
I guess I see where you're coming from here - the thing I'm going to note is that in North American society there are two things that differ our experiences.
1. Prevalance of single parent households or parents being forced to work multiple jobs or shifts to pay for the childs education, whatever
2. How big peer pressure and school environments are for kids here.
Moving on!
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Its arguable. From my standpoint, I see it as a jab at the young, male videogamer demographic and Jade as their ultimate fantasy. I think you know the attitude of virgin, young, male, kiddiefvcks who, upon the presence of a girl say something along the lines of "A GURL? ORLY?!" or "tits or GTFO!"
I don't know, I would be on your side a lot more if they hadn't given Jade the inability to pronounce the word 'creative'. I mean, if they were going for what you said, it would make more sense to have Jade as how she actually is and show the gamers falling all over themselves. In this case, she shows up, and when she finds herself unable to speak she does what women are really good for, sucking cock, mirite.
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This is absolutely NOT the case here. Where the hell do you live? Canada? It was supposed to be a civilised country! I cant even believe sh!t like that happening here. People even go as far as subtly include girls into activities they would "normally" or "obviously" not partake. For example, back in the highschool we had a number of paintball events between schools, clubs and whatnot, and it was required that the 5 man team had at least 2 girls. We always took it as a norm. Obviously, you will not see men cheerleading, but generally, sports excluded, theres no difference between men and women. The competitive element probably comes in career life, but thats another topic.
I think this comes down to a cultural difference. Sexism is fucking rife here, and it starts at a very, very early age. If you buy a toy for a little girl, it's pink. Stripper poles are available for nine+ year old girls, Ubisoft developed the Imagine: Babies line for young girls to get into games, and so on and so forth. (Can you tell I'm not a fan of Ubisoft? They are fucking sexist chodes. They gave us Imagine: Baaaybeeez, the Frag Dolls, and their part of the Raymond controversy. Suck on it, Ubisoft.)
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Its called shovelware for a reason, yaknow?
That doesn't mean I can't bitch about how shit and sexist it is, though. I mean, I'm not going to get all furious and write a 10,000 word essay on Livejournal. But I'm not going to twiddle my thumbs and make excuses either.
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To a certain extent, it does. These nuances even define or influence our taste in food, you cant be certain they wont influence our taste in games.
Found a study - I bookmarked it but its not showing up, it's in the Feminist Gamers - Women in Gaming category link I posted for AA, that showed that Grand Theft Auto was the second most popular game for women gamers (first was the Sims). So I mean, that's a pretty interesting stat right there.
Keep in mind that most consumption of games for ladies is secondary: A girl might not head out to the store and pick up a PS3 if there's absolutely no marketing concerning her for it, but her boyfriend might pick it up and then pass her the controller. So it's hard to nail down stats on women playing games since its usually a shared household thing.
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You dont see game developers marketing to actively search for employees anyway. Men and women are at an equal position at the start. It just happens that men outweight women at that line at a 10000:1 ratio ("lulz").
Due to socialization.
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It does, thats the whole point. If a male first notices ones appearance and then shoots for details, its in his basic instincts and psychology, would you really be surprised if the guys behind the desks basically put their fantasies on proverbial paper?
EVA's outfit, I don't think, was supposed to be sexy full stop. It was supposed to be sexy and yet practical, something that an actual combatant spy would wear. You'll notice she's wearing boots, not heels, she zips up her suit when she needs to take care of business, so on and so forth. it's little things like that that change the context for me - which is why I get so annoyed when I see Ada's outfit because what the fuck. It's attractive if you're going to an evening party, not if you're storming a village to kill some dudes. Especially because IIRC (not sure on this, havent played 4 in about a year), Ada didn't know Leon was there. Also keep in mind that images of Ada was used to titillate gamers "Oh look at this hot piece guys!" and EVA was just part of the cast - it felt more natural. EVA also SPOILER ALERT I THINK comes back in 4 as an older lady. Despite Ada taking a fatal injury that scarred her in 2, she's practically unchanged except to become more appealing and sexy to dudes playing.
There's the study to the aforementioned link. Half of all boys and one third of all girls (which isn't a wide gap) enjoy playing violent video games for anger management, and lots of girls love the GTA series, ranking it second overall in popularity for girls.
Last edited by Captain Cass : 07-05-2008 at 05:15 AM.
I guess I see where you're coming from here - the thing I'm going to note is that in North American society there are two things that differ our experiences.
Not really. We are encountering the rise of the same problem. Nevertheless, you simplified and summed up exactly what I was talking about- here-
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1. Prevalance of single parent households or parents being forced to work multiple jobs or shifts to pay for the childs education, whatever
= Bad parenting leads to
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2. How big peer pressure and school environments are for kids here.
Weak resistance to outside factors.
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I don't know, I would be on your side a lot more if they hadn't given Jade the inability to pronounce the word 'creative'. I mean, if they were going for what you said, it would make more sense to have Jade as how she actually is and show the gamers falling all over themselves. In this case, she shows up, and when she finds herself unable to speak she does what women are really good for, sucking cock, mirite.
Your problem is the fact that you think the comic described Jane as such a person, whereas if you look at it from another perspective, the comic describes the "typical" (note the tags) videogamers wet dream. The more you actually think about it, the more you see that the comic had nothing to do with Jade, and instead put down the nerdy adolescent boys who "talk tough" over VOIP and internet (yeah, I know I have to tread carefully here). I dont know how to describe those kids but with a word "retard".
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Due to socialization.
Ahem... do you really want me to re-write the whole "modding" thing again?
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EVA's outfit, I don't think, was supposed to be sexy full stop. It was supposed to be sexy and yet practical, something that an actual combatant spy would wear. You'll notice she's wearing boots, not heels, she zips up her suit when she needs to take care of business, so on and so forth
She wears boots NOT because shes a spy, but because she rides a MOTORCYCLE! I dont have the time to review cutscenes, but I think when she was Tatyana, she wore something a sleeper agent would wear. Skirt, heels, et cetera.
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It's attractive if you're going to an evening party, not if you're storming a village to kill some dudes.
Out of place? Yes. Sexist? How? Objectification? Every good looking character is being done that to. Leon in RE4 included.
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Especially because IIRC (not sure on this, havent played 4 in about a year), Ada didn't know Leon was there.
I think she knew. But Im still standing by my case, that she was there as an agent, and not a merc. In fact, if you take the whole castle and the whole medieval crap into account, she was PERFECTLY suited, her dress was very suitable considering the context.
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There's the study to the aforementioned link. Half of all boys and one third of all girls (which isn't a wide gap) enjoy playing violent video games for anger management, and lots of girls love the GTA series, ranking it second overall in popularity for girls.
If so many girls really play the game, then they dont mind its often "less than polite" portrayal of genders (women are weak and usually work as whores, men are stupid crooks.
Just popping in for a brief moment to note that the "I don't experience this, so the rest of x group should get over it" note is a pretty large fallacy; obviously there's a problem in the industry and obviously its filtering into games. As a tournament player and an online player, I've felt objectified and excluded. As a girl interested in sciences and tech, I've been neglected and patronized. And as a conscious consumer of media culture, I've recognized trends that paint certain products as for the boys and others as for the girls. (Hint: is it pink?)
As a gamer, I enjoy games. As a feminist, I look for the critical message in media. There's no reason why I can't do both. AA, I suggest you check out feministgamers.com (http://www.feministgamers.com/?cat=13) and gamegirladvance.com as a launch pad to see these discussions from their foundations and ways in which they are both wide spread throughout the industry and affect women gamers.
I have no interest in looking at a feminist gaming website, because I'm not a feminist. Sure, it can be a little irritating when you go on XBox Live and a small minority of 13 year old boys go "Omfg be my girlfriend", but the fact of the matter is, it's not that big of a deal.
As a matter of fact, the most sexist thing I've seen in this thread was posted by none other than you. The fact you think Nintendo caters to the female market more than Microsoft or Sony, and pretty much every game Nintendo puts out there for women is something like "Cooking Mama" or "Cooking Recipes", "Nintendogs", insinuating that women should get the fuck back in the kitchen, or play with cute little puppies. They don't treat us as serious gamers at all, whereas Microsoft and Sony aim to the general gaming market. I've never felt patronized by them, whereas with Nintendo, I have. I've been a serious gamer since I could walk yet all of a sudden Nintendo take an interest in the pink gamers market by giving us cute little puppy games, cooking games etc, and nothing serious at all.
I think this argument is absolutely ridiculous because although some men go "Omfg a girl on Halo 3", it's a minority and I've never experienced personal discrimination and harassment. It's also not fair to inflict your personal experiences with the male gender on male members here and speak as though you're speaking for the entire female gaming community. It's a very extreme point of view, to say the least.
I dont think companies are meaning to be sexist, I just think they are copping out to statistics. Which show that sex sells and there are more male gamers than female gamers. Also game companies tend to play on stereotypes as well, why because the are recognizable, identifiable, and easy to create. Im sure if you want to see something that is sexist or raciest or whatever I'm sure you will see it, but unless you get into the minds of the creators or they say that their games are you will never truly know.
Not really. We are encountering the rise of the same problem. Nevertheless, you simplified and summed up exactly what I was talking about- here-
= Bad parenting leads to
Weak resistance to outside factors.
The only thing I disagree with here is that being a single parent household or working a lot of jobs is bad parenting. It's neccessary to keep a household afloat financially, and a lot of people consider living in a homeless shelter much worse than your child having access to Perez Hilton or the telly while you're at work all day.
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Your problem is the fact that you think the comic described Jane as such a person, whereas if you look at it from another perspective, the comic describes the "typical" (note the tags) videogamers wet dream. The more you actually think about it, the more you see that the comic had nothing to do with Jade, and instead put down the nerdy adolescent boys who "talk tough" over VOIP and internet (yeah, I know I have to tread carefully here). I dont know how to describe those kids but with a word "retard".
This argument has one massive flaw: the comic was a deliberate retaliation of Ubisoft pushing the "beautiful" Jade Raymond as the forefront of the Assassin's Creed marketing. The comic totally has a context, it was a big middle finger to Ubisoft.
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Ahem... do you really want me to re-write the whole "modding" thing again?
Again, girls I've talked to about this find that in grade school, a lot of teachers genuinely believe that boys are better at math and science and then push this into the curriculum, its impossible to find independently run science sites meant for girls unless you really dig deep, and in high school guidance counselors will guide women away from tech courses and boys in tech courses tend to get the mob mentality when there are only one or two girls in the class. This may be a North American problem, but its a huge one insofar as getting women into tech - this is why companies are beginning to sponsor scholarships to get women into certain fields; counteracting society.
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She wears boots NOT because shes a spy, but because she rides a MOTORCYCLE! I dont have the time to review cutscenes, but I think when she was Tatyana, she wore something a sleeper agent would wear. Skirt, heels, et cetera.
Out of place? Yes. Sexist? How? Objectification? Every good looking character is being done that to. Leon in RE4 included.
Exactly. EVA's outfit makes sense - she rides a motorcycle, is mobile, is generally moving with Snake and being all badass on her bike, so it makes perfect sense that she is wearing boots. But somehow, heels have been the defacto outfit for women in games, and I'm not really sure how or when some guy considered heels to be 'badass'. And I don't find Tatyana's outfit of heels and skirt to be even remotely sexist, because it's the outfit of a seductress living in a facility. It makes sense for her to wear heels and a skirt - if she wore that outfit as EVA it'd break immersion.
And objectification is sexist - and I find Chris's bulging muscles pretty objectifying as well. Leon's a lithe guy wearing a tight t-shirt, but Ada has a slit that shows off her legs, cleavage, heels... The scales are starting to tip, and I'll be interested to see how much beefcake there is by games by 2020.
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I think she knew. But Im still standing by my case, that she was there as an agent, and not a merc. In fact, if you take the whole castle and the whole medieval crap into account, she was PERFECTLY suited, her dress was very suitable considering the context.
Is this an Assignment: Ada thing? I haven't gotten around to playing those yet. But if she was at all mobile, wearing a dress and heels is a terrible idea. You cannot run in heels unless you are Anna Wintour. Heels are made for one purpose - to push up your ass and calves.
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If so many girls really play the game, then they dont mind its often "less than polite" portrayal of genders (women are weak and usually work as whores, men are stupid crooks.
The point I'm trying to make is despite the fact that GTA is a pretty male oriented game and cast (The main members of the cast are mostly dudes, I think, and a lot of the marketing was directed towards guys), women are still picking up and playing. There's no barrier that stops a woman from picking up a 360 controller, its
the absolute lack of marketing - I'll go more into this because Im about to respond to AA.
I have no interest in looking at a feminist gaming website, because I'm not a feminist. Sure, it can be a little irritating when you go on XBox Live and a small minority of 13 year old boys go "Omfg be my girlfriend", but the fact of the matter is, it's not that big of a deal.
Since you didn't go to the Feminist Gamers site, let me quote you a few interesting articles! For instance, one of the largest gaming companies in China decided that if you were a woman playing this game as a woman, you had to prove it. With a webcam. The area had to be 'undoubtedly feminine' - face wouldn't do. Use your imagination! That's right; you were given a chance to send in pictures of your body to be granted the honor to play this game. And Shanda is a huge company.
Then there's the fact that Sony believes that only 4% of their gaming population is women and displayed this percentage at one of their conventions - which completely ignores the fact that 1. households choose to share consoles, 2. secondary consumption of games, and 3. women generally choose to hide their gender online. Wonder why?
and then GameDaily and IGN go ahead and run features like "The 10 greatest sets of boobs in gaming" and the "10 hottest developers in gaming" (both of these are real articles on those exact sites.)
But haha, nope, no sexism in gaming at all, get over it ladies.
As a matter of fact, the most sexist thing I've seen in this thread was posted by none other than you. The fact you think Nintendo caters to the female market more than Microsoft or Sony, and pretty much every game Nintendo puts out there for women is something like "Cooking Mama" or "Cooking Recipes", "Nintendogs", insinuating that women should get the fuck back in the kitchen, or play with cute little puppies. They don't treat us as serious gamers at all, whereas Microsoft and Sony aim to the general gaming market. I've never felt patronized by them, whereas with Nintendo, I have. I've been a serious gamer since I could walk yet all of a sudden Nintendo take an interest in the pink gamers market by giving us cute little puppy games, cooking games etc, and nothing serious at all.
While I agree that the pink DS advertising campaign got on my nuts a little, I was speaking specifically about the Wii and the Wii Want To Play Campaign. The Wii Want To Play Campaign featured equal amounts of men and women throwing down with the Wii, and this has evidently worked pretty well if you look at sales numbers for the Wii.
Keep in mind that the Xbox campaign are generally male oriented, and don't even get me into the Sony marketing campaigns, such as the "PS2: because your girlfriend bores you shitless." or or the "Cheaper than a girlfriend" ad campaign they did, or Consoul featuring hot ladies taking a shit while playing their PSP, or the super hot girl... with a controller coming out of her navel so you can play her.
So is there flaws in Nintendo marketing campaign? Sure. But let's look at the alternatives.
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I think this argument is absolutely ridiculous because although some men go "Omfg a girl on Halo 3", it's a minority and I've never experienced personal discrimination and harassment. It's also not fair to inflict your personal experiences with the male gender on male members here and speak as though you're speaking for the entire female gaming community. It's a very extreme point of view, to say the least.
I think it's hilarious how you say that I speak for the 'entire female community' just by citing my gender. Is MOS speaking for the entire male community? I even specifically noted that I wasn't, at one point. I've also cited several examples of sexism in the field above. Just because you've been lucky doesn't mean that the sexism in the field doesn't exist. I've played tournament level for certain games, such as World of Warcraft and Warcraft III, where vent communication is absolutely essential, and I'm often called a whore, bitch, a bloody tampon, demands to see my tits, whatever whenever I'm playing those games, even after going through the effort to find a relatively good guild for this sort of things. My experience doesn't 'trump' yours, but its just as relevant.
. I've played tournament level for certain games, such as World of Warcraft and Warcraft III, where vent communication is absolutely essential, and I'm often called a whore, bitch, a bloody tampon, demands to see my tits, whatever whenever I'm playing those games, even after going through the effort to find a relatively good guild for this sort of things. My experience doesn't 'trump' yours, but its just as relevant.
The internet consists of two groups, noobs and normal people, wow has a few noobs but most people online aren't like that, the guild i'm 2nd in charge of doesn't take rubbish like that, no ones implicated anything in the guild and the guild masters female, a few guilds have female guild masters in wow and a lot of female gamers, 1/2 m y guild probably consists of that.
What's your character called in wow captain cass, are you on the european realm or other ones?.
The internet consists of two groups, noobs and normal people, wow has a few noobs but most people online aren't like that, the guild i'm 2nd in charge of doesn't take rubbish like that, no ones implicated anything in the guild and the guild masters female, a few guilds have female guild masters in wow and a lot of female gamers, 1/2 m y guild probably consists of that.
What's your character called in wow captain cass, are you on the european realm or other ones?.
I play on Dark Iron and Smolderthorn. I was in a Sunwell guild, but right now I'm on hiatus. I find that if you want to be in a serious progression guild, you are going to put up with misogynist shitheads, because you need a large roster and progressive guilds rank skill > not being an asshole.
Last edited by Captain Cass : 07-05-2008 at 08:12 PM.
I play on Dark Iron and Smolderthorn. I was in a Sunwell guild, but right now I'm on hiatus. I find that if you want to be in a serious progression guild, you are going to put up with misogynist shitheads, because you need a large roster and progressive guilds rank skill > not being an asshole.
Nah the guild i'm ins a really nice guild, i had a spammer do that in the guild before, i kicked him for that, we don't tolerate that in the guild.
We've got 100 members in our guild and they're all nice.
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