Line #16 DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale/VideoGames


1	* ''VideoGame/FinalFight'' is known for replacing female antagonists (such as [[UnsettlingGenderReveal Poison]] and Roxy) with males in the console adaptations of the arcade games. Because... well, you know. It's not right for a man to abuse a woman and all that stuff. Made even more egregious when both the second and third sequels featured a female protagonist. [[UnfortunateImplications It's also perfectly O.K. to beat up transsexuals and men in drag]], as Poison's identity as a "newhalf" started with Capcom trying to get around not being able to show women being beat up by claiming Roxy and Poison weren't ''really'' women.
2	* Contrast to the aversion in ''VideoGame/DoubleDragon'', where the "Linda"-class enemies show no mercy, ''and'' expect none. Linda is depicted as a [[BrawnHilda mannish-muscular]] woman with a mohawk in the NES and Arcade Sequel, which raises its own set of unfortunate implications.
3	** And averted in the ''VideoGame/{{Battletoads}}/Double Dragon'' crossovers. In this one, Linda's a buxom long-haired blonde in camo pants and a tight shirt - and the Toads and Dragons hold her up in the air by her hair and punch her in the stomach repeatedly. Of course, there the final boss is Dark Queen, who is also a buxom woman with black hair.
4	** This is furthered in ''VideoGame/DoubleDragonNeon'', where she now has spoken dialogue and is portrayed as a cruel dominatrix, both to the Lee brothers ("On your knees, Lees!"), and to her own fellow goons ("On your feet, idiots!").
5	* Averted in ''[[VideoGame/TheSims The Sims 2]]''. When a Sim has an affair, the cheated-on-Sim will slap the cheater regardless of either sims' gender. However, there was a thread on the official site's forum that scolded the game producers for allowing male sims to slap females. The poster didn't mention women slapping men at all.
6	* Apparently ''murder'' is okay if it's female on male in the ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive'' world, as an AccidentalPervert is thrown off a fast moving train in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H73qFYp0jI8 one of the endings.]] The entire train car ''applauds her''.
7	%%* The game ''[[http://www.heybabygame.com/info.php Hey Baby]]'' is a complex case (the targets are not innocent and the setting isn't normalizing the violence in the way that many entries in this list are), but the idea that violent reactions are more acceptable if they're aimed by women at men does appear to be at work. {{Asshole Victim}}s or not, it's hard to imagine men brutalizing women being treated the same way.
8	* ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'':
9	** The third game's ending for Mokujin has his wife gives him a MegatonPunch both in the beginning and the end of the scene.
10	** In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3tVTrcSEFo Asuka's "Tekken 5" ending]], Jin transforms from being [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Devil Jin]], and accidentally lands on her breasts. They're still for about 8 seconds, then she gets pissed off. Jin's response? What's going on? Where am I? Her response? [[MegatonPunch YOU PERVERT!]]
11	* In the web game ''The Boyfriend Trainer'', you play as a girl who abuses her boyfriend so that he can become the "perfect boyfriend".
12	* In ''VideoGame/Persona3'', Ryoji and Junpei joke around about staying in the hot springs past the allotted time for men, even though they actually panic when girls start coming in for real. When they hear [[{{Ojou}} Mitsuru]] come in also, Akihiko all but freaks out, saying that she'd give them all a FateWorseThanDeath if she catches them in the hot spring --the same Akihiko that is otherwise fearless (bordering on BloodKnight) when facing {{Eldritch Abomination}}s in an EldritchLocation every night and has been Mitsuru's best and oldest friend for ''years''. When Junpei says that they'd just explain and apologize to the girls, Akihiko insists that it wouldn't matter to Mitsuru, she would "execute them" anyway. And indeed, if you fail to escape after a stealth-action minigame ensues, the girls are righteously enraged by the guys' presence and Mitsuru follows through with this "[[NoodleIncident execution]]" that reduces all men to quivering wrecks by the next day, and has the girls either berating them or giving them the silent treatment for at least the following week.
13	* ''VideoGame/Persona4'' had a few scenes of this:
14	** In the first class trip, a camping trip in the country, Yosuke proposes going swimming at the river because he wants to see the girls (Chie and Yukiko) in bathing suits. They refuse, but reluctantly agree when he shows he [[CrazyPrepared bought swimsuits in the girls' sizes]] and guilt trips them into putting them on. At this point, the Main Character can compliment one, the other, or both girls, and they'll respond favorably to this. When Yosuke compliments them in a somewhat more backhanded and perverted way (something the main character can agree or disagree with) and Kanji suffers a subtle {{nosebleed}}, they push all three guys ''off a cliff'' and into the river below (a river that is only waist-deep.) Lucky for them the SoftWater, and not the riverbed, broke their fall. Unluckily for them, their SadistTeacher was up in the waterfall above, puking on the water, therefore the girls were glad they didn't jump in, and the boys felt like a thousand showers will never make them clean...
15	** ''Another'' incident with a hot spring happens when the gang relaxes at the Amagi Inn. The guys go to take a bath at the spa and get assaulted by the girls, who are currently inside and think the guys have showed up to peep. It later turns out the girls showed up during the men's hours and were completely in the wrong, but later laugh off their assault on the guys.
16	** While Chie beats up Yosuke "only" twice in the video game (she kicks him in the crotch for breaking her "Trial of the Dragon" DVD and throwing a rope to him when he and the Protagonist return from the TV world with their Personas, [[AngerBornOfWorry having been convinced they were lost inside when her rope got cut]]), she does it a lot more in [[Anime/Persona4TheAnimation the anime]], even over the smallest insults.
17	* ''VideoGame/Persona5Strikers'' keeps the tradition going with another hot springs episode where the boys accidentally stay in the bath after hours and when the girls show up, they quickly try to escape unnoticed. This doesn't go so well, and Makoto quickly deals with them in quite the brutal manner.
18	* ''VideoGame/{{Catherine}}:'' The game features a scene wherein [[spoiler: Catherine]] seriously beats up Vincent and all his friends laugh it off and ignore it. [[spoiler: It's actually subverted once it's revealed that they can't see Catherine and as far as they knew Vincent was alone and making weird noises.]]
19	* Subverted in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'', Abigail gets physical with John a couple of times before he gets his act together and it’s never once PlayedForLaughs. They’re both portrayed as being equally immature and bad communicators in their relationship and therefore equally in the wrong.
20	* Played straight with Rita in ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'', who will repeatedly hit Raven or Karol. This is usually just treated as a quirk of her personality, rather than a serious flaw. Sometimes she hits Raven / uses magic on him just because he's annoying her, and her abuse of Karol is almost completely unprovoked.
21	* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' we have Raine Sage who is quite the disciplinarian when it comes to Lloyd and her little brother Genis Sage. She kicks Lloyd into a wall, knocking him unconscious and spanks Genis when they disobey her orders to stay in class. Then again when Genis says "You humans are all the same!" to the Governor General of a port town and when he tries to get the Book of Regeneration from Kota by saying Colette is the Chosen. In fact, she seems to smack Lloyd around even more than Genis. In the OVA, she is shown throwing chalk at a sleeping Lloyd. This would be considered domestic abuse if it was an adult male abusing a teenage female. There's also the potential of it being SlapSlapKiss (the kicking around of Lloyd, not [[BrotherSisterIncest Genis]]) should you choose to romance her in Flanoir and later in Dawn of a New World. Somewhat justified by the fact she was only a teen when her parents died and she had to raise Genis by herself, and Dirk is also shown attempting to punch his son (Lloyd) meaning corporal punishment is most likely the norm for Symphonia characters.
22	** There's also Sheena and Zelos' relationship in the game. Granted, Zelos generally [[LovableSexManiac deserves]] being punched/whacked, but Sheena seems to be the only one who consistently slaps around Zelos. Unlike Raine, there's no animation in the game for her doing this, it's merely implied she does in skits. Surprisingly, she doesn't do it as much after [[spoiler: [[TheDogBitesBack Zelos]] betrays the party to get Aionis for Kratos so Lloyd can wield the ultimate sword and split the worlds]] but that's probably because she's so shaken by [[spoiler: his betrayal even if it was only temporary (or permanent depending on what you do in Flanoir)]]. That, or she gained new respect for him. It's possible to interpret this as SlapSlapKiss like Raine and Lloyd, however it's also mostly one-sided on Zelos's end, while Sheena implies several times in the game that she has a crush on Lloyd and is in fact one of the easiest characters for Lloyd to romance.
23	* Subverted in ''VideoGame/TalesOfXillia'', when Jude tells Milla about times when he was constantly getting beaten up by his ChildhoodFriend Leia. Despite trying to laugh it off, however, Milla acknowledges it as bullying and even calls Leia out on it when they meet later in the game. DoubleSubverted later, when Milla [[HypocriticalHumor attacks Jude with fireballs]]. Notably, all of these events happen within skits (for whatever that's worth).
24	* ''VideoGame/TalesOfXillia2'' has a [[HotSpringsEpisode Hot Spring scene]] that took a leaf from the abovementioned ''Persona'' games, with the girls locking the guys inside Teepo, while they are enjoying the baths, with the guys' location being too hot, cramped and Teepo's liquid causing their towels to disintergrate. In the Japanese version, the girls did this because the men were going to peep on them, making this more a case of [[DisproportionateRetribution simple punishment]]. The localized English version removed this aspect and changed it to the girls doing this for no good reason.
25	* ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening'' invokes this to a degree with Dante and Lady, while the latter's boss battle is semi-justified as Dante at least instigated the fight with her, at other times Lady just shoots at Dante with no provocation; like when she first meets him and assumed he was human, Lady inexplicably decides to fire a goddamn missile at Dante, which [[RidingTheBomb he surfs on]], but put a normal dude in Dante's position and Lady just committed manslaughter. Even more egregious is during their second meeting, when Dante saves Lady from falling to her death and she responses by ''shooting him in the face'' just because he wouldn't let her go when she demanded, this time [[ImmuneToBullets Dante]] rightly calls her out for being so violently ungrateful. The only believable justification (apart from her being a trigger happy BrokenBird AntiHero) is that Lady must've believed Dante was evil given his presence at the [[EvilTowerOfOminousness Temen-ni-gru]].
26	* In ''VideoGame/NeverDead'', Bryce's accomplis, Arcadia, shoots him several times throughout the game, and always played for comedy. However, Bryce is fully immortal and [[WhoWantsToLiveForever is very difficult to motivate]], so threats of physical violence seem to be the only disciplinary measure that works on him. Arcadia, on the other hand, is mortal, and any retaliation could kill her.
27	* In ''VideoGame/AzureDreams'', Nico will wake the protagonist Koh with a drop kick.
28	* In ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonVsAceAttorney'', [[CowardlyLion poor Cecil]] is always being abused, insulted and attacked by his sister Petal and it is never seen as something wrong or discussed. Also, Foxy seems quite accostumed at treating her fellow knights in a very...kinky way.
29	* ''VideoGame/ArTonelicoIIMelodyOfMetafalica'':
30	** The main character, Croix, has his manhood basically held in a vice by the women in the party (minus one you can't marry and one you can). [[spoiler:Luca]] admits to Croix that she's been playing him in order to find [[spoiler:her lost sibling]] and doesn't have any interest in him, which results in Croix getting angry and breaking their relationship. However, shortly afterward, you can choose to side with either Luca or Cloche, and siding with [[spoiler:Luca]] will have her basically not admitting she's wrong, and just asking Croix to start over with her like nothing happened and pretending to be all sweet all over again. [[spoiler:This is especially horrendous when you take into account that Croix and Luca have been together as children, so Luca basically played the guy for almost a decade.]] Had Croix done that, it would have had a totally different tone.
31	** Additionally at one point, one of the random conversations of the game can be triggered by going into Sasha's store. Once inside, Sasha begins adorably being amazed by Croix's battle potential, only for Cloche to begin very coarsely stating how he's totally useless, and that without her, Croix would be absolutely nothing. Sasha agrees, and Croix just silently goes along with it, which is pretty ironic considering Cloche is a character in the game who has to be defended and can't take more than two or three direct hits while Croix can withstand a good thirty. While it's played as being part of Cloche's {{Tsundere}} personality, had Croix been saying those things, you can imagine Cloche would have been the victim. This ''will'' happen regardless of the affection the player has raised in Cloche's stats (even if Cloche's ending is now locked and Cloche is officially Croix's girlfriend).
32	* Among the colorful assortment of individuals you meet in Ordon Village during the prologue of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' are Sera and Hanch. Hanch is a rather diminutive man who is always hunched forward and seems rather morose who owns the town's general store. That being said, his wife, Sera, is the one who handles the actual sales. It's also heavily implied that she cares far more for her cat than her husband, and she constantly makes comments about her "good for nothing husband." While it's never stated outright, context clues seem to suggest that she is an abusive spouse, yet no one in the village seems perturbed by this; not even their own ''daughter''.
33	* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', a woman has planted a maze of flowers around one of the shrines. To get inside, you have to traverse the maze without stepping on any of the flowers. Do it once or twice, and the woman will yell at you and take you back to the start. Do it three times, and [[DisproportionateRetribution she gets fighting-mad and savagely beats Link]] (offscreen) until he's left at [[HPToOne half a heart]]. PlayedForLaughs, of course, but reverse the genders and it'd be grounds for outrage.
34	* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening''
35	** One of the criticisms raised at the Prince Chrom x Female Avatar pairing is rooted in this trope. In one of their supports, in a reversal of the AccidentalPervert trope, she walks in on him bathing... and starts throwing stuff at ''him'' for ''her'' own mistake. Fortunately, this is ''quite'' far from her [[NiceGirl usual attitude]], and she is clearly shown to be in the wrong with her profuse apologizing afterwards.
36	** A smaller version appears with Lon'qu's supports with the Female Avatar. She constantly throws things at him and acts completely unlike her normal self, harassing him across all of them, though admittedly the things she's throwing are [[ImprobableWeaponUser figs]], and none of them actually manage to hit him because he's such a skilled dodger, and she's simply trying to land a single hit on him. Turns out it was so Lon'qu wouldn't suffer from his gynophobia around her, since he had to deal with her behaviour instead of focusing on his fear of women.
37	** It's [[NoodleIncident never shown on screen]], but several supports mention local HandsomeLech Inigo getting insulted (at best) or beaten up (at worst) for flirting with various women. Similarly, If CuteMonsterGirl Nah's beau is Inigo, her behavior goes straight into this and she even threatens to transform into a dragon and eat him alive if he cheats on her (or comments on [[OlderThanTheyLook how young she looks]]) in their S support. And for that matter, the entirety of their S support is her strong-arming him into marrying her when he clearly has no interest whatsoever in doing so, and has clearly stated before that he isn't even ''attracted'' to her. Like in the case of Avatar, Nah normally does not act like this ''at all''. ''Unlike'' Avatar, this is completely played for laughs and the only "justification" offered is Inigo's personality and general ButtMonkey status.
38	** {{Averted\|Trope}} in the case of [[PunchClockHero Tharja]]'s [[RelationshipValues husband]]. Conversations with Noire ([[spoiler:their future daughter, who herself is a nervous wreck due to her mother's abuse]]) make it clear that [[spoiler:future]] Tharja frequently curses her husband as punishment for talking back to her, and this is not at all painted in a humorous or at all acceptable light, but as a sign of how there's something ''wrong'' with her.
39	* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'', Ingrid actually slaps Sylvain offscreen [[DisproportionateRetribution for making a tasteless joke]] about [[spoiler: Flayn's disappearance]], as Sylvain was speculating she might have eloped. ''Nobody,'' not Byleth, Dimitri (the leader of the Blue Lions), any of the teachers or Sylvain himself call Ingrid out on physically assaulting one of her classmates, made all the more jarring because [[InnocentlyInsensitive Sylvain genuinely has no idea why she did it in the first place, he just spoke without thinking.]] If the genders were reversed, it would have ''not'' been treated so lightly.
40	* ''VideoGame/HyperdimensionNeptuniaProducingPerfection'' has [[{{Tsundere}} Noire]] (no relation to the above) act absurdly rude to the player character, who chose to help her instead of the other three [=CPUs=] to become the best idol in Gamindustri. Despite the player character's desire to help, she ''immediately'' berates him, demotes him although he hasn't been able to even take a breather after being summoned without warning, and forces him to do whatever chores she doesn't want to do herself. There's even a scene (that qualifies as a love event) that's just him trying to wake her up and getting ''beaten up'' because of how Noire acted.
41	* In ''VideoGame/FurFighters'', [[TheBigGuy Bungalow]]'s wife isn't exactly very nice to him, to put it lightly. Heck, she's introduced repeatedly beaning him in the head with a frying pan, and it never really gets better for the poor guy. It's a rather mild example because Bungalow is a FunnyAnimal and it's only cartoon violence, but it's still a very abusive relationship with a male victim that's [[PlayedForLaughs never once taken seriously]].
42	* When Morte's AngerBornOfWorry leads her to punch Kyrie in ''VideoGame/SandsOfDestruction'', the rest of the team simply laughs and says he's lucky she didn't pull her {{BFS}} on him, despite the fact that it's been established that Morte is ''not'' someone you want to make angry. As Kyrie is a NiceGuy, he just [[TurnTheOtherCheek lets her get it out of her system]]. Refreshingly, however, she only does this ''once'' in the whole game instead of turning it into a RunningGag; the rest of the time, she's quite gentle with him (though at least half the team likely wishes it did become a running gag instead, as they feel they should GetARoom for their sweet talk).
43	* In ''VideoGame/EnslavedOdysseyToTheWest'', the (male) BigBad is such because he enslaves people with torturous killswitches, and the (female) protagonist...does the same thing to a total stranger. But it's okay, because she sometimes feels bad about it (though not enough to [[spoiler:free Monkey, despite her earlier promise that she would]])!
44	* In ''VideoGame/LightningReturnsFinalFantasyXIII'', one sidequest involves finding a singer's husband, who has vanished. It turns out he lost one of the songs he had written for her and was too ashamed to be in her presence after that. Once the player gives the song back to the husband, the man then reveals himself to the singer and begs her forgiveness. The singer responds by beating the living hell out of him while he tries to apologize until he's so badly beaten he spends the rest of the game lying on the ground right where she beat him up. Had the genders been reversed this would ''not'' have been PlayedForLaughs. That being said, however, this is averted in Lightning's opinion; she is rather clearly disturbed by what she sees.
45	* A sidequest called "The Wandering Couple" in ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'' ends with TheReveal that [[spoiler:the whole scenario was an elaborate ploy by the female android to manipulate her boyfriend into entering a reformating machine, so she could delete his entire personality and rewrite it from scratch to make him more appealing to her]]. That's a kind of DomesticAbuse that humans don't even have words for. Worst of all, not only is this the ''sixth'' time she's done it, but absolutely no way to call her out on it is presented. If the genders were reversed, this scenario would be provoke mass outrage.
46	* Amy Rose from ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' is a case of StalkingIsFunnyIfItIsFemaleAfterMale. She's also not afraid to use [[{{Hammerspace}} her hammer]] on anyone who even ''appears'' to be romantically interested in Sonic, having claimed him for herself despite his own refusal. In ''VideoGame/SonicHeroes'', she even attempts to coerce him into marriage using force. This part of her personality has been played down over time, even being completely absent in the ''WesternAnimation/SonicBoom'' continuity.
47	* ''VideoGame/{{Devotion}}'': Averted. While [[spoiler:Du Feng Yu]]'s physical abuse of [[spoiler:Gong Li Fang]] is treated seriously, the emotional abuse ''he'' suffers at the hands of [[spoiler:cult leader Mentor Heuh]] is portrayed as equally bad, if not more so because she is intentionally exacerbating his mental illness to make him more obedient to her.

Context DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale / VideoGames