Tropes vs Women in Video Games

Well they are treated better as a whole. There are more of them so naturally there is more variety for how men are treated good and bad.

The first part is pretty much subjective. And ignoring a gender completely even if that gender is better off overall is still problematic.

Except, once again, no one is ignoring the issue.

The entire point to making more varied, less sexual, and less victimized portrayals of women is to give them the same roles that have been reserved for men at this point.

Men are not ignored in video games and never have been.

edited 16th Dec '12 8:27:35 AM by Wildcard

As I already said, The Last Of Us seems to make it better for both genders in at least some areas. But it's still framed as something that is done to help women. That works out right now, for the specific instance I mentioned in my earlier post. In the long run though, there will be problems that only intensify when we still keep all our focus on half of the population and there will be conflicts between what is good for one gender and what is bad for the other.

Edit: They are ignored in the gender debate, by statements like these.

edited 16th Dec '12 8:31:09 AM by Besserwisser

Again, that's concern trolling.

What you're doing is the equivalent of saying "Yeah, we have virtually no Asian protagonists unless it's a kung fu movie, but if we start assigning more leading roles to asians, eventually white people will be left out".

Except I'm not talking about the gender distribution of protagonists. There are issues that affect only one gender and issues that affect both genders to varying degrees. And men are repeatedly ignored in this debate.

@King Zeal: Yeah, I also haven't really heard any better arguments for Besser Wisser's viewpoint.

Besser Wisser: Not really. If every issue against men was as ignored as you claim then the Abuse Female on Male trope wouldn't even be considered an issue.

edited 16th Dec '12 8:41:26 AM by Wildcard

Since when it is considered an issue? Outside of TV Tropes and inside mainstream gaming media, that is.

In the news for one thing. A man who nearly stayed with an abusive girlfriend was treated a victim in a story I read on MSN. I think it was about 2007-08 when I read it and I cannot find it but I do remember reading it.

Besser, you keep assuming that improving the status of women automatically means lessening that of men.

Double Standard Abuse is not an issue that affects only men, which you're trying to pass it off as.

edited 16th Dec '12 8:46:32 AM by KingZeal

Well, I was mostly speaking about video games here, so your example, while good to know, doesn't really help your case in that regard.

Well, not automatically. I even stated repeatedly by now how The Last Of Us seems to improve male portrayal simply by introducing a female character with certain traits. My point is that such conflicts can and will arise. Also, while some issues might not actively damage the other gender when solved, that doesn't mean that existing issues of that gender will disappear while being ignored.

And no, I'm trying to show that there are problems with both genders mainly and not somehow wanting to show how every female character is portrayed perfectly, which they aren't.

Actually it serves my example perfectly. It is an issue outside of videogames and you said it wasn't an issue outside of certain sectors of the internet. I proved you wrong simple as that.

edited 16th Dec '12 9:08:37 AM by Wildcard

I also said "inside mainstream gaming media". So yes, I was actually talking about video games.

Fair enough. I still don't see how improving things for woman will be terrible for men. You have not given a convincing argument.

edited 16th Dec '12 9:15:44 AM by Wildcard

The problem is that every time anyone mentions an improvement to the portrayal of women, there's attached a "Yeah, but". That's "concern trolling". It's essentially an effort to tarnish a social justice or political issue by raising a concern which is not relevant to the current issue.

The offense I have with what you're saying is that it assumes that if this hypothetical situation arises where the portrayal of men is somehow ignored in favor of boosting women that this won't somehow detriment women as well. Except we have entire tropes about how this eventually creates the same problems, but in a different form. Even women and men somehow completely swapped positions on the privilege scale, it still creates unfortunate circumstances for everyone involved.

edited 16th Dec '12 9:25:56 AM by KingZeal

That's not what he was saying at all, Zeal. Besser was saying that ignoring the abuse of men while portraying the abuse of women as a problem is an issue that affects men. That's not Double Standard Abuse being an issue that affects both sexes ... that's Double Standard Abuse, period.

Here's another way of explaining; let's say there's an issue that affects both sexes. Now let's say that the mainstream media treats it as an issue that only affects women. The end result is that things are still bad for men, if not worse just because the "men aren't affected by sexism" attitude is there as well as the original issue.

There are a few issues like this that affect men. Hell, the attitude that men don't face issues in the gaming industry itself is something that should be stamped out.

It's the same issue. That's what's so mind-boggling. There's no reason not to put men's issues on an equal footing.

They face much less. Woman have been oppressed far longer than men have. So it is natural we should concentrate on them. But that doesn't mean we ignore men of course but your acting like men are so oppressed and treated so badly when in gaming in general they are treated better.

edited 16th Dec '12 9:33:07 AM by Wildcard

Except this isn't "ignoring" anything. A news article which celebrates increased enrollment for black students, when black students are proportionately fewer in enrollment, isn't "ignoring" white students. It's lauding an improvement.

Except that in this case, that's not what he did. In response to an article which talked about providing women with a more varied (both positive and flawed) role, his response was to say "Yeah, but what about men?" That's, once again, oppression olympics.

As I keep saying, that's like someone saying there aren't enough Asian protagonists in Western media and then demanding that they talk about how to create more Western protagonists in Eastern media at the same time.

I'm not saying it's NOT a good concern. But bringing it up here does nothing but tarnish progress, even if a small one.

Yes there is. We've stated time and again that the portrayals of women are marginalized in these roles while men have more roles, more agency, and more variety. That is exactly WHY a greater variety for women takes priority.

edited 16th Dec '12 9:36:29 AM by KingZeal

How exactly is the portrayal of men somehow not relevant to the overall gender issue? Except that's not what I'm saying. One very real and not hypothetical game that does try to change the role of women in games is Heavenly Sword. And it does that by portraying every man as either actively malevolent, utterly incompetent or both, making the two main female characters heroic by default. And frankly, I have seen it far more often as an example of sexualization of women (a somehow valid argument with a villainess, but less so with the main character) as I have seen it criticized for the aforementioned issues. Which is exactly the point I'm trying to make. Both sides have issues and both sides deserves attention.

Edit:

I mentioned it as an minor point that we somehow concentrate on now. And if there wasn't this overwhelming bias already I wouldn't even said that.

Edit2:

Before we can make such statements, we have to engage in a discussion and determine which issues affect which gender to what degree. That's a valuable discussion to be be had and even if we determine afterwards "women do have it worse" (which is the default assumption right now), there is literally nothing stopping anyone from also bringing up men's issues.

edited 16th Dec '12 9:44:08 AM by Besserwisser

But not at the exact same time.

Again, your complaints actually stifle progress because it's implying that no one can make any progress or even celebrate any progress without unless everyone's included. Which is a common tactic used by hate groups. Whenever any progress is made, no matter how small or imperfect, they turn around and criticize it because it didn't solve every problem at once.

Which brings me back to my original statement. There isn't a bias because, as we already stated, men have the more varied and larger volume of roles. Therefore, it's not a BIAS to seek to correct this.

edited 16th Dec '12 9:42:51 AM by KingZeal

@King Zeal: Besser Wissr also said that men called that shots because women let them. Men are apparently so oppressed but women never have been apparently.

edited 16th Dec '12 9:51:54 AM by Wildcard

No personal attacks, please, Wildcard. I don't want people getting thumped and the topic locked.

If the sexualised portrayal of women in games is being criticised, there's no reason not to criticise the unrealistic standards of beauty faced by teenage males in JRPGs. Or the idea that Western games put out that all guys should be a mix between steroid-enhanced underwear models and Hollywood heartthrobs with perma-stubble.

To do anything less than lobby to have those changed along with sexualised female characters is just selfish and petty. It's special treatment. It's gamer's entitlement. Hell, it's the same Positive Discrimination that Zeal criticised. And while you say, "that doesn't mean we ignore men of course", the mainstream gaming media does. Ignoring men, dismissing men, branding men as misogynists ... when we see an article on a mainstream gaming site raising men's issues, that line'll be appropriate.

That would be lauding an improvement. But a closer analogy would be if both black and white students weren't enrolling and then campaigning solely for more black students to enrol.

That sounds like Wildcard's "woman have been oppressed far longer than men have. So it is natural we should concentrate on them".

Speaking of Oppression Olympics ... if that's something you legitimately want to avoid, isn't that a reason why you should be talking about men's issues? If this isn't a game of "who's the more oppressed", I would've thought you'd want men's issues to be more out in the open, to encourage us to talk about them more. Because even though it's (for some baffling reason) an inconvenient truth around here, these issues certainly aren't highlighted by mainstream gaming sites.

Well the Males Of Games thread was locked ages ago and hasn't been unlocked. So we're stuck.

But men suffer more acceptable violence, have more vile characterisations, are more dependent on women to have any value at all. What you said is no reason to give women priority, it's just stating why you think they deserve preferential treatment.

edited 16th Dec '12 9:49:34 AM by Guest1001

Except Guest not every male hero looks like that. Nearly every female hero does but there is variety in male protagonists while almost every Female protagonist is designed for fanservice first.

@King Zeal: Okay I took out the personal part.

edited 16th Dec '12 9:53:24 AM by Wildcard