6 ms·
> considering women playing video games only became socially acceptable a few years ago. ... In Saudi Arabia? > It's still common for men to talk down to wome
by throwaway894345 5y ago
> considering women playing video games only became socially acceptable a few years ago.
... In Saudi Arabia?
> It's still common for men to talk down to women on video games, to the point where the overwhelming majority of women do not use voice comms or make their gender known.
It's common for men to talk down to men on video games too ("talk down to" is a very mild phrasing). Turns out there are a lot of jerks who play video games, and for $reasons they tend to skew male (but we're still talking about a tiny minority of men; this isn't an indictment of men; the predictable "10% of m&ms are poisoned" rebuttal is inherently sexist, racist, etc).
> Think about all those men complaining that a video game _dared_ have a female character
I'm not sure which game you're talking about, but I suspect you misunderstand the criticism. There have been thousands of female video game characters going back to the dawn of the industry. Many titles which prominently feature female characters have done very well (e.g.., Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, etc). I'm guessing there has never been significant controversy because a video game featured a female character, though no doubt there has been controversy about specific characters (e.g., Battlefield 1's and Battlefield V's wildly disproportionate emphasis on female WWI and WWII combatants) or about the cringe deployment of token diversity characters.
> biased in favor of white men
There's not even good evidence that CS is biased in favor of white men. The only "evidence" is that the demographics skew toward white men, but that's almost certainly minimally related to bias in the field because
1. There are tons of Asians (male and female) in the field as well
2. Demographics remain relatively constant despite a much more welcoming environment and a decade-long push at all levels of the pipeline to incorporate more women and non-whites
3. Women achieved near gender parity in law and medicine without any similar concerted effort during a time when the fields were overtly hostile to them
4. The countries with the most gender equality have more stereotypical occupational demographics, including women in tech
- madamelic 5y ago> 'm not sure which game you're talking about, but I suspect you misunderstand the criticism. There have been thousands of female video game characters going back to the dawn of the industry. Many titles which prominently feature female characters have done very well (e.g.., Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, etc). I'm guessing there has never been significant controversy because a video game featured a female character, though no doubt there has been controversy about specific characters (e.g., Battlefield 1's and Battlefield V's wildly disproportionate emphasis on female WWI and WWII combatants) or about the cringe deployment of token diversity characters. My point is that there is any controversy when there is a game where the female main character is not explicitly sexualized. You are absolutely right that there are beloved female main characters, but they are almost always shown and viewed in a sexualized manner rather than as a human being. And yes, there are definitely 'sexualized' men (God of War) but they never seem to be explicitly in there as sexual objects rather than as part of the story. Like, if you took Lara Croft out and replaced her with a red square, would that game be regarded as the same? Probably not. People legit get mad about Aloy (Horizon Zero Dawn) being unattractive and "looking manly". Maybe not a massive controversy, but enough that I, someone who passively follows video game news, know about it. I agree thought that my original post was poorly worded and not specific enough about my perceived reception of female characters in video games. I was trying to incorporate "female main character" and "unattractive female characters" into one point and failed.
- endtime 5y ago> My point is that there is any controversy when there is a game where the female main character is not explicitly sexualized Samus Aran?
- a_t48 5y agohttps://images.nintendolife.com/7ec23ee6efba1/zero-suit-samus-alternate-costumes-in-super-smash-bros-for-wii-u.original.jpg https://images.nintendolife.com/7ec23ee6efba1/zero-suit-samu... Yeah totally unsexualized Edit: yes, this is an image from Smash, but she gets a bikini picture in Fusion as a "reward"
- 0xcde4c3db 5y agoThere's also an infamous (at the time, anyway) shot of her in Other M. Of course, if you're familiar with the story it's obvious that there's nothing like sexual objectification involved. It makes perfect sense that she's on the floor unconscious in the Zero Suit with her ass pointed directly at the camera, because she was just attacked without warning by a man who she's uncharacteristically submissive toward. Uh, wait. That came out wrong. Can I start over?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoYour reward for beating Metroid faster is Samus wearing progressively less clothing at the end.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoPeople also got mad about Tifa's bust size apparently being reduced to a more realistic level in FF7R. It's nuts that we just kind of accept this as a culture.
- 5y ago
- andrewzah 5y ago"it's common for men to talk down to men on video games too" This is very tone deaf. I have spent probably thousands of hours playing games (with a mic) and the % of times I've been "talked down to" is very small, and it was never because of a natural property about me (that I'm male, etc). Literally every woman that I've played with who has used a mic or otherwise presented themselves as female has faced vitriolic harassment (and/or sexual harassment) for no reason other than that they were female. I've been in lobbies with them and suddenly see men becoming -far- more judgemental and critical about the female player's ability/skill than usual. This is why a lot of women don't use mics at all or otherwise identify themselves as female in online games. The "talking down" (or just general random toxicity) that men sometimes face from other male players is not even remotely comparable.
- nitrogen 5y agoThe people talking down are the people who think gamers are beneath them (but might play NFL or CoD on their console). AKA jocks vs. geeks.
- tsumnia 5y agoI think the poster's "talk down to" was more referring to the general "shit talking" people do in games. Even if you have a generic username and never speak, people will talk crap, be a jerk, or whatever. Even games that provide built in messages can get converted into trash talk (Rocket League, Overwatch, etc.). Having something "identifiable" just lets trash talkers switch from "you're terrible" to something else.
- andrewzah 5y agoWell, sure, those things exist. What I'm getting at is that the % of it that happens purely because I'm -male- (or another natural property about me) is basically zero. Either they're just being belligerent in general or they perceive me to be underperforming (rightly or wrongly). Whereas when I play with women who e.g. use a mic, very frequently it's like a switch gets flipped and people start being weird, overtly sexual, or just flat out insanely critical of every little thing the female players do. If we start losing the round (in e.g. Overwatch), they start blaming the female players unfairly, etc. Obviously this is all anecdata but from everyone that I've spoken to it's a very common experience, hence most of my female friends just eschewing the mic entirely or only playing with specific groups instead of general matchmaking.
- ttyS1 5y ago> ... In Saudi Arabia? Funny you mention this: https://www.esportsinsider.com/2020/07/lec-neom-saudi-arabia/ https://www.esportsinsider.com/2020/07/lec-neom-saudi-arabia...