Fuck Sexism

[ZaichikArky]

Yeah, the video game industry thinks that guys are into scantily clad women so that's how they market a lot of games... It's all rather stupid because they need to accurately take surveys for what kinds of adds their demographics REALLY wants to see... Maybe that will cause better sales.

For the longest times, video games were marketed towards boys from age 6 to 18, just in recent years has the industry even though to market games to girls. I think nintendo is a little ahead on that because I notice that more girls like to play games from nintendo consoles than others and they market a lot of really stupid teeny-bopper games to young girls. Bratz games, anyone? ugh. Stuff like making a pink DS and actually doing commercials for games that girls are typically into shows a change in the industry.

Also, I watch Spike tv for Star Trek and the best show ever- MXC. Not all shows on Spike tv are action-packed, pointless, idiotic stereotypes. I like to watch the ones that aren't. Just cause a channel's for guys, doesn't mean it has all stereotypical crap that only stereotypical manly man like to watch : ).

On a side note, I think Squeenix actually handles gender issues in their games quite well. There are a lot of interesting female leads in different final fantasy games, and in their other franchises as well. There aren't a whole ton of games where the main character is a girl, and squeenix has a lot of titles where that is the case. And even if there is a male lead, there are plenty of other interesting and powerful female characters.

[Uboa]

Perhaps the Internet is the one place where humanity can gather free of ingrained prejudice...

Sorry to be a pessimist today, but I must disagree; the internet has its own prejudices. While they are significantly different than those that you might experience in the “real world,” they are still there. Consider a poster who misspells words regularly, forgets punctuation and capitalization, only uses capital letters, and perhaps even uses texting-speak commonly. Such and individual would tend to be ignored or ridiculed in a lot of threads on the compendium and elsewhere, based not on his/her thoughts, but on the appearance of those thoughts.

It's easy to pick up on idiosyncrasies online just as it is in the "real world".  Strange forum posting habits are kind of akin to strange clothing or awkward gestures.  Still, internet communication can be devoid of the traditional prejudices surrounding race and gender, which creates an interesting and probably more ideal environment.

[Romana]

Okay, I've had it up to here with these Evony ads you always see...everywhere I frequent nowadays.

That. Ad. Is. Everywhere. I. Go.

[Lord J Esq]

On Sexism in Video Games:

Chrono Trigger is a mixed bag. It definitely has some strong points: Lucca was written very well as a character; maybe the most well-done female RPG playable character of her time. Ayla was the strongest unmodified physical fighter in the party...which I also think was unprecedented at the time for a female RPG character. Robo was remarkably sensitive and emotionally open. There were no sexist subplots and, at least in the English, there was no overtly sexist background dialogue that I can remember.*

These qualities make it impossible not to acknowledge Chrono Trigger as a progressive game for its time. However, it is still riddled with sexism. The worst of it by far is that the supporting cast is overwhelmingly male. Sex-specific character omission from stories is one of the strongest forms of misogyny, second only to the most grating female character stereotypes. It is almost universal in video games--except, maddeningly, in some games that are targeted specifically to women. Look for yourself at the disparity:

http://chronocompendium.com/Term/Characters_(Chrono_Trigger).html

Schala would be the next worst instance of sexism in the game. She was written in a sterotype that is quite popular in Japan and also fairly popular here: the pure of heart, suffering female. She seems like a person whose spirit has been completely broken; she never acts on her own behalf and has no obvious sense of self-worth. This goes beyond kindness and mere altruism; it's revolting. There are moments in the game when I just want to kick her; then I realize that she was written this way by male scenario writers, and want to kick them instead.

Crono is another example of sexism in the game, albeit a more benign one. His character is a very common stereotype, especially in Japanese culture. He's one of those people whose mouth-to-face ratio would be quite high. (I tried to google for an example of what I'm talking about, but was taken aback by an unbelievable amount of pornography in the search results. Go figure.) In any case, the stereotype is diluted somewhat because there are so many other male characters, and thus for one character to behave that way is not as glaring. But, without that context, it's a pretty blatant sexist stereotype.

Going down the list, we have the fact that Marle and Lucca have low power stats and use ranged weapons--a common female stereotype in RPGs. Of all the sexism in the game, this is the instance I personally find most annoying.

Speaking of Marle, she's got a sex-specific stereotype of her own going on: the free-spirited, tomboyish princess who loves baubles and behaves emotionally. I'm thankful that it's an "empowering" stereotype (i.e., the princess is getting out there and tackling the world on her own terms), but, really, I could do without a stereotype in the first place. Then it wouldn't need to be apologetic.

Radical Dreamers was a step down. There was something about Kid's spunky streak that struck me as dismissive or patronizing on the part of the (male) writers, and of course Riddel and Shea were Schala clones. For what it's worth, though, I rather enjoyed the scene where Serge asks about Kid's measurements.

Chrono Cross was more neutral, which I suppose is a good thing. Honestly, I only played it once, several years ago, and I don't remember it well enough now to recall what kinds of sexism might be present in the game.

* Except for one nitpick: At the end Gaspar referred to Queen Zeal as "that poor woman," which could be read in several ways depending on the tone, but the most typical of which is derogatory. However, in the Japanese, Zeal is not referred to with any qualifiers, so it is quite possible that Woolsey's tone for Gaspar was sympathetic; thus it is a very minor nitpick.

[Truthordeal]

Well, Zaichi, if the video game industry were losing in sales, I'd be inclined to agree with you. But as it stands, prices are still going up on video games despite the fact that prices have fallen on many luxury items over the last year due to the recession. In fact, despite most businesses shrinking, Nintendo expanded over the last year. So, whatever their marketing plan is, it's doing well for them.

And after my last post I thought about the Final Fantasy games in sequence about their gender roles. And I realized by doing this that I'm probably wrong about Squeenix anyway.

BTW, I'm only referring to gameplay, not necessarily the storyline.

FF1-The only female PC was White Mage, who's attacking was abysmal and could only heal. All of the characters were pretty uninteresting in FF1 though, so I can't really hold that against them.

2 and 3 I've never played to completion.

4 had Rosa, who played the generic Damsel in Distress for practically the entire game, while Rydia's summons were ok, but generally came back to bite you if you used them too much, as most summons do.

5 was excellent in its discussion of gender roles. First of all, you had three females who had equal power to the male cast, plus you see Faris's struggle with becoming accepted among the pirate culture despite being a female.

6 had Terra and Celes, who were both decent female characters. Relm was pretty useless and annoying though, playing to the generic little girl model, sans the kawaii(I hate myself for using that word).

7 you had Tifa and Aeris. Tifa was awesome, bar none, probably one of my favorite RPG characters ever. Aeris was...Aeris. Blah. Oh, and Yuffie. She was alright.

8 had three very useless female PCs in Rinoa, Selphie and Quistis.

Let's not get into 9...

10 involved Yuna(summoner) and Lulu(black magic woman), both of whom I honestly could not stand. Plus there's the fact that the entire damn game was basically a romance novel produced by Square Enix. Worse thing to tarnish my PS2.

10-2-*vomits*

12 as I said, everyone was equal.

Like I said, I was wrong. Though, it's probably my own biases. I don't typically like the magic casting and summoning types if they can't attack worth a crap, which is basically what every woman in a Square-Enix title, save a few exceptions, is.

I'm simple more of an offense guy, and, at the risk of sounding like I'm ripping off 8-bit Theatre, I like swords.

[Uboa]

Yeah, the video game industry thinks that guys are into scantily clad women so that's how they market a lot of games... It's all rather stupid because they need to accurately take surveys for what kinds of adds their demographics REALLY wants to see... Maybe that will cause better sales.

For the longest times, video games were marketed towards boys from age 6 to 18, just in recent years has the industry even though to market games to girls. I think nintendo is a little ahead on that because I notice that more girls like to play games from nintendo consoles than others and they market a lot of really stupid teeny-bopper games to young girls. Bratz games, anyone? ugh. Stuff like making a pink DS and actually doing commercials for games that girls are typically into shows a change in the industry.

Also, I watch Spike tv for Star Trek and the best show ever- MXC. Not all shows on Spike tv are action-packed, pointless, idiotic stereotypes. I like to watch the ones that aren't. Just cause a channel's for guys, doesn't mean it has all stereotypical crap that only stereotypical manly man like to watch : ).

On a side note, I think Squeenix actually handles gender issues in their games quite well. There are a lot of interesting female leads in different final fantasy games, and in their other franchises as well. There aren't a whole ton of games where the main character is a girl, and squeenix has a lot of titles where that is the case. And even if there is a male lead, there are plenty of other interesting and powerful female characters.

I'm hoping that in the future it's not just the powerful female characters who are iconized by video games and sci fi shows, but the ones who are not as powerful, and even the powerless.  Women who have an aspect of chaos to their lives, who aren't in control and who pay the price, need a mirror in this culture.  

I've been watching the full series of Battlestar Galactica that I borrowed from a coworker, and I'm deeply pleased with their portrayal of Starbuck as an actual realistic chaotic female protagonist.  Likewise, I've been watching all of Homicide, a series where all of the characters have these kinds of dark aspects, and it's played out amazingly well.  But, really, in the realm of sci-fi I'm hoping that BG is the shape of things to come.  

[FaustWolf]

I was actually pleasantly surprised by Lightning and the dude with the Chocobo chick nesting in his afro, but I'm still writing off FFXIII for its apparently vapid gameplay and over-reliance on special effects. I feel like, if I bought a PS3 just for that, I'd be walking into the theaters to see The Phantom Menace all over again. Why did Square ditch near-perfection in its battle systems after Xenogears? A few tweaks to that, and...agh, boggles the mind, IMHO. If FFXIII has an interesting scenario and the kind of triple-A character development a high-budget RPG should have, it might draw me back in.

One of the more interesting videogame heroines I've seen lately is Resident Evil 5's Sheva. Her attire is probably appropriate to the African locale in which she's slaying zombies (though I cluck my tongue at a game mode that lets the player play as her nearly nude...although under the presumption that it's "tribal wear," but it still seems to cater to the typical geek's interests just as much as Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball). Too bad she had to take a backseat to the bulky, white, player's-been-through-this-in-a-hundred-other-games-since-the-NES-days Chris Redfield storyline-wise.


EDIT: Truth, I very much agree with you with regard to Tifa. I thought she'd just be "the big-busted, short-skirt-wearing hot chick" at first, but she turned out to be extremely deep psychologically, and it's amazing how much stress she put up with from Cloud. One could say Tifa's is a "stand by your man" story that's sexist on some level in its own right, but she's still my fave female character bar none, I'm pretty sure. Truly someone both men and women can look up to.

[Truthordeal]

I got off on a rant about Square-Enix, but I think Scott Ramsoomair captured the general idea of women in Nintendo games.

[Uboa]

Third, removing the burden of carrying a child and the pain of childbirth seems to remove a great deal of the sense of gravity of bringing a child into the world.  Also, the "baby pod" issue that keeps rearing its head here is somewhat misguided in that it's part of a movements towards absolute equality between the sexes.

I think there's a line that could be drawn between social equality and experiential equality as well. Social equality being, "woman who isn't pregnant gets same pay for given work as man who isn't pregnant"; experiential equality being, "woman never gets pregnant thanks to baby pods, so there's no need for maternity leave and thus there's absolutely no market rationale for valuing her less as a worker." I don't agree with the obviously sexist mommy track market rationale, but I've heard men express that as a supposedly viable business reason for why women might be turned down for certain jobs or else paid less than their male or even transgender counterparts. I think that's the major reason why I tend to go gung-ho on experiential equality; I'm not completely confident that social equality can be achieved in its absence. I dearly hope that I am mistaken.

Is it bad for me to say I hope you're mistaken as well?   

In line with the market rationale, I don't think that it is entirely a bad thing.  I'm essentially a socialist for the reason that I want to minimize the market rationale for as much as possible for many peoples' personal situations, but I think that there's something to be said for the incentive to have a large support network for a child who will be born.  Be that a working husband or wife, community support, church support, la leche league, or anything else.   

I still like the idea of birth pods though. When we develop this technology (it has to happen eventually, just like landing on the Moon), I wonder if it will catch on like wildfire or if women will stick to the natural way more often than not?

I really wish I could say I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but I see a lot of troubling issues with birth pods, just from a developmental perspective.  Like infant formula will never provide all of the same benefits as human breast milk (and infants born in pods will likely be formula fed as well), I don't see how these pods could provide the most suitable environment for a developing infant.  I have this tinfoil hat theory that the recent rise in autism is due in part to a rise in working mothers and thus a rise in formula feeding and decrease in beneficial attention.  I guess my thinking is that women are already becoming closer in experiential parenting to men, and it's not working out too well.  Just my thinking, but I do wonder.

Uboa, I imagine there's a number of Compendiumites who are undercover women, non-Westerners, etc. First rule of the Internet is that the only thing one knows about a person is what he or she posts, and they should be judged by the quality of their content and nothing else. That's the way I think of it anyway, and in that way there's a certain amount of empowerment to "the mask." Perhaps the Internet is the one place where humanity can gather free of ingrained prejudice...uh, with the exception of those skinhead sites that news channels like to flash around from time to time.

I've been to forums that are "havens" for people who think a certain way and often have their points of view mocked on other forums.  I was actually denied re-registering on an ethical vegan forum because I became too involved in the "vegan for health reasons" culture, and my request to be let in mirrored that.  When I did post there, I do remember it being a place where ethical vegans could really let out their frustrations with mainstream culture where people usually don't think twice about using products which inherently involve animal suffering in their production.  While my sentiments still mirror theirs, I guess my route to dealing with it didn't so much, and I respect their decision in requesting that I post elsewhere.  Ethical vegans and vegans in general, now that I think about it, are one group that is often mocked on the internet.  (Thanks PETA. )

(I did say in one post on here that I had been eating a bit of meat for health reasons... Well, I figured out that hemp protein worked just as well for me, so I switched to that.  So, vegan again.  Woo.)

[ZaichikArky]

Truth, what I meant to say that the video game industry could potentially see an increase in sales in they would actually market better. I didn't say that bad sales were a reflection of poor marketing.

Lord J, that is a very interesting analysis. I always thought of Chrono Trigger as a more progressive game in terms of gender and sexism. This was because , like you mentioned, an unheard of FEMALE character was the strongest physically in the game. I though that was very interesting and more games should follow CT's stead. As for Lucca and Marle having poor attack stats, I too noticed that it's very common in games for female characters to suffer from this and thought it was basically the norm. Things like non playable characters never really crossed my mind. It kind of sucks that the most interesting female non playable character in the game was a walking stereotype. There are a lot of Schalas out there in the Japanese entertainment industry.

FF12 actually had one of my favorite female characters- Fran. She was really awesome and her English VA was so good. I'm excited for FF13. I think it has the potential to be a really good game.

[skylark]

Schala would be the next worst instance of sexism in the game. She was written in a sterotype that is quite popular in Japan and also fairly popular here: the pure of heart, suffering female. She seems like a person whose spirit has been completely broken; she never acts on her own behalf and has no obvious sense of self-worth. This goes beyond kindness and mere altruism; it's revolting. There are moments in the game when I just want to kick her; then I realize that she was written this way by male scenario writers, and want to kick them instead.

And it's obvious Kato isn't going to (or planning to) change that anytime soon, though some could say Kid was an attempt. (I say it's a cop-out.)

The problem with changing those stereotypes is that it's possible to change the character too much. At least with things such as fanfiction *cough*shameless plug*cough*, there are those who would be willing to give it a shot, myself included. Same goes for any character really. (Was just using Schala as an example... because... ummm... Hey, is that a bird?)

(I just hope I managed to incorperate that into my synopsis. Hopefully, I'll get a reply from FW soon.)

[Uboa]

Schala would be the next worst instance of sexism in the game. She was written in a sterotype that is quite popular in Japan and also fairly popular here: the pure of heart, suffering female. She seems like a person whose spirit has been completely broken; she never acts on her own behalf and has no obvious sense of self-worth. This goes beyond kindness and mere altruism; it's revolting. There are moments in the game when I just want to kick her; then I realize that she was written this way by male scenario writers, and want to kick them instead.

I think they turned this around quite well when her dark side was allowed to come out in the end of CT DS.

[FaustWolf]

I always thought Schala was awesome just because she had blue hair.

<.<
>.>

That, and she has this completely awesome name. Had she just been "Sara," she wouldn't have had half the mystique Woolsey gave her. But it's most definitely tempting for the cross-cultural fanfic author/scenario designer to be revisionist with Schala. She did have the guts to "turn [her] back on that evil device," so she may have an inner ninja yet!

Speaking of which skylark, it'll be awhile because I'm just hugely backed up with projects, but I'll be interested to examine your synopsis from this standpoint.

[skylark]

I think they turned this around quite well when her dark side was allowed to come out in the end of CT DS.

Yeah, but it's still sort of the whole 'my suffering, why me' mentality. As much as she was (and still is) my favorite character, even I can see how flawed she is.

I agree though, that it was a nice touch regardless.

[Uboa]

I think they turned this around quite well when her dark side was allowed to come out in the end of CT DS.

Yeah, but it's still sort of the whole 'my suffering, why me' mentality. As much as she was (and still is) my favorite character, even I can see how flawed she is.

It's a realistic portrayal.  She acted strong and properly for so long in the face of all of this madness going on around her.  I can definitely see how she would harbor selfish and destructive tendencies underneath it all.  Heh, I loved it.