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Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities


Tasha

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I think back to the 13 year-old gamer I was, and I have no problems imagining the sexist depths that gamer girls can find themselves subjected to. How sad though to be a grown man and still be a 13 year-old inside. The hobby matured: how about you?

 

One of my favorite anecdotes: Jim Ward, one of the original fatbeards of Geneva, was trying to market his new RPG 1492, where The Old World was enlightened but The New World had elves. He just couldn't understand why restricting the options for the female characters, who had to originate from The Old World, would be offensive or even a dealbreaker. I mean, historically women weren't allowed to be military or get an education! Suggestions that enforcing historical realism in a fantasy game was a hard sell and discouraging half your potential customers was an even harder sell. He ignored us and that is why 1492 is the most popular RPG on the market today! Shows what we, the sales team at ACD, knew.

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Personally, I believe that once you get magic and fantasy elements into the mix, maintaining "historical" gender inequality becomes a LOT harder to justify for your setting (assuming you even want to do that). Its not easy to oppress someone if she can huck lightning at you from her fingertips. I believe that in fantasy settings it just makes more sense for there to be a lot more gender equality.

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Personally' date=' I believe that once you get magic and fantasy elements into the mix, maintaining "historical" gender inequality becomes a LOT harder to justify for your setting (assuming you even want to do that). Its not easy to oppress someone if she can huck lightning at you from her fingertips. I believe that in fantasy settings it just makes more sense for there to be a lot more gender equality.[/quote']

 

Not to mention that it can be plainly "not fun" to have to always play the oppressed Gender. Sometimes you just have to understand that in a RPG people are playing those Unusual people that go out and Adventure and help others. Those unusual people almost always are breaking away from what is "normal" for people of that race/ culture. In an entertainment RPG environment it's best to let go of ideas of "Historical inequality" because those aren't much fun. Unless you have players who decide that they want to play in such an environment.

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Personally' date=' I believe that once you get magic and fantasy elements into the mix, maintaining "historical" gender inequality becomes a LOT harder to justify for your setting (assuming you even want to do that). Its not easy to oppress someone if she can huck lightning at you from her fingertips. I believe that in fantasy settings it just makes more sense for there to be a lot more gender equality.[/quote']

 

I believe this is especially true if you involve active female goddesses. I'm sorry, but if a settings goddess of war can bring your city's walls down and many of her priests are women, you must seriously rethink some sexist attitudes, or at least mask them a whole lot better if you want to live long and do well.

 

Players Character in temple: "Wimmen, am I rite guys?"

GM: "Roll percentile dice."

Player: "01...oh crud."

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Players Character in temple: "Wimmen, am I rite guys?"

GM: "Roll percentile dice."

Player: "01...oh crud."

 

*LMFAO*!

 

 

Tangent story: So its about 1979. Im in 9th grade, playing D&D with my friends at a sleepover at the DM's house. There are 4 Players, plus the GM. We've been gaming together for a couple of years now (we started in 7th grade), and all of us have been getting the AD&D books as they come out, but we are still playing mostly a "3 tan booklets" edition campaign. (City State of the Invincible Overlord was the core of the campaign setting).

 

Our characters are prowling around in some old ruins, and we end up uncovering a gigantic cavern temple to the evil God of Demons and Undeath, Orcus. Somehow, one of the PC's (the Thief, naturally), managed to knock something over or pick something up, or somehow activate the Evil Alter of Badness after we TOLD him not to touch anything!

 

The DM says," ....So theres this rumbling that starts to shake the cavern. Out the entrance you can see the sky darken as storm clouds form within minutes, and lightning starts to crash down. The alter begins to glow an unearthly silver light, and fog starts to form along the floor...."

 

Several Players call the Thief's Player an idiot, and throw things at him (empty soda cans, wadded up paper...)

 

"Then theres this HUGE flash of lightning, and youre all blinded for a second! When you can see again, theers a gigantic, winged figure standing over the alter! ITS ORCUS HIMSELF!"

 

Janet T., playing the Cleric, without missing a beat, chants "DEMOGORGON! DEMOGORGON! DEMOGORGON! DEMOGORGON!"

 

We all look stunned....and then the DM picks up his percentile dice, and rolls for every time the name of Orcus' hated enemy and rival Hellgod was said, because back then there was a 1% chance that if you invoked a God's name, it would appear (It was in the rules!)

 

The rest of us have that "Light-bulb comes on" moment, and we all start chanting too! "DEMOGORGON! DEMOGORGON! DEMOGORGON! DEMOGORGON!"

 

Sure enough, on about the sixth roll, the DM rolls that 1% chance, and ol' Demogorgon himself shows up in all his scaly, tentacley, two headed badness, and the whole party sneaks out of the cavern while the two ancient enemies go at it!

 

Later the DM told us that since we had been scared off, Demogorgon and Orcus both got xp's for defeating us ;)

 

(We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread topic)

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Not to mention that it can be plainly "not fun" to have to always play the oppressed Gender. Sometimes you just have to understand that in a RPG people are playing those Unusual people that go out and Adventure and help others. Those unusual people almost always are breaking away from what is "normal" for people of that race/ culture. In an entertainment RPG environment it's best to let go of ideas of "Historical inequality" because those aren't much fun. Unless you have players who decide that they want to play in such an environment.

 

That's really the heart of the matter. The simulation aspect should always take aback seat IMO to the players enjpying the world thet're in and having a good time. And as youpointed out the players are exceptiomal people anyway.

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Not to mention that it can be plainly "not fun" to have to always play the oppressed Gender.... In an entertainment RPG environment it's best to let go of ideas of "Historical inequality" because those aren't much fun. Unless you have players who decide that they want to play in such an environment.

 

That's really the heart of the matter. The simulation aspect should always take aback seat IMO to the players enjpying the world thet're in and having a good time. And as youpointed out the players are exceptiomal people anyway.

 

There was a blog linked a while back that wrote about what was wrong with portrayals of women in video games. It made some standard points -- skimpy outfits, unrealistic hackneyed writing, etc. Stuff that I think everyone knows about. But then she wrote that she didn't like playing the female who had to prove herself in a world that doubted females could do the job. That kind of shocked me, because I figured that would be an uplifting thing for a women to do. However she went on to explain that women had to put up with that attitude all the time in real life. It wasn't fun to have to deal with those aspect of her life in a video game as well.

 

That article was kind of eye opening, but it also sensible and something I had never thought about that way. That's one reason I read this thread -- to gain a perspective on things I hadn't considered, and a to see common tropes in a new light. Male power fantasies involve being strong enough to hew through 30 orcs, or casting arcane spells. Female power fantasies may involve those things too, but they also involve not having to put up with the gender crap they get in real life.

 

It would be like making a video game about getting promoted to retail manager and fending off the IRS. That's what we do in real life, who wants to do that in a game?

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There was a blog linked a while back that wrote about what was wrong with portrayals of women in video games. It made some standard points -- skimpy outfits' date=' unrealistic hackneyed writing, etc. Stuff that I think everyone knows about. But then she wrote that she didn't like playing the female who had to prove herself in a world that doubted females could do the job. [b'] That kind of shocked me, because I figured that would be an uplifting thing for a women to do. However she went on to explain that women had to put up with that attitude all the time in real life. It wasn't fun to have to deal with those aspect of her life in a video game as well.[/b]

 

That article was kind of eye opening, but it also sensible and something I had never thought about that way. That's one reason I read this thread -- to gain a perspective on things I hadn't considered, and a to see common tropes in a new light. Male power fantasies involve being strong enough to hew through 30 orcs, or casting arcane spells. Female power fantasies may involve those things too, but they also involve not having to put up with the gender crap they get in real life.

 

It would be like making a video game about getting promoted to retail manager and fending off the IRS. That's what we do in real life, who wants to do that in a game?

 

Exactly :D (I bolded that part that I was going to reply to. Then I realized that you got it :D

 

Tasha :D

 

PS I would have repped you for that post, but I guess I repped you too recently for it to stick :P

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There was a blog linked a while back that wrote about what was wrong with portrayals of women in video games. It made some standard points -- skimpy outfits, unrealistic hackneyed writing, etc. Stuff that I think everyone knows about. But then she wrote that she didn't like playing the female who had to prove herself in a world that doubted females could do the job. That kind of shocked me, because I figured that would be an uplifting thing for a women to do. However she went on to explain that women had to put up with that attitude all the time in real life. It wasn't fun to have to deal with those aspect of her life in a video game as well.

 

That article was kind of eye opening, but it also sensible and something I had never thought about that way. That's one reason I read this thread -- to gain a perspective on things I hadn't considered, and a to see common tropes in a new light. Male power fantasies involve being strong enough to hew through 30 orcs, or casting arcane spells. Female power fantasies may involve those things too, but they also involve not having to put up with the gender crap they get in real life.

 

It would be like making a video game about getting promoted to retail manager and fending off the IRS. That's what we do in real life, who wants to do that in a game?

 

That's ridiculous. You can have power fantasy or you can have realistic depictions of people. Guys don't look like this in real life:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]45094[/ATTACH]

 

So women can put up with looking like Lara Croft. Nobody is going to play a video game about a woman in her mid-30s who struggles with her weight who kills aliens. Power fantasy games are going to have you look like a supermodel with enlarged sexual organs.

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And which "sexual organs" on a woman would be enlarged? Because breasts are not sexual organs.

 

They aren't reproductive organs. They're clearly sexual. Go up and grab a woman's boob and see if you get the same response as you do when you put a hand on her shoulder.

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That's ridiculous. You can have power fantasy or you can have realistic depictions of people. Guys don't look like this in real life:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]45094[/ATTACH]

 

So women can put up with looking like Lara Croft. Nobody is going to play a video game about a woman in her mid-30s who struggles with her weight who kills aliens. Power fantasy games are going to have you look like a supermodel with enlarged sexual organs.

 

There are guys that are that muscular. There are no women who have the body of Lara Croft as depicted in Comic and Video game. Because there are no women who have that tiny of a waistline.

 

Besides this is beyond the point. Most women don't care if there are fantasy women like Lara Croft in games. The objection is that it seems like that is the ONLY way women are depicted in most games. ie in StarWars the Old Republic MMO you can play skinny guys, muscled guys and kind of fat guys. You can also play anorexic Women, slightly less anorexic women and Amazon women. No women that have any bodyfat on them lower than the breast are playable. and SW TOR actually has more choices than most games. Women want choices. If I want to play someone who is chubby or out and out fat that should be my choice. My only choice shouldn't be between impossibly skinny women. Heck in Wow the only way to play a women with anything near to realistic proportions is to play a Dwarf Woman, and now they have added Pandaren women who are chubby (Just ignore the fur). So give us choices to play something different from adolescent male fantasy Women. You can still have your fantasy body models, just give us our realistically proportioned women too.

 

And to belabor a point Breasts aren't Sex Organs, our organs are up inside where no one can see them normally.

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There are guys that are that muscular. There are no women who have the body of Lara Croft as depicted in Comic and Video game. Because there are no women who have that tiny of a waistline.

 

Besides this is beyond the point. Most women don't care if there are fantasy women like Lara Croft in games. The objection is that it seems like that is the ONLY way women are depicted in most games. ie in StarWars the Old Republic MMO you can play skinny guys, muscled guys and kind of fat guys. You can also play anorexic Women, slightly less anorexic women and Amazon women. No women that have any bodyfat on them lower than the breast are playable. and SW TOR actually has more choices than most games. Women want choices. If I want to play someone who is chubby or out and out fat that should be my choice. My only choice shouldn't be between impossibly skinny women. Heck in Wow the only way to play a women with anything near to realistic proportions is to play a Dwarf Woman, and now they have added Pandaren women who are chubby (Just ignore the fur). So give us choices to play something different from adolescent male fantasy Women. You can still have your fantasy body models, just give us our realistically proportioned women too.

 

You are the only person in the history of the universe to say that men in video games are realistically proportioned.

 

And to belabor a point Breasts aren't Sex Organs, our organs are up inside where no one can see them normally.

 

Bullpucky. So why do they get mad when I stare at them?

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You are the only person in the history of the universe to say that men in video games are realistically proportioned.

 

Bullpucky. So why do they get mad when I stare at them?

 

now I didn't say that All men were shaped that way. Just that it's possible for some men to get into that condition. I grew up around body builders, so I saw many many men that were shaped that way. It takes a LOT of work to get into that condition, but it IS possible.

 

No women without surgery can get into the same shape as Lara Croft. You can't have that impossibly narrow waist (which is actually biologically impossible even in women as skinny as Twiggy or most supermodels) AND have breasts of that size. I would suggest you search out articles that interview Christina Hendricks (ie Mad Money, Firefly and other minor roles). She is large breasted, but she carries much more weight than most actresses so she can keep those breasts and hips. You can get some of that Lara Croft Figure with Corsetry and Breast enlargement surgery (though Angelina Jolie as large breasted as she is, had to wear extra padding to get up to Lara Croft sized breasts).

 

We get mad when you stare at them because it shows that you care more for our breasts than the whole package. It shows you only care about the outside and not anything that's inside. Also it's rude to stare, you come off as a creeper and someone that we need to watch out for. Not someone we might want to have as a friend.

 

PS if you had chosen a male model from World of Warcraft. I would have agreed that no guys have arms that huge in proportion to their body. The truth of the matter is that most games actually have guys that are proportioned pretty well. Nothing too out of the realm of possibility.

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

 

Bullpucky. So why do they get mad when I stare at them?

 

So, basically, you're arguing that breasts are sexual objectification organs. Sex organs are another matter entirely. Breasts are for feeding, and don't serve any other role in reproduction. Hell, men can breast feed if stimulated enough.

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Meanwhile, you have the really questionable "Save the Ta-Tas/Boobies/Melons" message for breast cancer awareness. Not "save the actual sufferers of breast cancer be they men or women", just the breasts themselves. 'Cause I tell ya, if a masectomy's gonna save my life, then bye-bye breasts.

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Meanwhile' date=' you have the really questionable "Save the Ta-Tas/Boobies/Melons" message for breast cancer awareness. Not "save the actual sufferers of breast cancer be they men or women", just the breasts themselves. 'Cause I tell ya, if a masectomy's gonna save my life, then bye-bye breasts.[/quote']

 

Exactly what Christina Applegate said when she got breast cancer. Though it would be nice if we along with early diagnosis would put some public funding toward preventing and curing Cancer. Treatment after we have it is better than it was, but it would be nice to erradicate this disease completely.

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

now I didn't say that All men were shaped that way. Just that it's possible for some men to get into that condition. I grew up around body builders, so I saw many many men that were shaped that way. It takes a LOT of work to get into that condition, but it IS possible.

 

No women without surgery can get into the same shape as Lara Croft. You can't have that impossibly narrow waist (which is actually biologically impossible even in women as skinny as Twiggy or most supermodels) AND have breasts of that size. I would suggest you search out articles that interview Christina Hendricks (ie Mad Money, Firefly and other minor roles). She is large breasted, but she carries much more weight than most actresses so she can keep those breasts and hips. You can get some of that Lara Croft Figure with Corsetry and Breast enlargement surgery (though Angelina Jolie as large breasted as she is, had to wear extra padding to get up to Lara Croft sized breasts).

 

Angelina Jolie's boobs aren't that big. You grew up with bodybuilders? Well those guys are all on steroids. They're no more "real" than a chick with a boob job. They promote unhealthy male body image issues and they're taking medications that make their nuts shrink and cause them to fly into violent rages. And I've met women with natural breasts and very thin waists. Just because you list a handful of actresses who don't fit that mold doesn't mean that there aren't women out there who look like that. I should know. I look at a lot of breasts.

 

We get mad when you stare at them because it shows that you care more for our breasts than the whole package. It shows you only care about the outside and not anything that's inside. Also it's rude to stare, you come off as a creeper and someone that we need to watch out for. Not someone we might want to have as a friend.

 

No one gets pissed off if you stare at their elbow.

 

PS if you had chosen a male model from World of Warcraft. I would have agreed that no guys have arms that huge in proportion to their body. The truth of the matter is that most games actually have guys that are proportioned pretty well. Nothing too out of the realm of possibility.

 

Zangief says you lie. You done a scientific study on this? No? That's what I thought.

 

So' date=' basically, you're arguing that breasts are sexual objectification organs. Sex organs are another matter entirely. Breasts are for feeding, and don't serve any other role in reproduction. Hell, men can breast feed if stimulated enough.[/quote']

 

Sex isn't just about reproduction. The clit serves no purpose in reproduction either, still a sex organ.

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Angelina Jolie's boobs aren't that big. You grew up with bodybuilders? Well those guys are all on steroids. They're no more "real" than a chick with a boob job. They promote unhealthy male body image issues and they're taking medications that make their nuts shrink and cause them to fly into violent rages. And I've met women with natural breasts and very thin waists. Just because you list a handful of actresses who don't fit that mold doesn't mean that there aren't women out there who look like that. I should know. I look at a lot of breasts.

 

No one gets pissed off if you stare at their elbow.

 

Zangief says you lie. You done a scientific study on this? No? That's what I thought.

 

Sex isn't just about reproduction. The clit serves no purpose in reproduction either, still a sex organ.

 

I did grow up around bodybuilders. Yes there were some people who took steroids, but the vast majority of them were natural. This was way back in the 70's when everyone was on a "Natural foods kick" it was really the start of the Health food store and Vitamin shops. Also, I know guys that went into the Armed Services come back with bodies like that of the picture you have shown. So make excuses if you like, but there ARE guys that can get that big just through lifting weights. Of course that's based solely on genetics, some guys couldn't bulk up that big if they spent their whole life lifting weights.

 

Don't know who this "Zangief" person is. I know that I present anecdotal evidence that guys can get this big naturally. I just think that you don't want to believe anything that doesn't fit your world view. (Also, I have never called you names in this thread. I am not a liar. Lets keep the tone in this thread civil ok?)

 

The clitoris is there to help with orgasm which causes the Cervix (IIRC) to dip itself into the Male's sperm. This increases the chance of actually fertilizing the egg. So it does serve a purpose in Reproduction.

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Meanwhile' date=' you have the really questionable "Save the Ta-Tas/Boobies/Melons" message for breast cancer awareness. Not "save the actual sufferers of breast cancer be they men or women", just the breasts themselves. 'Cause I tell ya, if a masectomy's gonna save my life, then bye-bye breasts.[/quote']

 

Interesting idea. I'm not sure a similar "Save the Huevos" campaign would be seen as "Save the Nads not the man." Why do you think we separate the breasts from women?

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

1. Breasts help in orgasm as well.

 

2. If breasts aren't sexual organs, then it shouldn't matter if a woman has big boobs in a video game. It's no different from a character with a bobblehead.

 

3. Zangief: [ATTACH=CONFIG]45095[/ATTACH] Absolutely normal looking male.

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