Tensei

When you have a role description as narrow as "Does a lot of damage, scales well with DPS items, needs farm", the champion with slightly better numbers than the others will always be the optimal pick.

Thank you, Mono, for phrasing pretty much everything I wanted to say in a much better format. The issue here is that the ratio of 'blatant offenders' vs. the amount of reasonably portrayed female characters is very skewed, especially if you compare it to the portrayal of male characters. If 9 out of 10 games only contain objectified female characters whose main purpose is basically to serve as eye-candy, I think it's pretty much inevitable that gamer culture as a whole will start objectifying women on a subconscious level.

This is actually what a lot of people in this thread have to be convinced of in the first place.

Reposting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_games#Female_gamers_as_a_demographic Stop arguing this stuff though because it's at best tangentially related and we've pretty much exhausted this particular subtopic in the last few pages.

Nobody ever said anything like that so that's pretty much a strawman argument. If you really want to condense that particular point down to a single sentence, it would be something like "The reasons behind the fact that the amount of men vs. women who enjoy videogames is disproportionate can probably be traced back to sexism" Also, while I do agree with the sentiment that there should be more women in the industry, I do not like the implication that that's the only way you could solve sexism. Women are just as capable of being sexist, and they're equally likely to be ignorant to that kind of stuff. I have no doubt that there are plenty of female artists who don't bat an eye at constantly having to design female characters on high heels with their boobs hanging out, or if they do, they simply accept it as something that's 'part of the job'.

You're misreading your own 'evidence' (in as far as a dictionary definition and anecdotes count as such). The sentence about stereotypes of social roles based on sex definitely DOES apply to this discussion. What you're essentially implying here is that "Women do chores around the house" is sexist, but "Woman don't play videogames" isn't, according to your own flawed definition of social roles. One of the examples given on wikipedia is the act of playing soccer, which isn't a duty or obligation either. E: This is getting way too tangential: The main point of this thread is to point out that both female characters and female players are treated pretty badly in a lot of videogames, and how that's kind of a bad thing. What you guys have been doing for the last few pages is trying to convince me that I'm wrong because some women might not feel that way. I know that I'm guilty of addressing the validity of arguments instead of staying ontopic, but ultimately all the stuff that has been brought up on the last few pages is largely irrelevant towards the thread.

To be clear, I'm not arguing that the sexualized look of female characters is the ONLY factor that contributes to videogames being less appealing to women. If I ever said something to imply that I was wrong and I apologize. Another example to look at would be the way female gamers are treated in certain communities. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a female gamer who hasn't had to deal with comments on her gender in the past.

Then what is? E: It's not just the portrayal of women in videogames that's sexist, that's just a symptom that everyone seems to be very intent to focus on. Obviously the way videogames are marketed, the way many female gamers are treated, and societal expectations factor into the sexism of it as well.

Well, if we go back to the make-up analogy: I'll speak for myself here, and say that I don't wear make-up. If someone questioned me about it I'd probably say that I don't consider it necessary, or maybe even say that it's 'weird'. In the end, though, I feel like this all stems from being conditioned my entire life in a patriarchal society that expects men not to wear make-up, and stigmatizes it as something exclusively intended for women. And yes, I consider this sexist as well. Given this reasoning, I wouldn't be surprised if at least some women hold very similar ideas with regards to videogames. They might not have thought it through all the way or identify it as sexism, but it would be hard to deny that society as a whole (which includes the way videogames are marketed) could have at least SOME role in the thought process.

Any person with even a cursory knowledge of statistics will tell you that a sample size of 10 on a population of ~4 billion is completely inconsequential, and there is absolutely no way you can make accurate statements about the entire group based on ANYTHING you get from that. My secondary argument was that you can't say for sure that when a girl says that she has no interest in videogames, it's not because of sexism.

Yeah but you think that interviewing 10 girls is enough to conclude that women who are repelled by it are in the vast minority. I'm sorry but that's not nearly a good enough sample size to be making a statement like that, which is why I brought up the argument that I can find plenty of evidence to the contrary and that it's actually pointless to be bringing up singular anecdotal examples. You also seem to assume that when a girl says she isn't 'interested' in videogames, that couldn't possibly be because of societal expectations, while it could very well be an indirect result of having to deal with the stereotype that videogames are for boys her entire life. It's become a recurring theme in this thread that modern-day sexism isn't blatant but insidious and affects people on a much deeper level where they don't realize that what they say or do might be sexist. It's good that we've established that the fact that fewer women play videogames than men is the result of most games being explicitly marketed towards men, now you just have to see how that is sexist.

Please stop arguing semantics.

No, you see, what I am saying is that there are women out there who are bothered by sexism in videogames. I would only need a SINGLE example to prove that. What you have been saying is that if you ask a woman why she doesn't play videogames, it will NEVER be because of sexism. See where the difference lies? The only valid evidence in this case would be to literally interview every single woman in the world and prove that none of them are bothered by sexism in videogames. When there are more games that are made to appeal to men than to women, then yes. That's sexist.

Guys, anecdotes about how this one girl you met totally doesn't think games are sexist aren't valid evidence. I can guarantee you that for every example you come up with I can dig up a feminist blog post about how the portrayal of women in most videogames DOES bother them, but that isn't the point at all. Exactly!

All the answers point to one of two things: either women are somehow naturally predisposed towards disliking videogames (i.e. sexist evopsych bullshit), or there is SOMETHING that makes videogames less appealing towards women as a whole, perhaps without them being conscious of it (i.e. societal pressure, the way videogames are marketed). My point is that by accepting the idea that fewer women play videogames than men as a fact, one can only conclude that sexism is somehow involved.

...which is because?

I just showed you one. You should be able to draw your own conclusions based on the fact that there is still a disproportionate amount of male vs. female gamers.

Bleck is not the one who brought up that number in the first place, his main point was that if there is an imbalance of male vs. female gamers, it's because the medium is sexist. According to Wikipedia the percentage of female gamers is something like 40%.

You should try playing Exort Invoker. You get like +60 autoattack damage in midgame, you can gank other lanes with your ion cannon while you keep farming, and you can actually pretend that you're an auto-attack carry later on because of Forge Spirits and Alacrity. It's pretty silly, and doesn't feel as cheap as Q/W Invoker.

I think that's actually completely counterproductive though. I mean, we're already in a similar situation right now, where a lot of people prefer to delude themselves into thinking of racism and sexism as things of the past, while that is evidently not the case. That is honestly the biggest problem right now; sexism is no longer something as blatant as denying women the right to vote, but it takes a much more subtle form where people don't realize that certain things they say or do might be sexist. Making people aware of that is the key to solving it IMO.

I find that self-proclaimed 'nice guys' tend to be pretty damn sexist as well though, but that's neither here nor there.

^^ Yeah the "1 female gamer for every 100 males" thing was brought up by Darangen, but I think it's much closer to a 60/40 split, if not even more than that. That's exactly what makes the sexism that much more jarring; there are a plenty of potential female customers, but the majority of the industry just chooses to 'play it safe' and keep on pandering explicitly towards men.

Your conclusion about RPGs might be pretty accurate actually. If I recall correctly, Bioware games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect seem to be pretty popular with a lot of female gamers, possibly because they place such a big emphasis on characters and story. It probably also helps that both of those games have a pretty indepth character editor which makes it easier for people to make a character they can really relate to, so in that sense there will probably be some overlap between Twilight fans and Bioware fans. For all the flak Dragon Age 2 has gotten, I have to say that it's one of the few games that made me realize that at least parts of it were specifically created with female gamers in mind.

Jade is a great character yeah. Too bad that game will never get a sequel probably. Actually, I think Faith from Mirror's Edge is an excellent female character as well (I wouldn't dare to say whether she could be a female power fantasy though). She has distinct facial features that serve to make her attractive, but not in a stereotypically sexualized way, and she just looks pretty athletic, with an appropriate outfit for the things she does.

On a related note, it really disappoints me that this Soul Calibur 5 ad turned out to be a hoax. Not because I particularly enjoy staring at a guys' junk, but it would have been hella amusing to see the stereotypical male gamer react to sexual objectification of his own gender.