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Tropes vs Women in Video Games

Started by Bludshot, December 06, 2012, 11:48:46 PM

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Blackthorne

Well, when I say level the playing field, I don't mean that it makes men and women equal at every task and every job - to expect that is lunacy.  But there are some jobs that both men and women can do equally, and in those spots - where severe inequality exists - time will even the playing field, so to speak.


Bt
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KatieHal

#141
The idea of basing just any idea of how reality works around an anime is just...ridiculous.

Some people are better or worse at certain jobs than others. It is not linked to their gender. Women have excelled in all the same careers as men and continue to do so. That's not always accepted, and historically has often not even been allowed. But it's true regardless.

If someone is doing equal work, they should get equal pay.

And furthermore...honestly, Neonivek, your last few posts really come across as being rather sexist.

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Neonivek

#142
QuoteThe idea of basing just any idea of how reality works around an anime is just...ridiculous

No dang it! I mean that was my experience in seeing the outright "Women are better caregivers" and then I just explained that the show kinda devolved into terribleness that doesn't prove the very point it was trying to make (That men can be just as good) if you looked are it more carefully.

That is was an anime that tried to tackle that very issue and failed terribly. Both at proving that men can in fact be just as good at care giving (Because he immediately had an affair with a student and slept with the girls, even if it was nonsexually) and failing at proving a sensible motive for a school to even believe that by just boiling it down to man hating (and a very dumb reason to man hate).

QuoteIf someone is doing equal work, they should get equal pay.

And furthermore...honestly, Neonivek, your last few posts really come across as being rather sexist.

I was saying that the payment aspect is unfair to both women and buisnesses, because of this there is no real "natural evolution towards equality" and thus it requires us as a society to make a stand at which value we consider to be a higher priority.

Women because they are being disadvantaged for being a woman whether or not they exibit these conditions.

Or buisnesses because at equal pay they would pay more for women employees due to maternity leave.

As in, it isn't an issue we can expect to go away on its own. It is an issue that actually needs to be contested and we cannot assume that society will fix it due to gravity. That time will never alone make women equal because equality comes at a price.

Now if that is still sexist, then I don't know why and I'd like to be filled in.

KatieHal

Okay--that does clarify what you meant, thank you.

Glad to know you aren't basing any judgments on reality on anime, either! Yeah man-hating is a pretty dumb reason for just anything.

The rest...I would reply to at greater length if I weren't about to fall asleep on my keyboard. :P

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

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Deloria

Quote from: Neonivek on December 10, 2012, 04:57:57 PM
Quote from: Deloria on December 10, 2012, 04:49:14 PM
Don't you see that that's kind of unfair to women who don't want and never intend to have children? :P
or to not replace an important employee who is going to leave for several months.
Technically, businesses are investing in workers and providing them with an incentive to return later in that case. But to have sterile, celibate or simply unmaternal women be paid less than their male counterparts is the height of unfairness if we're only arguing that pregnant females make up for it by taking leave. Unless you really think that all workers should have to pay the price and earn less to make up for the sick leave of what is a rapidly diminishing number of females having children, it's not a good argument. Personally, I'm with Kelsey's videos on this one.
 
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Rosella

Not to mention, guys can take paternity leave too. :P Obviously, there's a certain amount of time required to have a baby and then recover from that, but the actual caring-for-a-newborn part of parenting is fairly gender-neutral.
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snabbott

#146
Re: Maternity leave - In my experience, (at least in the US), it's generally unpaid. (You can take vacation and sick leave, and sometimes there's short-term disability insurance, but that's it.) So that really shouldn't be a factor in how much women make.

Re: Patriarchal society - Yes, there's still way too much of this. It's slowly getting better, but it's still there. Just because there are women in positions of power doesn't disprove this. After all, we (America) have a black president, and I don't think anyone's going to argue that racism is dead.

Re: Marketing - This is a difficult one. As cray pointed out, it's not the existence of the products that's the problem - it's the way they are marketed. However, if women didn't buy the things that are targeted at them, then those things wouldn't be marketed as they are. That doesn't make it right, but corporations (with few exceptions) are all about the bottom line, not about doing what's right. There are a lot of girls and women who like pink and purple - it doesn't matter whether it's an inherent "girl" thing or not. If people are willing to buy it (and even pay extra), then corporations will be more than happy to do whatever it takes to get them to do so. It's only when society as a whole changes that marketing will reflect that change. (Please note that I am not excusing corporations for marketing in offensive ways; I'm just saying that it's inevitable as long as it is effective.) I do think change is coming, but it's going to be a slow process. :-\

Quote from: stika on December 10, 2012, 01:31:14 PM
Quote from: Cez on December 10, 2012, 01:29:22 PM
The side effect of that of course is that a guy that likes a pink beetle is going to be called a sissy. (that, on the other hand, doesn't happen with girls that like guy things, they are called "cool" if they like sports and drink beer like a man, so stop to see who has the toughest time).

you raise a very good point there. In many ways guys have it worse then women, but it seems like these examples are often lost or ignored or forgotten
The thing is, in this case the man is being ridiculed for being like (the stereotype of) a woman. So this is still equally offensive to women.

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stika

#147
Quote from: snabbott on December 11, 2012, 08:34:24 AM

Re: Patriarchal society - Yes, there's still way too much of this. It's slowly getting better, but it's still there. Just because there are women in positions of power doesn't disprove this. After all, we (America) have a black president, and I don't think anyone's going to argue that racism is dead.
I think there's a difference between racism existing in a country and a country being labelled as 'Racist'

Racism existing in a country means that you'll sporadically encounter racist people or read about it the media
A country being racist means imo that if you are of a different race you are simply not welcome there by both the people and the government alike

The same goes with sexism.

Does sexism exist in the western world and the US? Yes, there is no question or margin of doubt about it
Is the US a chauvinistic and Patriarch society? No, I don't think so, because that would imply women were widely regarded as inferior in just about very stratus of society by both the people and the government.




Quote from: snabbott on December 11, 2012, 08:34:24 AM

The thing is, in this case the man is being ridiculed for being like (the stereotype of) a woman. So this is still equally offensive to women.

You're right, it is equally offensive to women, but I'd argue that the direct repercussions are worse for men then they are for women.

Bludshot

Quote from: stika on December 11, 2012, 08:43:54 AM
Quote from: snabbott on December 11, 2012, 08:34:24 AM

The thing is, in this case the man is being ridiculed for being like (the stereotype of) a woman. So this is still equally offensive to women.

You're right, it is equally offensive to women, but I'd argue that the direct repercussions are worse for men then they are for women.

How? It implies that feminine qualities are unsuitable or inferior.
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stika

#149
Quote from: Bludshot on December 11, 2012, 11:09:34 AM
Quote from: stika on December 11, 2012, 08:43:54 AM
Quote from: snabbott on December 11, 2012, 08:34:24 AM

The thing is, in this case the man is being ridiculed for being like (the stereotype of) a woman. So this is still equally offensive to women.

You're right, it is equally offensive to women, but I'd argue that the direct repercussions are worse for men then they are for women.

How? It implies that feminine qualities are unsuitable or inferior.

and it results in kids getting hounded and harassed in schools for years to come

The insult to women in implied, the aggression to males is direct and often physical

though to be fair, I feel that men are to blame for this, as I'm fairly certain most women don't really care if guys like feminine things

Bludshot

The implication for women is far reaching, a concept is established that feminine qualities (real or otherwise) are considered inferior or undesirable.  That has serious implications for women in all aspects of their life.  This is not to say men do not suffer from sexism, but the system being reinforced is one that is oppressive to women.  it is not just the bullies, but the kid being bullied for being girly seeing the world through that lens.
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stika

#151
Quote from: Bludshot on December 11, 2012, 11:43:39 AM
The implication for women is far reaching, a concept is established that feminine qualities (real or otherwise) are considered inferior or undesirable.  That has serious implications for women in all aspects of their life.  This is not to say men do not suffer from sexism, but the system being reinforced is one that is oppressive to women.  it is not just the bullies, but the kid being bullied for being girly seeing the world through that lens.
Isn't it just as far reaching for women as it is for men though?

Moreover I think there's is another way to look at it, one could argue that issue is not that feminine traits are undesirable or inferior, it's that they are undesirable on men because it is not how society feels they 'should' act, so one could see it, not as question of vertical hierarchy, but a horizontal one.

Though this is something I'm not very familiar with, so I can't be sure of this, I'm really just guessing or if you prefer, trying to find another way to look at the circunstances

crayauchtin

Quote from: stika on December 11, 2012, 11:49:41 AM
Moreover I think there's is another way to look at it, one could argue that issue is not that feminine traits are undesirable or inferior, it's that they are undesirable on men because it is not how society feels they 'should' act, so one could see it, not as question of vertical hierarchy, but a horizontal one.

Though this is something I'm not very familiar with, so I can't be sure of this, I'm really just guessing or if you prefer, trying to find another way to look at the circunstances
Depending who you talk to, that theory is either a complete joke or a viable problem we have in this country.

I think it's hard to say, because you can't really tell whether or not feminine traits are considered "inferior" on men, while women are being treated unequally. Like, if women were completely, 100%, inarguably treated equally to men in our society.... would we still talk about feminine traits on men as being undesirable?

And we can't know that, because our society isn't at a point where women are treated equally all of the time.

But, even if it isn't sexism, isn't it still a problem? This is what produces homophobia and transphobia -- the idea that men must behave a certain way and women must behave a certain way. Even if that idea isn't rooted in sexism, it's a major issue that our society needs to fix.
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stika

Quote from: crayauchtin on December 12, 2012, 03:59:35 PM
Quote from: stika on December 11, 2012, 11:49:41 AM
Moreover I think there's is another way to look at it, one could argue that issue is not that feminine traits are undesirable or inferior, it's that they are undesirable on men because it is not how society feels they 'should' act, so one could see it, not as question of vertical hierarchy, but a horizontal one.

Though this is something I'm not very familiar with, so I can't be sure of this, I'm really just guessing or if you prefer, trying to find another way to look at the circunstances
Depending who you talk to, that theory is either a complete joke or a viable problem we have in this country.

I think it's hard to say, because you can't really tell whether or not feminine traits are considered "inferior" on men, while women are being treated unequally. Like, if women were completely, 100%, inarguably treated equally to men in our society.... would we still talk about feminine traits on men as being undesirable?

And we can't know that, because our society isn't at a point where women are treated equally all of the time.

But, even if it isn't sexism, isn't it still a problem? This is what produces homophobia and transphobia -- the idea that men must behave a certain way and women must behave a certain way. Even if that idea isn't rooted in sexism, it's a major issue that our society needs to fix.
Agreed, this is something that we'll never be able to trully tell as we don't really have a point of comparison.

As for 'feminine' traits being undesirable on men without being considered inferior, I'd say it's something that changes from person to person and I have no idea which one is more prevalent, though if I were a betting man, I'd say it would be the 'inferior' version.

And I agree, this sort of thinking leads to homphobia and transphobia (heh, I didn't even know that last one was a word)

Rosella

There's also bipohobia, heterosexism...  :P
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darthkiwi

I think you might be getting bogged down in assuming that a single country has a single attitude to masculine or feminine attributes. In certain fields - warfare, aggressive finance, politics - very masculine cultures tend to materialise. So any people within those cultures, whether male or female, tend to have to take on what are perceived as masculine attributes, most obviously aggression and the ability to dominate. It's conceivable that a woman might find it harder to be accepted in such a role - she certainly would a hundred years ago - but to a large extent that depends on the woman.

And then you have other fields like, say, nursing which are considered more feminine. If a man displays feminine attributes in a care home he will probably be accepted, despite the gender difference. But if he displayed such attributes in a big City firm, he'd probably be ridiculed by the other people there, women included.

It's probably more acceptable for men to display feminine attributes in public now than it was twenty years ago - you sometimes hear about how men are allowed to get in touch with their "emotional side" now - but there is still a lot of cultural architecture at work which can still be felt.
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stika


Rosella

For having so many prejudices or so many words to describe them? :P
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It's funny how you find you enjoy your life when you're happy to be alive.

stika


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