Right, been away a bit. Going to back a little bit here;
That is true for imaginary settings like Skyrim and Mass Effect. But settings based on real world places/times/whatever else need to have some basic elements in order to identify as such. And so far, the criminal world being very much a male only thing (barring some exceptions, but those are a minority and can be represented as such) you can expect the minority to be poorly treated.
GTA isn't a documentary. No version of it makes a serious attempt at realism. You wouldn't want to in that sort of game, as heavy realism would make the whole thing unattractive.
Realism isn't a defence for sexism unless you are actually building a
simulation of some scenario that heavily features sexism, where I'd hope the decision to include sexism would be a serious and deliberate one.
The other substantive artistic reason for including extensive sexism would be that it's central to the story, but I can think of few games where that's true. It's the background radiation, not the core of the narrative. It's just assumed and present because it's what people (or at least some people, seemingly including developers) expect.
There is no real reason you couldn't have a GTA that isn't perfectly egalitarian when it comes to gender. The only argument against it is that it doesn't reflect real life, but then GTA doesn't reflect real life anyway.
As to the broader argument about whether they are problematic for being sexualised or just not fleshed out, it's a bit more subtle.
For starters, sexualisation is problematic in itself. If you check the
studies she links to or any number of
others (just an example search, might need to play with terms) there are harmful effects associated with the sexualisation of women in general and with sexualisation in video games in particular.
Now the APA and other organisations use sexualisation as something that is inherently unhealthy, contrasted with healthy sexuality. Looking at
this report they have four elements of sexualisation;
1) a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics;
2) a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness (narrowly defined) with being sexy;
3) a person is sexually objectified — that is, made into a thing for others’ sexual use, rather than seen as a person with the capacity for independent action and decision making; and/or
4) sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person.
Now 2 is hard to assess in terms of games. It's problematic when applied to real people, but that sort of sexualisation would have to be a design choice to depict in games. That said, games can (and usually do) re-enforce such narrow standards of attractiveness with the demand that near every female character fit those standards (think games that let you have a fat or ugly male character but the female characters are all thin or otherwise more conventionally attractive, even when non-human). And number 4 is almost universally recognised as horrible when it comes to sexualisation of minors and similar.
But 1 and 3 pretty well fit what is being talked about here. The idea of characters who only exist to be a sexual ornament or toy in games is far too widely accepted and I doubt anyone has to struggle to think of examples.
My previous example of Mass Effect as a game that (generally) avoided sexualisation was to show characters who can be sexy and sexual without being sexualised. They have value outside their sex appeal and show agency when it comes to sexual acts and decision making. So it's not like you are contrasting heavily sexualised games and completely sexless ones when talking about this. Games don't have to abandon sex appeal or even gratuitous sex entirely, just avoid gratuitous sexualisation.
Now usually the difference between a sexualised character and a healthy, sexual, sexy character is just in how well they are fleshed out and given agency in the context of their world, as opposed to just being there for the one purpose. And yes, most characters will never be that well fleshed out (even if the requirements aren't exactly high here, IMO). But in that case I'd say it's a good argument for avoiding gratuitous sexualisation where possible.
Even more illustrative, that APA definition fits for both genders. Look at number 3. I can't think of any games off the top of my head where there are sexually objectified men in that sense, but more than enough where women are objectified in that manner. The others may apply on occasion, but generally to a lesser degree than to women, and there are far more counter-examples where they don't apply for men than there are for women.
I'm not saying sexism is OK, I'm just saying you cannot expect a sudden change from the 'women are a thing to be rescued' to 'Women are portrayed just as well as men and just as frequently'
See, I'm not actually sure why this is impossible.
OK, if you are looking at historical trends and entrenched attitudes, then yes it's not going to happen. But there is nothing so drastic about either writing women or depicting them in such ways that it needs to be approached in an incrementalist manner. It's not like there are thousands of writers out there writing books and other media where women are leads or otherwise depicted well. It's not like they have to retool studios and retrain animators and design teams. It's a matter of bringing in writers with certain outlooks and ability, and both of those things are in abundance elsewhere.
Which is to say, the incremental steps seem more like reluctance to change, or at least an inability to understand the criticisms than genuine attempts to improve matters. And I'd say that criticism is entirely valid there.
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Topic: Re: Only two posts on 'Tropes vs Women in Video Games' (Read 313402 times)