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[DJ]

My CompSci class in Uni was like 40% women.

[EnigmaticHat]

First of all, you used romance covers as an example.  That still bothers me.  First of all, again, its smut.  But not even that.  Women are more objectified (and typically written worse) than men, not just in media at large*, but in books, already a negligible share of the entertainment industry.  You took the one portion of an already small medium in which the normal objectification is reversed, and used that to argue that women and men are objectified equally.  Its a dishonest debating strategy because it picks an exception and an extreme and presents it as the norm.

Well if I were to have done my post proper it would have been to say that female and male standards of beauty and attraction are on the same level; that everyone is saying characterization is not only not for the character's sake but instead for a sex's sake, irregardless of both genders idealizing the same things for both genders.

Men and women don't idealize the same thing.  In terms of sex appeal, straight men have a habit of fetishising body parts that isn't nearly as prevalent among women.  Men are (in the context of attraction) visually oriented while women have a greater focus on the other senses, especially touch.  Female fantasies have a greater tendency to focus on relationships, which is why romance novels are thing.  I could go on.

Women aren't nearly attracted to what men think they are.  On average (because there are always exceptions) women don't care about penis size the way men care about breast size, most of them are attracted to a pretty skinny physique, and while which personality they prefer is all over the place its generally pretty far off from bad-ass sociopathic hero man.  So more Tony Stark and less Hulk.  A lot of male consumers are so used to being peddled their own fantasies they don't realize it even is their fantasy any more.  Again, all of this is on average.

To bring this back, if videogame's current gender issues were flipped, men would be split between tall rich brooding authority figures, and slightly too skinny dudes with big eyes who have issues and need a hug.  With maybe a few scantily clad hunks and seductive lady's men thrown in for good measure.  I don't know what would replace the gun-dude as the most common protagonist but I do know the female characters would almost always be the protagonists, and be given a much wider spectrum of roles.

So, um, this always turns into a wall of text.  My point is that you very much can design a character to appeal to a given sex, and video game designers are quite active about doing it and quite good at what they do.

[Loud Whispers]

Men and women don't idealize the same thing.  In terms of sex appeal, straight men have a habit of fetishising body parts that isn't nearly as prevalent among women.

You mean the secondary sexual characteristics which are prevalent amongst all women who've undergone puberty? And that women don't make measures to emphasize them as much if not more than men with theirs? And that either gender could recognize nor they idolize them?

  Men are (in the context of attraction) visually oriented while women have a greater focus on the other senses, especially touch.  Female fantasies have a greater tendency to focus on relationships, which is why romance novels are thing.  I could go on.

And what a woman would find beautifully attractive a man would too.

Women aren't nearly attracted to what men think they are.  On average (because there are always exceptions) women don't care about penis size the way men care about breast size

[Not a normally visible characteristic vs visible characteristic]
An apt comparison would be men don't care about vaginas as much as women don't care about penises. But men find wide hips, large breasts, height and symmetry attractive, whereas women find toned muscle, broad shoulders, height and angular, symmetrical features attractive. A man would be able to recognize those traits and apply them to himself, much in the same way that a woman would be able to apply it to herself.

A lot of male consumers are so used to being peddled their own fantasies they don't realize it even is their fantasy any more.

[Because it's not their fantasy. It's A fantasy. Hence, fantasy world].

To bring this back, if videogame's current gender issues were flipped, men would be split between tall rich brooding authority figures, and slightly too skinny dudes with big eyes who have issues and need a hug.  With maybe a few scantily clad hunks and seductive lady's men thrown in for good measure.  I don't know what would replace the gun-dude as the most common protagonist but I do know the female characters would almost always be the protagonists, and be given a much wider spectrum of roles.

You just described most male video game characters.

[Reelya]

You know Loud Whispers, you post everywhere and I lurk everywhere and I generally find your posts to be entertaining or insightful.  But in this one thread the way you're arguing is bothering me.

First of all, you used romance covers as an example.  That still bothers me.  First of all, again, its smut.  But not even that.  Women are more objectified (and typically written worse) than men, not just in media at large*, but in books, already a negligible share of the entertainment industry.  You took the one portion of an already small medium in which the normal objectification is reversed, and used that to argue that women and men are objectified equally.  Its a dishonest debating strategy because it picks an exception and an extreme and presents it as the norm.

That's not even the argument - it's not saying "women and men are objectified equally", so debunking that is debunking a strawman. It's pointing out that the form of objectification is the same. The claim made is that the physical form of males, the "conan" archetype is purely a male power fantasy, and not objectified at all in the sense that females are. What the romance novel covers show, is that the physique of males objectified in the romance novels (which are a segment marketed directly to women, and often written and approved by women) is almost identical to the physique we are told is the male power-fantasy. This shows that that body-form for males is in reality a common female fantasy, which is the thing that was dismissed with the "power fantasy" theory. So, if you're going to debate it, debate that actual point. Also the "it is smut" line, is not an argument, it's an appeal to emotion.

Who really *honestly* cares about that though? Must we know strive to eliminate all that is deemed 'offensive' by any one persons?

This is literally just dismissing the people who make the argument without acknowledging the argument.  People aren't saying "change video games because I don't like them."  They're saying "change video games because they have problems".

As to who cares: feminists, female gamers, all the people who sent death and rape threats to Anita.

Basically it's a Godwin right there - labeling anyone who disagrees with your point of view as "death and rape threat" person.And you have the nerve to talk about how "the way you're arguing is bothering me"!

We don't need to change video games. We need to create alternative games. Reducing everything to "gender neutral" forms will only SHRINK the overall market, not grow it. For the sheer sake that many titles we have now couldn't exist in that Brave New World. It's the same as forcing everything to have a G rating so as to enforce "age-neutral gaming". You can see, while individual titles may have a larger potential demographic if you did that, the overall industry sales would decline. But you could make the exact same type of arguments against anyone who opposed your G-rated-only scheme, as are made against people who defend "guy games". Any, a solution which reduces total sales volume won't ever get off the ground.

e.g. how would gender-neutral Call Of Duty work? Diversity is the key, not forcing everything to conform to a set of guidelines. The research shows that that a large number women choose to play a different type of game to the average guy. Now, should we "masculinize" the games women like and "feminize" the games that men like? Why only change one segment out of existence, if the goal is gender-neutral games?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_games#Differences_between_the_genders

Basically, it sounds like no matter how much you try and make heavy-duty shooters female-friendly they're still going to have a larger number of male fans. Should we turn every single shooter into an RPG with romance options to try and bring in more ladies? What about people who just wanted a shooter then? This is the wall I think will still be faced no matter how much we "sanitize" the existing genres.

[Inarius]

whereas women find toned muscle, broad shoulders, height and angular, symmetrical features attractive.

And you forgot hands, too.

[scriver]

Relevant to this discussion: who decides what goes on the covers? Authors rarely have anything to do with them. It's the (generally male, and definitely all male back when the tradition started) publishers that puts those men there. Because it's what men think is sexy. Women as a group tend to prefer Johnny Deppp-muscular or athletic men over Conans.

[Soadreqm]

This talk about what people find sexually attractive has got me thinking about what actually causes that. Is it purely biological? There's some serious variance inside the two groups, so it's clearly not just a "Have Y chromosome? Breasts are THE BEST THING" toggle switch. Could you medicate it? And if it's more a societal thing, how would you even go about learning something like that? Just watching what other people are fawning over? I'm sure there must be psychologists who've studied this, but I don't know any. :\

[Neonivek]

whereas women find toned muscle, broad shoulders, height and angular, symmetrical features attractive.

And you forgot hands, too.

And feet apperantly.

There is this really old commercial where this small scrawny guy turns into basically a woman's idea of a perfect man.

In otherwords while CERTAIN male ideas of female beauty is a minimum and everything above that is "even better". The CERTAIN Female idea of male beauty is a cookie cutter.

"Have Y chromosome? Breasts are THE BEST THING"

Here is kind of the thing... Women find other women attractive even if they are straight. It may not be sexually attractiveness, but they do. (The same actually goes for males).

There is already a woman idea of what makes a woman ideal in terms of physical attractiveness... which is unrealistic and a harmful ideal, but it does exist.

[Solifuge]

This talk about what people find sexually attractive has got me thinking about what actually causes that. Is it purely biological? There's some serious variance inside the two groups, so it's clearly not just a "Have Y chromosome? Breasts are THE BEST THING" toggle switch. Could you medicate it? And if it's more a societal thing, how would you even go about learning something like that? Just watching what other people are fawning over? I'm sure there must be psychologists who've studied this, but I don't know any. :\

Through personal study, I think a large part of it is based on what we learn to look for. Ideals of beauty and what is physically attractive are highly variable by culture, upbringing, and formative experiences. And I think it's largely informed by what our peers and role models appreciated or looked for; we sort of adopt those traits as the ones we idealize and look for as well, because they're "good" things to look for, and we can talk about and bond over what we're looking for with our peers, etc.

So you can sculpt it while growing up, but it seems to be pretty deep-rooted after that. Of course, we change over time, but much more slowly, in that regard, I think.

[Putnam]

There is already a woman idea of what makes a woman ideal in terms of physical attractiveness... which is unrealistic and a harmful ideal, but it does exist.

Pretty sure that's a societal thing, though.

[Neonivek]

There is already a woman idea of what makes a woman ideal in terms of physical attractiveness... which is unrealistic and a harmful ideal, but it does exist.

Pretty sure that's a societal thing, though.

Yeah (though it is wide spread enough to hit most developed countries) but remember that the male ideal of female beauty is also a societal thing.

We are talking about Within our society.

The Female ideal of female beauty is still harmful objectification... within our society.

[Frumple]

Last I checked it's more societal than anything Soad, yeah (which isn't to say there's no other influences, but that's the big one). Exactly what parts of the developmental process we start picking up on stuff like that I can't recall if I ever picked up, though.

You can see some pretty easy examples along those lines going backwards, though, checking what was considered highly attractive figures during times of plenty and paucity (weighty figures tend to be more attractive in low-food societies and vice versa... stuff like that). Basically the majority of what you consider attractive is, well, learned preference. Insofar as I'm aware, anyway, but it holds up pretty consistently when I bother paying attention to it.

[Neonivek]

That's not even the argument - it's not saying "women and men are objectified equally", so debunking that is debunking a strawman. It's pointing out that the form of objectification is the same. The claim made is that the physical form of males, the "conan" archetype is purely a male power fantasy, and not objectified at all in the sense that females are.

So basically we are back to the Equality Olympics?

Anyhow feeding "male power fantasy" is harmful objectification (Violence, unrealistic goals, and emotional stunting). Thus objectification equally... which equally being defined as "Happens to both".

Unless offensiveness is the measure of how wrong something is.

Yes I know this was the barest of arguments I could have made... But I don't take part in the Equality Olympics and I dislike every single time it is brought up.

[Loud Whispers]

This talk about what people find sexually attractive has got me thinking about what actually causes that. Is it purely biological? There's some serious variance inside the two groups, so it's clearly not just a "Have Y chromosome? Breasts are THE BEST THING" toggle switch. Could you medicate it?

Could you medicate homosexuality?

There is already a woman idea of what makes a woman ideal in terms of physical attractiveness... which is unrealistic and a harmful ideal, but it does exist.

Unless that ideal is unrealistic it is not unrealistic, and unless it is harmful it is harmful. They are neither inherently unrealistic, as most physically attractive traits just show you're healthy, and they can only get harmful if you act on them.

[Neonivek]

Unless that ideal is unrealistic it is not unrealistic, and unless it is harmful it is harmful. They are neither inherently unrealistic, as most physically attractive traits just show you're healthy, and they can only get harmful if you act on them

They are acted upon hence why they are unrealistic and unhealthy. As well because of how the ideal is pushed upon people it is also pushed forward.

It is not an inert ideal but an active ideal.