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[Neonivek]

It isn't contradictory if you think of her viewpoint as "Woman are in a terrible situation, thus media should conform to an sanitized format towards women in order to balance it back".

Which I don't personally agree with, but that would be a viewpoint that would say something like that.

It would also explain why she mostly criticizes the whole damsel trope period rather then the overused aspect of it and the unfortunate implications aspect.

But it still seems to contradict her other points... Maybe she switched viewpoints since the last video?

[penguinofhonor]

Odd... wasn't one of her points LAST video that games should have more "generic female goons"?

I think generic enemies and random civilians you brutalize are slightly different topics. Female cops would be closer to female goons in GTA.

[Neonivek]

Odd... wasn't one of her points LAST video that games should have more "generic female goons"?

I think generic enemies and random civilians you brutalize are slightly different topics. Female cops would be closer to female goons in GTA.

Ahh then that explains it.

It sounds like this might be the video I disagree with more then the last one... which is odd because the topic "women as window dressing" (I forgot the actual term) SHOULD be the topic that I agree with the most.

[Graknorke]

@Graknorke:

I must say I agree with a lot of the points you mentioned, but at the same time, there's a few I think you misunderstood. Specifically, the Hitman clip; I think she's saying that there could be other, better reasons for the mission than yet another 'damsel in distress-ingly pornographic situations'.

Eh, there's the reason that you get paid for killing dudes? I mean the game kind of oscillates between making you out to be a bad person who kills good people to killing people who deserve it (that particular clip was from a mission that belongs to the latter category, though as far as I remember it is the only one that has reference to sex work). But I still take the point that it wasn't necessary.

And I would like to point out that it's entirely possible to be critical of a certain piece of media while still finding some parts valuable or enjoyable.

[Descan]

I took from it the same thing from the Bechdel thing. It's not that this specific instance is "Oh no a woman being abused!", but that for MOST games (though it might be getting better, a little) that's pretty much a womans role. It wouldn't be such a huge issue to have violence against women in games if that wasn't the *only* thing to do with women or at least the predominant theme. At least in regards to violence. Those "Men have that happen to them too!" things are true, but men can also be the main character, supporting characters, narrators, main companions, info-dump characters. It's like 5%, if that, of a mans role in game to, fer. example, be a body dumped next to a cop, where-as it's more like 60 to 80% of a womans role.

So saying "Men are in that position too!" would have more relevance if you can say the same thing to the same quantity about the predominantly male roles in games, i.e. main character, supporting characters, etc.

[palsch]

OK, let's try to get a shorter version of her thesis here that's harder to ignore for nitpicking.

I define the Women as Background Decoration trope in video games as: The subset of largely insignificant non-playable female characters whose sexuality or victimhood is exploited as a way to infuse edgy, gritty or racy flavoring into game worlds. These sexually objectified female bodies are designed to function as environmental texture while titillating presumed straight male players. Sometimes they’re created to be glorified furniture but they are frequently programmed as minimally interactive sex objects to be used and abused.

Shorter; it's where women in games are represented primarily (often exclusively) as sexual ornaments that are there to be exploited by the main character. The elements here are that they are heavily sexualised and have no agency beyond the ways the player chooses to exploit them. This makes a substantial difference to the male characters;

Typically all the non-essential characters in sandbox style games are killable, but it’s the sexualized women whose instrumentality and brutalization is gendered and eroticized in ways that men never are. The visual language attached to male NPCs is very different since they are rarely designed to be sexually inviting or arousing, and they are not coded to interact with the player in ways meant to reaffirm a heterosexual fantasy about being a stud.
...
But even if sexualized male NPCs were more prevalent, equal opportunity sexual objectification is still not the solution to this problem, especially considering the existing power differential between men and women in our society. Women are constantly represented as primarily for sex. Men may be sexual too, but they can also be anything else, they are not defined by or reduced to their sexuality and their sexuality is not thought of as something existing chiefly for the pleasure of others. Which means the fundamentally dominant position of men in our culture is not in any way challenged or diminished by the rare male depiction as sex worker.

Which is again a reminder that games don't exist in a vacuum, but rather interact with wider culture in ways that may play off of and/or re-enforce harmful stereotypes, prejudices and (yes, I have to use the word) tropes. The negative views of culture at large towards women's sexuality makes sexualised images of women inherently more problematic than such images of men, especially when combined with violence against women or another aspect that plays into such negative stereotypes. And, in what might be the most critical part of her argument;

...the negative impacts of sexual objectification have been studied extensively over the years and the effects on people of all genders are quite clear and very serious. Research has consistently found that exposure to these types of images negatively impacts perceptions and beliefs about real world women and reinforces harmful myths about sexual violence.

We know that women tend to internalize these types of images and self-objectify. When women begin to think of themselves as objects, and treat themselves accordingly, it results in all kinds of social issues, everything from eating disorders to clinical depression, from body shame to habitual body monitoring. We also see distinct decreases in self-worth, life satisfaction and cognitive functioning.

But the negative effects on men are just as alarming, albeit in slightly different ways. Studies have found, for example, that after having viewed sexually objectified female bodies, men in particular tend to view women as less intelligent, less competent and disturbingly express less concern for their physical well being or safety. Furthermore this perception is not limited only to sexualized women; in what is called the “Spill Over Effect”, these sexist attitudes carry over to perceptions of all women, as a group, regardless of their attire, activities or professions.

Researchers have also found that after long-term exposure to hyper-sexualized images, people of all genders tend to be more tolerant of the sexual harassment of women and more readily accept rape myths, including the belief that sexually assaulted women were asking for it, deserved it or are the ones to blame for being victimized.

In other words, viewing media that frames women as objects or sexual playthings, profoundly impacts how real life women are perceived and treated in the world around us. And that is all without even taking into account how video games allow for the more participatory forms of objectification that we’ve been discussing in this episode.

The studies referenced are in the reference links on the page with the transcript.

So these sorts of depictions have direct negative effects on the real world. Is their artistic value really worth such potential downsides? And do note again she puts the emphasis on sexualised images. The violence aspect is an intensifier, but it's that it's done to sexualised objects as part of the objectification process; a reduction of them to an erotic plaything.



Yeah, I've cut out all the examples. I tend to think they are the weakest part of the videos. Nearly everyone has experiences of such games and picking out specifics to show will always result in nitpicking arguments in anything but the clearest cut examples. Not to mention that such examples can never truly represent the trends. They make sense in the videos as visual aids, relevant to a teaching video, but are less useful for a debate over the merits of her argument.

[Neonivek]

Yeah, I've cut out all the examples. I tend to think they are the weakest part of the videos.

Understatement. She is terrible at it!

To the extent where her examples either aren't examples of what she is talking about or entirely change the meaning of her statement.

But yeah this isn't news it was what happened in the Damsel in Distress section too.

At least in regards to violence. Those "Men have that happen to them too!" things are true, but men can also be the main character, supporting characters, narrators, main companions, info-dump characters. It's like 5%, if that, of a mans role in game to, fer. example, be a body dumped next to a cop, where-as it's more like 60 to 80% of a womans role

Ehhh, I think that is an exaggeration for videogames as a whole. Not soo much for the Grand Theft Auto games (though given what they are meant to be emulating...) or Hitman (Though in all fairness no one thought the Nuns were a good idea)

[Descan]

You've talked with me often enough that you should know exaggerations spill out of me like blubber from a poached whale.

Regardless of the actual percentage, it wouldn't be such an issue if women were as often as men are the other types of roles. In that situation, being a whore you dump next to the cops would be "just another game role". Being the stripper on the pole would be "just another role". You don't even need to make it equal representation for each role, there are "roles" that DO make more sense for each gender. Strippers, especially in period, are pretty much destined to be female, unless it's a male strip club. Soldiers, again especially in period, tend to be male. Though a game set in modern period or in the near/far future has no real excuse, modern warfare and especially future warfare has no reason to restrict the genders, and games should realize that.

But the default gender for most non-gender-specific roles is "male", BioShock could just as easily had a female main character and have to change very little of the game. But BioShock is just one of many, MANY games that defaults to male, unless it's explicitly female (and those explicitly female positions tend to be sexual positions, with the odd "Nurse" (Sexy nurse, anyone?) or "Secretary" (bosses getting sexual acts from their secretaries is a trope of it's own) role that aren't inherently sexual.)

[Rolan7]

I was going to argue that she never specifically claimed violence against women was worse than violence against men.  But fortunately that discussion here got resolved while I was watching the video.  But now I'm 21 minutes in and, actually, that seems to be one of the video's primary themes.

I'm with her on the portrayal of women as objects.  Male NPCs are usually just as shallow too, but female NPCs are systematically stripped of dignity and clothing to make the game "edgy" and appeal to immature males.  Interesting NPCs with stories and complex interactions are also predominately male.  I find it insulting to women and to male gamers.

But almost every example of violence against female NPCs she presents is equally applicable to male NPCs.  Not all, but most...  Yes, Jensen can stab random people in the chest.  That's not misogynistic whatsoever, it's just a game being violent.  As long as the game isn't encouraging violence against women *specifically*, I don't see any problem.  Is she suggesting that games should give women the same invincibility that many games give children?  That would be unfortunate.

NPCs in games all have the "violability" she talks about.  That's often their main purpose, to be punching bags who react cartoonishly to the player's actions.  It's usually not a gender thing.

The Sleeping Dogs and Red Dead Redemption examples might be valid, if they're gender-specific.  Can the player capture kidnap men into the car, or tie up men and throw them on train tracks?  I haven't played the games.  The "dastardly" achievement isn't a big deal though because it's a single-time thing, not a continuing incentive, so it wouldn't train people to tie women to tracks.

She does a good job explaining why players like to experiment (brutally) with NPCs, but calls it misogynistic if women are possible targets (even when male NPCs are just as vulnerable).  This is dishonest.

The player cannot help but treat these female bodies as things to be acted upon, because they were designed, constructed and placed in the environment for that singular purpose. Players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters.
It’s a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousing connected to the act of controlling and punishing representations of female sexuality.

Here she finally mentions a reason why players might be encouraged to attack female NPCs more than male ones.  I don't agree with her assumption that sexualizing women invites violence against them, though.  Then she goes right back to condemning gender-neutral game mechanics:

In-game consequences for these violations are trivial at best and rarely lead to any sort of “fail state” or “game over”. Sometimes areas may go on high-alert for a few minutes during which players have to lay low or hide before the game and its characters “forget” that you just murdered a sexualized woman in cold blood.

The implication is that, in sandbox games where you can easily get away with murder, murdering a woman ought to carry greater penalties.  Why, because they're weak and need protection?  That makes every female NPC a damsel in distress.

... And it just keeps going, showing off how video games encourage and have little consequences for violent behavior, and calling it misogyny.  I'm not done watching but I'm not impressed.

[Vector]

Other than that, though, and similar things, she seems to be saying violence should only be allowed against men in video games, for sandbox ones. Which seems...counter-intuitive.

I think she may be speaking, somewhat ineffectively, to trends where people will specifically target women to kill in sandbox games. Like the GTA thing where people seem to try to think up the most horrible ways to treat the prostitutes, or people tracking down and murdering minorities in Watch Dogs. That's more on the end user than it is on the designer, though, which she should have made more clear--albeit designers do in a way deliberately create

There are often issues in games (like Diablo 2) where women will have sexualized death animations, which makes it a problem because there are often implications that some sort of sexual violence is being done. You don't just kill women, you kill-and-rape them, which is why they keep on moaning lustily when you're stabbing them to death. This is a problem, because it does drive different consumer behavior.

It's kind of the difference between fantasizing about killing people cuz they piss you off, and fantasizing about killing women because they're women. One is arguably a psychic impulse for backlash that one needs in order to maintain a healthy sense of self (the feeling: That person did something to me, and now I will do something to them), and on which very few people act. The other desire is a problem, and seeing women as objects is actively creating practiced violence in our culture.

I strongly oppose the "invincible women" approach since I feel it removes agency (women are a vulnerable class due to the staggering amount of violence leveled at us, but we are not children), but I do not think that any mainstream (rather than porn, kink, niche, etc.) game should continue selling the ability to totally objectify every female inhabitant of the game world unilaterally.

I don't agree with her assumption that sexualizing women invites violence against them, though.

The reason why is that it's a form of objectification/dehumanization, which invites violence. "Sexualization" here doesn't specifically mean being sexy/having sexual agency a la Bayonetta, it means being represented as a fucktoy. In particular, having the entire representation of a gender within a game be as a fucktoy, rather than particular humans being fucktoys. I don't know about you, but I'm more driven to respect a man than a dildo.

[Neonivek]

Can we REALLY just ban the word objectify? I mean seriously.

[Vector]

Can we REALLY just ban the word objectify? I mean seriously.

Would you prefer that I said "treat as an object" instead? I'm willing to do that.

[Neonivek]

Can we REALLY just ban the word objectify? I mean seriously.

Would you prefer that I said "treat as an object" instead? I'm willing to do that.

That doesn't work either because that is rarely what is being done when the term "objectify" pops up.

[Vector]

That doesn't work either because that is rarely what is being done when the term "objectify" pops up.

That is literally what I mean, though.

[XXSockXX]

There are often issues in games (like Diablo 2) where women will have sexualized death animations, which makes it a problem because there are often implications that some sort of sexual violence is being done. You don't just kill women, you kill-and-rape them, which is why they keep on moaning lustily when you're stabbing them to death.

I played Diablo 2 a lot some years ago and I don't remember that at all. Stripperiffic costumes, sure, but sexualized death animations?

It's kind of the difference between fantasizing about killing people cuz they piss you off, and fantasizing about killing women because they're women. One is arguably a psychic impulse for backlash that one needs in order to maintain a healthy sense of self (the feeling: That person did something to me, and now I will do something to them), and on which very few people act. The other desire is a problem, and seeing women as objects is actively creating practiced violence in our culture.

How is there a difference between those things? If you fantasize about killing people who piss you off and these people happen to be women (or minorites or whatever), it's the same thing. In that case the problem is more an unresolved issue a player who does these things has with women, and that results in the impulse for backlash you describe.