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[Neonivek]

How many games present a world where you are taught that women are inferior? How many settings are women unable to stand on their two feet?

I mean you have "The Void", You have Banner Saga...

I still don't seem how The Banner Saga is supposed to be an example for that.

Well you have one female character who is a strong leader but who cannot take a leadership position except when there is no other available because no one will accept her command... but who accepts this role whole heartedly and considers becoming an actual leader (rather then an emergency leader) to be more of a flight of fancy then a serious train of thought.

A Witch who commands respect only out of fear who everyone keeps at arms length.

And a girl who is only kept in the army because they are desperate and otherwise she would have been shipped FAR from the battlefield. Who in the early game is a green horn who constantly messes up. Yet males in a similar position are not treated as such.

[Mindmaker]

Well you have one female character who is a strong leader but who cannot take a leadership position except when there is no other available because no one will accept her command.

That's basic male-preference cognatic primogeniture, I don't see how that explicitely states "women are inferior".

A Witch who commands respect only out of fear who everyone keeps at arms length.

I just got her, but started over because I made some wrong level-up choices, so I can't comment on her.

And a girl who is only kept in the army because they are desperate and otherwise she would have been shipped FAR from the battlefield.

That forester guys daugther? She gets the same treatment as that male trainee, they are trying to keep them away because they are inexperienced.
Not to mention that you can always insist that she fights with you, considering she's quite capable.

[Neonivek]

Ohh yeah don't get me wrong... they are very nice troops. (though In my opinion Forester is the best archer... but only because his special ability does insane damage)

They are all oddly archers mind you.

I just got her, but started over because I made some wrong level-up choices, so I can't comment on her.

You can get her pretty early in the game mind you.

[Mindmaker]

His "Mark Prey" ability is bugged in the newest patch (it does nothing), so he's pretty much just an archer/melee hybrind right now.

I know, but I play on hard and restart quite a bit during battles, so my progression is slow.

[Neonivek]

What? NOOO!!!

He went from one of the best units! (The best best IMO is the shield guy who removes shield everytime he is hit) to one of the worst...

[Rolepgeek]

Guys, you need to get over your obsession with the game having to explicitly state it. The world/society knows sexism is bad. The world/society doesn't necessarily always know what sexism is. Games will almost never state it outright; it's more subtle.

But for example, take Dragon Age. They do give good examples of female characters in the main party, with Liliana, Morrigan, and Wynne, even if they do fulfill the Hecate Sisters(Maiden, Mother, Crone)(and yes I know Morrigan wasn't exactly motherly but she gets pregnant as part of the plot so she fits pretty damn well)(also, there's nothing inherently wrong with the Hecate Sisters trope, it's just done a lot). However, throughout the rest of the story? When women do come into play, they're typically shown fairly well as being equal, but the problem is that that rarely happens, and they're rarely in top positions of authority, particularly if military action is required of them. Secondary positions, yes. Primary, no. Whether it's King Aeducan and his sons, King Cailan and his male second Teyrn Loghain, Duncan of the Grey Wardens and his all male accompaniment into the deep roads during the dwarf backstory, Teyrn Cousland going off to war with his son, not his wife or a daughter, no female gray wardens other than possibly the PC during the Ostagar sequences, all but one of the senior enchanters being female(if I remember right), and the one female being both newly promoted and managing to fuck up her job after getting it to need the PC's help, and so on and so forth. Even the Dalish elves have some issues with it. Alone, none of these are a problem. But put them together, and you notice a trend. Even though the game says they're represented equally throughout Ferelden.

[Neonivek]

Guys, you need to get over your obsession with the game having to explicitly state it. The world/society knows sexism is bad. The world/society doesn't necessarily always know what sexism is. Games will almost never state it outright; it's more subtle.

Mostly because most of the time if they don't outright state it, it wasn't intended.

For example take Dragon Age. No female character is ever held back because she is a woman, you never have trouble becoming a Grey Warden because you are a woman, and no character EVER even bats an eye at someone being a woman EXCEPT Sten (who comes from an odd society that is neither matriarchal nor patriarchal... but It coooould be matriarchal...... whatever it is a society with strong gender separation but without a superiority complex given to gender).

As well in these roles women are both leaders, religious leaders, warriors, wizards, and what have you.

If you see sexism Rolepgeek it is something you had to mine from it.

How sexist can a society be that holds absolutely no barriers to women? (don't get me wrong, you can find sexism... mostly from Sten and Morrigan but they are the two most annoying moronic characters in the game. But you have to really dig through the lore and conversation trees.)

Which is why I wanted explicit sexist setting. Not "Gender differences in a setting". Since often you could just equally assume "the creator just didn't have a lot of female characters in them"

[Mindmaker]

Bioware games are merely a good example "how to get representation wrong" with their equality hamfisting, especially in everything past DA:O.

Guys, you need to get over your obsession with the game having to explicitly state it.

There's a difference between a game featuring a setting that you consider sexist (after all those schools of thought didn't exist back then) and a game being sexist/promoting sexism.

[Neonivek]

While I am making the distinction between sexism you can find from a setting that is intended versus unintended.

Hence why I wanted explicit examples, since for a lot of those you can get some sense of implication, but that could have just as easily been unintended.

[Rolepgeek]

NEONIVEK

PLEASE READ MY WORDS

THANK YOU

I didn't claim the setting was sexist. You're right, there are no real barriers, even though some of the other Gray Warden recruits comment on your being a woman during the Ostagar sequences, and the dwarf kingdoms mentioned that it was only a few times that women were elected by the Assembly. Now, I kinda automatically assume that the dwarf culture will be a little more sexist, and the elf culture a little less, in most settings, but the fact remains that whether or not the setting itself is sexist, the way the game presents characters is. It doesn't matter whether it was intended to be sexist or not. That's not the point. The point is that it is anyway. The only female in a position of high authority and leadership, with no-one above them, in the game, is the Keeper of your clan during the Dalish Elf Origin. Which is kinda to be expected, as when making elves, most people would give more thought to having equality and presenting it. But still. None of the others really, and most enemies you see, darkspawn and other non-clear gender enemies aside, are females. Almost all mooks, certainly.

[Glowcat]

Even though the game says they're represented equally throughout Ferelden.

I'm not sure if DA:O was intended to be truly egalitarian though. A quick search came up with the following post that brings up some open displays of sexist belief not relegated to Sten's nonsense.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Character Creator says that men and women in Thedas are pretty much equals. But I think it becomes quite clear after not even a few minutes of playing that this is not true at all. Not in the least.

Let's see... where to begin? If your character is a human woman, you get a ton of snide, put down remarks from people throughout the game about the fact that... you're a woman. Like Murdock in Redcliffe Village (what an arse).

And in the Dwarf Noble origin. If your character is male, and you decide to fight in the Provings, there's a lot of extremely sexist things that are said towards Adal Helmi because she is a woman. When the Proving Master tells you that you're up against her next, he seems to stutter. And before you fight her you can even say to her face "There is no honor in fighting a woman." And then after you defeat her, the Proving Master is like "Well done! Many were eager to see that woman put in her place!" Uhh... that's just awful, people.

And in Human Noble origin where Oriana says to a female PC that the notion of a woman in Antiva fighting is "unthinkable".

And what happens to the elven women (and a female PC) in the City Elf origin just says it all. Plus what is said when a female PC meets the guard captain and some of his goonies: "Should we keep the knife-eared bi*ch alive?" "Stupid wench. We'll show you how men fight!"

And does anyone else find it strange how when Rica takes a Dwarf Commoner PC to meet Vartag Gavorn in the Assembly Chamber, the first thing he says is "This is no place for a woman"... despite the fact that several members of the Assembly are women. And even if the Dwarf Commoner themself is a woman.

And in Awakening, if you start as a new Warden, and are female, when you meet Oghren he snidely says "So you're the new commander? Hmph. They said it was a woman..."

Yeah. On quite the contrary to what CC says, Thedas is very discriminative towards women.

So with regards to DA:O, I believe there was intentional theme-establishing open sexism (an attitude reminiscent of Feudal Europe), yet did not include explicit systematic barriers to female progress. As for the narrative itself and the unintentional sexism (from a realworld standpoint rather than in-game), I don't remember enough about major plotpoints and the characters involved to really lean towards that analysis. I do somewhat remember a lot of what rolepgeek brings up and I can see how the main story itself seems to make itself largely about a struggle of men and monsters with some women tagging along for the ride, as the only parts where women intervene in the main plot seem to be from what I recall: Ser Cauthrien (fighting to protect Loghain), Anora (also fighting to protect Loghain), and Morrigan (not entwined in the main plot but at least she was operating for personal motivations rather than being subservient to a man). In terms of the narrative's focus... I could see an argument that it was unintentionally sexist there, since only Morrigan and Anora had their own interests here, and only Morrigan's even interacted with the primary threat.

It would be a plausible argument, but a weak one due to how unfocused the game was in general with regards to a linear traditional narrative. And I liked it for this, since it showed the interplay between events rather than focus entirely on a single avenue of drama, but it also makes it harder to pinpoint which characters were more important to the story than others. In a more traditional storytelling setting I'd probably agree that women being incidental to the main plot would indicate unintentional sexism on part of the creators.

And as for general representation (e.g. no female Wardens in the original game) it'd be difficult to place whether it was intentional or unintentional systemic sexism, since we've already established that misogyny is meant to exist in the world and it's very likely that women encounter implicit barriers when entering the setting's institutions even if no explicit system of denial is in place. It's definitely sexist but it's hard to say whether it was meant to be that way to fit the feudal Europe theme or because the creators were stuck thinking of men as the default. Not to say that all intentional examples of sexism are themselves free of problematic aspects or should be shielded from criticism, but that's another can of worms.

Note: keeping most of this vague to avoid spoilers

[Rolepgeek]

Well, but my problem is this, Glowcat:

When you are making a character, and in the game manual, it specifically states that men and women are represented equally throughout Ferelden when you are choosing gender. And then the society is sexist(not incredibly sexist, dwarf patriarchy aside, and there are individuals who happen to be more sexist than others, but still). Leaving aside the dishonesty in that, it makes me think of the parody cake people were talking about earlier. But it also seems sexist in and of itself, to claim to not be sexist whilst being sexist. It seems a lot like claiming that that very sexism isn't actually sexism, which in turn implies that they believe that's the proper roles between the two, or perhaps that that level of sexism should be considered equality. Which is why it upsets me now that I've realized it.

[Glowcat]

Well, it's hard to tell whether the entire staff felt Thedas was egalitarian despite all the rampant misogyny going about, but I find it hard to believe that they could write a lot of that without realizing it was openly misogynist. As I pointed out at the end regarding whether the systematic sexism was intentional or not, the open displays of misogyny pushes the analysis towards in-game sexism being intentional (regardless of what manual or character creation implies) but I agree that it isn't always easy to differentiate the two and my trust in developers/creators recognizing sexism has been kicked from hell and back to the point I emphasize with your concern.

[Cthulhu]

What? NOOO!!!

He went from one of the best units! (The best best IMO is the shield guy who removes shield everytime he is hit) to one of the worst...

Fasolt is the best unit in the game.  Only Scourge Destroyers can actually do more than one strength damage to him and his taunt means they can't attack his armor.  He can basically take one enemy out of the game indefinitely.

The yellow archer you get late in the game is a close second, partly because of her ability and partly because she's bugged and can max all her stats at level 2.

Too bad neither of them are around for more than a few battles, and that's what's really wrong with video games today.

[Neonivek]

I will be fair though. Usually the reason why most games that have both the option to play male and female characters don't have outright sexism projected at you.

Is likely because they feel it would detract from being the chosen one or whatever.

Well, it's hard to tell whether the entire staff felt Thedas was egalitarian despite all the rampant misogyny going about, but I find it hard to believe that they could write a lot of that without realizing it was openly misogynist

Yeah but they probably thought of the misogyny as more either preferences or as the rattling of individuals... and that systematically a woman can be anything she wants and the lack of women in certain roles in the game were just coincidence rather then a sign of systematic.

Heck if there was one thing I'd REALLY question it is the fact that all priests in the game are rogues (Hinting at something?)

Either that or they felt Thedas was egalitarian in opportunity (Ohh Dungeons and Dragons method) and that even though there were few-no Grey Wardens, that no woman was ever barred from the Grey Wardens nor even given an odd glance. There is simply just less interest in being a Grey Warden by women.

To a certain extent I can see that viewpoint. The most important Dwarf outside royalty was a woman. The most powerful sorcerous in the land was a woman. No one interferes with the player if they are a woman. One of the most important members of the Mages guild (2nd in command) was a woman.

Buuuuut... The two leaders of the Dwarves were men, the leader of the elves was a man, the human leader was a man, the leader of the mage guild was a man, the leader of the gray wardens was a man, Only one major house wasn't lead by a man, The only female characters outside your party are villains. As well the only female leader in the game is only told about and not shown.

So it is easy to interpret it as a misogynist society too. I just consider it more a sign of the creators having rather limited creative capacity (and this is Bioware... We know they have issues with creativity... what with them putting the same characters in all their games) and is just unintentional.