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[wierd]

in some ways the pooptube video comment is right, but it suffers from sensationalism.


personally, i blame the social justice warrrior syndrome that's sprung up in the past 20 years or so.  Is gender prejudice an issue? totally. but as was pointed out earlier, the sexualization of women into cookie cutter barbie dolls who's only purpose is to titillate men also gets blasted out at full volume from women's media magazines and TV programming. It is full on hypocrisy to condemn one and not the other, but "championing for the cause of women" seems to be some kind of weekend charity, instead of being the "equality in the mind means equality in the mind" type behavioral default.  There is no justification for a weak samus. Men dont magically become emotionally impervious, and suffer PTSD all the time. Samus's power armor is a prosthetic enhancement device, which augments her physical tolerance of abuse, and augments all of her physical stength-- a case could be made that since it is a neural interface, she could be full quadroplegic under there, and the suit would still move her around, at full strength. As such, the usual justifications for why female heroines are depicted as weaker than male heros just does not make any sense.

That's why I was all "I can't use the improved armor class of my varia suit, and have to use the base combat suit instead... because... why exactly alex? Sure, you make a good point about power bombs, but saying I have to use an inferior armor mode kinda needs more explanation, m'kay?"  instead of raising this, she goes all "yes daddy." instead. blech.

Also the reliance on statistics to "justify" weak female heros ("women have less upper body strength, and blah blah blah") completely discounts that this is just a statistic. My sister blacksmiths as a hobby. She isn't at all weak in her upper body. I would rather see "exercise freak tough girl" who holds her own, but is still human than I would "Oh, I got into the military because there just wasnt enough vaginas there. I totally dont put in the extra effort to overcome any of my handicaps, and instead just feel that everyone should cover for me, because I have every right to enlist as anyone else! DONT QUESTION!"

Just like if you are male, and are a 90lb weakling, you need to invest in the extra effort, and investing the effort makes you stronger both physically and mentally- the same medicine works just as good on a woman who chooses to enter military service, and works her ass off to become strong, physically and mentally.  relying on statistical numbers to explain a totally bullshit occurrence (ditzy anime female stereotype with big floppy boobies shouting "Oh Kaaay!" before setting off the ricther scale with her booby bounces) just to satisfy some cultural image ("Tough girl looks like a dude, and is totally not sexy, so no dice bro.") is what's wrong with videogame and movie depictions of female heroines.

There's a rather important distinction between (battlefield) "Raaaawwwr!" and (glamour shots) "Raaawwr!"

Seriously, I have YET to see an "amazon warrior" that didnt suffer from size C or bigger boobies that are perky, in a revealing outfit that suffers from bondage fetishism.  The RIGHT way to do an amazon warrior?  asymmetric bob hairstyle (if not shaved bald), a huge mastectomy scar on one side, hugely strong calves and thighs, and a well muscled set of shoulders with a weather worn, makeup-free face that is wrinkled, sun damaged, and has never seen nor heard of moisurizer, in a bright red and orange wool ensemble that covers head to foot with bronze armor plates over the top. NOT the freaking cover girl from Vogue magazine.

"that's not attractive!" is NOT an excuse. 

but on the flipside, the reactionary attitudes presented by feminists when "Barbie" gets run through the meat grinder and becomes the above amazon heroine of "brutality against women!" is just stupid.

Tropes I feel female heros should NOT be saddled with:

"I have a vagina! hear me roar!"  Having a vagina is immaterial to being a leader, it is immaterial to being an effective warrior. Being "Noticed" is EXACTLY what cammo fatigues are DESIGNED to prevent, so emphasizing the female form underneath is 100% against the function of the garment, and insisting that these "sexually attractive, sexually idealized body images and behaviors" remain in a commanding officer is absurd. She should be a freaking ice queen with the body of almost a dude under there, and should be proud of it. (It took hard work to be strong under there.) As such, her reaction to male cadets joking that she's only there because westpoint was forced to accept girls, and that others have carried her pack for her all this time should be met with demanding they give her 50 right there, followed by running on the obstacle course in full gear, like she did, followed by her demonstrating how full of shit they are by then doing that herself, and not even being winded.  THAT is a strong female figure in a military role. Not "You HAVE to respect me, or I'll send you to the bring, and then there will be court marshal! I have to rely on the boogeyman of the system instead of fighting my own battles, but dont dare say that to me! meeeehh!"  That has all the trappings of "You were bad billy, go to your room!" that a fetishist with a mother complex would have. not what I expect to see in a strong female role model at all.

dependable, strong, hard-fought ability to overcome and excel, indominable, clearly willing and able to undertake self sacrifice to achieve her goals-- those are all fantastic features of a good female role. 

floppy titties and a clueless world view that needs people to cover for her is NOT.

and again, Vogue and pals are just as at fault for purpetuating this problem, because "strong" is not "Feminine" or some shit.

[Boltgun]

You don't have to go that far to have decent female soldiers.

[Loud Whispers]

Obligatory:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Caz]

I still vote Janeway for best captain. She's a strong, independent captain who don't need no man. Plus, she actually gets off the bridge and socializes with crew members that I'm pretty sure Picard would have seen as beneath his station.

She's also completely insane. Janeway for Admiral!

Made me think of this:

Werty's reposting the argument that blokes will be the main characters of so many vidyas because blokes are disposable and when awful things happen to them no one cares and all is well; but if it's a female character then it's a statement about women and then an infinite shitstorm is born.

Conversely you could say that it's because men are portrayed as people while there's an inevitable shitstorm if a female character is portrayed outside of the mother/maiden/whore archetypes.

This whole debate will probably be irrelevant in a few years when VR becomes the norm. Entirely scripted choose-your-own-adventure style  story protagonists is a design style that's unlikely to survive very well into the next decade. I doubt we'll be choosing between character option A or B then watching scripted cutscenes in third person in VR.

Yeah, unfortunately that technology will probably coincide with the robot apocalypse.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

in some ways the pooptube video comment is right, but it suffers from sensationalism.


personally, i blame the social justice warrrior syndrome that's sprung up in the past 20 years or so.  Is gender prejudice an issue? totally. but as was pointed out earlier, the sexualization of women into cookie cutter barbie dolls who's only purpose is to titillate men also gets blasted out at full volume from women's media magazines and TV programming. It is full on hypocrisy to condemn one and not the other, but "championing for the cause of women" seems to be some kind of weekend charity, instead of being the "equality in the mind means equality in the mind" type behavioral default.  There is no justification for a weak samus. Men dont magically become emotionally impervious, and suffer PTSD all the time. Samus's power armor is a prosthetic enhancement device, which augments her physical tolerance of abuse, and augments all of her physical stength-- a case could be made that since it is a neural interface, she could be full quadroplegic under there, and the suit would still move her around, at full strength. As such, the usual justifications for why female heroines are depicted as weaker than male heros just does not make any sense.

That's why I was all "I can't use the improved armor class of my varia suit, and have to use the base combat suit instead... because... why exactly alex? Sure, you make a good point about power bombs, but saying I have to use an inferior armor mode kinda needs more explanation, m'kay?"  instead of raising this, she goes all "yes daddy." instead. blech.

Also the reliance on statistics to "justify" weak female heros ("women have less upper body strength, and blah blah blah") completely discounts that this is just a statistic. My sister blacksmiths as a hobby. She isn't at all weak in her upper body. I would rather see "exercise freak tough girl" who holds her own, but is still human than I would "Oh, I got into the military because there just wasnt enough vaginas there. I totally dont put in the extra effort to overcome any of my handicaps, and instead just feel that everyone should cover for me, because I have every right to enlist as anyone else! DONT QUESTION!"

Just like if you are male, and are a 90lb weakling, you need to invest in the extra effort, and investing the effort makes you stronger both physically and mentally- the same medicine works just as good on a woman who chooses to enter military service, and works her ass off to become strong, physically and mentally.  relying on statistical numbers to explain a totally bullshit occurrence (ditzy anime female stereotype with big floppy boobies shouting "Oh Kaaay!" before setting off the ricther scale with her booby bounces) just to satisfy some cultural image ("Tough girl looks like a dude, and is totally not sexy, so no dice bro.") is what's wrong with videogame and movie depictions of female heroines.

There's a rather important distinction between (battlefield) "Raaaawwwr!" and (glamour shots) "Raaawwr!"

Seriously, I have YET to see an "amazon warrior" that didnt suffer from size C or bigger boobies that are perky, in a revealing outfit that suffers from bondage fetishism.  The RIGHT way to do an amazon warrior?  asymmetric bob hairstyle (if not shaved bald), a huge mastectomy scar on one side, hugely strong calves and thighs, and a well muscled set of shoulders with a weather worn, makeup-free face that is wrinkled, sun damaged, and has never seen nor heard of moisurizer, in a bright red and orange wool ensemble that covers head to foot with bronze armor plates over the top. NOT the freaking cover girl from Vogue magazine.

"that's not attractive!" is NOT an excuse. 

but on the flipside, the reactionary attitudes presented by feminists when "Barbie" gets run through the meat grinder and becomes the above amazon heroine of "brutality against women!" is just stupid.

Tropes I feel female heros should NOT be saddled with:

"I have a vagina! hear me roar!"  Having a vagina is immaterial to being a leader, it is immaterial to being an effective warrior. Being "Noticed" is EXACTLY what cammo fatigues are DESIGNED to prevent, so emphasizing the female form underneath is 100% against the function of the garment, and insisting that these "sexually attractive, sexually idealized body images and behaviors" remain in a commanding officer is absurd. She should be a freaking ice queen with the body of almost a dude under there, and should be proud of it. (It took hard work to be strong under there.) As such, her reaction to male cadets joking that she's only there because westpoint was forced to accept girls, and that others have carried her pack for her all this time should be met with demanding they give her 50 right there, followed by running on the obstacle course in full gear, like she did, followed by her demonstrating how full of shit they are by then doing that herself, and not even being winded.  THAT is a strong female figure in a military role. Not "You HAVE to respect me, or I'll send you to the bring, and then there will be court marshal! I have to rely on the boogeyman of the system instead of fighting my own battles, but dont dare say that to me! meeeehh!"  That has all the trappings of "You were bad billy, go to your room!" that a fetishist with a mother complex would have. not what I expect to see in a strong female role model at all.

dependable, strong, hard-fought ability to overcome and excel, indominable, clearly willing and able to undertake self sacrifice to achieve her goals-- those are all fantastic features of a good female role. 

floppy titties and a clueless world view that needs people to cover for her is NOT.

and again, Vogue and pals are just as at fault for purpetuating this problem, because "strong" is not "Feminine" or some shit.

Good post.

[Graknorke]

Conversely you could say that it's because men are portrayed as people while there's an inevitable shitstorm if a female character is portrayed outside of the mother/maiden/whore archetypes.

If this thread has taught us anything it's that you could say a lot of things as a lot of other things.

[Urist Tilaturist]

You want to see what female soldiers look like? Just look at some real ones and copy them. Simple. The best place to see them in action is fighting for Kurdish forces around Kobani and other parts of Iraq and Syria, or in most Israeli army units. They look like fairly normal women dressed in sensible army uniforms. They do not largely have breasts missing, baldness, hideous scars and overdeveloped steroid-pumped muscles that would get them into the Russian Olympic team, like that weird suggestion earlier. They just look...normal. Not Vogue models, but not hideous harpies either. Just ordinary women.

That picture of Vasquez from Aliens looks about right.

When there are real examples available, why look for stupid fictional ones?

25 pages since last night...incredible.

[Caz]

Conversely you could say that it's because men are portrayed as people while there's an inevitable shitstorm if a female character is portrayed outside of the mother/maiden/whore archetypes.

If this thread has taught us anything it's that you could say a lot of things as a lot of other things.

If that failed to be true then discussion would be worthless in the first place.

[Rolan7]

Werty's reposting the argument that blokes will be the main characters of so many vidyas because blokes are disposable and when awful things happen to them no one cares and all is well; but if it's a female character then it's a statement about women and then an infinite shitstorm is born.

Conversely you could say that it's because men are portrayed as people while there's an inevitable shitstorm if a female character is portrayed outside of the mother/maiden/whore archetypes.

I think this is a vicious cycle, too.  There are relatively few female characters (particularly non-background characters) so when one gets kidnapped or falls in love with the protagonist, it's often the only female character of any note in the story.

Borderlands 2 is an example where that was averted, since there are five major female NPCs: Moxxi, Ellie, Sheriff, Angel, and Lillith.  So even though two of those characters are captured, it doesn't feel like that's the inevitable fate of women in the setting (Also, Roland the Soldier gets captured too heehee).  Most games that throw in a single major female character inevitably have her get captured and/or serve as a love interest for the PC.  The solution isn't to stop including silly romance plots, but to have more than one actual female character.

Look at corny animes.  Sure, the mary-sue hero gets a perfect love interest who's attractive in all the typical ways and loves him unconditionally (but will they admit it to each other??).  But there's also typically a smart geeky chick, and a cold badass warrior chick.  Sometimes a foodie.  Even when these characters get involved in the romance scene, it's still showing that women can be more than just space princesses.  I'm talking about animes with really shallow characterization which are all about pandering to male power fantasies, but they still manage to have better female role models than most video games.

[wierd]

You want to see what female soldiers look like? Just look at some real ones and copy them. Simple. The best place to see them in action is fighting for Kurdish forces around Kobani and other parts of Iraq and Syria, or in most Israeli army units. They look like fairly normal women dressed in sensible army uniforms. They do not largely have breasts missing, baldness, hideous scars and overdeveloped steroid-pumped muscles that would get them into the Russian Olympic team, like that weird suggestion earlier. They just look...normal. Not Vogue models, but not hideous harpies either. Just ordinary women.

That picture of Vasquez from Aliens looks about right.

When there are real examples available, why look for stupid fictional ones?

25 pages since last night...incredible.

Context, CONTEXT!

Historic amazon warriors DID THAT to themselves. So, an accurate amazon warrior would have a boobie gone, and would have crazy muscled legs from riding horses all the time.

we know what they wore, because we found thier tombs.

[Graknorke]

Conversely you could say that it's because men are portrayed as people while there's an inevitable shitstorm if a female character is portrayed outside of the mother/maiden/whore archetypes.

If this thread has taught us anything it's that you could say a lot of things as a lot of other things.

If that failed to be true then discussion would be worthless in the first place.

I'm sure enough that there are some people here who think that they are absolutely correct and everyone else's way of analysing the world is objectively wrong.

[wierd]

Of course. everyone is entitled to an opinion, but they arent entitled to being factually correct.

the latter needs more than just strong emotions and feelings.

[Neonivek]

I do think Werty is somewhat onto something in the sense that... Yeah while we do under scrutinize female portrayal in videogames we also OVER scrutinize at the same time.

I can certainly thing of a lot of male leads who would be considered sexist just by swapping out their gender... or heck even a lot of villains.

Borderlands 2 is an example where that was averted, since there are five major female NPCs: Moxxi, Ellie, Sheriff, Angel, and Lillith

Lets eliminate the minor characters, the kind that you see for a few missions and then go away...

We have... Moxxi, Angel, and Lillith...

Now lets just include the major characters and eliminate the secondary ones.

Angel and Lillith

Guess which one of these two gets kidnapped by a man and forced into bondage gear as she screams in pain?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Both of them!

[Loud Whispers]

Werty's reposting the argument that blokes will be the main characters of so many vidyas because blokes are disposable and when awful things happen to them no one cares and all is well; but if it's a female character then it's a statement about women and then an infinite shitstorm is born.

Conversely you could say that it's because men are portrayed as people while there's an inevitable shitstorm if a female character is portrayed outside of the mother/maiden/whore archetypes.

No shitstorm was ever birthed from people demanding a stronk female character be reduced to a maiden/mother/whore nor was one ever birthed from people demanding stronk male characters be more than an alpha/beta/everyman; in this thread alone we've had people arguing over whether bad things happening to female characters is allowable and Christ almighty in the original thread that was shouted to hell and back; it is an instant shitstorm button because everyone judges female characters as representatives of women and not people.

I do love that Victorian blind man complaining about how the people most vehement in their defence of the blind were ones liable to cause the most damage, and that is very much the case here. You'll see an uproar when Kratos stabs in the gut a female character who's been fucking with him since day 1, but not when he beats Poseidon uncontrollably; slamming his face repeatedly against a wall, hitting him with his own head before throwing him into a nearby wall and gouging out his eyes, breaking his neck and throwing him off a cliff. That's because violence against characters when they're female isn't violence against characters, it's violence against female characters and that must be neutralised.

You're not going to allow game developers to expand on their female characters outside of archtypes, and more importantly develop female characters that aren't so bland or so mary sue that they can never offend if the sword of damocles hanging over their head is infinite shitstorm and the threat of SJW mob campaigns. COD got endless shit for not having female models and then when they did they were lambasted for inciting violence against women. GOW got endless shit for grimderping their female characters as behind the lines and in the sequels got even more endless shit for grimderping it up when their frontline female characters got shot. Heck, feminists just recently managed to get GTA V pulled from Australia because all the men who played it became serial rapists from following its shining example on how to be a law abiding citizen. No joke, they pulled the game off the shelves because it 'encouraged violence against women.'

In these games male characters are sawn alive, gibbed with their innards flying out everywhere in explosion; flattened by just about every form of tracked vehicle and missile in existence and everyone enjoys it for the gritty Tarantino fun it is up until a female character gets shot and it all goes downhill from there.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Context, CONTEXT!

Historic amazon warriors DID THAT to themselves. So, an accurate amazon warrior would have a boobie gone, and would have crazy muscled legs from riding horses all the time.

we know what they wore, because we found thier tombs.

No, they absolutely did not. The Scythian tombs showed absolutely no evidence that female warriors mutilated themselves, only that they were female warriors, and if you look at actual steppe people who ride horses a lot, their legs are very strong but not super-massive. A figure with massive muscles was, and still is, very rare among tribal people. Even Tour de France cyclists nowadays have relatively normal sized legs. The clothing and armour they wore was the same or similar to the men.

Scythian women warriors were very real - about 1 quarter of warrior graves there are of female bodies, and an army led by the warrior queen Tomyris defeated King Cyrus the great of Persia and killed him - but the Greek stories of self-mutilating, burly Amazons are absolute bullshit designed to make them all look like utter savages for not following the Greek way of men on top. Remember that the Amazon legends ended with them getting thrashed by male Greek heroes, and this is equally nonsense.

[Rolan7]

You want to see what female soldiers look like? Just look at some real ones and copy them. Simple. The best place to see them in action is fighting for Kurdish forces around Kobani and other parts of Iraq and Syria, or in most Israeli army units. They look like fairly normal women dressed in sensible army uniforms. They do not largely have breasts missing, baldness, hideous scars and overdeveloped steroid-pumped muscles that would get them into the Russian Olympic team, like that weird suggestion earlier. They just look...normal. Not Vogue models, but not hideous harpies either. Just ordinary women.

That picture of Vasquez from Aliens looks about right.

When there are real examples available, why look for stupid fictional ones?

25 pages since last night...incredible.

That's ideal for realistic military shooters, yeah.  I guess Call of Duty multiplayer does that pretty well.  The female models are the same height and roughly the same shape due to gameplay balance (the hitboxes are exactly the same), and from what I see they look normal and realistic.  Although I couldn't help but laugh at the reason female soldiers weren't added until Ghosts:
http://kotaku.com/why-female-soldiers-were-finally-added-to-call-of-duty-1142063196
"Technical limitations", heehee.  Sure, whatever, good on them for finally adding it!

Low-tech warrior ladies would be pretty muscular and rough, though.

Fantasy settings are weird.  Often everybody manages to look perfect and idealized, as if the presence of magic in the universe allows every rat-murderer with a dagger to cast Prestidigitation and Summon Wardrobe.  Boob armor is still ridiculous though, and chainmail bikinis... just... no.  Unless it's one of those barbarian cultures where *everyone* strips naked for more toughness.  That's internally consistent, which is all one can ask of fantasy settings.