As of late I’ve read some Feminist articles when I’ve been able to find the time to. After all, I’ve needed to find some place that makes me feel less crazy for thinking that women are completely capable of being strong, self-sufficient woman. Being a woman who doesn’t always require men.
In this day and age it seems that women are constantly being barrage with the statement you can’t. That’s a shame. Women are completely capable of doing so many things. It feels as though American society wants to force women back in the kitchen.
This is no more painfully obvious as it is in this year’s presidential election. Between the attack on women’s health care and rape being so casually accepted as “a means of conception”, it’s a very scary time to be a woman.
And nowhere is there a great lack of female power as there is in both comics and video games.
Image from Joystiq.com
I read a few articles talking about how women are handled in video games.
The most hilarious and simultaneously sad example is Team Ninja. Team Ninja are the same folks who brought us DOA, DOA Extreme Volleyball and Ninja Gaiden. They have spent so much time on breast physics, it’s scary. They’re so focused on one part of the female anatomy. They claim that it’s a cultural fixation. It does seem that Japan has a large amount of breast related objects, I don’t believe that the per-occupation is largely cultural. Of course, the physics have gotten to such that the boobs seem to have a gravity and thought process of their own. I have yet to see a women who has breasts that move as independently as Team Ninja seems to think they do. It’s so comedic that web-comic Ctrl+Alt+Dlt even wrote a humorous comic about it. You can see it here.
It’s also interesting to think about how women are drawn in more sexualized form than men in comic books. Women are typically put in slinkier, sexier costumes complete with large breasts and high heels. Now, while I acknowledge that it’s a talent to be able to run in high heels, I have to wonder if the male writers and artists have ever tried to do some of the things they’re expecting women to. They also have women pose in more seductive poses as opposed to the strong, powerful and dynamic poses the men generally have. The article actually showed pictures of athletic women and how they dress as opposed to how they’re drawn in comics. It was really an enlightening (and slightly long) article.
Then there was the most telling article about a man who was in a tabletop RPG. He decided to play a female character instead of a male character. He learned first hand what we women go through on a daily basis. How if a woman is secure and open about her sexuality, she must surely be a slut and willing to sleep with any one. In many ways, it brings up how we have this double standard between men and women. It’s the age-old argument about how is men are sexually open they’re considered studs. If the shoe is on the other foot, women are considered sluts. If women are ambivalent about sex they’re considered frigid. It’s a frightening and very sad development in our collective psyche.
It was reaffirming to see others voicing the same frustrations that I’ve had. It’s even more reassuring when I see an article about a man who feels the same way a lot of us women have. It’s helping me feel better in a time where women are largely discounted… At least there’s something for us out there.
Team Ninja breast physics: http://hikikomoiegaku.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/feminist-writings-sex-lies-and-videogames/
A man’s response to the double standard from the point of view as a woman: http://hikikomoiegaku.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/feminist-writings-a-man-on-the-other-side-of-the-double-standard/
Drawing double standards in comics and video games (more emphasis on comics): http://www.stormtiger.com/collie/bestiary/2006/06/what-dont-we-see/
Which Way to Hollywood? 
So then, make a game the way you want it. Or use kickstarter to fund one. Or get a group together and ask a dev you like for one.
Games made like this are made so because the developers and their fans like them. You’re not going to be able to stop games from showing butts and boobs just because you don’t like it. You’re just going to have to find other games out there that suit you and ignore the ones that don’t.
dlz,
I don’t have any desire to stop them. After all, I am a realist and know that sex sells. However, there is a large (and growing) population of female gamers out there. And while I realize that a majority of gamers are still male, females are starting to be a real and growing demographic.
I don’t shy away from games with sex. I’m an adult and I like stories that are more mature in nature. I also think that Team Ninja spending an inordinate amount of time on breast physics for DOA Extreme (which I acknowledge is a T&A game) to the point that there is no reality in the movement is silly. Now, I love DOA. I think it’s a great fighting game. I’m glad to see some of the new upgrades that they’ve added to DOA 5 gameplay. I’m probably going to plunk down the $60 for the game. I’m buying it because I enjoy the fighting dynamics and it’s one of the few fighting games that has smooth fighting dynamics with multiple martial arts styles. The only other game that really does that, Mortal Kombat, still looks blocky. There’s no fluidity of movement. (That’s not to discount Street Fighter, KOF, Soul Calibur or any other fighting games out there, they’re the only ones I know of specifically state the martial arts style with the character.)
If I were to ignore sex in video games I would have to ignore something that I enjoy at its core. Granted there are children’s games that don’t feature T&A, but I’m not a child. I like substance to my stories. I can still lament how women are treated in some games and still enjoy the gaming as a whole.
If games are to be “sexualized,” then the men should be just as sexualized as the women. She has a fair argument. Open minds!
YOU are the very embodiment of what she is trying to speak out against. This idea that women should “just accept it and move on” is NOT the way we should be treating them. The plain and simple fact of the matter is this (Ya Ya Han brought this up during her famous “Sociology of Cosplay” panel at DragonCon), men characters are portrayed the way the men who designed them want to be portrayed and women characters are portrayed the way those same men want to see them. Look at comics that are written by women, Mystic Revolution by Jen Brezas for example and you will see that the characters are NOT highly sexualized. Or if they are its in a way that is no where near as lop-sided as as those comics made by men. Denying that this is a problem is at best disingenuous and at worst damaging. Its high men stopped thinking with their dicks and started thinking with the female DNA that we were also born with.
Thank you for the very kind link-back! Also, please don’t ever think you’re alone in your frustrations. I believe it’s something all women feel on some level, despite our society working so very hard to tell us (falsely) that feeling is totally unfounded. Makes you wonder what they’re so afraid of, doesn’t it? 😉
Agreed. And thank you for reading my post.
Thanks for writing this, I hope more people see it. People need to change things for fans to change their likings as well, need to change the whole cycle.