Female Armor Rhetoric BINGO (PDF) by OzzieScribbler (again, yours truly)

A week after successfully publishing the Female Armor Bingo, I present to you its spin-off: Female Armor Rhetoric Bingo!

This card refers to the defenses/apologia that’s used against the critique of skimpy female warrior outfits.
I did my best to collect the most pervasive arguments used to justify bikini armors and similar costumes.

Merchandise available here.

Rules and terms of use and info on licensing HERE. 

These cards are intended only for personal use. If you wish to use them commercially or incorporate them or a derivative product into a commercial product – please contact Ozzie Scribbler on Tumblr or DeviantArt.

You’re free to use the Female Armor Bingo and the Rhertoric Edition card to critique, snark, assess or judge any commercial creative works intended for mainstream consumption. However, please assure you do not alter them in any way that obscures or removes credit from the original creators.

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Very special thanks to ami-angelwings of eschergirls fame for suggesting back in 2013 to make two bingo cards (original unpublished version was a mix of the tropes and arguments defending them).

Breakdown of all the squares under the cut.

Keep in mind that actual arguments, depending on a given discussion, may be worded a bit differently, but if the general idea is the same, you can cross the relating square:

• “Men are sexualized too!”
  No, they are not, especially when it comes to battle wear. Nothing is better example of male character serving as power fantasy than putting him in bulky armor while his equally strong female peers run around half-naked.

• “She would look too manly in a regular armor!”
  What about “She would look actually protected in a normal armor”?
  Also (unless it has a giant codpiece), a regular armor is not masculine be default, we’re just taught to associate it with men.
  Also also, there are many ways to make armor feminine, yet fully protective.

• “This outfit is normal for her culture/climate!”
  At very best, this adds a whole extra problem to the design.
  Talking about made-up culture that this made-up character is from? It’s not like the creators just… created this fictional culture and located it in a hot climate to suit their (and/or their audiences) preferences to excuse a silly outfit, riiight?
  Also, when she’s not in her homeland’s climate, why wouldn’t she dress more appropriately for the weather?

• “Male barbarians also fight half-naked!”
  Yeah, they do. Funny how their half-nudity looks so much more comfortable and practical than that of lady barbarians.
  If only lady barbarians could also fight wearing only loincloths instead of fur bikinis…

• “Don’t expect fiction to be realistic!”
  We don’t. But we expect it to be consistent and to use good communication practices. Making sexy the top priority hurts design and insults the audience.

• “It helps with her agility!”
  (Born from the double-standard belief that male characters are supposed to be strong, while female ones should be agile.)
  Oh yeah, a chafing, pinching chainmail bikini or floppy underboob or that spiky variation of Borat’s mankini would be SO COMFORTABLE and non-restricting compared to a leotard (or anything made from actual fabric)… Totally!

• “She CHOSE to dress like that!”
  No she did not. Let me quote rheiders:
  

  A strong female character is still a character—she has no agency, she has no choice. Everything about her appearance and actions is dictated by her creator. It is only through good storytelling and character writing that we begin to believe the character is alive and possessing of free will, but that’s just an illusion. SHE IS STILL JUST A CHARACTER, created by someone else.
  

  And unless the character is supposed to be a suicidal warrior seeking a glorious death, she wouldn’t choose to dress like that for combat – and if she was a suicidal warrior seeking a glorious death she wouldn’t be worrying about her sex appeal because she’d be expecting it to get messy.

• “Her strength comes from uncovered skin!”
  Also known as “There’s A GOOD REASON for her to be almost nude!”.
  If her powers come from being exposed… Why doesn’t she run around naked? Oh, I get it, she’s too decent for that!
  Then why the minimal outfit she chose looks so uncomfortable and/or defies physics? Is there a special reason for that too?

• “It’s (just) fantasy/sci-fi! Magic/science protects her!”
  Okay, I can buy that. Does the magic/science is also what holds her improbable bikini in one place?
  And if it protects her male peer in the same way, how come his outfit isn’t equally “light-weight”?

• “It’s stylized!”
  The cheapest excuse for any type of bad artwork.
  “Style” itself does not explain anything! A well-designed style is ought to be consistent. It’s not a good style when there’s obvious double standard at work.

• “Women are weak, so they need light armor!”
  Ignoring for a second how sexist and ridiculous it is to suggest that women are naturally that much weaker than men… LIGHT ARMOR EXISTS. There are numerous types of it. And it can (and should be) fully-covering!
  Search for leather armor or gambeson and stop suggesting it’s better to expose a character’s torso than to dress them in something not made of metal.

• “Girls are SUPPOSED to look sexy!”
  So much wrong with it I don’t even know where to start.
  It brings half of the population to one objectifying function.
  It implies “sexy” has one fixed meaning.
  It implies an outfit can’t be sexy appealing and functional at the same time.
  It implies there are no other times during which a warrior character can focus on being sexy (as in, times outside of battle).
  TL; DR: There is nothing girls or women are ‘supposed’ to be!

• “That’s the best way of marketing to men!”
  A.K.A. “Sex sells!”
  Why is this even used as an excuse? (It doesn’t even work)
  Not only it implies that there are no women or homosexual/asexual men in the audience, but also that straight men are by definition sex-obsessed primitives who can’t say no to a patch of female skin showing. An argument that insults every possible group at once!

• “She was designed in a country where sexualization is cultural!”
  (This one usually refers to Japan or Korea)
  As much as respecting cultural differences is important, it really does not excuse objectifying half of the world’s population. It just exposes that there might be some deeply-ingrained problem among any nation that creates such things as part of their culture.

• “Stop complaining and make it yourself!”
  A.K.A. "If you don’t like how women are represented games/comics/movies then go and create one yourself!”
  Because instead of being critical of faulty content creators everyone should become a content creator themselves!
  It’s not like making a game/comic/movie takes TONS of time, money and effort… or that even in the era of crowdfunding through Kickstarter indie projects still don’t reach the same audiences as big studio productions.
  Creating things is so easy and we don’t see better representation just because we’re too lazy to take care of it ourselves, RIIIGHT?!

• “It suits her fighting style!”
  Always baffled how this is supposed to be believed. What kind of martial art is so suited for high heels and metal bikinis that regular clothes won’t work better? Does it have a secret nip-slip strike?  Why does it never hold up in reality?  Why don’t we see historical examples of men using it?

• “She embraced her sexuality! She’s empowered!”
  A phrase almost inseparable from the Strong Independent Woman archetype.
  It’s not a bad idea to create a female character that consciously takes advantage of her sexuality and feels empowered by that… But insisting that being sexual is the only way to make women empowered is restricting, misogynistic and unoriginal.
  And making every female character like that takes any power from the idea. It then becomes just a very obvious excuse to have as many “sexy” women as possible without feeling guilty about it.

• “There’s nothing wrong with showing a bit of skin!”
  MOST DEFINITELY! There is nothing inherently wrong about nudity or partial nudity. Just keep in mind that in context of a battle it makes no sense to expose random parts one’s body!
  There are actually ways of fighting topless that do make sense! Take notes!

• “Why do you even care? It’s just for fun!”
  A.K.A. “Who cares?” or "Don’t take everything so seriously!” or “Stop making everything about feminism!”
  Dunno why I care, probably because media actually affects people and their opinions?
  Because women are not catered with fanservice in the same way as (straight) men are, despite being a big part of consumer base?
  Because women are actively excluded from many forms of entertainment and thus not allowed to have same kind of fun as men?
  If we’re at it, why do you care so much to prove me wrong?

• “Art shouldn’t be censored!”
  A.K.A. “Creative Freedom!” or “You’re strangling creativity!” or “You should not criticize artist’s choice!” or “First Amendment!”
  Asking for logical and respectful designs is not censorship. And simply criticizing art is not against the freedom of expression, quite the opposite. By giving constructive criticism to a piece of art, I’m exercising my own freedom of speech.
  It’s also not that artsy or creative anymore when overtly objectifying outfits are considered a norm in popular media.

• “She defeats her enemies through distraction!”
  A.K.A. “Distraction bonus!”
  Let’s just hope all of her enemies are horny primitives who loose their focus whenever a bit of female body is in sight. Or that she doesn’t distract her allies in the same way.
  Otherwise…
• “She’s indestructible! She doesn’t need any protection!”
  Fair enough. Does it mean the outfit is also not uncomfortable or embarrassing to her? Or that this costume can defy any laws of physics? Being indestructible, doesn’t she feel cold or chafed?
  Wouldn’t it make more sense for her to fight naked? Or in her pajamas?

• "You want every woman to be covered from head to toe!”
  Well, only if every man is covered in the same way. Other than that, we just expect logic and consistency from all the designs.

• “She’s so badass that she needs no armor!”
  She’s also so badass that she consciously chose outfit as impractical and uncomfortable as possible, just to prove how badass she is by wearing it!
  It’s not like she could just go topless, like her equally badass male peers.

• "Great story makes up for those ridiculous designs!”
  A.K.A. "She has a great personally, so it doesn’t matter how she looks!”
  So we’re not expecting visual media to be holistic anymore?
  The art and story are allowed to contradict each other for no good reason?
  The audience’s immersion is not broken when a dramatic story clashes with silly visuals?
  Willing suspension of disbelief has no limits from now on?
  Good to learn! Guess I need to forget everything I learned about storytelling theory.

As with the original bingo card, special thanks to the people who helped me to come up with square contents and revisions: ami-angelwings of eschergirls, tica-maleo of repair-her-armor, psdo of costumecommunityservice, Ryan ‘Jabberwock’ C. and my friends who didn’t wish to be credited by name!