Far too often I see people jump at feminists who criticize sexist designs on female characters with, “They’re just showing how confident they are in their sexuality! We need more sex-positive women!”
Yet, these characters never in the game ever make any hint of their sexuality, whether it be through flirting, being unashamed of their sexual behavior, defending the sexual choices of others, or wearing revealing clothing as casual wear (i.e. not wearing battle armor that exposes their entire chest.)
Instead, anytime there are “sex-positive” women in gaming that are vocal about their sexuality and confidence in such, they are almost always a villain. Yet, I never see these people defend these characters, or take note that the only time that a woman in a game is confident in her sexuality, it’s because she’s an ~evil seductress~, and the game developers use it as an exploit rather than a character trait.
How about instead of shouting at feminists that point out the needlessly and nonsensical revealing clothing on female game characters that it’s supposed to be because they’re “sex-positive”, you instead take the energy and criticize game developers that everytime there is a “sex-positive” women in gaming, she’s evil and it is instead seen as a character flaw?
I’ve alludedbefore that it’s possible to create a female character who dresses skimpily to express how sexually liberated and confident about her own body she is… possible in theory, at least.
Also, as I mentioned in my Stafire-design-through-years article, character’s personal affairs DO NOT excuse what costume she “chooses” to do her job in, particularly when that job is FIGHTING. Especially while warrior men who are equally, if not more, sexually empowered, somehow don’t go around fighting crime in sexy male underwear. And again, a loincloth* on someone like Conan or Kratos is not the same as battle lingerie.
I feel like a large part of the FemShep fandom was that while much of the attire in Mass Effect is questionable – FemShep actually comes pretty close to meeting the “sex positive, not sex toy” criteria. Regardless of the options you pick, she’s competent and complicated.
When she goes into battle she’s kitted with armor, guns, badassery and the potential to be saintly or scary… then when you’re in the safety of your ship you can pick an outfit for her and go talk to your favorite crew member:
Making her vastly more sex positive and personally empowered than pretty much any other female protagonist… even if her outfits are not perfectly equal to BroShep’s and tend more towards hideous than hot.
(For those asking: We have the explanation for Quiet’s ridiculous outfit, and information on how her character is handled… a post will be forthcoming!)
Definitely time that we brought this one back since there’s still way too much of:
Ultimately though there’s, sadly, still a long way to go before there’s the general acceptance that since women are diverse and complicated – female characters should be diverse and complicated.
None of that means we won’t have sexy female characters, it just means there’ll be more sexy female characters who act like people rather than one-dimensional fuckbots, and that means they’ll be more interesting.
Far too often I see people jump at feminists who criticize sexist designs on female characters with, “They’re just showing how confident they are in their sexuality! We need more sex-positive women!”
Yet, these characters never in the game ever make any hint of their sexuality, whether it be through flirting, being unashamed of their sexual behavior, defending the sexual choices of others, or wearing revealing clothing as casual wear (i.e. not wearing battle armor that exposes their entire chest.)
Instead, anytime there are “sex-positive” women in gaming that are vocal about their sexuality and confidence in such, they are almost always a villain. Yet, I never see these people defend these characters, or take note that the only time that a woman in a game is confident in her sexuality, it’s because she’s an ~evil seductress~, and the game developers use it as an exploit rather than a character trait.
How about instead of shouting at feminists that point out the needlessly and nonsensical revealing clothing on female game characters that it’s supposed to be because they’re “sex-positive”, you instead take the energy and criticize game developers that everytime there is a “sex-positive” women in gaming, she’s evil and it is instead seen as a character flaw?
I’ve alludedbefore that it’s possible to create a female character who dresses skimpily to express how sexually liberated and confident about her own body she is… possible in theory, at least.
Also, as I mentioned in my Stafire-design-through-years article, character’s personal affairs DO NOT excuse what costume she “chooses” to do her job in, particularly when that job is FIGHTING. Especially while warrior men who are equally, if not more, sexually empowered, somehow don’t go around fighting crime in sexy male underwear. And again, a loincloth* on someone like Conan or Kratos is not the same as battle lingerie.
I feel like a large part of the FemShep fandom was that while much of the attire in Mass Effect is questionable – FemShep actually comes pretty close to meeting the “sex positive, not sex toy” criteria. Regardless of the options you pick, she’s competent and complicated.
When she goes into battle she’s kitted with armor, guns, badassery and the potential to be saintly or scary… then when you’re in the safety of your ship you can pick an outfit for her and go talk to your favorite crew member:
Making her vastly more sex positive and personally empowered than pretty much any other female protagonist… even if her outfits are not perfectly equal to BroShep’s and tend more towards hideous than hot.
(For those asking: We have the explanation for Quiet’s ridiculous outfit, and information on how her character is handled… a post will be forthcoming!)
Definitely time that we brought this one back since there’s still way too much of:
Ultimately though there’s, sadly, still a long way to go before there’s the general acceptance that since women are diverse and complicated – female characters should be diverse and complicated.
None of that means we won’t have sexy female characters, it just means there’ll be more sexy female characters who act like people rather than one-dimensional fuckbots, and that means they’ll be more interesting.
“One might think this is because women didn’t serve combat roles – which isn’t true – but according to former DICE coder Amandine Coget, it’s because the project leads thought boys wouldn’t find it believable.
…Coget adds that DICE made several decisions for Battlefield 1
which have nothing to do with historical realism – including how tanks
function or the lethality rates of early parachutes – but female
soldiers still wouldn’t appear in multiplayer.”
Heavy sighing. (h/t @cypheroftyr via Twitter.)
What’s a worse argument to not have women in your combat-heavy game than “they’re too hard to animate”? “Historically, female warriors are unrealistic”, of course! And how to add to the injury? Insult your intended demographic by saying THEY are the one who won’t believe it! It’s not like games have potential to educate and widen the player’s horizons, right?
Considering the developer is so totally concerned with “realism” (as understood by pubescent boys), @pointandclickbait has a great suggestion to what historically accurate thing should be included instead of soldier women:
“One might think this is because women didn’t serve combat roles – which isn’t true – but according to former DICE coder Amandine Coget, it’s because the project leads thought boys wouldn’t find it believable.
…Coget adds that DICE made several decisions for Battlefield 1
which have nothing to do with historical realism – including how tanks
function or the lethality rates of early parachutes – but female
soldiers still wouldn’t appear in multiplayer.”
Heavy sighing. (h/t @cypheroftyr via Twitter.)
What’s a worse argument to not have women in your combat-heavy game than “they’re too hard to animate”? “Historically, female warriors are unrealistic”, of course! And how to add to the injury? Insult your intended demographic by saying THEY are the one who won’t believe it! It’s not like games have potential to educate and widen the player’s horizons, right?
Considering the developer is so totally concerned with “realism” (as understood by pubescent boys), @pointandclickbaithas a great suggestion to what historically accurate thing should be included instead of soldier women:
We did comment on this not long ago but partially I also wanted to address that a lot of responses we got tended to focus on it as though it was mostly an issue in RPGs.
The reality is you see it in all kinds of video games, in comics (sometimes while throwing other cultures under a bus) and most forms of media (hence the cliches about the seductive student trying to corrupt her professor, remarkably similar to the author, and lure him into an affair despite his virtue).
Ultimately mostly what this tends to boil down to is the desire to continue marketing women’s sexuality as a consumable product while claiming to be progressive and that others are just doing it wrong (yes, these people pretty much do maintain that real women are doing being a woman wrong).
So yeah, as a general rule if you need to break the fourth wall to justify why your female character is flaunting her sexuality despite the massive impracticality involved or you plan to blame women (one way or another) then our advice is: Don’t.
– wincenworks
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Time for another@pointandclickbait appreciation post! This time, Shit We Have Personal Experience with edition!
