An article from 2014 that is no less relevant today. Not surprisingly, all the arguments listed have their place on the Female Armor Rhetoric Bingo.
Here’s one of the summarizing paragraphs of the list which I find most important:
If people only “lose their minds” when the comics industry objectifies women or ignores its female audience, that’s because it’s not happening the other way around. Male readers are not being ignored, and female readers are not being pandered to at the cost of men’s dignity.
An article from 2014 that is no less relevant today. Not surprisingly, all the arguments listed have their place on the Female Armor Rhetoric Bingo.
Here’s one of the summarizing paragraphs of the list which I find most important:
If people only “lose their minds” when the comics industry objectifies women or ignores its female audience, that’s because it’s not happening the other way around. Male readers are not being ignored, and female readers are not being pandered to at the cost of men’s dignity.
An article from 2014 that is no less relevant today. Not surprisingly, all the arguments listed have their place on the Female Armor Rhetoric Bingo.
Here’s one of the summarizing paragraphs of the list which I find most important:
If people only “lose their minds” when the comics industry objectifies women or ignores its female audience, that’s because it’s not happening the other way around. Male readers are not being ignored, and female readers are not being pandered to at the cost of men’s dignity.
“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:
Ana Amari certainly looks amazing and greatly boosts representation for badass mothers and older women of color though I notice something.
Of her eleven skins: Five show Ana as her glorious mature-aged self, four show her with her face completely covered and two show her as young. In fact there are zero Legendary skins where you can see Ana’s beautiful older face.
And the skins with her as a young woman don’t really do anything surprising with her, it’s not like Genji’s showing him as pre-cybernetic, it’s just… well:
So while it’s fantastic that Blizzard has started to realize that women in their sixties are dramatically under represented in action games – it’s kind of a shame that they couldn’t commit to it the whole way.
– wincenworks
Ana is a very welcome addition to Overwatch’s cast (heavens know we’re in a desperate need for older women in media, especially games), though I can’t help but notice how, not unlike Zayra, she’s a very safe approach to diversity. While being 60, she’s at the “conventionally attractive lady with grey hair and a couple facial lines” side of old person design.
Also, the fact that Ana’s clothes look very realistic for a sniper make Widowmaker’s hypersexualization stand out even more. With changes Blizzard made so far, they’ve proven a couple of times how they can edit and add things to the game as they please, but are afraid to change all that much
The latest episode of Tropes vs. Women in Video Games is live!
In “Lingerie Is Not Armor,” we explore the ways in which female characters are frequently placed in wildly impractical, sexualizing outfits specifically designed to objectify them for the titillation of the presumed straight male player. We then discuss the problems inherent in linking the sexualization of female characters to notions of female empowerment, and examine what positive depictions of female sexuality and sexual desire in games might look like.
Same character class, same style of game, three different takes on it.
Stylistic choices don’t exist in a vacuum.
Dirty Bomb really doesn’t get enough credit for it’s walking the walk when it comes to egalitarian character designs and commitment to diversity. Every mercenary has a story, a personality and gear that is suitable to them – on top of that, they’re not afraid to let things get ugly. Have a look at how Proxy (basically their equivalent of Tracer in terms of personality) looks lately:
Needless to say Sparks as a white-clad medic who’s only thoughts on her profession is “Call me Sparks. I heal. I kill. Is ironic paradox. Yadda Yadda.” is a wonderful breath of fresh air in games.
Ambra from Battleborn is certainly not ideal, but as we’ve discussed before her design reeks of the Creepy Marketing Guy influence – but they at least made her a unique character and worked in no small amount of entertaining quirk.
Mercy… oh Mercy.
– wincenworks
Before anyone comes to say we’re taking things out of context or comparing apples to oranges, yes, all those games have their own aesthetic and we should should judge how each character looks within it. Dirty Bomb is quite realistic, Battleborn is very cartoony and Overwatch lies somewhere in the middle.
And we’re still not okay with boobplate on Galilea, even though Battleborn is more heavily stylized.
Speaking of ensemble games with cartoony aesthetic, let’s not forget about Gigantic, which while not boobplate-free (on their healer character, no less), does really good with gender and age balance among their cast.
