Tropes vs. Women

So, the first part of the highly controversial Kickstarter funded video series examining female stereotypes is up. Don't know if anyone's interested in this,but it's a significant event in modern gaming culture because of all the heat the host has generated over the subject, and her videos in general.


I watched it and found it to be well researched but one sided. You cannot simply attack this kind of trope. It exists for a reason, and to discuss it in an intellectual context, one must approach the subject matter fairly and responsibly.

I also found disfavor with her opinionated view of Double Dragon Neon's opening. i thought it was amateurish and unprofessional for her to call it 'crap' just because she doesn't like seeing a woman get punched in the opening scene of a video game.

I get it. She doesn't like it and that's fine. But if she wants her work to rise above the level of 'youtuber', she needs to avoid expressing her moral outrage.

She just wants attention

My wife was just telling me an interesting thing she saw on some documentary. She can't cite it, but she remembers that there was this experiment where they took young boys and young girls and put them both in cribs. Then the mothers stood just beyond reach outside the crib.

In every case study, the boy struggled to find a way to get out of the crib and back to his mother, and the girl sat there and cried and waited to be rescued by her mother.

Interesting stuff there.

I don't remember if it was Jeung or Freud, or both, who postulated that boys all desire the womb and girls all desire the world to conform to what they desire. These are all inhibitions that must be overcome before true maturity can be achieved. I read about this examination of men and women and how they relate to the monomyth in Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces.

Oh I don't doubt that one bit, most girls that I know will do little things like clearing throat, heavy sighing, and even throwing tantrums to get what they want and how they want it. It's a lack of independence in most cases that causes this. Simply sad to hear a woman talk about how they feel they should be treated equally yet expect the world to instantly treat them this way with no earning of it. Sounds like a double standard don't you think?

PleaseKillMeNow said:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4251968.stm

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But Dr Nick Neave, a spokesman for the British Psychological Society and an expert in sex differences at the University of Northumbria, said men and women did differ.

"Scientists have been guilty of over-emphasising sex differences.

"There are differences. Ignoring them is foolish, and exaggerating them is dangerous.

"But that doesn't mean that society shouldn't treat the genders equally."

Hah, today is International Women's Day.

Anyway, someone needs to make a rebuttal with male video game characters.

I found the video pretty decent, myself. Sure there were rough edges, but as a female gamer, I can relate.

It's also why I stick to fighting games. The female characters, especially in the KoF and GG franchises, are portrayed better than in most other games.

We have a long way to go, but at least we're making progress in terms of some modern games.

lethal_weapon.jpeg

That channel name...

Taiso said:

.... female stereotypes ....

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She's got a lot of work to do.

-------

I. List of Gender Stereotypes

--Women are supposed to have "clean jobs" such as secretaries, teachers, and librarians
--Women are nurses, not doctors
--Women are not as strong as men
--Women are supposed to make less money than men
--The best women are stay at home moms
--Women don’t need to go to college
--Women don’t play sports
--Women are not politicians
--Women are quieter than men and not meant to speak out
--Women are supposed to be submissive and do as they are told
--Women are supposed to cook and do housework
--Women are responsible for raising children
--Women do not have technical skills and are not good at "hands on" projects such as car repairs
--Women are meant to be the damsel in distress; never the hero
--Women are supposed to look pretty and be looked at
--Women love to sing and dance
--Women do not play video games
--Women are flirts
--Women are never in charge

II. Gender Stereotypes

Gender stereotypes are simplistic generalizations about the gender attributes, differences, and roles of individuals and/or groups. ... The weight of scientific evidence demonstrates that children learn gender stereotypes from adults. ... Emerging as a powerful sociopolitical force beginning in the 1960s, the feminist movement, or women's liberation movement, has lobbied for the rights of women and minorities. Feminists have fought hard to challenge and redefine traditional stereotypic gender roles.

III. 6 Gender Stereotypes Around the World

IV. 6 Absurd Gender Stereotypes (That Science Says Are True)

Taiso said:

The Hero With A Thousand Faces.

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You mean this dude?

http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/member.php?130-neobuyer

Stefan said:

You mean this dude?

http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/member.php?130-neobuyer

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No, that's The Scammer With A Thousand Faces.

Written by Judge Dredd.

Taiso said:

Click to expand...

bitch needs to make me a sandwich.

Taiso said:

But Dr Nick Neave, a spokesman for the British Psychological Society and an expert in sex differences at the University of Northumbria, said men and women did differ.

"Scientists have been guilty of over-emphasising sex differences.

"There are differences. Ignoring them is foolish, and exaggerating them is dangerous.

"But that doesn't mean that society shouldn't treat the genders equally."

Click to expand...

I like how you've glossed over the part with the scientific research and go straight for the part where someone's giving an opinion. Isn't that why you hated the original video?

PleaseKillMeNow said:

I like how you've glossed over the part with the scientific research and go straight for the part where someone's giving an opinion. Isn't that why you hated the original video?

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I like how you took my view as 'hating' the video when I didn't.

Don't sweat it, Taiso. It seems to be Wopats thing these days.

Sort of on topic, but I think 95% of female video game characters are trash.

Off the top of my head some decent ones are:





And uh.....that's about it, I think.

Just another youtuber.

Double Dragon Neon is a fake Double Dragon game.

EDIT: Technos should be rolling over in their graves.

I need two 400+ level classes to graduate. I took two comm classes with the same professor. Now I know why people always ask each other how the proff is. Heavy work load, you needed to read a book, write a ten page paper and do a project every week for each class. They should've been labeled as woman's studies classes. Again guess I should've done more research, my fault. Anyways the teacher would give an example on how to do speeches and debates which was kinda cool, but they'd always be like this; only a less exciting topic. These two should be best friends. I can't believe I watched the whole video. It's like Nam '75.... do I have to go back to this hell again?

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=1191346

She forgot about Peach being playable in Super Mario RPG! RHAAAA!! ::NERD RAGE!!!:::: !!!one!!!11

you didnt like it cuz she's ugly.

there's a whole lot that she could have covered but she just skipped over/ignored, twenty some off minutes and only Nintendo is your main topic? Hell the whole awkward build up for the new Tomb Raider and the still awkwardness of it's release would have been a better intro subject, there wasn't even a hint of tackling race issues in the part 2 preview.

And that was a unneeded shot at Double Dragon Neon

I didn't see her talking about Phantasy Star I either....

I can't wait for her to talk about Fighting Games and the FGC.

/

The second part is up.

If anyone is wondering why I'm posting this here, or why I care, it's because I think it's a point of view worth considering. Not necessarily agreeing with or disagreeing with. But at least thinking about it.


For the record, this one opened my eyes to something I never thought before.

In most of these games where the love interest is murdered or her soul is stolen and you have to save it, I don't really care about the character. In so many instances, it's just a plot convenience to send the hero off on his adventure. But, if you stop to think about it, if the game is going to engage in complex narrative structure revolving around women in distress or revenge plots about women being killed, shouldn't the game actually try to make you care about the stakes involved?

For the record, I disagree with her on a couple of her examples. One that she's way off base on is Kana from Ninja Gaiden 3. People can feel whatever they want about that game, and Kana IS used as a tool for destruction, but the game's ending reveals that the thing around Kana is not her. She's inside the monster, not transformed in to it. And when Ryu reaches that fateful moment where you cut through the outer shell and the action just hangs with your sword hovering right in front of her face and you are forced to strike, you are not perpetrating violence against her.

EDIT: This moment stands as one of the few truly beautiful expressions of theme in a video game in the last twenty years for me, and is a magnificent and emotional scene even when you don't consider how the game's theme is so perfectly expressed.

This scene is an expression of the power Ryu possesses. He is so good at what he does that he can go to town on a goddess and still have the precision to save the little girl trapped inside. This is the absolute essence of a hero's responsibility, and is the fucking CORE QUESTION being posed by the game.

What is Ryu? Is he a hero or a destroyer?

The answer is complicated but based on the fact that Kana survives precisely because Ryu knows how to exercise restraint and not just kill anything in his path of justice, he IS a hero. But he fills a complicated role in the world he inhabits.

Yes, DOA and Ninja Gaiden objectify women. Won't even deny that. But not in the case of Ryu's supposed stereotype reinforcing acts of violence on Kana.

I could give equal dissertation on all my other disagreements with Anita in this post, but you get the picture. She is focused on studying the correlations between misogynistic and sociopathic tendencies in society and how games encourage that, but not so much on doing a double take on every game she uses as fuel for her argument. There are a number of games she shows in this one that, given a second look, don't apply.

This is, perhaps, the biggest flaw I find in her dissertation. She wants all of us to check our viewpoint, but she's unwilling to do the same thing when she starts bringing up specific examples which, quite honesty, are easy to disregard.