I posted this morning about some issues with I had sexism in Defiance. Go to my profile if you want to read it. I came back from school and found out that it had already been shut down due to it "degenerating into non-constuctive discussion." While I was reading the comments I wrote down some paraphrases of what people were saying in response to my post. (In order of appearance)
- How can you dehumanize that which isn’t human. (Sexism is dehumanizing, but Irathians aren't human.)
- Video games are sexist, so is Hollywood. Sex sells, deal with it. (If there is something wrong, rather than trying to fix it, you should just tolerate it or leave. That kind of attitude isn't tolerated with racism or homophobia.)
- Cass is empowering because she is sexual. She's a prostitute so it's okay for her to use her sex to get what she wants. (Since when is it empowering to be a prostitute? And so now a woman is treating a man the way that many men treat women; is that a good thing? This should be something that never happens to either sex.)
- This is an M rated game, deal with it. (Just because a game has an M rating it doesn't give it free reign to put in anything it wants to. Video games and movies can be art, but just because a film is rated R or NC-17 can it have any theme or content it wants to? Examples where it has been an issue: Django Unchained, Last House on the Left, and plenty of others that I can't remember. I'm not saying that movies and games can't deal with controversial issues, but just putting something in that is controversial does not automatically make it art or a statement. and the people who are making things have an obligation to be responsible with content.)
- Women need to wear snow suits and be ugly for it to not be sexist. Women characters need to be butch. (No, women can be attractive and revealing in games, which is what always happens, but there needs to be alternatives. Take a look through the purchasable clothing for females, yes they have bulky suits of armor, 3 or 4, and plain suits of clothes, 2 or 3, but the rest are skin tight and/or with cleavage, 7 or 9. Give people playing as females the choice to dress their character as they want 'bulky, normal, attractive, revealing, badass', but when you look at how many guy outfits have bulging crotches or tank tops with nipples sticking out, the choices are slim to none. Also women in games don't need to be "manly" because being manly shouldn't be a synonym for tough, but they don't need to have the sound effect that sounds like a squeal when you melee an enemy.)
- Get used to it or leave. (First off, I like Defiance. The show is cool, the game is fun, and the integration of the two is a huge step forward in the progress of video games. Plus it's the second MMO on the 360, and the first good one 'I haven't played the other but I heard it was disappointing', so asking people who don't like some parts of it to leave is like asking anyone who is bothered by a terrorist to leave the country, or to be a lot more realistic, anyone who is bothered by an obnoxious person 'male or female' to leave. Or in terms of things on a tv screen, people who are upset at a character on their favorite show to stop watching the show. Society is not moved forward by people who are oppressed or disgruntled leaving, it is moved forward by people making changes and including people as equals. Would you ask a gay person to leave the room if they asked you to stop saying ****** 'A term that means a bundle of sticks in the UK, it came to represent gay people because in witch burning days they would not give gays their own stake to burn on, they would just toss them on the fire that they were killing the witches with', or would you stop saying ******?)
- It’s cultural to have revealing clothing. (If it really is part of the cannon in the game or show that they have this, that's really cool they would go into that much detail about the races, but I'm not educated enough on it to address this point. But see my earlier point about choices for outfits.)
- There should be more female NPCs and enemies, but if we put them in, "Feminazis" will scream "Violence against women!" (I would love to kill every sex, gender, race, religion, and sexuality equally, but I'm going to be realistic. It would be great to see more female NPCs in Defiance, especially in the bandit gangs. They did it in Fallout and the Elder Scrolls Series, and nobody said it was violence towards women then. Sidenote, Bethesda did a great job on gender equality, the armor was the same, enemies the same, and they had revealing clothing if you wanted it, male and female.)
-Don't blame men for how women are represented in games. Blame women for not being able to reach a consensus on how they would like to be represented. (This is a form of victim blaming, it can be tied into the logic of "Blame the women for being ***** for what she was wearing, doing, where she was, etc." There is no inability in the Grand Council of Females to decide on what women want. Women are people, people are different, and last time I checked an economics textbook, or most nation's constitutions, allowing a variety of people to pick from a variety of options is a good idea. And saying that a few people online have differing opinions is a reason to make a decision for them, based off of yours, is not valid logic. Remember congress and the common sense gun law that just happened?)
- Guns in a video game promote violence on the streets. Runners promote violent driving and endanger people on the road. *Sarcasm* (Okay, the debate over violence and video game correlation is blown out of proportion by news (and the NRA), but the amount of people willing to go out and shoot someone pales in comparison to the amount of people who will laugh at South Park saying "George Lucas and Steven Speilberg are ****** Indiana Jones" or saying "Dude that math test totally ***** me." People will do more minor things like saying "women belong in the kitchen" way more often than they will hit someone they are angry at, and that is because one is acceptable in society and one isn't. And people drive recklessly on the road because they are inconsiderate to the rule of law, not because they saw it on tv.)
One talking point that wasn't mentioned but is still an issue: When people describe men who have a lot of sex or dress provocatively, they're called Man-****** or Man-*****, like a ***** or a **** is something a woman can be, and you need to add "Man" in front of it to address a male. I would expect a lot of people to comment saying, "Oh so you want man-****** in Defiance to balance things out?" Not really, but allowing male characters to be sexualized would be a good step.
And just some notes, No I'm not a troll, yes a made my account today, but today was the day I felt like saying something. Second, I am male, not a "psycho-lesbian who wants women to rule the Earth." I was curious about how many comments were male and how many were female, because talking to my girlfriend and a two other female gamers "Not gamer girlz omg I play Halo: Black Ops and love to drive pokemon" but honest gamers just like you, and they agreed on a lot of criticisms of the video game industry. (Bring on the standard reaction to a female gamer: I bet she's a hog, she must be fat, you must be whiiiiped, tell her to sut up and make a sandwich.) Also, I recommend that men and women listen to "Gold Trans AM" by Ke$ha, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2-sU-Hbda8, and just pay attention to how it makes you react and feel. Also, one opinion will never speak for an entire majority.
"For a brick, he flew pretty good."
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Originally Posted by Zeliska
