Feminism general thread

[Amake]

The obvious way to do it is have more than one woman character in your game, with different flaws, maybe even complimenting and empowering each other. It would only require at least one competent writer. But if you want to have just one, or a particularly prominent one (like a sole player character), it's going to take a very good writer to avoid every single character trait that could be read as representing women as a whole.

Of course it's a vicious cycle that can and will be broken by a few courageous studios breaking the ground and making everyone else less scared of putting more women in more games since until there's nothing strange or new about it. Funny when you think about it that way, the fear of the future is the only thing keeping the future from happening right now just as it's going to happen anyway.

[MotorWaffle]

Absolutely, but I think the video game-playing public needs to be clear that they are willing to consider flaws as character elements rather than statements on gender. Baring the blatantly obvious like Princess Peach's primary weapon in her game being hyperemotional-ness, of course. Discuss whether or not it's sexist, by all means, but don't discount the possibility it being just a character trait. Complexity often stems from flaws more than strengths, after all.

The threat of controversy at the corporate level (which for big titles is ultimately the level that matters) is most often enough to quash risks, even if they really aren't risks at all.

[Avistew]

I think a problem with that Peach game is that Peach had been a character for a while (even a playable one every now and then) but was never characterised the way she was made playable in that game.

[empath]

Moving right along...



I swear, I ever see someone in a sports jersey catcall a woman and use that excuse? My shoulder is gonna be in their kidney at the earliest opportunity...

[Deedles]

That makes two of us!

[Elomin Sha]

There was a comic about that several pages ago. It was very good.

[MetricFurlong]

In other news, the Chilean President is trying to lift the blanket ban on abortion. Still only in cases of rape or if the mother's life is threatened but still, small steps.

[Psyclone]

So wikipedia has made some questionable modding decisions.

I won't say too much about it because the details are still unclear, but to me it looks like they've fallen for a conspiracy to remove feminist editors from the wiki, which. You know. Great job on being a fair and balanced news source there, guys.

[Elomin Sha]

Not everything is a conspiracy.
The good thing about Wikipedia is it can be edited by everyone and the worst thing is it can be edited by everyone. There's a US tv evangelical whose page was edited to say he was a 'hardcore douchebag' (not anymore).

You say the details are unclear but you jump to a conclusion about the reasoning. Wait until you have more info and then come to a conclusion. It is their site to update what they want if they have seen malicious editing by bad apples on all sides of a debate/altercation.

[Amake]

Looks pretty clear to me.

[Deedles]

Excuse my ignorance, but what are the 5 horsemen that the post mentions? Says their names, but they don't ring a bell.

[Amake]

Apparently that's Gamergate's code for the prominent editors who worked to limit their damage.

[AlexanderDitto]

Not everything is a conspiracy.
The good thing about Wikipedia is it can be edited by everyone and the worst thing is it can be edited by everyone. There's a US tv evangelical whose page was edited to say he was a 'hardcore douchebag' (not anymore).

I don't want to comment on the details of this particular case because I haven't read up about it, but I do want to say that this hippy-dippy idea that Wikipedia is free and equal and everyone can edit it as they please woo hoo was true in the early days but now is only true at the very lowest echelons of the site. There is actually a significant hierarchical power structure at Wikipedia, with panels of people who have final say over most of the operational aspects of the site.

I knew someone whose PhD work heavily involved Wikipedia (techniques for developing anti-abuse techniques in collaborative information systems) and as part of his early work he was researching techniques that spammers were using to link spam wikipedia. To validate his work he actually ran experiments where he link-spammed Wikipedia... and got cracked down on pretty hard by ArbCom. He eventually got involved volunteering for them... but quit pretty soon after. They're very self-important, mostly inexperienced (since they rose through the ranks because they wanted to, not because they had the experience to), and there's apparently very little oversight of their actions. They're also almost entirely white men in their late 30's/early 40's who volunteered to spend most of their time managing a not-for-profit online encyclopedia. Which should give you some indication of the type of person they are.

So. Just a thing to be aware of. Their decision isn't going to be impartial or democratic.

[Elomin Sha]

I did not realise that wikipedia had changed over the years.
I have no idea what type of person they are because I don't know them.

[Master Gunner]

Part of the issue is that Wikipedia's mods/admins and arbitration board do not rule over the content of Wikipedia, only that it conforms to Wikipedia's guidelines for notability, formatting, etc. They more or less rely on the "democratic process" to sort it out in the end.
The problem with this is that it allows a fairly small group of people to monopolize segments of Wikipedia, and effectively fake the appearance of democracy prevailing. Whenever an individual comes along to make changes, the group presents a monolithic front to revert the changes, the individual goes away, and the process repeats with the next guy. Even if the individuals in total outweigh the controlling group, without coordination they can't overcome the momentum of the controlling group.
I read an article on this years ago, which laid out how, at least at the time, the Mormon church basically ruled over any article directly related to the church with an iron grip - so long as they stayed within Wikipedia's guidelines, they could ensure the language of the article stayed favourable to them, and use "democracy" to revert any changes that would present the church in a negative light.
In this case, a similar thing is happening. A group associated with GG is coordinating to present a "democratic" front that can influence the language of related articles to be in their favour, without directly breaking the rules that Wikipedia actually enforces. Except now they're also going a step further by using sock puppets and sacrificial accounts to take out prominent editors that are opposed to them. ArbCom's usual strategy when dealing with combative editors is to kick them all out, and let whomever remains sort out the content. In this case, the people being kicked out are established editors, and sock puppets/volunteers that were intended to be kicked out. Thus leaving the remaining GG bloc to carry on editing Wikipedia without significant oversight.


It is easy, and even appealing, to dismiss that all as conspiracy, but it's very easy to overlook exactly how few people are needed. Several years ago, several members of this forum joined the browser game "Jennifer Government: NationStates", a government simulator with a very large user base. Only a couple dozen of us were able to establish a significant voting block and coordinated to exploit the rules of the game to take over a number of established regions/"guilds", granting us rapidly increasing power in our corner of the game world (until we got bored and stopped). Wikipedia may be big, but it doesn't have nearly as many active editors as you would think, making it easy to manipulate by an outside group.

[AdmiralMemo]

Several years ago, several members of this forum joined the browser game "Jennifer Government: NationStates", a government simulator with a very large user base. Only a couple dozen of us were able to establish a significant voting block and coordinated to exploit the rules of the game to take over a number of established regions/"guilds", granting us rapidly increasing power in our corner of the game world (until we got bored and stopped).

Off-topic: Do any of those people still play? I'd like to add them to my Dossier, if so.

[Elomin Sha]

It is easy, and even appealing, to dismiss that all as conspiracy, but it's very easy to overlook exactly how few people are needed.

I'm fed up of the word. My step-father suffers bouts from his bi-polar disorder from time to time and latches on to whatever conspiracy theory he comes across from idiots on YouTube; 7/7 was a set up. The recent beheadings by IS were fake. Doesn't help he watches Alex Jones.

[JustAName]

http://www.vox.com/2015/2/5/7942623/mens-rights-movement

Ugh. What a quick turnaround from "good Muslims should call out Isis" to "what can I do about bad MRAs? They won't listen to me."

And "I'm sure catcalling and rape happens, but I don't see it"? Really? And he understands racism is still a prevalent force, but doesn't get that women of color are far more likely to have awful things happen to them? Bleh.

This is why, "No, I call myself a humanist," is a potentially dangerous statement.

[Deedles]

Just watched PBS Idea Channel's video on why viewers and critics have become so smitten and spoken about Frozen so much, the summary of the video being that essentially it's because the movie itself is a critique on fairy tales, but containing a lot of the usually things, but turning them on their head. [Movie spoilers, in case anyone hasn't seen it yet] It's true love, but that of sisters, a pair of siblings, not the romantic kind. Prince Charming turns out to be a lying mother busser.

Now, one of the comments on the video(which several people commented on to agree with) was that Frozen didn't deserve that attention, and that How To Train Your Dragon 2 was much better, because of the things it covered. (To quote the comment in question "It covered the themes of broken families, the realities of warfare, the responsibility of leadership, the idea of treating other creatures with love and respect, and yet with all these dark and serious themes it still left people feeling happy and inspired at the end.".)

That made me stop and think about it for a while and I came to the conclusion that I think the commentor was wrong. Neither Frozen nor How to Train your Dragon would be undeserving of that attention because they both are important and inspiring in their own way, but on a larger scale I personally find Frozen to be more important, because, in short, it had a female lead who was allowed to be the hero. Disney took tropes that they've long been the ones pushing and threw them on their heads.

I know that isn't enough for some people, as it's hard to forget the stereotypes and tropes that Disney have been pushing for so long, but it was a step forward, and I think it was an important one at that, even if Disney aren't the ones who continue forward.

Edit: Bah, then I forget to mention the whole reason I posted this in the first place. I wanted to hear people's opinions on this!

[MotorWaffle]

I don't know if that was so much groundbreaking. I mean, Disney already had a female hero with Mulan, who arguably took a much greater personal risk in being the hero, what with the whole "impersonating a male under risk of execution by your own side just to save your father" thing. Disney has also pretty well and thoroughly trashed their own tropes with "Enchanted".

Both movies are deserving of attention, but the realities and responsibilities of war and leadership have a bad tendency to be romanticized in children's media. It's often shown as an adventure, or at least the most unpleasant realities of the situation are swept under the rug. I think there is a great deal of validity in arguing the importance of showing war as horrible rather than glorifying it.

[JustAName]

Don't forget Tiana. She's fantastic.

[Elomin Sha]

What about Brave?

[Deedles]

Yeah, they're all great examples, and I'm a derp for not mentioning them.

I agree with your point, Motorwaffle. I think HtTyD 2 is a great movie deserving of attention for that reason, I just didn't agree with the mindset that Frozen was undeserving of its attention as a consequence. I feel both of them deserve it.

Edit: Also had to go and listen to Brave's soundtrack again. Thank's Elomin.

[Elomin Sha]

No problem. I actually haven't seen Brave or Frozen. Pretty much all of you know I spent much of my time watching Achievement Hunter videos, Geoff who has a daughter prefers Brave over Frozen as a more empowering/appropriate film. He really hates Frozen.

[MotorWaffle]

Well of course, comparing them is apples and oranges really. It's like arguing that Ghostbusters doesn't deserve attention for its contributions to action-comedy because of how The Butler handled race relations.
Perhaps the person who originally said it felt that HtTyD2 and its strengths strong points were overshadowed by the way Frozen just took off?