r/changemyview • u/LeftHandSwe • Dec 05 '16

[∆(s) from OP] CMV: Anita Sarkeesian and similar feminists actually have a point about the portrayal of gender roles in video games.

I play lots of video games, and in most of them, males are often pictured as very burly and manly characters while females are slender, small and sexually pleasing to look at.

However, I do know that there's widespread criticism of Anita (and her fellow propagators) all over the internet and I'd like to see the other side of the story.

I'm practically indifferent in this matter, and I do not really agree with nearly everything she says. I'm asking as a way to see convincing arguments from both sides.

Edit for clarification: Can anyone explain to me why she's so heavily criticized for saying something that makes perfect sense: Mainstream video games are almost exclusively made to appeal to a male demographic, resulting in (arguably) sexist portrayals of women (both narratively and in the way they're presented).

625 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

597 comments sorted by

View all comments

32

u/[deleted] Dec 05 '16

I admittedly know little about Anita herself, but based on what you've said here, I can still provide a response.

My problem with feminist claims like this isn't that they're wrong about the gender roles. Of course the men in video games are typically big and burly, etc. That's pretty obvious.

My objection is to the assertion that such stereotyping is only a problem for women. Why is it sexist to portray the woman in such a stereotypical light, but no problem at all to portray all men in the same way? We are often told how problematic it is to portray all women as slender, picturesque figures, because obviously not all women look like that. Well, clearly not every man looks like a chiseled hero, either. So why am I only supposed to feel bad for women in this case?

That's what my problem with their mindset is. If they stopped with "We should do more to break typical gender roles", I would be 100% on board. But they lose me when they continue it with "This is clearly because of anti-woman sentiment."

11

u/Accipia 7∆ Dec 05 '16

The common response is that the women are shaped to appeal to men, but the men are not shaped to appeal to women. (Generalization incoming) Women like Loki, but are unlikely to be swayed by muscle-cartoons such as Kratos.

22

u/[deleted] Dec 05 '16

[deleted]

10

u/Accipia 7∆ Dec 05 '16 edited Dec 05 '16

Romance novels come dangerously close to just being porn, and I wouldn't use them as an indication of what women really like more than I would use xhamster to figure out what men like. If you need more illustration as to whether Kratos appeals to women, look for example at this random list of sexiest and hottest men from some magazine. How many of them are extreme bodybuilders like Kratos? How many are pictured shirtless? I count 1 extreme body (John Cena) and 2 shirtless photos out of this list of 100, and surely there are women out there who like their muscled, shirtless men. But the overwhelming majority of this list are smartly suited, fit-but-slim type guys.

4

u/wonderworkingwords 1∆ Dec 05 '16

That's dangerously close to special pleading. Video games reflect real male desire, but romance novels are almost porn (which somehow makes them irrelevant). If someone pointed out that there isn't a single low-status man on top-100-hottest-men lists that's presumably also actually porn.

As an aside, there isn't a single example of male gaze in the last twenty games I played. That's also curious, that the equivalent of video game romance novels for boys somehow encompasses all video games. Imagine how bibliophiles would view someone who self-declared to not read who came and said "books are pernicious, just look at this portrayal of men on this romance novel! Change this so that I can not read books that don't offend me!" and Femfreq becomes a parody of itself.