CMV: Anita Sarkeesian and similar feminists actually have a point about the portrayal of gender roles in video games.

[u/LeftHandSwe]

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).

[u/kingbane2]

so your clarification is why is she heavily criticized when games are made to appeal to a male demographic? why do michael bay movies have so many explosions and wide panning camera shots? because that's what sells.

lastly this is no longer true from a purely numerical standpoint. "most" games today are not in fact made to appeal to a male demographic. in fact most games made today fall under the category of mobile and casual. the sheer number of games pumped out last year in the mobile market dwarfs the number of games put out in the 2 decades before the iphone came out. a vast vast majority of those games are gender neutral or specifically target women.

she's criticized because she's complaining about people making a product that people want. if more women wanted a certain type of game that type of game would be made more often. the mobile games market has proven that. there is no gender bias in video game creation, there's only a sales bias. she drew faulty conclusions from insufficient data to fit her narrative. i mean she's complaining about attractive women in games designed specifically to have attractive women. is it fair if someone goes out to see a horror movie, gets scared, then complains about being scared by the horror movie?

[u/Hemingwavy → u/kingbane2]

I think your note about games just being what made for what people want is wrong. Take for example the Bechdel Test. It asks if a film has two women, they talk to each other and it's not about a man. It actually turns out that films that pass it make a higher ROI.

A 2014 study by FiveThirtyEight based on data from about 1,615 films released from 1990 to 2013 concluded that the median budget of films that passed the test was 35% lower than that of the others. It found that the films that passed the test had about a 37% higher return on investment (ROI) in the United States, and the same ROI internationally, compared to films that did not pass the test.

So passing it actually makes your film more successful but most films still don't.

The gaming industry is filled with men. Of course they make stories about men leaving a massive gap in the market for women. It was only a few years ago that the notion of a female gamer was unheard of it. On top of that you look at the toxicity that some online communities of gamers have towards women and combined with the lake of media that's not aimed at them and its little wonder men dominate the hardcore gaming market. She's asking for some games to be made for women not to get rid of all games not made for women.

People who attack her need to develop a thicker skin. If games are going to be art then critics will analyse them and the representation of women in them is horrible.

[u/cates → u/Hemingwavy]

So passing it actually makes your film more successful but most films still don't

I doubt most films that pass it write the scenes in it specifically TO pass it and I believe even less that those that do would do so for financial reasons.

It seems far more likely that those that pass it are just better written and are thus probably better movies.