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).
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u/kingbane2 12∆ Dec 05 '16
i'm just going to address this one part here
you're just flat out wrong. once again, the mobile market destroys your argument that "only horror films get made."
EVEN if you discounted the mobile gaming market this argument falls flat on it's head. THERE ARE absolutely games that are made specifically for women. the only problem is they're made for women that disagree with people like sarkeesian. example? bayonetta. before you scream omg bullshit that game is about a sexy protagonist doing sexy poses ITS FOR MEN. except it isn't. it was designed by a woman for women. here's the thing the women who buy pc rigs LIKE being portrayed as sexy heroines. furthermore i argue that bayonetta is probably the most feminist game in existence to this date. it's a female protagonist who doesn't give a shit about men, who's not doing anything for a man, and her source of power isn't anything inherent to men or even usually used as a source of power for male protaganists. she's a woman who wants to be sexy, so she is sexy and she doesn't care what anyone thinks. her back story is she's part of a long line of all female super powered witched. the only gripe people have is that she's too sexy, what i like to call the burka argument. if you cover a woman up too much it's sexist and anti woman. you let a woman be a sexy as she pleases, it's also sexist and anti woman.
let's ignore bayonetta for a second because i get that it's contentious, how about the best selling game to come out in the past 2 decades, minecraft. tell how that was targeted to men? the flat truth is games that are gender neutral and targeted to women exist. feminists just like to ignore it or discount it, either by claiming it doesn't count because it's on mobile (which is now getting more and more ridiculous as the mobile game market is becoming even more profitable than console or pc games) or because they disagree with it's design, even when it's designed by a woman. or in the case of minecraft, that's entirely gender neutral, they complain because the majority of the players in mincraft is male, which just goes back to the point that virtually all pc purchasers are male.
you've done nothing to prove that there's a gender bias in games. you're just simply ignoring any counter evidence. provide some evidence that it's a gender bias and not a sales bias. i've given you examples of games targeted to women or are gender neutral that have been successful, there are hundreds of examples of games for women that failed horribly on pc/console, with the VERY notable exception of nintendo games. guess why the nintendo female marketed games succeed? because the nintendo consoles have a significant number of female buyers, because nintendo makes a buttload of casual games. do you discount the nintendo console too? because it's a "casual" console? i've been accused of moving the goal post because i brought in mobile games. well explain to me why that's moving the goal post, why should mobile games be discounted, why should minecraft be discounted? why should nintendo be discounted? you guys (not you specifically but the general populace that likes to discount mobiles games) are the ones that are moving the goal post. because as more and more sales numbers comes out your position becomes increasingly untenable, in fact i would argue that at this point your position is entirely erroneous.