Go Make Me A Sandwich has moved to Wordpress.
Okay, folks. I've had to remove 10 comments so far from the spam folder today alone. TEN. And yet it fails to remove comments that are ACTUAL SPAM. I'm sick of having to deal with this, and I'm sick of feeling like I have to check in every few hours to make sure no one's comments have been eaten. I want to reject the tyranny of internet time, so I'm moved things over to Wordpress. I apologize for the short notice, but I happened to have time today so I figured I'd get it done now.
All of the comment threads have been moved over to Wordpress as well, so please update your bookmarks accordingly.
I'm leaving comments open here through the end of the weekend, just so people don't have to change their bookmarks for the conversations they're currently following, but starting Monday morning comments will be closed here.
Other than that, nothing is changing. I plan to stick to my current posting "schedule" and format.
Once again, please update your bookmarks to gomakemeasandwich.wordpress.com
Thanks, and sorry for the inconvenience, folks!
Showing posts with label Miscellany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miscellany. Show all posts
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
On comments: a clarification
Okay folks, I'm keeping this short and sweet. I lost most of my day to airports and being on the road (it's good to be home), so the promised responses (esp. Maverynthia and tekanji) will happen tomorrow. I'm too tired to string complex thoughts together coherently right now. I just wanted to clarify quickly about my policy toward comments.
I noticed a traffic spike because of a post that tekanji wrote on the Shrub.com blog. Unfortunately Blogger ate tekanji's comment and it appeared like I had deleted it. I hadn't, but I didn't catch that it had been eaten for almost an entire day since I was on vacation. I restored the comment as soon as I caught it and also left a comment over on the post on Shrub.com. And the misunderstanding has been acknowledged and no harm, no foul. But it led me to think that I might want to publicly state my comments policy, just for clarity. So here it is.
The only comments I delete are spam - and by spam I mean shit like "great blog, if you like this you should check out these great cosplay outfits". If the comment is by a human being, no matter the content, I will never delete it.
I don't want to get into the politics of who I will and will not allow to speak, so this blog is a place where everyone can speak. I can't guarantee you'll get listened to; if you post anonymously that I'm a fat slob who needs to get a life, it's not too likely that you will. But this will always be a place where you can speak.
That being said, please be aware that Blogger's spam filter is complete shit coded by crack-addled hamsters. It never catches ACTUAL SPAM and will often eat real comments. Frequently the post will show up and then vanish on refresh, which understandably does look like me deleting comments. I check comments once or twice a day, depending on how busy I am, so I'll restore it as soon as I catch it, but it might not be right away. (Please do feel free to write emails to the Blogger staff asking them to allow us to implement 3rd party spam filters.)
Okay. I'm going to go wrap myself around a mug of tea. More coming tomorrow.
I noticed a traffic spike because of a post that tekanji wrote on the Shrub.com blog. Unfortunately Blogger ate tekanji's comment and it appeared like I had deleted it. I hadn't, but I didn't catch that it had been eaten for almost an entire day since I was on vacation. I restored the comment as soon as I caught it and also left a comment over on the post on Shrub.com. And the misunderstanding has been acknowledged and no harm, no foul. But it led me to think that I might want to publicly state my comments policy, just for clarity. So here it is.
The only comments I delete are spam - and by spam I mean shit like "great blog, if you like this you should check out these great cosplay outfits". If the comment is by a human being, no matter the content, I will never delete it.
I don't want to get into the politics of who I will and will not allow to speak, so this blog is a place where everyone can speak. I can't guarantee you'll get listened to; if you post anonymously that I'm a fat slob who needs to get a life, it's not too likely that you will. But this will always be a place where you can speak.
That being said, please be aware that Blogger's spam filter is complete shit coded by crack-addled hamsters. It never catches ACTUAL SPAM and will often eat real comments. Frequently the post will show up and then vanish on refresh, which understandably does look like me deleting comments. I check comments once or twice a day, depending on how busy I am, so I'll restore it as soon as I catch it, but it might not be right away. (Please do feel free to write emails to the Blogger staff asking them to allow us to implement 3rd party spam filters.)
Okay. I'm going to go wrap myself around a mug of tea. More coming tomorrow.
Friday, January 28, 2011
WTF: The tired Friday edition
Okay, folks. My schedule is kicking my ass this week, and my ass will be kicked even harder next week. So instead of giving you three real posts this week, you get two and a half. This might happen next week, depending on how much brainpower I have left after tech weekend for the show I'm in... But after that, I promise that I'll be returning to normal levels of snark.
Anyhow, I couldn't leave you empty-handed, so here's some miscellaneous pictures that I haven't found ahome rant for yet.
I can't decide what I hate more. The cleavagey outfits, the interchangeable faces, the nauseating levels of pink, or the actual words. MISS BIMBO? There's a game out there called MISS BIMBO? Do they honestly think that making their ad pink will make the title any less revolting? Also, advertisers who perpetuate "bored of" should go die, like, right now. This makes my inner grammarian want to stab my eyes out.
Anyhow, I couldn't leave you empty-handed, so here's some miscellaneous pictures that I haven't found a
I've forgotten what game this comes from, since I forgot to include the game's name in the file name when I saved it. I think that says a lot, don't you? I think I'm becoming a bit too blase about crotch floss as armor.
Okay, does anyone think it's a coincidence that "GROWING" is right over this poor woman's boobs? Neither did I. Though I'll admit the mental image of growing boobs made me think of DragonBall, which was an amusing mental non-sequiter. "AAAAAAAAAA!" "SHE'S REACHED BOOB LEVEL 9000!" "IMPOSSIBLE!"
...no? Just me then. Moving on... How about this?
...no? Just me then. Moving on... How about this?
WHAT. THE. FUCK. Seize power? Fine. Seize glory? Sure, if you think people really give a shit about your performance in a shitty knock-off browser-based game. Seize WOMEN? BECAUSE THEY'RE YOURS? AAARG. I know that the Chinese export a lot of translated games, Caesary being one of many, but I'd prefer that they didn't export their misogyny as well.
This is from an ad campaign in Europe - thank God not in North America. This fails on multiple levels.
Once again proving that the default of anything is male, and that female is always "special" or "distinct". Even, apparently, with puzzle games. I hope those of you with iPhones refrain from purchasing either version of what looks to be an uninspired Tetris clone.
I can't decide what I hate more. The cleavagey outfits, the interchangeable faces, the nauseating levels of pink, or the actual words. MISS BIMBO? There's a game out there called MISS BIMBO? Do they honestly think that making their ad pink will make the title any less revolting? Also, advertisers who perpetuate "bored of" should go die, like, right now. This makes my inner grammarian want to stab my eyes out.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Sexist depictions of women in gaming: links with numbers
Okay, folks. It's been pointed out to me that having links to my various posts with actual numbers might be helpful for people looking to linkspam people saying stupid things on the internet about games not being sexist. So I'm putting up this post just to collect the most useful stuff in one place. For the most part, what you'll find here is numbers based on surveys of game artwork.
My original article about sexist depictions of women in gaming can be found here. In it, I surveyed art from MMOs, console games, CCGs, and tabletop RPGs and came up with detailed numbers of sexist depictions in various sources.
There is also a followup survey done of the relaunched galleries on the official WoW site after the release of the Cataclysm expansion. The survey is the first part in a series that also includes posts on why the numbers are misleading, unbalanced class depictions, and comparisons of good and bad character design.
It's very probably that any of these links will be responded to with comments along the line of "but gaming is sexist against men too!". You may want to link them to this post about why idealized figures are not the same as sexualized figures. (Do note that since I was pretty angry when I wrote that post, it's likely that they will respond that I'm biased.)
Feel free to link to any of these posts if you feel like it. This post will be edited to add new links whenever I do something that includes actual numbers.
My original article about sexist depictions of women in gaming can be found here. In it, I surveyed art from MMOs, console games, CCGs, and tabletop RPGs and came up with detailed numbers of sexist depictions in various sources.
There is also a followup survey done of the relaunched galleries on the official WoW site after the release of the Cataclysm expansion. The survey is the first part in a series that also includes posts on why the numbers are misleading, unbalanced class depictions, and comparisons of good and bad character design.
It's very probably that any of these links will be responded to with comments along the line of "but gaming is sexist against men too!". You may want to link them to this post about why idealized figures are not the same as sexualized figures. (Do note that since I was pretty angry when I wrote that post, it's likely that they will respond that I'm biased.)
Feel free to link to any of these posts if you feel like it. This post will be edited to add new links whenever I do something that includes actual numbers.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
I cannot brain, I have the sick.
Hi, folks. Just a heads up. I managed to catch some sort of plague from a friend's kids over the weekend. It's kicking my ass and giving me a serious case of the stupid, so I'm going to be a little quiet for the next few days until I feel better. (Try to behave yourself in the comment threads, folks. Don't do anything I wouldn't... oh wait...)
Mayhaps I will finish the 2nd of my gender-swapped drawings whilst I am sick - coloring is about all the intellectual activity I can handle right now.
In the mean time, I didn't want to leave you empty-handed, so check out these links:
In the new DC Online MMO, you can play any type of female hero you want. As long as they have ENORMOUS KNOCKERS.
An LJ post in which a female comic fan rants about why she shouldn't have to feel uncomfortable in comic stores. Substitute "game" for comic and you'd pretty much have a treatise on how I feel in game stores.
Why do women prefer anime and manga to other parts of geekdom? Hint: Because they're the parts that don't tell us to GTFO.
Mayhaps I will finish the 2nd of my gender-swapped drawings whilst I am sick - coloring is about all the intellectual activity I can handle right now.
In the mean time, I didn't want to leave you empty-handed, so check out these links:
In the new DC Online MMO, you can play any type of female hero you want. As long as they have ENORMOUS KNOCKERS.
An LJ post in which a female comic fan rants about why she shouldn't have to feel uncomfortable in comic stores. Substitute "game" for comic and you'd pretty much have a treatise on how I feel in game stores.
Why do women prefer anime and manga to other parts of geekdom? Hint: Because they're the parts that don't tell us to GTFO.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
For Boxing Day, I got you some WTF!
Hi, folks! I'm having a wonderful holiday, so I thought I'd share some festivus cheer with you all! Today's WTF is decidedly frisky, but since it's a long weekend that shouldn't be a problem. (Or at least I hope it's not a problem. If you're at work while you're reading this, you have my sympathies.)
WTF the first
A Street Fighter Condom! Obviously not sanctioned by Capcom, image very NSFW. So, okay - I'll admit that this one is actually pretty humorous - and I'm actually kind of impressed that Ryu's the naked one and not Chun Li (that's pretty unusual for that sort of thing). Mostly, the bothersome thing is that the link from Destructoid pretty much assumes that anyone looking at this is a dude by opening up with:
Sure, it's funny. But can't I appreciate the absurdity of a Street Fighter condom without having a penis? Or is that not an option?
WTF the second
I was scarred when I found out this exists and had to share the pain: behold the Pokebra.
I got nothin'.
WTF the third
According to RPG Geek, there is an actual d20/OGL product for 3.0 D&D called Chainmail Bikini. The blurb on RPG Geek's product info starts out:
Wow. That sounds really classy. I mean, this sounds exactly what I've been missing in my search for material to support strong female characters in fantasy gaming. (/sarcasm)
Okay, seriously? Anyone who got this for me would find them in about as deep a shit as if they got me a vacuum cleaner or a carpet steamer.
WTF the first
A Street Fighter Condom! Obviously not sanctioned by Capcom, image very NSFW. So, okay - I'll admit that this one is actually pretty humorous - and I'm actually kind of impressed that Ryu's the naked one and not Chun Li (that's pretty unusual for that sort of thing). Mostly, the bothersome thing is that the link from Destructoid pretty much assumes that anyone looking at this is a dude by opening up with:
Have you been looking for a way to combine your love of uppercutting people with your love of sticking your penis in things? Do you like not having to pay child support to illegitimate children? Are you frustrated that there isn't a contraceptive device available that shows Ryu's testicles?
Sure, it's funny. But can't I appreciate the absurdity of a Street Fighter condom without having a penis? Or is that not an option?
WTF the second
I was scarred when I found out this exists and had to share the pain: behold the Pokebra.
I got nothin'.
WTF the third
According to RPG Geek, there is an actual d20/OGL product for 3.0 D&D called Chainmail Bikini. The blurb on RPG Geek's product info starts out:
From the company that brought you Bride of Portable Hole: The Book of Neurotic Fantasy, and the author who really wanted a feat called Bondage Attack in E.N. Arsenal - Whips, comes a product that brings the superficiality and vapidity of pop culture into the realm of heroic fantasy roleplaying.
Wow. That sounds really classy. I mean, this sounds exactly what I've been missing in my search for material to support strong female characters in fantasy gaming. (/sarcasm)
Okay, seriously? Anyone who got this for me would find them in about as deep a shit as if they got me a vacuum cleaner or a carpet steamer.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
You can find me on Delicious
Hi, folks. Two things really quick before I go home and wait for the imminent arrival of family.
Thing the First
A few weeks ago when my Google doc of links for future reference hit nine pages, I started to slowly transfer them to Delicious just so that I could organize them, since it was getting hard to find stuff I wanted to link to. I'm not done posting links - I've gotten through about 4/5 of them. But I figured I'd throw up a link to my Delicious page in case anyone else finds it useful. Mostly I plan on using it as an organizational tool for myself, but it might provide you folks with interesting reading material.
If you're a Delicious user and you want to send something my way but are too lazy to comment here, feel free to use the tag #gmmas to send it my way.
Thing the Second
A dear friend of mine wrote this amazing and completely win-filled response on tumblr to some of the backlash my article on depictions of women in gaming has gotten. If you liked the article, you should go read the response here.
Things like this make me pleased that I have such awesome friends.
That's all from me. Have a good holiday!
Thing the First
A few weeks ago when my Google doc of links for future reference hit nine pages, I started to slowly transfer them to Delicious just so that I could organize them, since it was getting hard to find stuff I wanted to link to. I'm not done posting links - I've gotten through about 4/5 of them. But I figured I'd throw up a link to my Delicious page in case anyone else finds it useful. Mostly I plan on using it as an organizational tool for myself, but it might provide you folks with interesting reading material.
If you're a Delicious user and you want to send something my way but are too lazy to comment here, feel free to use the tag #gmmas to send it my way.
Thing the Second
A dear friend of mine wrote this amazing and completely win-filled response on tumblr to some of the backlash my article on depictions of women in gaming has gotten. If you liked the article, you should go read the response here.
Things like this make me pleased that I have such awesome friends.
That's all from me. Have a good holiday!
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Boobular webcomic banners (warning: not dialup friendly)
[Edited: The images should work now]
A brief side note: Things are going to slow down quite a bit until after the holidays, due to the many and varied holiday celebrations that come with having a large family. I'll try to pop in and it least post some links, but things won't pick up again until after New Year. So go and have a good holiday and take a break from reading about headache-inducing sexism. The wundergeek commands you!
Another brief side note: Yes, yes I know that webcomics aren't games and that I'm "diluting my focus" by talking about them here. Whatever. Webcomics are still a bastion of geekery, so I view this is related.
And now, the ranting:
There are a lot of webcomics out there that rely on badly drawn boobs to try to draw traffic to their sites. And man, I get tired of badly drawn boobs. At least with game art, 95% of the time I get well-rendered disgusting boobage. I've been collecting banners that I've come across while keeping up with my favorite comics. Just as a "fun" little exercise, I made a little collage for your viewing enjoyment:
(click for much larger version)
A brief side note: Things are going to slow down quite a bit until after the holidays, due to the many and varied holiday celebrations that come with having a large family. I'll try to pop in and it least post some links, but things won't pick up again until after New Year. So go and have a good holiday and take a break from reading about headache-inducing sexism. The wundergeek commands you!
Another brief side note: Yes, yes I know that webcomics aren't games and that I'm "diluting my focus" by talking about them here. Whatever. Webcomics are still a bastion of geekery, so I view this is related.
And now, the ranting:
There are a lot of webcomics out there that rely on badly drawn boobs to try to draw traffic to their sites. And man, I get tired of badly drawn boobs. At least with game art, 95% of the time I get well-rendered disgusting boobage. I've been collecting banners that I've come across while keeping up with my favorite comics. Just as a "fun" little exercise, I made a little collage for your viewing enjoyment:
(click for much larger version)
The discouraging part is that it only took me three or four weeks to collect all these, and I'm not in any way a huge webcomic addict. (Or at least, with "only" 9 comics that I follow on a regular basis I'm certainly not as huge a webcomic addict as some people out there.)
I get kind of the same feeling looking at this that I do sometimes when I'm walking around the Dealer's Room at GenCon, except with the added frustration that I want to make half of these guys take a f*cking anatomy lesson. Big fake breasts are one thing, but if you're going to have them in your comic then at least draw them CORRECTLY. I mean, some of the boobs in this collage are just horrific. (I'm looking at you, Wireheads.)
It's just frustrating, because I feel like I can't escape the legions of horribly drawn boobages (yes I'm making up words again) even when I'm reading my favorite comics! The comics I love have strong female heroes who are not any more sexualized than their male counterparts - so why should I have to put up with this invasion into my nice, sane comic space?
Arg.
For those of you who'd like a snarkier take, I also did a second version of the collage with my comments overlaid. I won't post it here since it, too, is quite large. But you can find it here if you want my analysis of why these banners suck.
I get kind of the same feeling looking at this that I do sometimes when I'm walking around the Dealer's Room at GenCon, except with the added frustration that I want to make half of these guys take a f*cking anatomy lesson. Big fake breasts are one thing, but if you're going to have them in your comic then at least draw them CORRECTLY. I mean, some of the boobs in this collage are just horrific. (I'm looking at you, Wireheads.)
It's just frustrating, because I feel like I can't escape the legions of horribly drawn boobages (yes I'm making up words again) even when I'm reading my favorite comics! The comics I love have strong female heroes who are not any more sexualized than their male counterparts - so why should I have to put up with this invasion into my nice, sane comic space?
Arg.
For those of you who'd like a snarkier take, I also did a second version of the collage with my comments overlaid. I won't post it here since it, too, is quite large. But you can find it here if you want my analysis of why these banners suck.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Depictions of Women in Games: Some Follow-up Notes
I've gotten some critical comments regarding my article about depictions of women in gaming (please do go read it if you haven't already). Mostly these comments seem to not grasp the fact that the criteria were intentionally engineered to be slightly ridiculous. So - a few things:
Re: The subjectivity of the criteria makes this statistically useless
This isn't meant to provide numbers in the sense that you can use this to prove exact percentages. This is meant to provide numbers in the sense that it clearly documents sexist trends in depictions of women in game art across all areas of gaming. I engineered my criteria to be very conservative when labeling women as suggestive and very liberal when labeling men as suggestive, so the fact that the numbers I generated still show a very clear sexist trend is significant.
OMG why is a cow labeled suggestive?
Sure it's ridiculous. Again, I intentionally made my criteria very liberal when looking at male figures to offset the deep personal bias that I have regarding this kind of art. I realize that no one is going to look at this cow and go "va va voom!". But the cow isn't wearing pants, which makes him suggestive according to the criteria I defined. And in fact, a significant number of the male figures I countered were monstrous humanoids, which seems significant in a way that I can't pin down.
Looking at other sources
If someone wants to take my methods and apply them to other stuff like Pathfinder or Magic, please do! I'd appreciate a message here just to let me know what you'd find, is all.
Specific interpretations of numbers
I am not a statistician or anything having to do with math - I studied Fine Art. Also, I recognize that the subjectivity of the criteria makes specific conclusions problematic in some cases. However, what is inarguable is that across all areas of gaming, game art displays markedly sexist trends despite having engineered the survey to conservatively evaluate women that would commonly be called suggestive and to liberally evaluate men who would commonly be called not suggestive.
Lack of pants = suggestive?
You'll note that I specifically said that characters "not having covered legs" would automatically be considered suggestive. Leg coverings include skirts, which are a non-bifurcated leg covering. Leg coverings do not include thigh-high stockings or tights. This is just common sense. If I tried to go to work in just tights or thigh-high stockings, I'm pretty sure I would get in trouble.
I'm not going to count biceps on men as suggestive for the same reason I don't count them as suggestive on women. You can be attracted to people with large biceps, but calling bare arms suggestive is just absurd for either sex.
Re: The subjectivity of the criteria makes this statistically useless
This isn't meant to provide numbers in the sense that you can use this to prove exact percentages. This is meant to provide numbers in the sense that it clearly documents sexist trends in depictions of women in game art across all areas of gaming. I engineered my criteria to be very conservative when labeling women as suggestive and very liberal when labeling men as suggestive, so the fact that the numbers I generated still show a very clear sexist trend is significant.
OMG why is a cow labeled suggestive?
Sure it's ridiculous. Again, I intentionally made my criteria very liberal when looking at male figures to offset the deep personal bias that I have regarding this kind of art. I realize that no one is going to look at this cow and go "va va voom!". But the cow isn't wearing pants, which makes him suggestive according to the criteria I defined. And in fact, a significant number of the male figures I countered were monstrous humanoids, which seems significant in a way that I can't pin down.
Looking at other sources
If someone wants to take my methods and apply them to other stuff like Pathfinder or Magic, please do! I'd appreciate a message here just to let me know what you'd find, is all.
Specific interpretations of numbers
I am not a statistician or anything having to do with math - I studied Fine Art. Also, I recognize that the subjectivity of the criteria makes specific conclusions problematic in some cases. However, what is inarguable is that across all areas of gaming, game art displays markedly sexist trends despite having engineered the survey to conservatively evaluate women that would commonly be called suggestive and to liberally evaluate men who would commonly be called not suggestive.
Lack of pants = suggestive?
You'll note that I specifically said that characters "not having covered legs" would automatically be considered suggestive. Leg coverings include skirts, which are a non-bifurcated leg covering. Leg coverings do not include thigh-high stockings or tights. This is just common sense. If I tried to go to work in just tights or thigh-high stockings, I'm pretty sure I would get in trouble.
I'm not going to count biceps on men as suggestive for the same reason I don't count them as suggestive on women. You can be attracted to people with large biceps, but calling bare arms suggestive is just absurd for either sex.
Just for the record
I've found myself saying a lot of the same things in various places on the internet in the past couple of weeks, so I'm going to say some stuff here so that I can refer back to this in the future and not have to articulate it again. With that in mind, let me throw some stuff out here:
I don't care if you like cheesecake.
If you like cheesecake, good for you. I'm honestly not judging you; that's a matter of personal taste. I also recognize that there isn't just a binary between "I like cheesecake" and "I don't like cheesecake" and I respect that too. I'm not going to get into the business of judging individual consumers of media for their tastes, because that's just counterproductive and hypocritical.
I am (probably) not judging you
I'm reserving judgement for the artists, writers, and publishers who use cheesecake to make money. These are the people who are intentionally marginalizing women and perpetuating stereotypes for the sake of making a few quick bucks, and these are the people that deserve to be called out publicly on their bullshit. I'm not against all sex ever in RPGs. I'm not against all sex ever in art. I'm not against all people ever who like sexy art, or who like sex, or who like sex and RPGs. I'm against people who purposefully, deliberately, and systematically dehumanize women for personal gain and profit.
Wait, part of that was really important, so let me say it again:
I'm not against all sex ever in RPGs. I'm not against all sex ever in art. I'm not against all people ever who like sexy art, or who like sex, or who like sex and RPGs.
Okay, what else...
What do I want? A diversity of depictions of women in game art.
Women in game art are hyper-idealized and hyper-sexualized. You see so many male body types depicted in fantasy, but the only female body type you see in game art is Barbie. For that matter, there just aren't any "fuckable" men that are equivalent to the cheesecake skanks they put in books. People go on and on about ridiculous beefcake, but if you start counting actual images, the numbers just don't support it.
Calling women in game art skanks
I'm not going to apologize for calling imaginary women skanks, especially not women who have been EXPLICITLY DESIGNED to be "fuckable". Everything about the costume, posing, anatomy, and other contextual elements of these elements is designed to make it clear to the male viewer that these women are totally available for banging. THAT is why I call them skanks.
For the record, I do regret comments I made about Jenny Poisson. I'm not going to go delete them because that would be cowardice, but I'll state that I was under the impression she was a paid model and not a fan. That was not correct. I stand by my assertion that Paizo's exclusive use of her photo to promote the contest was sexist, but I do regret the "splash damage" of my comments about the photo itself.
That being said:
I'm still not against sex, or against women who like to have sex, or against women who like to cosplay, or against women who like to dress sexily, or even women having sex while dressed in sexy cosplay.
Also:
On taking a more "objective" approach:
I am looking at all the ridiculous sexist imagery that pisses me the f*ck off and talking about why it is f*cking ridiculous. I don't give a rat's ass that I'm fighting a losing battle. I'm done being silent. I'm just done. I experience shame and insecurity about this shit on a near-daily basis, and I think that voicing my emotions is just as important as examining the imagery. Too many women feel they have to be silent about how sexism affects them. I'm done being silent. If that makes my blog less "useful" then that's fine with me.
I don't want all women to wear burkas
See again my comments re: desiring a diversity of depictions. See also comments re: not being against sex.
I reserve the right to come back and edit this should the need arise.
I don't care if you like cheesecake.
If you like cheesecake, good for you. I'm honestly not judging you; that's a matter of personal taste. I also recognize that there isn't just a binary between "I like cheesecake" and "I don't like cheesecake" and I respect that too. I'm not going to get into the business of judging individual consumers of media for their tastes, because that's just counterproductive and hypocritical.
I am (probably) not judging you
I'm reserving judgement for the artists, writers, and publishers who use cheesecake to make money. These are the people who are intentionally marginalizing women and perpetuating stereotypes for the sake of making a few quick bucks, and these are the people that deserve to be called out publicly on their bullshit. I'm not against all sex ever in RPGs. I'm not against all sex ever in art. I'm not against all people ever who like sexy art, or who like sex, or who like sex and RPGs. I'm against people who purposefully, deliberately, and systematically dehumanize women for personal gain and profit.
Wait, part of that was really important, so let me say it again:
I'm not against all sex ever in RPGs. I'm not against all sex ever in art. I'm not against all people ever who like sexy art, or who like sex, or who like sex and RPGs.
Okay, what else...
What do I want? A diversity of depictions of women in game art.
Women in game art are hyper-idealized and hyper-sexualized. You see so many male body types depicted in fantasy, but the only female body type you see in game art is Barbie. For that matter, there just aren't any "fuckable" men that are equivalent to the cheesecake skanks they put in books. People go on and on about ridiculous beefcake, but if you start counting actual images, the numbers just don't support it.
Calling women in game art skanks
I'm not going to apologize for calling imaginary women skanks, especially not women who have been EXPLICITLY DESIGNED to be "fuckable". Everything about the costume, posing, anatomy, and other contextual elements of these elements is designed to make it clear to the male viewer that these women are totally available for banging. THAT is why I call them skanks.
For the record, I do regret comments I made about Jenny Poisson. I'm not going to go delete them because that would be cowardice, but I'll state that I was under the impression she was a paid model and not a fan. That was not correct. I stand by my assertion that Paizo's exclusive use of her photo to promote the contest was sexist, but I do regret the "splash damage" of my comments about the photo itself.
That being said:
I'm still not against sex, or against women who like to have sex, or against women who like to cosplay, or against women who like to dress sexily, or even women having sex while dressed in sexy cosplay.
Also:
On taking a more "objective" approach:
I am looking at all the ridiculous sexist imagery that pisses me the f*ck off and talking about why it is f*cking ridiculous. I don't give a rat's ass that I'm fighting a losing battle. I'm done being silent. I'm just done. I experience shame and insecurity about this shit on a near-daily basis, and I think that voicing my emotions is just as important as examining the imagery. Too many women feel they have to be silent about how sexism affects them. I'm done being silent. If that makes my blog less "useful" then that's fine with me.
I don't want all women to wear burkas
See again my comments re: desiring a diversity of depictions. See also comments re: not being against sex.
I reserve the right to come back and edit this should the need arise.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Depictions of Women in Games, Game Art, and Promotional Material
At this past GenCon, Simon of Pelgrane Press asked me if I would be willing to write an article about sexism in gaming for his irregularly published webzine See Page XX. I immediately said yes, and the resulting article is what ultimately gave me the inspiration to start this blog. So it makes me very happy to announce that the article has finally been posted! Please go give it a read!
For everyone out there who has ground their teeth when forum trolls respond to allegations of sexism in games or game art with "show me some numbers", here is some ammunition. In this article, I created a consistent set of variables that I used to examine art from tabletop RPGs, CCGs, console games, and MMOs. There are numbers to be had, and graphs. So very, very many graphs.
I have some vague ideas about pulling some things out of the article for more in-depth analysis here, but nothing too concrete yet. Anyhow, here's the link again: Depictions of Women in Games, Game Art, and Promotional Material.
For everyone out there who has ground their teeth when forum trolls respond to allegations of sexism in games or game art with "show me some numbers", here is some ammunition. In this article, I created a consistent set of variables that I used to examine art from tabletop RPGs, CCGs, console games, and MMOs. There are numbers to be had, and graphs. So very, very many graphs.
I have some vague ideas about pulling some things out of the article for more in-depth analysis here, but nothing too concrete yet. Anyhow, here's the link again: Depictions of Women in Games, Game Art, and Promotional Material.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Another daily dose of WTF
Hi, folks. Things are going to slow down a bit as we approach Christmas, and I apologize for that. To make up for not getting three posts in this week, I thought I'd post a couple of links to tide you over.
1up.com isn't as huge a bucket of fail as places like Kotaku and Destructoid, but it's user-generated content can still be... problematic. As witness by the Club o' Cleavage hosted on their site. Because heaven forbid these guys should leave the house and talk with real girls.
And then we have this picture of a Games For Girls display at a GameStop in California. Seriously? It's almost enough to make me want to stop shopping there, but it'll never happen because I'm cheap and I hate paying $60 for games.
Lastly we have Pillow Fight for the iPhone, in which buxom bikini-clad women engage in a pillow fight. Classy.
1up.com isn't as huge a bucket of fail as places like Kotaku and Destructoid, but it's user-generated content can still be... problematic. As witness by the Club o' Cleavage hosted on their site. Because heaven forbid these guys should leave the house and talk with real girls.
And then we have this picture of a Games For Girls display at a GameStop in California. Seriously? It's almost enough to make me want to stop shopping there, but it'll never happen because I'm cheap and I hate paying $60 for games.
Lastly we have Pillow Fight for the iPhone, in which buxom bikini-clad women engage in a pillow fight. Classy.
Monday, December 6, 2010
The echo chamber (or yet another reason I f*cking hate the internet)
Okay, folks. Today’s post is extra disgusting, so I’ll start off with a few side notes before I get into things. Consider yourself warned.
First of all, things kind of exploded over the weekend thanks to my original post about Paizo, then my response to LPJ’s comment on that post. I was angry and my response was pretty vitriolic, so I was pretty surprised when Paizo’s Erik Mona posted a thoughtful and not bile-filled response to what was admittedly some pretty inflammatory stuff. There’s some good stuff that has happened in the comments, so I recommend taking a look if you haven't already.
With that said, on to the awfulness!
So one of the things that I’ve found very discouraging since starting this blog is the fact that internet culture is saturated with downright hatred of women. I know that I’ve hyperbolized quite a bit here, but I don’t use this term lightly. There is so much stuff on the internet that displays a level of disregard for women that is quite frightening, and unfortunately internet culture tends to dovetail with geek culture and gaming culture quite a bit.
Case in point – demotivational posters. It got started with despair.com and quickly became an internet meme to make your own. I have a friend who has a demotivational poster screensaver slide show, and I noticed while watching it that it had so… many… boobs. So I got curious and did a little digging.
VeryDemotivational.com (affiliated with the Cheezburger Network) has a lot of egregious ones, but for the most part they don’t get beyond fanservicey boob pictures. But Motifake.com… brr. There is some frightening, frightening stuff there!
First of all, just looking through the tag cloud is an… educational experience. But man, it seems like every tag leads to porn. (Case in point: the first three results for Pokemon are hot chicks in various states of undress. I’m not sure what to make of this…)
If you look at images tagged geek, fully half of the results are variations on a theme – large chested ostensibly available women who like geeks that mostly look like this:
Of course, the first image actually spells out what the other posters only imply. REAL geeks are never women. If a woman says that she’s a geek, clearly she’s just trying to have sex with male geeks. All in all, offensive, but pretty mainstream – at least for the internet.
Of course, the a subset of the geek tagged posters are tagged with sammich, which ups the distastefulness to a whole new level. Most of these, excepting the ones that are literally about sandwiches, are variations on the theme of “stfu bitch and go make me a sammich”. And of course sometimes “a woman’s domain is the kitchen” is stated outright:
The sign on the right says “iron my shirt bitch”. Charming. Also – both of these were tagged “feminism”. Wow. I have such respect for the mind that can conceive of such irony. (/sarcasm)
The LEAST distasteful images you’ll find (besides the ones actually about sandwiches) are the ones about women being too stupid to do anything properly besides making sandwiches. There are lots of those, so I picked the two worst from the first few pages:
So with the one on the left, you get “go make me a sammich” bukkake. (I’m not going to link to bukkake. If you don’t know what it is, please don’t Google it at work.) Which, you know, is just charming. And on the left you get the added message that the only thing women have to offer in the workplace is their fuckability. Ugly chicks need not apply. Both of these display a level of misogyny that is honestly pretty shocking.
But wait! It gets worse! Check these out!
Awesome! So these not only imply that women are subhuman creatures with intelligence only barely sufficient to breathe, spread our legs, and pile condiments between two pieces of bread – they also imply that violence against women is, yanno, funny. If they fail to give you the sexual and gustatory satisfaction you desire, then clearly they are not performing their function.
I guess I’m being a humorless sexist here, but I fail to conceive of a universe in which the caption “LIPSTICK: looks better on my cock now go make me a sandwich” is anywhere even approaching appropriate, let alone funny. And as for jokes about murdering women, well, who doesn’t love those – huh?
And oh look! Two more tagged “feminism”!
So on the left we have yet another example of how Xbox Live is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. If your girlfriend interferes with your gaming, then LOGICALLY the proper response is torture. I mean, duh. But then, us wimmenz are pretty silly for not wanting our partners to smack us around. It’s good for us, right? And I know they only do it because they love us!
Ugh. It’s shit like this that makes me f*cking hate the internet. Sites like Motifake just exacerbate the problem of sexism because men with misogynistic views get to surround themselves in an echo chamber of like-minded people until they think that shit like this is funny.
First of all, things kind of exploded over the weekend thanks to my original post about Paizo, then my response to LPJ’s comment on that post. I was angry and my response was pretty vitriolic, so I was pretty surprised when Paizo’s Erik Mona posted a thoughtful and not bile-filled response to what was admittedly some pretty inflammatory stuff. There’s some good stuff that has happened in the comments, so I recommend taking a look if you haven't already.
With that said, on to the awfulness!
So one of the things that I’ve found very discouraging since starting this blog is the fact that internet culture is saturated with downright hatred of women. I know that I’ve hyperbolized quite a bit here, but I don’t use this term lightly. There is so much stuff on the internet that displays a level of disregard for women that is quite frightening, and unfortunately internet culture tends to dovetail with geek culture and gaming culture quite a bit.
Case in point – demotivational posters. It got started with despair.com and quickly became an internet meme to make your own. I have a friend who has a demotivational poster screensaver slide show, and I noticed while watching it that it had so… many… boobs. So I got curious and did a little digging.
VeryDemotivational.com (affiliated with the Cheezburger Network) has a lot of egregious ones, but for the most part they don’t get beyond fanservicey boob pictures. But Motifake.com… brr. There is some frightening, frightening stuff there!
First of all, just looking through the tag cloud is an… educational experience. But man, it seems like every tag leads to porn. (Case in point: the first three results for Pokemon are hot chicks in various states of undress. I’m not sure what to make of this…)
If you look at images tagged geek, fully half of the results are variations on a theme – large chested ostensibly available women who like geeks that mostly look like this:
Of course, the first image actually spells out what the other posters only imply. REAL geeks are never women. If a woman says that she’s a geek, clearly she’s just trying to have sex with male geeks. All in all, offensive, but pretty mainstream – at least for the internet.
Of course, the a subset of the geek tagged posters are tagged with sammich, which ups the distastefulness to a whole new level. Most of these, excepting the ones that are literally about sandwiches, are variations on the theme of “stfu bitch and go make me a sammich”. And of course sometimes “a woman’s domain is the kitchen” is stated outright:
The sign on the right says “iron my shirt bitch”. Charming. Also – both of these were tagged “feminism”. Wow. I have such respect for the mind that can conceive of such irony. (/sarcasm)
The LEAST distasteful images you’ll find (besides the ones actually about sandwiches) are the ones about women being too stupid to do anything properly besides making sandwiches. There are lots of those, so I picked the two worst from the first few pages:
So with the one on the left, you get “go make me a sammich” bukkake. (I’m not going to link to bukkake. If you don’t know what it is, please don’t Google it at work.) Which, you know, is just charming. And on the left you get the added message that the only thing women have to offer in the workplace is their fuckability. Ugly chicks need not apply. Both of these display a level of misogyny that is honestly pretty shocking.
But wait! It gets worse! Check these out!
Awesome! So these not only imply that women are subhuman creatures with intelligence only barely sufficient to breathe, spread our legs, and pile condiments between two pieces of bread – they also imply that violence against women is, yanno, funny. If they fail to give you the sexual and gustatory satisfaction you desire, then clearly they are not performing their function.
I guess I’m being a humorless sexist here, but I fail to conceive of a universe in which the caption “LIPSTICK: looks better on my cock now go make me a sandwich” is anywhere even approaching appropriate, let alone funny. And as for jokes about murdering women, well, who doesn’t love those – huh?
And oh look! Two more tagged “feminism”!
So on the left we have yet another example of how Xbox Live is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. If your girlfriend interferes with your gaming, then LOGICALLY the proper response is torture. I mean, duh. But then, us wimmenz are pretty silly for not wanting our partners to smack us around. It’s good for us, right? And I know they only do it because they love us!
Ugh. It’s shit like this that makes me f*cking hate the internet. Sites like Motifake just exacerbate the problem of sexism because men with misogynistic views get to surround themselves in an echo chamber of like-minded people until they think that shit like this is funny.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Blame NaNoWriMo
Hey, folks. Sorry for the radio silence. American Thanksgiving, birthday celebrations, a wedding, and the end of NaNoWriMo all conspired to make sure that any time spent at my computer since last Thursday has been time in which I have been prying my daily words out of my brain in an increasingly desperate attempt to make it to the finish line. But look! I finished!
Yes I use a spreadsheet to track my words. I'm a giant nerd.
How Fat Princess is blatantly better than feminism - a column on Destructoid by Jim Sterling.
This is seriously one of the most offensive and disgusting anti-feminist screeds that I have read since I started the research that wound up to me starting this blog. Among other things, he claims that feminism is bad for women as well as perpetuates the stereotype that feminists are humorless trolls who have no chance of finding a man. And then at the very end, he turns around and says surprise! This was all a joke! If you're offended, clearly it just proves that everything men say about humorless feminists is true! Clearly that makes them blameless, right?
Well, except for the comments where readers fall all over themselves to say OMG THIS IS SO TRUE. Consider yourself on notice Jim Sterling - I'm adding you to my Google Alerts.
WTF the third:
(NSFW!!) Video Game Girls DB - proof that in every stereotype there is at least a small grain of truth.
Perhaps the creepiest masturbation aid I've ever encountered, this site lets you sort by hair color, eye color, measurements, breast size, and bounciness - among many other factors. Seriously? Yuck. Just... yuck.
Yes I use a spreadsheet to track my words. I'm a giant nerd.
So now that that's over with, I can now reclaim the mental bandwidth that was being consumed by NaNoWriMo. Hooray! I've been doing lots of research in the last little while and I promise I have lots of interesting stuff to rant about, including body customization, sexist webcomic ads, and Paizo.
In the mean time, I don't want to leave you empty handed. So here, gentle reader, is your daily dose of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
WTF the first:
Fair warning, unbelievably NSFW! Orgasm Girl - a flash game on New Grounds about a lesbian who goes around giving girls orgasms in their sleep. Apparently successful enough that it warranted a sequel, because there's also an Orgasm Girl 2.
I'm afraid that I've spent a little too much time dragging prose out of my brain to mock this in a sufficiently scathing and intelligent manner. I'll leave that task to you.
WTF the second:
In the mean time, I don't want to leave you empty handed. So here, gentle reader, is your daily dose of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
WTF the first:
Fair warning, unbelievably NSFW! Orgasm Girl - a flash game on New Grounds about a lesbian who goes around giving girls orgasms in their sleep. Apparently successful enough that it warranted a sequel, because there's also an Orgasm Girl 2.
I'm afraid that I've spent a little too much time dragging prose out of my brain to mock this in a sufficiently scathing and intelligent manner. I'll leave that task to you.
WTF the second:
How Fat Princess is blatantly better than feminism - a column on Destructoid by Jim Sterling.
This is seriously one of the most offensive and disgusting anti-feminist screeds that I have read since I started the research that wound up to me starting this blog. Among other things, he claims that feminism is bad for women as well as perpetuates the stereotype that feminists are humorless trolls who have no chance of finding a man. And then at the very end, he turns around and says surprise! This was all a joke! If you're offended, clearly it just proves that everything men say about humorless feminists is true! Clearly that makes them blameless, right?
Well, except for the comments where readers fall all over themselves to say OMG THIS IS SO TRUE. Consider yourself on notice Jim Sterling - I'm adding you to my Google Alerts.
WTF the third:
(NSFW!!) Video Game Girls DB - proof that in every stereotype there is at least a small grain of truth.
Perhaps the creepiest masturbation aid I've ever encountered, this site lets you sort by hair color, eye color, measurements, breast size, and bounciness - among many other factors. Seriously? Yuck. Just... yuck.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Amusing side note: search terms
An amusing thing that I've noticed is that a lot of people seem to find this blog by accident while looking for other things. I thought I'd share some of the more amusing search terms.
So it seems that my post about 4th Edition D&D art is far and away my most popular so far. So I guess that explains the proliferation of 4E related search terms like: 4E PHB, D&D 4th pics, 4th Edition D&D, and D&D art. My favorite, though, is "D&D 4th Edition boons" - for which my post about D&D art comes up as the first result thanks to what I can only presume is an error in the search results. Note to search bots: "boons" =/ "boobs".
At least now I know how I can pump more traffic here if I ever feel like attention whoring. Apparently writing shit about D&D is the way to go. Who knew?
I have no idea why this came up in the image results for "4E PHB". (Click image for original source)
Then there's the search terms that I'll roughly categorize as "maybe they were looking for this blog... and maybe they weren't" - which includes: Taki, Taki boobs, Allods lesbian fairies, Allods boob jiggle, is go make me a sandwich sexist, advertising porn, evony girls hot, and go make me a sandwich RPG.
My favorite in this category is "go make me a sandwich RPG". It makes me want to design a horrible tabletop game about the sad and pathetic lives of lonely female-hating XBox Live users. I'll also point out that "advertising porn" actually leads to some interesting articles about the current state of advertising - just make sure that you're using Google WEB and not Google IMAGE. (For reasons that should be obvious.) Lastly, "Taki boobs" yields as many forum comments that Taki's bazookas are actually kind of gross as those in favor of them, so that's sort of encouraging... I guess.
Last we have the "definitely weren't looking for this blog" category, which includes: lesbians rubbing boobs, boobs blogspot.com, and sandwich boobs. (I guess I must be naive in the ways of pr0n, because I honestly wasn't expecting pr0n to come up for sandwich boobs.)
It just goes downhill from here. (click for source, not mine)
So it seems that my post about 4th Edition D&D art is far and away my most popular so far. So I guess that explains the proliferation of 4E related search terms like: 4E PHB, D&D 4th pics, 4th Edition D&D, and D&D art. My favorite, though, is "D&D 4th Edition boons" - for which my post about D&D art comes up as the first result thanks to what I can only presume is an error in the search results. Note to search bots: "boons" =/ "boobs".
At least now I know how I can pump more traffic here if I ever feel like attention whoring. Apparently writing shit about D&D is the way to go. Who knew?
I have no idea why this came up in the image results for "4E PHB". (Click image for original source)
Then there's the search terms that I'll roughly categorize as "maybe they were looking for this blog... and maybe they weren't" - which includes: Taki, Taki boobs, Allods lesbian fairies, Allods boob jiggle, is go make me a sandwich sexist, advertising porn, evony girls hot, and go make me a sandwich RPG.
This was on the first page of search results for "Evony Girls Hot". What? (from somewhere on popehat.com, not mine)
My favorite in this category is "go make me a sandwich RPG". It makes me want to design a horrible tabletop game about the sad and pathetic lives of lonely female-hating XBox Live users. I'll also point out that "advertising porn" actually leads to some interesting articles about the current state of advertising - just make sure that you're using Google WEB and not Google IMAGE. (For reasons that should be obvious.) Lastly, "Taki boobs" yields as many forum comments that Taki's bazookas are actually kind of gross as those in favor of them, so that's sort of encouraging... I guess.
Last we have the "definitely weren't looking for this blog" category, which includes: lesbians rubbing boobs, boobs blogspot.com, and sandwich boobs. (I guess I must be naive in the ways of pr0n, because I honestly wasn't expecting pr0n to come up for sandwich boobs.)
It just goes downhill from here. (click for source, not mine)
The internet is a weird place.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Two short plays in the style of Vincent Baker
I promise that I'll get back to criticizing images soon! I have two posts planned out on body customization in MMOs and on terrible webcomic banners. (It's not games, but considering how many webcomics are based on games I'm bending the rules a bit.) Also, once my article on sexism in gaming goes live with the new issue of See Page XX (some time in December, I'm hoping?) I'll be discussing that in detail.
Anyhow, what I have for you is two "short plays" in the style of "short plays" done by Vincent Baker. I find that writing small, satirical plays is a good way to deconstruct conversations - especially conversations that happen on the internet. So with no further ado:
I wrote this back in 2007, and sadly I don't see it becoming obsolete any time soon. One of the biggest problems about trying to discuss anything controversial on the internet, be it racism, sexism, gender issues, or anything else that pushes people's Crazy Buttons, people never get to have a productive conversation because it always ends in flames and people walk away. As such, important conversations about discrimination in the hobby we love never happen.
Sometimes, however, I find myself prompted to try to educate myself further about subjects that border on controversial. When this happens I will spend half an hour crafting a question that is absolutely neutral and totally controversy proof. And then this happens:
Some days I find humanity tiresome.
Anyhow, what I have for you is two "short plays" in the style of "short plays" done by Vincent Baker. I find that writing small, satirical plays is a good way to deconstruct conversations - especially conversations that happen on the internet. So with no further ado:
A THING THAT HAPPENS ON THE INTERNETS: A SHORT PLAY IN THREE ACTS
ACT 1
GROUP Y: We are a statistically significant number of people who are highly articulate and intelligent, as well as linked by a common background and experience. We all agree that Thing X happens to us because we are a part of Group Y.
SOME OTHER PEOPLE: Thing X is entirely fictitious. I discount your intelligence and experience. I also ignore that a statistically significant number of people are sharing personal experiences to support Thing X.
GROUP Y: We are upset and feel unvalued!
ACT 2
GROUP Y: Thing X exists. Let us discuss Thing X to understand the underlying causes and implications.
SOME OTHER PEOPLE: I am interested in discussing this with you. Let us talk in a civil manner.
STILL OTHER PEOPLE: Anyone who thinks Thing X exists is dumb and/or evil!
GROUP Y: We are upset!
SOME OTHER PEOPLE: We question whether your aggressiveness contributes to this discussion.
STILL OTHER PEOPLE: People over-reacting in a way they would not be were this discussion not about Thing X. Clearly, talking about Thing X makes people crazy.
GROUP Y: Being called crazy because of Thing X pushes our Internet Crazy button! Get out of our thread!
STILL OTHER PEOPLE: This only proves my point. I am vindicated!
ACT 3, SCENE 1
A PERSON: I say Thing Q about Thing X.
GROUP Y: Saying Thing Q upsets me!
A PERSON: Upon reflection, Thing Q was not called for. I apologize.
GROUP Y: Let's move on and have a productive conversation.
ACT 3, SCENE 2
ANOTHER PERSON: I say Thing R about Thing X.
GROUP Y: Saying Thing Q upsets me!
ANOTHER PERSON: Whoa! Let me clarify. What I said was Thing R, not Thing Q.
GROUP Y: We apologize. Let's move on and have a productive conversation.
ACT 3, SCENE 3
A THIRD PERSON: I say Thing Q about Thing X! Unapologetically!
GROUP Y: Saying Thing Q upsets me!
A THIRD PERSON: Thing Q is righteous! Your disapproval makes me a martyr!
GROUP Y: We are upset and feel unvalued!
EVERYBODY ELSE: Alas, Internet Crazy has killed the conversation. Let us talk about something else.
THE END.
I wrote this back in 2007, and sadly I don't see it becoming obsolete any time soon. One of the biggest problems about trying to discuss anything controversial on the internet, be it racism, sexism, gender issues, or anything else that pushes people's Crazy Buttons, people never get to have a productive conversation because it always ends in flames and people walk away. As such, important conversations about discrimination in the hobby we love never happen.
Sometimes, however, I find myself prompted to try to educate myself further about subjects that border on controversial. When this happens I will spend half an hour crafting a question that is absolutely neutral and totally controversy proof. And then this happens:
WHY I F*CKING HATE THE INTERNET: A SHORT PLAY
Me: [A Specific Question about a very specific aspect of Controversial Subject that, none the less, attempts to avoid controversy]
A Small Number of People on The Internet: [Thoughtful and informative response to Specific Question]
Many More People on The Internet: [Controversy targetted! Commence strawman arguments and offended flailing!]
Me: [An attempt to clarify the original Specific Question]
Many More People on The Internet: [Philosophic questions about the broader nature of controversial subject totally not related to the initial Specific Question]
Me: [Polite refusal to engage in philosophic discussion of Controversial Subject for therein lies the path directly to Internet Crazy]
Many More People on The Internet: [Internet Crazy!]
A Small Number of People on The Internet: [We will send you whispers supporting you, but have given this conversation up as a lost cause. Turn back! For this way lies madness!]
Many More People on The Internet: [Personal attacks FTW!]
Me: [An attempt to take the high ground by refusing to participate further]
Many More People on the Internet: [Let us continue with personal attacks and strawmen now that the Specific Question has been completely destroyed]
Me & A Small Number of People on The Internet: [Note to self: quit asking controversial questions on The Internet]
Some days I find humanity tiresome.
Friday, November 19, 2010
WoW novels - only female heroes need apply
[A brief side note before I get started: It's been a month since I started this blog. Fifteen posts and thirty days later, I've gotten just over 2500 page views. Holy crap, people! That's four to five times more traffic of my art blog! So thanks to those of you who keep reading. I'll do my best to keep things interesting here.]
So it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that WoW is sexist. I mean, when the prevalence of armor like this...
...makes it hard to find pants that are actually pants for my female characters in WoW, it's hard to deny the sexism. WoW's not at all unique in this regard, so I swallow my dislike and play anyway because I enjoy the gameplay.
But there's also an entirely different kind of sexism at work besides the bimbo-fied armor. Women simply don't seem to be capable of performing heroic deeds in Azeroth. I mean, sure - they can strap on some, ahem, "armor" and go out adventuring. But when it comes to the real earth-shaking events that change the course of Azeroth's history, well then you'd better hope that you have some big strong men to deal with the problem.
It's no secret that the majority of the major lore characters are men. Disappointingly, the women that do appear in the Warcraft lore are depressingly stereotyped.
But, okay, fine. So what if Sylvanas is too pretty to be undead? She's still the leader of the undead, and pretty freaking creepy. And so what if Jaina Proudmoor spends all of her time whining at the Horde and Alliance leaders to stop fighting each other? And so what if she's way, way more slutty in the comics than even in the game? She's still a badass sorceress and leader of an important faction of super-powerful mages. I mean, that's gotta count for something, right? Surely there have to be some women capable of doing really important stuff, right?
Well, apparently not if you read the novels. Not a single one of them features a female hero important enough to be mentioned in the cover copy on the back. Check this out:
So out of nine books, we have three that feature cleavage on the cover and none that mention a female hero in the back cover copy. Two of the books mention the same female villain, and one book has a tangential reference to a mother who's children were corrupted. So... what's the deal, Blizzard??? You're okay with splashing cleavage on the cover, but heaven forbid that the cover mention a female hero! That might threaten the insulated little bubble your target audience lives in! Female villains are okay, because everyone knows that girls are icky. And moms are okay, because even geeks still love them moms, right?
Okay, you know what? I'm going to say something revolutionary. Women like to read fantasy adventure stories too. I know! OMG! But it's true! And, you know, sometimes we like to see heroes that are women. Not all the time! Male heroes are great! But sometimes it's nice to see female heroes who don't need rescuing and aren't only important for their relationship to male characters. (I'm looking at you Aegwynn, Tyrande, Iridi, Jaina, Maiev, Valeera, Vareesa, Modgud, Onyxia, Soridormi, Moira, Sintharia, Sindragosa, Abbendis, Tyrygosa, and Geyah!)
The problem here is that this type of sexism is just as dangerous as the sexism that paints women as sex objects, because this is the sexism that says that women aren't important and will never be important. Taken to the extreme, this is the sexism that says women can't be "real" gamers and thus it is okay to harass them when they get all uppity and try to play games and stuff.
When put that way, sure it sounds insane. But that doesn't change the fact that there are tons of men out there for whom the response to a woman gamer invading their space is either "go make me a sandwich" or "boobs or gtfo". I'm not saying that putting female heroes into the WoW novels would suddenly make everything okay for female gamers, but hey. Baby steps.
So it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that WoW is sexist. I mean, when the prevalence of armor like this...
...makes it hard to find pants that are actually pants for my female characters in WoW, it's hard to deny the sexism. WoW's not at all unique in this regard, so I swallow my dislike and play anyway because I enjoy the gameplay.
But there's also an entirely different kind of sexism at work besides the bimbo-fied armor. Women simply don't seem to be capable of performing heroic deeds in Azeroth. I mean, sure - they can strap on some, ahem, "armor" and go out adventuring. But when it comes to the real earth-shaking events that change the course of Azeroth's history, well then you'd better hope that you have some big strong men to deal with the problem.
It's no secret that the majority of the major lore characters are men. Disappointingly, the women that do appear in the Warcraft lore are depressingly stereotyped.
But, okay, fine. So what if Sylvanas is too pretty to be undead? She's still the leader of the undead, and pretty freaking creepy. And so what if Jaina Proudmoor spends all of her time whining at the Horde and Alliance leaders to stop fighting each other? And so what if she's way, way more slutty in the comics than even in the game? She's still a badass sorceress and leader of an important faction of super-powerful mages. I mean, that's gotta count for something, right? Surely there have to be some women capable of doing really important stuff, right?
Well, apparently not if you read the novels. Not a single one of them features a female hero important enough to be mentioned in the cover copy on the back. Check this out:
The Shattering (Christie Golden): back cover mentions Thrall, King Varian Wrynn, and Prince Anduin
Warcraft Archive (Christie Golden, Richard A. Knaak, Jeff Grubb, and Chris Metzen): back cover mentions Rhonin, Thrall, Medivh, and Tirion Fordring
Tides of Darkness (Aaron Rosenberg): back cover mentions Ogrim Doomhammer, Anduin Lothar, and King Terenas
Rise of the Horde (Christie Golden): back cover mentions Thrall
War of the Ancients Book 1 - The Well of Eternity (Richard A. Knaak): back cover only mentions "three heroes" (no names), Sargeras and Queen Azshara are mentioned as villains.
War of the Ancients Book 2 (Richard A. Knaak): despite having a boobalicious cover, the the "three heroes" of this trilogy are all men - Krasus, Rhonin, and Broxigar. Queen Azshara is mentioned as a villain, not as a hero.
War of the Ancients Book 3 - The Sundering (Richard A. Knaak): no heroes mentioned on back cover, Neltharion and Archimonde mentioned as villains
Day of the Dragon (Richard A. Knaak): Another cover with cleavage! But whoever that cleavagey night elf is, she's not important enough to mention on the back cover. Only Rhonin gets a mention.
Night of the Dragon (Richard A. Knaak): The most boobalicious cover yet! And yet the only hero mentioned is Krasus. Dragon Queen Alexstrasza gets a mention as a nod to past events not in the novel, but only because she had her eggs defiled.
So out of nine books, we have three that feature cleavage on the cover and none that mention a female hero in the back cover copy. Two of the books mention the same female villain, and one book has a tangential reference to a mother who's children were corrupted. So... what's the deal, Blizzard??? You're okay with splashing cleavage on the cover, but heaven forbid that the cover mention a female hero! That might threaten the insulated little bubble your target audience lives in! Female villains are okay, because everyone knows that girls are icky. And moms are okay, because even geeks still love them moms, right?
Okay, you know what? I'm going to say something revolutionary. Women like to read fantasy adventure stories too. I know! OMG! But it's true! And, you know, sometimes we like to see heroes that are women. Not all the time! Male heroes are great! But sometimes it's nice to see female heroes who don't need rescuing and aren't only important for their relationship to male characters. (I'm looking at you Aegwynn, Tyrande, Iridi, Jaina, Maiev, Valeera, Vareesa, Modgud, Onyxia, Soridormi, Moira, Sintharia, Sindragosa, Abbendis, Tyrygosa, and Geyah!)
The problem here is that this type of sexism is just as dangerous as the sexism that paints women as sex objects, because this is the sexism that says that women aren't important and will never be important. Taken to the extreme, this is the sexism that says women can't be "real" gamers and thus it is okay to harass them when they get all uppity and try to play games and stuff.
When put that way, sure it sounds insane. But that doesn't change the fact that there are tons of men out there for whom the response to a woman gamer invading their space is either "go make me a sandwich" or "boobs or gtfo". I'm not saying that putting female heroes into the WoW novels would suddenly make everything okay for female gamers, but hey. Baby steps.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Link roundup: Booth Babes
Welp, I'm going to be too busy for the next several days to post anything here, so I thought I'd post a link-roundup. I've been collecting links about booth babes for possible future posts, so I thought I'd share them here for your edification. I'll have more to say on the subject at some point after I return.
Links!
E3 Booth Babes
(2006) E3 Bans booth babes
Except... this year the booth babes came back
The Best of E3's 2010 Booth Babes. (I love how in every picture, this guy has the same douche-y smile on his face. I certainly hope this is the closest this creep ever gets to touching real women. Yech.)
Interview with a booth babe (IGN really asks the tough question! Way to be awesome journalists, guys!)
In defense of booth babes (Women should have the freedom to dress in skimpy costumes and get paid not nearly enough money to be pawed at and ogled by mouth-breathing men. Anyone who disagrees is a communist and hates freedom!)
E3 booth babe search
Games marketing at E3. (Notice how all the women in these photos are babes and how almost all the men are execs/devs giving talks?)
Tokyo Game Show
Booth babes at Tokyo Game Show. (This guy repeatedly mentions how he's "against booth babes", but all his babe photos are posed... Not sure what to think.)
Broken and Destroyed Booth Babe (Now with horrific comments!)
ChinaJoy
Booth babes at China Joy. (Booth babes in cages?? WTF??)
PAX
PAX has banned booth babes in the past, but apparently they're reconsidering.
Links!
E3 Booth Babes
(2006) E3 Bans booth babes
Except... this year the booth babes came back
The Best of E3's 2010 Booth Babes. (I love how in every picture, this guy has the same douche-y smile on his face. I certainly hope this is the closest this creep ever gets to touching real women. Yech.)
Interview with a booth babe (IGN really asks the tough question! Way to be awesome journalists, guys!)
In defense of booth babes (Women should have the freedom to dress in skimpy costumes and get paid not nearly enough money to be pawed at and ogled by mouth-breathing men. Anyone who disagrees is a communist and hates freedom!)
E3 booth babe search
Games marketing at E3. (Notice how all the women in these photos are babes and how almost all the men are execs/devs giving talks?)
Tokyo Game Show
Booth babes at Tokyo Game Show. (This guy repeatedly mentions how he's "against booth babes", but all his babe photos are posed... Not sure what to think.)
Broken and Destroyed Booth Babe (Now with horrific comments!)
ChinaJoy
Booth babes at China Joy. (Booth babes in cages?? WTF??)
PAX
PAX has banned booth babes in the past, but apparently they're reconsidering.
Monday, October 25, 2010
It's not just the game companies
I've been lampooning game developers here, but please don't think that it's just the developers that are guilty of sexism and that gamers themselves are totally innocent. No, gamers are just as guilty as the publishers. While you can find sexist gamers in just about any portion of the hobby, it's usually true that the most horrific behavior comes out on Xbox Live servers or in StarCraft II ventrillo servers.
So, first up: "Xbox Girls Get Revenge" (CollegeHumor). (Really, REALLY NSFW)
I found this to be pretty amusing, though I recognize that as far as satire goes it's still pretty offensive. I wanted to link to this, though, to highlight the kind of abuse that women can be subject to by their fellow gamers. Sadly, it's a trueism that Normal Person + Internet + Audience = Total Fuckwad, and this phenomenon only exacerbates the abuse that is heaped on female gamers when it comes to venues like blogs and official forums. But hey, don't take my word for it...
[Note: All spelling and grammar errors left as is. All links are added by me for emphasis.]
Dungeons and Dragons
from Gender violence in gaming (Astrid's Parlor)
[In response to a post where a player objected to a campaign setting where misogyny and gender violence was common and the DM changed it as a result of that complaint.
[In response to a post questioning "Misogyny for the lulz"]
[Editor's note: Oh! Godwin'd!]
World of Warcraft
from The New Fountain in Dalaran's Central Square [A complaint that a statue of heroes of the war against the Lich King has ONLY male heroes and not a single female hero]
from ***ty Costumes at Blizcon
[On - why do women wear skimpy costumes to BlizCon?]
StarCraft
from Are You Sexist? (Team Liquid forums)
...okay, here's where I have to stop for now - it's just getting too depressing.
So, first up: "Xbox Girls Get Revenge" (CollegeHumor). (Really, REALLY NSFW)
I found this to be pretty amusing, though I recognize that as far as satire goes it's still pretty offensive. I wanted to link to this, though, to highlight the kind of abuse that women can be subject to by their fellow gamers. Sadly, it's a trueism that Normal Person + Internet + Audience = Total Fuckwad, and this phenomenon only exacerbates the abuse that is heaped on female gamers when it comes to venues like blogs and official forums. But hey, don't take my word for it...
[Note: All spelling and grammar errors left as is. All links are added by me for emphasis.]
Dungeons and Dragons
from Gender violence in gaming (Astrid's Parlor)
I would love to see a ranger with favored enemy: women just for the lulz. It'd atleast be different. And would ward off those annoying chaotic neutral male playing females I hate so much...
...God-damn I wish there was a FATAL d20. I love that book, but I definitelly don't feel like attempting to run or play in a game with such draconic mechanics! As far as personal gaming experiences, no. I havn't had the pleasure of being an overly misogynistic or gay bashing game. And my gaming career has suffered cause of it. That sounds friggin' awesome.
... when there's demons attacking your soul and dragons eating entire villages. Smacking a woman around for speaking outside of form just doesn't have the sortof shock value it would have in a mundane world like ours...
-- "JimProfit", entire post
[In response to a post where a player objected to a campaign setting where misogyny and gender violence was common and the DM changed it as a result of that complaint.
Was the world really the problem or was it your problem and you decided to make it the groups problem?
As a PC you could have had a chance to change things if you could deal with it for a while. If your DM had said "This is the way things are and no one in the world could ever change it" I can see that being upsetting and warranting a discussion. But, hey, it probably made you feel really good forcing change of the whole world with no effort and making everyone else play in the mystical (b)land of "Everyone's Equal Because I Say So", which is what's unacceptable in my book.
--"RubicantX", entire post
[In response to a post questioning "Misogyny for the lulz"]
Oh ****. I thought the concept of the man-hating feminist was hyperbole. I now see that it is reality. I guess its time all of us men packed our bags and got ready to be put in death camps.
-- "MusicOfCre", entire post
[Editor's note: Oh! Godwin'd!]
World of Warcraft
from The New Fountain in Dalaran's Central Square [A complaint that a statue of heroes of the war against the Lich King has ONLY male heroes and not a single female hero]
How unnecessary. You're complaining about females being unrepresented in a fictional universe that bares little parallel to our own. It would matter if females were slaves of males in this game, it's not real life.
--"Emmelin", post #5
Women and their freaking opinions about everything just pisses me off, back to the kitchen I tell you.
--"Xiu", post #10
from ***ty Costumes at Blizcon
[On - why do women wear skimpy costumes to BlizCon?]
I'm not saying I don't enjoy the view, I just don't understand why girls like to do it so much.
-- "Maelan", post #10
StarCraft
from Are You Sexist? (Team Liquid forums)
Do you think women are intellectually equal to men? Do you think they have the same perseverence? Do you think they are as rational? I ask this because my experience stresses this claim so strongly, especially that they are not as perseverent or rational. ... they are also more emotionally impulsive about long-term loving and hating (guys will fight you then offer you a beer, a woman will pick at you for years then just come back).
-- "-_-", entire post
No they aren't equal. They CAN be intellectually equal to men, but only in book smarts. Street smarts? They have none. They are too emotional, too. They don't think rationally, but base everything on their emotions.
-- "SweeTLemonS[TPR]",entire post
I've said it before, ill say it again
ESTROGEN IS THE ANTITHESIS TO REASON.
-- "BigBalls", entire post
obviously it's wrong to judge an entire group of people based on a single person, but i find it that, in most cases, women are inferior to men intellectually. so i guess i'm sexist.
-- "ItchReliever", entire post
Yes, I am sexist. I do not believe they can are equals of men. They probably don't want that either.
-- "Cambium", entire post
...okay, here's where I have to stop for now - it's just getting too depressing.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Genesis
A little about me, since us geek girls always have to establish our "geek cred" to be taken seriously. I'm a female gamer and occasional game artist and game designer. I have a terminal addiction to board games, have gone through several cycles of MMO addiction (Dark Age of Camelot: twice, WoW: twice). I play both PC and console games - mainly RPGs of all stripes, but I do enjoy puzzle games like Katamari as well. I also LARP and play tabletop roleplaying games - both trad and indie.
There. With that out of the way....
So I blame all of this on Simon Rogers. I mean, sure, I've been bitching half-heartedly about sexism in gaming for years. But I'd also been intentionally looking the other way much of the time. (I love gaming, I really do. But a lot of the time it pisses me off.) At this past GenCon, Simon asked if I'd be willing to do an article on sexism in gaming for his webzine See Page XX. As a result, I wound up doing tons of research and along the way acquired a monstrous folder full of awful gaming art. I also wound up with the outline of a book on sexism in gaming that I'm trying not to write.
Anyhow, I'll link to a recent post on my other blog, since it seems relevant: Sexism in Gaming: A List of Links.
So why start this blog, if I'm determined not to write a book? Mainly what I'd like to do is share images from my collection of terrible game art for the purposes of mocking, though I'm sure that occasionally I will write posts about other aspects of sexism. We'll see where this thing goes. All I know is that I have a hell of a lot to say and an endless wellspring of material to criticize.
There. With that out of the way....
So I blame all of this on Simon Rogers. I mean, sure, I've been bitching half-heartedly about sexism in gaming for years. But I'd also been intentionally looking the other way much of the time. (I love gaming, I really do. But a lot of the time it pisses me off.) At this past GenCon, Simon asked if I'd be willing to do an article on sexism in gaming for his webzine See Page XX. As a result, I wound up doing tons of research and along the way acquired a monstrous folder full of awful gaming art. I also wound up with the outline of a book on sexism in gaming that I'm trying not to write.
Anyhow, I'll link to a recent post on my other blog, since it seems relevant: Sexism in Gaming: A List of Links.
So why start this blog, if I'm determined not to write a book? Mainly what I'd like to do is share images from my collection of terrible game art for the purposes of mocking, though I'm sure that occasionally I will write posts about other aspects of sexism. We'll see where this thing goes. All I know is that I have a hell of a lot to say and an endless wellspring of material to criticize.
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