Gaming website tells the internet misogynist horde to jog on.

[Flankerl]

Sorry I didn't deliver the back story. A woman made a game that was well received by critics. Later, her ex posted a lengthy, angry novella on his blog airing all their boring relationship drama.

4Chan got hold of the post and commenced an unprecedented, highly organized **** shaming and harassment campaign against the developer and anyone associated with or sympathetic toward her in any way, with the openly expressed hope that they could make her kill herself.

As a result, both the gaming press and a majority of developers are utterly disgusted with /v/ and gaming culture in general, and are trying to do a better job representing and catering for women in their games and workplaces.

You forgot the part where she repeatedly cheated on him with the people who praised her games.
And then later tried to shift the blame on him and when that didnt work falsified logs.

Oh my what a poor thing.

and settled on the fact that one of the men the developer cheated on her boyfriend with later went on to write for a popular gaming site.

Fixed that for you.

Dated... lol.

Funny, I don't recall you ever having cited a paper in all your years on RF. I had no idea you were into that sort of thing.

Always depends on the target audience.



Should we next talk about the "death threats" against Anita which she reported 12 seconds after they had been posted and protocoled them with screenshots while she surprisingly wasnt logged into her account?

 

[Smart_Guy]

Last time I browsed a gaming website I saw things I don't understand... weird things that made me feel kinda

 

[Alceste]

You forgot the part where she repeatedly cheated on him with the people who praised her games.
And then later tried to shift the blame on him and when that didnt work falsified logs.

Oh my what a poor thing.




Fixed that for you.

Dated... lol.




Always depends on the target audience.



Should we next talk about the "death threats" against Anita which she reported 12 seconds after they had been posted and protocoled them with screenshots while she surprisingly wasnt logged into her account?

She dated one reporter. One. And he didn't even work for Kotika at the time. People have sex. Get over it. It isn't news, even if there are accusations of infidelity involved.

I can see you've swallowed 4Chan's outlandish narrative hook, line and sinker. I find that sad. Perhaps if you ended up on the receiving end of one of their misogynistic harassment campaigns you would feel differently.

The idea that women are faking their own rape and death threats is totally retarded.

 

[Delta-9]

So I've watched over an hour of Sarkeesian on youtube, and her analysis does seem rather out there. She keeps on saying she is looking at the big picture but all I see is a very narrow criticism.

It's like she doesn't understand that we are a sexually dimorphic species, and as such women are physically weaker all else being equal, so naturally (in the real world) women are physically abused by mean men and it often takes other men to physically ward off an attacker. There is a reason why society frowns upon men hitting women more than any other gender combination, there is a reason why combat roles in the military are traditionally male dominated etc. Likewise women do monetize their own sexuality, and of course these real world observations are going to be incorporated into many games.

The 'damsel in distress' motif, which she made 3 videos about, does have some truth to the real world and is an easy, recognizable plot device which has been used for thousands of years; Helen of Troy. I'm sure it can be argued that it is an overused cliche, but I don't see anything inherently wrong with it. I think she is making it more misogynistic than it really is. If it bothers you that much simply don't play those games.

When she talks about women as sexualized background objects, there is some truth to it, but she takes it way too far. She says you are encouraged ("the player can't help") to beat up strippers in the Hitman game, but fails to tell you that your score in that game is lowered for attacking people that aren't your target like the strippers in question. Or when she talks about Grand Theft Auto, the police will come at you for a short period of time whether you attack a female or a male, there is no discrimination; it's like she can't divorce a pragmatic game mechanic from actual discrimination.

Her basic solution seems to be to completely eradicate the notion of gender from video games and make everyone gender neutral. She even says point blank that making serious video games that reverse gender roles is not a solution. It appears, at minimum, she wants every game to be (P)G rated when it comes to sexual content, and you can't ever use kidnapping or hostages (because whenever it is done to females it is therefore misogyny no questions asked, and if reversal of gender roles is not the solution...).

So yeah, I can see why people don't like her content, I don't like her content. I think, overall, entertainment is getting better in regards to women's role. There is always going to be entertainment out there that is edgy, thus the nature of capitalist entertainment in a free market, just don't buy want you don't like and advocate for things you do like and want to see.

 

[Smart_Guy]

Last time I browsed a gaming website I saw things I don't understand... weird things that made me feel kinda

Wait, I apologize, I misunderstood the OP since it was blocked at work and I couldn't read it. Please ignore my post above. I didn't mean to be rude, and I cannot edit it now.

Is this about having female lead characters in video games? I don't see there is a problem in that! I personally prefer muscular male characters like Kraitos in God, Kain or Razeil in Soul Reaver or War or War in Darksiders for dark action games, but that's just a personal preference, or simply put, because I'm a boy . The attitude in the "Here's the door" part of that article sounds kinda harsh, but I wouldn't take it hard on myself. It is only human to get upset for things for us us humans.

The best thing in life is to have varieties.

 

[Alceste]

So I've watched over an hour of Sarkeesian on youtube, and her analysis does seem rather out there. She keeps on saying she is looking at the big picture but all I see is a very narrow criticism.

It's like she doesn't understand that we are a sexually dimorphic species, and as such women are physically weaker all else being equal, so naturally (in the real world) women are physically abused by mean men and it often takes other men to physically ward off an attacker. There is a reason why society frowns upon men hitting women more than any other gender combination, there is a reason why combat roles in the military are traditionally male dominated etc. Likewise women do monetize their own sexuality, and of course these real world observations are going to be incorporated into many games.

The 'damsel in distress' motif, which she made 3 videos about, does have some truth to the real world and is an easy, recognizable plot device which has been used for thousands of years; Helen of Troy. I'm sure it can be argued that it is an overused cliche, but I don't see anything inherently wrong with it. I think she is making it more misogynistic than it really is. If it bothers you that much simply don't play those games.

When she talks about women as sexualized background objects, there is some truth to it, but she takes it way too far. She says you are encouraged ("the player can't help") to beat up strippers in the Hitman game, but fails to tell you that your score in that game is lowered for attacking people that aren't your target like the strippers in question. Or when she talks about Grand Theft Auto, the police will come at you for a short period of time whether you attack a female or a male, there is no discrimination; it's like she can't divorce a pragmatic game mechanic from actual discrimination.

Her basic solution seems to be to completely eradicate the notion of gender from video games and make everyone gender neutral. She even says point blank that making serious video games that reverse gender roles is not a solution. It appears, at minimum, she wants every game to be (P)G rated when it comes to sexual content, and you can't ever use kidnapping or hostages (because whenever it is done to females it is therefore misogyny no questions asked, and if reversal of gender roles is not the solution...).

So yeah, I can see why people don't like her content, I don't like her content. I think, overall, entertainment is getting better in regards to women's role. There is always going to be entertainment out there that is edgy, thus the nature of capitalist entertainment in a free market, just don't buy want you don't like and advocate for things you do like and want to see.

This is what we're talking about when we reference the male gaze. Ask any living woman if she sees HERSELF as a helpless damsel at the mercy of nasty men, who needs brave strong men to save her, and she will laugh in your face.

As far as "the real world" is concerned, for every woman who is saved from an assault by a brave, strong man intervening on her behalf, there are a thousand who escaped, dodged danger or defended themselves from nasty men without any help from anyone. In fact, of all the women I know I can't think of a single one who has ever been rescued from danger by some passing male hero.

And I know several, including myself, who have had very close calls with abduction or gang rape. After a close call like that, we tend to gravitate to other women and feel somewhat mistrustful of men. A friend of mine after wrestling free of a group of men who were trying to pull her into a van bumped into me, her boyfriend and his friend immediately after the assault and fell trembling into MY arms as she told us what had happened. Not her boyfriend's. And they were kind of clueless. They had no idea what to say or do.

Are you certain you're not mixing up the effluent of Hollywood with "the real world"? Because that's kind of the point. When men dominate storytelling, they tend not to generate female characters that actual women can identify with. And for gamers, that's a little irritating.

 

[Flankerl]

I can see you've swallowed 4Chan's outlandish narrative hook, line and sinker. I find that sad.

You do realise that i can write the same about you and the SJW crowd? I go to 4chan for the pics.

Perhaps if you ended up on the receiving end of one of their misogynistic harassment campaigns you would feel differently.

Yeah happened to me on myspace. What now?

The idea that women are faking their own rape and death threats is totally retarded.

Yes the idea that people might lie is totally out of this world.

When men dominate storytelling, they tend not to generate female characters that actual women can identify with.

*cough* Samus Aran

 

[Riverwolf]

Yeah its okay.

And since you refuse to explain to me the relevance, I'm going to just conclude that there is no relevance until it can be demonstrated.

Artistic responsibility? Can you people please gtfo?

:no:

Forgive me if I find the idea that we who push for "artistic responsibility" are unwelcome, while people who harass and bully others over the internetare perfectly welcome, quite backwards (if not hypocritical).

I dont like CoD. Guess what i just dont play it and dont go on a crusade to change CoD into something i want it to be.

Neither do we. Call of Duty is a series of war shooters, and that's how it's always gonna be.

I don't like Call of Duty, either, but that's only because I don't like war shooters in general. I understand that a lot of them are very much US arm-chair-general masturbation material, but that's generally based on the Zero Punctuation reviews of them. Having never played them myself, or really looked at gameplay footage, I don't put a lot of focus on them.

Whether the series "changes" or not is entirely up to the team behind it, not us. I, personally, only push for change in a general sense, not specific franchises of games. Though, personally, I don't really see how the ability to pick a female character would somehow alter that series' identity at all.

That Peach always gets kidnapped is fine. (Sarkeesian and I would probably disagree on that). That's just part of that series' iconography. Sure, it'd be nice to see her more participatory in main games, like we saw with the highly acclaimed Super Mario 3D World (which I've yet to play), but changes to specific series isn't what I'm pushing for.

Remember when pictures of the new WiiU Zelda game were released, and the internet got very excited that maybe this Link is going to be female? Sure, that turned out to be untrue, but, man, wouldn't that be a cool thing? (And no, I'm not going to go on a crusade against Nintendo for keeping this next Link a man, nor am I going to fight for the next Link to be female).

Well if one has no clue about the topic it might be better to be a philosopher(say nothing).

Good thing then that she's so well-researched in this topic.

No because iam not a damn newbie to the internet. Mean stuff gets said. Such is life. 1st world problem right here.

Meanwhile right now a girl is being led into a hut or tent and her Vagina is being mutilated.
Oh now again.
And now somewhere a girl with a mutilated vagina gets opened up by her husband and cries because of all the pain.

This is important. Bullcrap Anita is annoyed by isnt and never will be.

Frankly, that argument that "oh, it's worse in other places" is utter nonsense and highly insensitive. Yes, it's worse in other places. That doesn't mean we live in an absolute perfection of paradise and should never try to improve our situation. And for the record, pushing for improvements here is no argument the problems in other parts of the world should be ignored. They absolutely should be addressed. It's all a matter of picking which battlefield to fight in. You fight against genital mutilation in 3rd world countries, I'll fight for gender equality (and general accuracy of depictions) in art for here. Both are good fights to fight. But no single person or organization can take on all the world's problems.

This isn't a "1st world problem". 1st world problems are the sort of things that appear in James Rolfe's You Know What's ************ series: printers are stupid, pennies are worthless, impossible-to-open packaging should be outlawed, etc. Or your statement that the Harvest Moon games haven't been good since 64, and thus it needs to get fixed ASAP. Wouldn't know, myself; I've only played the SNES one, and only for a bit. Point is, 1st world problems deal in minor annoyances or inconvenience. Artistic representation is hardly a minor issue. Besides, with the way the US has been going, I wonder if we're even 1st world at all; we seem closer to 2nd world, if anything.

I'm not a newbie to the internet, either. Mean things get said, and people commit suicide. Best case scenario is that your "mean" community doesn't grow, and eventually just gives way to the growing numbers of people who actually have basic human decency.

Turns out the whole "sticks and stones" rhyme was a complete lie. Even now your words, which aren't mean at all but just highly opinionated, hurt quite a bit and make me afraid to come back. But Sarkeesian was driven from her home, and she's going to keep speaking out. What would I be if I didn't do likewise?

If nothing else, she should keep speaking out just to stick it to those who harassed her.

Sega better burn in hell for inventing Sonic with its horrible fanbase.

Ah, very good. 'Course, I don't judge a franchise (or company) based on its fanbase, but on its own merits.

Speaking as a Sonic fan myself.

(What's actually funny is that I, also, didn't look it up. Since I haven't played that entry in years, I couldn't remember if that code was the one from 3D Blast, or the one from Ecco the Dolphin).

 

[Riverwolf]

That didn't clarify anything at all. Was that an attempt to, or something?

She's referring to a Straw Man conception of Youtube feminist Anita Sarkeesian.

 

[Riverwolf]

.... as such women are physically weaker all else being equal, so naturally (in the real world) women are physically abused by mean men and it often takes other men to physically ward off an attacker. There is a reason why society frowns upon men hitting women more than any other gender combination, there is a reason why combat roles in the military are traditionally male dominated etc. Likewise women do monetize their own sexuality, and of course these real world observations are going to be incorporated into many games.

The things you speak of are social constructs, not universal to our species as a whole.

That females tend to be physically smaller than males is technically true, but it's not really to any significant degree, all other things being equal. Plus, being "smaller" doesn't necessarily mean "weaker." Except for one, all my female friends are significantly stronger than me, despite one of them also being shorter than me.

In parts of ancient Greece, male "beauty" was actually more commonly depicted and celebrated than female beauty, I understand.

EDIT: However, I will express appreciation that you took the time to actually watch her videos and consider her argument, and then address that argument rather than trying to criticize her person. I don't see that happening anywhere near enough, so I think it appropriate to give a shout out when it's demonstrated.

 

[Flankerl]

And since you refuse to explain to me the relevance, I'm going to just conclude that there is no relevance until it can be demonstrated.

hf

:no:

Forgive me if I find the idea that we who push for "artistic responsibility" are unwelcome, while people who harass and bully others over the internetare perfectly welcome, quite backwards (if not hypocritical).

Most of the time they arent welcome. But even by internet standards all this "harassment" is quite modest considering whats going on in the dark net.

Its not as if they can Anita harass in the comments of her videos, she never allowed any comments in her videos in the first place.

Neither do we. Call of Duty is a series of war shooters, and that's how it's always gonna be.

I don't like Call of Duty, either, but that's only because I don't like war shooters in general. I understand that a lot of them are very much US arm-chair-general masturbation material, but that's generally based on the Zero Punctuation reviews of them. Having never played them myself, or really looked at gameplay footage, I don't put a lot of focus on them.

Whether the series "changes" or not is entirely up to the team behind it, not us. I, personally, only push for change in a general sense, not specific franchises of games. Though, personally, I don't really see how the ability to pick a female character would somehow alter that series' identity at all.

That Peach always gets kidnapped is fine. (Sarkeesian and I would probably disagree on that). That's just part of that series' iconography. Sure, it'd be nice to see her more participatory in main games, like we saw with the highly acclaimed Super Mario 3D World (which I've yet to play), but changes to specific series isn't what I'm pushing for.

Remember when pictures of the new WiiU Zelda game were released, and the internet got very excited that maybe this Link is going to be female? Sure, that turned out to be untrue, but, man, wouldn't that be a cool thing? (And no, I'm not going to go on a crusade against Nintendo for keeping this next Link a man, nor am I going to fight for the next Link to be female).

Why would a female Link be any good? I mean okay /v/ was entering full blown hardcore masturbation mode but it didnt give anything to me.
It just would have been a skin to cater to a specific audience.
A real Zelda adventure might be a good idea. But heaven forbid one would have to come up with ideas.

Gender swaps are stupid.
I usually dont care about the gender of the pixel iam playing as. Neither should anyone else.

Good thing then that she's so well-researched in this topic.

And thats the horrible part, you actually think that is true.

Frankly, that argument that "oh, it's worse in other places" is utter nonsense and highly insensitive. Yes, it's worse in other places. That doesn't mean we live in an absolute perfection of paradise and should never try to improve our situation. And for the record, pushing for improvements here is no argument the problems in other parts of the world should be ignored. They absolutely should be addressed. It's all a matter of picking which battlefield to fight in. You fight against genital mutilation in 3rd world countries, I'll fight for gender equality (and general accuracy of depictions) in art for here. Both are good fights to fight. But no single person or organization can take on all the world's problems.

This isn't a "1st world problem". 1st world problems are the sort of things that appear in James Rolfe's You Know What's ************ series: printers are stupid, pennies are worthless, impossible-to-open packaging should be outlawed, etc. Or your statement that the Harvest Moon games haven't been good since 64, and thus it needs to get fixed ASAP. Wouldn't know, myself; I've only played the SNES one, and only for a bit. Point is, 1st world problems deal in minor annoyances or inconvenience. Artistic representation is hardly a minor issue. Besides, with the way the US has been going, I wonder if we're even 1st world at all; we seem closer to 2nd world, if anything.

How is the discussion about the gender of Heroes in video games not a first world problem?
Video games arent important at all. Many people manage to live their entire life without ever playing a single video game.

I'm not a newbie to the internet, either. Mean things get said, and people commit suicide. Best case scenario is that your "mean" community doesn't grow, and eventually just gives way to the growing numbers of people who actually have basic human decency.

Suicide because of random people from the net?

Congratulations to the parents, they raised a failure. If you get swayed by trolls on the internet to commit suicide something is wrong and it aint the mean people.
People should get their priorities straight.

Turns out the whole "sticks and stones" rhyme was a complete lie. Even now your words, which aren't mean at all but just highly opinionated, hurt quite a bit and make me afraid to come back. But Sarkeesian was driven from her home, and she's going to keep speaking out. What would I be if I didn't do likewise?

What? My words hurt you? You got to be kidding.
Iam just a random human you'll never encounter in real life. What i say should have no, absolutely no consequences on your psychological condition.

Also what she did was wrong. Most prevention centres and the police will tell you to be quiet and contact the proper authorities(police) who will then do their work. Speaking out to the possible dangerous stalker and therefore engaging him is dangerous.

But then again you dont have to worry about a stalker after you have made the screenshots 12 seconds after it had been posted and you surprisingly were logged out.

Ah, very good. 'Course, I don't judge a franchise (or company) based on its fanbase, but on its own merits.

Speaking as a Sonic fan myself.

(What's actually funny is that I, also, didn't look it up. Since I haven't played that entry in years, I couldn't remember if that code was the one from 3D Blast, or the one from Ecco the Dolphin).

The Sonic fanbase is indeed the most horrible thing to come across on the net. Its like they are all... how do you Anglos say... "special".

Also in the case of Sonic its quite the own goal to judge it on its own merits.
Sanic? Needs a sword. Needs a kart to drive around in.

Yes.

 

[4consideration]

Mod Post
***Thread Moved to General Debates***​

 

[dust1n]

The haters wanted their harassment campaign to appear to be something other than what it was, and settled on the fact that one of the men the developer dated later went on to write for a popular gaming site. Using this tenuous connection, they tried to spin their rape and death threats, hacking, harassment and efforts to push a woman with a history of depression into killing herself as some kind of campaign against corruption in the gaming press.

Don't bother looking for anything deeper than that. There isn't anything. The IRC where the harassment was plotted is public now and they've openly admitted to all of the above.

Much appreciated.

 

[Mister Emu]

Meanwhile, the scummy misogynists at 4chan kept a charity to help get women into gaming afloat, and they've now reached their goal and can fund the production of a woman's game idea...

Wait what?

Regardless of how you think this started, and I'd weigh more towards the side of attacking a cheating woman than journalistic integrity, it was an opening needed to tackle a real problem, that hopefully gets taken care of.

 

[Alceste]

The things you speak of are social constructs, not universal to our species as a whole.

That females tend to be physically smaller than males is technically true, but it's not really to any significant degree, all other things being equal. Plus, being "smaller" doesn't necessarily mean "weaker." Except for one, all my female friends are significantly stronger than me, despite one of them also being shorter than me.

In parts of ancient Greece, male "beauty" was actually more commonly depicted and celebrated than female beauty, I understand.

EDIT: However, I will express appreciation that you took the time to actually watch her videos and consider her argument, and then address that argument rather than trying to criticize her person. I don't see that happening anywhere near enough, so I think it appropriate to give a shout out when it's demonstrated.

IMO, the "feeble female" construct is a very snooty European bit of upper class nonsense. The stories of early colonists in Canada encountering native women for the first time are amusing. In the tribes of Central Canada, women basically did all the physical work. All the hauling, moving, building shelter, foraging, cooking etc. All done by women. The men just faffed about doing nothing all day long until it was time to go hunting.

One story I read about, a colonial soldier saw a woman struggling to pull a heavy cart up a hill, creeping along very slowly. In the spirit of chivalry, he swooped in to the rescue, only to find he was unable to budge it. At all. Not even an inch.

Native people in those regions conceived feminine beauty as "tough as nails and strong as an ox". That's not so different from how the working class has always idealized women, TBH.

There is also evidence that female and male stamina has evolved very differently. Men are great at short bursts of explosive energy (great for fighting and hunting), but after that they need a good long rest. Women have higher endurance for steady physical work that lasts all day long.

You saw those gender standards reflected in the pioneering class to some extent. It was not like we tend to imagine it - men slaving away outside in the fields all day while women wiped bums and baked bread in the house. Usually, men and women slaved away in the fields all day together. Before and after women would wipe bums, bake bread, knit socks and underthings for the whole family, clean the house, etc. while men put their feet up by the wood stove and stuffed a load into the pipe. They weren't jerks. They were just tapped out.

This is all to say that the idea that women are "weak" and men are "strong" is a tiresome myth. When I was a child, I heard it all the time from the boys around me, even though during the Canada Fitness Test (silly thing we all had to do) I ran them all into the ground in every category.

 

[Alceste]

Meanwhile, the scummy misogynists at 4chan kept a charity to help get women into gaming afloat, and they've now reached their goal and can fund the production of a woman's game idea...

Wait what?

Regardless of how you think this started, and I'd weigh more towards the side of attacking a cheating woman than journalistic integrity, it was an opening needed to tackle a real problem, that hopefully gets taken care of.

Do you have a link?

I think the blowback effect (everyone in games being disgusted with the horde and rallying around women) has produced quite a lot of positive change for the benefit of women. More funding, more follows on social media, more interest in their work, etc. It's as if by their disgusting harassment campaign, they provoked the industry to finally notice that women make and play games, and that they need support and encouragement.

 

[Thruve]

Exactly. I'm only starting to get into gaming now because with a few notable exceptions, I've found the lack of quality storytelling and credible female characters in most games too irritating to bother with the whole art form. Also, certain gameplay dynamics that happen to be extremely common, like fighting and shooting, don't really appeal to me. I'm not alone in that either. A female friend of mine only yesterday fed me back the exact same questions I feed my husband to filter out games I know I'm not going to enjoy. "Is there a good story", "is it all shooting and fighting, or is there other stuff to do?" and "Are there any interesting female characters?"

I'm not sure I quite understand the histrionic outpourings of mob hate that pursue virtually all women (and men) of a certain level of notoriety who ask these questions online.

If you get into League of leg tell meh.

 

[Mister Emu]

Do you have a link?

Creating The Means For The Production

But most of all we’d like to thank /v/, 4chan, and Vivian James* who throughout the entire campaign have been nothing but supportive. This is your victory as much as ours and we thank you for it. People wouldn’t have heard about us without your efforts, and this project would not be possible without your contributions.

*Vivian James is the character that 4chan users created for the game that will be produced.

I think the blowback effect (everyone in games being disgusted with the horde and rallying around women) has produced quite a lot of positive change for the benefit of women.

That is interesting, because it isn't the picture I've gotten... There seems to be some real positive movement happening in line with "GamerGate"; things like the Escapist(actually their parent company which spans many topics) changing their ethics guidelines.

Are there misogynist gamers? Absolutely, likely far more per capita than in other communities... but as a gaming enthusiast, there are very real problems within gaming journalism that need to be addressed(I haven't sought out a review in over a decade because of the lack of integrity)... and that is what's boiling over. Shouting about misogyny is a deflection of what it has become about.

 

[Delta-9]

This is what we're talking about when we reference the male gaze. Ask any living woman if she sees HERSELF as a helpless damsel at the mercy of nasty men, who needs brave strong men to save her, and she will laugh in your face.

As far as "the real world" is concerned, for every woman who is saved from an assault by a brave, strong man intervening on her behalf, there are a thousand who escaped, dodged danger or defended themselves from nasty men without any help from anyone. In fact, of all the women I know I can't think of a single one who has ever been rescued from danger by some passing male hero.

And I know several, including myself, who have had very close calls with abduction or gang rape. After a close call like that, we tend to gravitate to other women and feel somewhat mistrustful of men. A friend of mine after wrestling free of a group of men who were trying to pull her into a van bumped into me, her boyfriend and his friend immediately after the assault and fell trembling into MY arms as she told us what had happened. Not her boyfriend's. And they were kind of clueless. They had no idea what to say or do.

Are you certain you're not mixing up the effluent of Hollywood with "the real world"? Because that's kind of the point. When men dominate storytelling, they tend not to generate female characters that actual women can identify with. And for gamers, that's a little irritating.

I don't see women as helpless, and I never said women feel better around men after an attempted rape, but I do recognize that men and women have different physical capabilities. Men are biologically designed to be more of a brawler than women, of course there is overlap, but in general men have thicker and bigger skeletons as well as a lot more muscle. But take heart, it looks like women have better stamina than men if they train, and their bodies are designed to live longer.

If you took the Canadian fitness test pre-puberty (or right at the onset of puberty) that all makes sense, female-male strength differences don't really show that early and females start puberty earlier. But once I hit high school the differences between male and female athletes became much more apparent, despite that both groups worked equally hard as far as I could tell.

Being able to escape an attack doesn't mean you can take on said attacker head on, and in such a confrontation the average woman will lose to the average man barring weapons. Unless the attacker knows what they are doing (i.e. experienced in grappling), a female (generally being smaller and more flexible than the male) can squirm their way out.

I firmly believe that these physical characteristics between men and women are biological and not simply social constructs, although social constructs can emphasize already statistical preferences. I am willing to look at evidence to the contrary if you have any. To start things off here is one paper showing that your average male has a better grip than the trained female athlete. Hand-grip strength of young men, women an... [Eur J Appl Physiol. 2007] - PubMed - NCBI

As for the man who couldn't pull the heavy cart the female was pulling along, I'm no expert but it could be that pulling the cart used muscles not usually accessed by the soldier so the female could have an advantage through shear experience. Certain activities require particular muscles.

Men do dominate the writing and designing of games, and people tend to write what they know, which for many games ends up being a male perspective. I do think efforts have been made to include women, several games do offer a gender choice (e.g. Dragon Age), and some games try to have a woman protagonist (e.g. FFXIII). But the sad truth is that women just aren't going into video game writing/designing, and without those raw numbers men can only do so much. That said I'm all for a game designed by girls for girls, can't say that I will play the game, but I will advocate your right to have that game.

 

[Koldo]

Exactly. I'm only starting to get into gaming now because with a few notable exceptions, I've found the lack of quality storytelling and credible female characters in most games too irritating to bother with the whole art form. Also, certain gameplay dynamics that happen to be extremely common, like fighting and shooting, don't really appeal to me. I'm not alone in that either. A female friend of mine only yesterday fed me back the exact same questions I feed my husband to filter out games I know I'm not going to enjoy. "Is there a good story", "is it all shooting and fighting, or is there other stuff to do?" and "Are there any interesting female characters?"

I'm not sure I quite understand the histrionic outpourings of mob hate that pursue virtually all women (and men) of a certain level of notoriety who ask these questions online.

It is quite complicated to think of a big title that involves a good storytelling AND no fighting/killing things as the main core of gameplay. If you further request for credible female characters, it just...

I have played a lot of games and I can think only of two ( popular ) games that could possibly fit that: Gone Home and Mirror's Edge. And even so, the first one is more storytelling than anything else, while the latter still does involve fighting up to a certain extent.