Gender Diversity / Politics in games (was Tropes Vs. Women)

[Sledge]

I think the main point is to raise awareness - once she points it out, it's up to you to decide whether you (as the buyer of games) really want to continue feeding that trope, etc.

The point isn't that prostitutes are there to abuse in games like GTA and Saints Row, the point is there's so few alternatives to that trope.. unless you want to play something like Minecraft or Angry Birds.

I'd tend towards that view also. I mean, everything games attempt to depict they do so in a dehumanising manner because, SD graphics or 1080p, their models of "reality" are stultifyingly simplistic. There's a significant disparity between the complexity of the surface detail and bone-headedness of the interactivity that games present in general, so concentrating on one particular area seems logical. Yes, a number of examples appear without context, but surely that's beside the point? The interactive mechanics persist irrespective of context, making context something that the player is regularly free to ignore without repercussion. Why should Sarkeesian be denied a similar liberty?

I take essays like this as a sort of "state of the nation". It's a chance to look at the issue, often handily without context (anyone else embarrassed on the behalf of some of those clips, laid [cough] bare in such a fashion?), and reflect on where we are. Where we want to be. On whether, for a medium built upon the depiction of one object colliding with another for shits 'n' giggles, any context could be enough given what the objects -- with increasing superficial clarity -- often represent.

EDIT: For clarity.

[Smitty]

EG:

17:42

Finishes her previous line - ''once a person is reduced to the status of object-hood violence against that person becomes intrinsically permitted'.

Video of Sleeping Dogs begins. It shows the player getting out of a car, grabbing a woman standing nearby, smashing her head against the top of the boot, throwing her into the boot and punching her before slamming the boot shut.

'In many open world or sandbox-style games developers construct their virtual worlds in such a way as to enable players to abuse non-playable sex objects'

Now, I dunno about you, but to me the implication of what i've just heard and seen is pretty clear. And whilst viewed entirely as a factual statement it is technically true it doesn't actually give the viewer the full picture. It is, in my view, very misleading and that's because you can 'abuse' anyone you like, the devs aren't 'encouraging' you to abuse anyone in particular and all the other NPCs are very empty, object-like targets for abuse too. Not to mention that you could choose not to abuse them or anyone else in particular as well.

What would somebody who hadn't played Sleeping Dogs think about the game based on that bit? You might be pretty outraged that the devs have such a low opinion of women that they built a game full of sexualised NPCs and they gave you the ability to uniquely abuse them. I honestly don't know Anita insists on doing this sort of thing when there is so much valid material to use and strong critiques to be made.

''This ability to violate the bodily integrity of eroticised women for fun..''

And again you have to stop her there because you can violate anyone's 'bodily integrity' at any point for fun. Hell with open world games that anarchic violence can be one of the big draws. She then goes onto talk about 'violability and disposibility' (as applied exclusively to abused sexualised female NPCs of course) but those terms actually pretty much describe most games attitude to NPCs, particularly open world games referenced throughout the video, to an absolute tee.

Yes, NPCs are worthless. We know, Anita! That element doesn't really bolster your argument at all. You've got a good point about the crassness of gamifying interactions with prostitute NPCs so why don't you just stick to arguments that don't rely on dishonest representations of how the games your citing as examples present their interactions with NPCs?

[Chadruharazzeb]

Oh, Smitty, you're forgetting the first rule of journalism - don't let facts get in the way of a good story.

[Smitty]

I agree with Smitty pretty much entirely about this video. I think it's a particularly problematic one, taking a good, solid observation - that female NPCs are frequently depicted in highly passive, sexualised roles; that we are disproportionately invited into brothels and sex clubs in our games; that where male NPCs mostly get to be 'neutral', female NPCs are more frequently identified as objects of lust, and that this reinforces the view of women as sexual objects.

This is then watered down with a variety of extraneous arguments. The particular exploitation of non-white women is something which deserves serious discussion, and instead is woefully underdeveloped and populated with questionable examples such as Binary Domain - a Japanese game set in Japan whose prostitute characters are, shockingly, Japanese.

Other arguments are just plain deceptive - rather than discussing how all of the NPCs in GTA/Fallout/Sleeping Dogs/Hitman etc. are designed to be toyed with as the player wants, and how this is made considerably more problematic for female characters within the games because of this being twinned with their sexualised presentation, thus adding a sexual aspect to the violence, Anita both simplifies and obfuscates the situation to suggest that the games specifically encourage you to abuse the sexualised female characters.* There's a massive problem already, it didn't need to be misrepresented for dramatic effect.

Her previous videos have been relatively simplistic, but that's not a bad thing - they were always meant as primers. This is the first one I've felt is a genuinely poor video; it has a few good points, but then throws them under the bus for a range of glossed-over and deceptive arguments which only weaken the core issues being discussed. A disappointment.

*I wasn't aware of that Red Dead achievement, mind. I can see why someone at Rockstar thought it would be funny, but yuck.

Hey. I just wanted to say that I spent a long time writing my post above and that I hadn't seen that anyone had responded to the thread before posting it. So I don't want you to think i'm banging on like a mad man having seen a supportive post.

Anyway. Man, I really appreciate this post at this point. It's a great relief to see someone agree with me, particularly someone who I believe is far more knowledgeable about the parameters of the debate and feminist thinking than I am. I am completely honest about my limited formal knowledge. I also appreciate that I can be clumsy in discussing the topic.

I agree with pretty much everything you say in your post. She obviously makes good points. There are various examples given that I found at least a bit distasteful or poorly handled even if i wouldn't necessarily criticise them to the extent others might. Like the RDR example you mention, that made me think 'guys, did you have to' rather than 'this sort of thing must be stopped' or whatever.

It's clearly fucking crass though and there's some really cringe-worthy stuff in there and much of the awkward interactions with prostitutes made me feeling uncomfortable (then again, maybe they should..y'know). Again it's not like there aren't real problematic issues here to deal with.

You also make a good central point about how you can only have a take a few steps from Anita's (sometimes) awkwardly argued points to something much stronger and that we could all agree on.

[Wiper]

Honestly, I came in here to post my thoughts on the video and had difficulty putting anything down because you'd already covered it all so well. This video was a particularly disappointment to me because while in previous videos she has made the odd comment that was slightly awkward, for the most part it's just been cases of oversimplification for her audience, avoiding lengthy discussions where the form and target audience wouldn't really support it.

This is the first time where she's seemed to want to go further with a hefty video on a solid topic, but rather than building on the core issues and exploring them, perhaps adding to them with figures (I would love to see some stats on the proportion of games that include prostitutes, for example, as the spark for a discussion on why they're such a popular secondary character type) and solid examples, Anita has chosen to go off on a range of tangents - which would be fine if they were themselves properly explored, but instead they're presented in the most tabloid of manners, given overviews that go beyond simplistic into outright misleading and it's so utterly disheartening when there is such a good, strong argument that could be made.

Games are generally very poor in their treatment of women, in their treatment of non-white characters, in their general lack of range of expression, and this all bleeds heavily into the design and presentation of NPCs, making this a good topic to take an overview of general gaming perspectives. There is so much that many people (including, perhaps most importantly, many games designers) just don't register might be problematic that a little bit of highlighting can do so much to fix, which is why I think this series of primers is so promising (I think the discussions that have been had on this forum following previous episodes have been generally very positive signs that the series is working in at the very least building debate in some quarters, which is fantastic). So for her to then damage a core argument by bloating it out and distracting from it with statements and examples that can and will be shot down by anyone with a passing knowledge of the games in question - even those of us who are deeply sympathetic to the actual aims of the series - is really upsetting. Hopefully the second video on this subject will be better argued, actually highlight and explore the issues in a better way than this.

But yeah, you've hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned. This was a particularly flawed video on what could be a good topic, which took a few good examples and damaged them with poor analysis and representation.

[Fury4k]

Smitty slaying it in this thread.

[Sledge]

The bit where Agent 47 climbs into a box behind a bunch of stationary women specifically to peek back out at their bottoms did make me laugh. Why?!

[Fry Crayola]

There's whole section of that video where's talking about the player being encouraged to attack or objectify women and she doesn't at any point give any indication that a lot of these things can be done to any characters. Or indeed that in many of these games most NPCs are treated as objects for the player to abuse (or not) - women/men, black/white, prostitute/sexualised woman/non prostitute/non sexualised woman.

But you don't get even a hint of that as she plays video out of context and talks about their litany of sins. I can't be the only person who both groans at some of the depictions of women (or the consistency of it say, with no prostitutes expressing dismay, fear, resistance etc) but ALSO groans when Anita very dishonestly talks about flinging female NPCs about (que shot of female prostitute NPC ragdolling around) and shooting them in the face but can't bring herself to acknowledge that she paints as a unique evil visited upon female NPCs by gamers 'encouraged' to do is in fact something that be done to any NPC in the game.

I understand where you're coming from here and am inclined to agree that it's a mistake to present these in a way that make it appear that the sole or most common target of violence is these characters.

There is, however, the more general idea that having these hypersexualised female NPCs and being able committing acts of violence against them can serve to negatively reinforce the combination of sexualisation and depersonalisation. Not as a deliberate choice on the part of the developer (for the most part), but rather an accidental but no less harmful product of a game that chooses to have these characters and the freedom to do what you will without consequences.

To simplify the point and touch on the issue about representing real life - the sheer number of popular games in which you can beat up scantily clad women might just be something to be concerned about. That both sex workers and violence exist in real life can excuse each individual game (a developer can be free to create the game they want to), but the wider picture suggests an uncomfortable desire in the industry to include it so often, and it says something about the developers and how they view their audience.

[Festoon]

The bit where Agent 47 climbs into a box behind a bunch of stationary women specifically to peek back out at their bottoms did make me laugh. Why?!

Because the developers like it, and know the largely-male audience will too.

[Festoon]

To simplify the point and touch on the issue about representing real life - the sheer number of popular games in which you can beat up scantily clad women might just be something to be concerned about. That both sex workers and violence exist in real life can excuse each individual game (a developer can be free to create the game they want to), but the wider picture suggests an uncomfortable desire in the industry to include it so often, and it says something about the developers and how they view their audience.

And I think that's her key point here, which the video explains well. The same imagery over and over. Women are poorly represented in so many games.

[Mr Cochese]

Smitty is right, but stop calling things "problematic". It doesn't mean anything.

[Wiper]

And I think that's her key point here, which the video explains well. The same imagery over and over. Women are poorly represented in so many games.

That's what her videos as a whole do well, but (as above) I share Smitty's view that this specific video actually damages that message by attempting to flesh out the arguments in a flawed way. Instead of providing extra support or nuance it takes what could be good examples, and rather than highlight the many issues they bring up - why do so many games feel the need to introduce scenes laden with sexualised women (in these cases prostitutes), why are they uniformly written not as characters but as titillating two-dimensional characters - or discussing wider issues - the reason that including titillating, highly sexualised female characters in games that are generally defined by being about transgressive violent acts is a particularly troublesome combination - she's both simplified and misrepresented the situations we're being presented with, missing core arguments and instead describing false situations that beg to be corrected.

Which in a series whose strength is highlighting underlying, pervasive issues to people who haven't previously paid much attention to this side of things risks discrediting the whole premise of her videos. It's frustrating, to say the least. This video could have been cut to ten minutes, putting down the core, solid facts of the case and nothing else, and been much stronger. Alternatively it could have been its full thirty minutes, really explored the issues, and been fantastic. Instead it waters itself down and damages the whole of the argument by throwing in weak asides.

Smitty is right, but stop calling things "problematic". It doesn't mean anything.

Yes it does: it means problematic

[Lag]

I don't think it was a deliberate mechanic in GTA IV to be able to murder a prostitute to get your money back after paying her for sex, I think it's emergent from two mechanics: 1. you can buy sex, 2. you can kill any characters unessential to the story to get their money (you can get money from food vendors too, after buying food from them and then killing them). But it was a deliberate decision to include prostitutes (and food vendors).

For me it's not enough to say this thing is in the game because it exists in real life, as games don't include everything that exists in real life (for obvious reasons) including the real life consequences of doing something (e.g. murdering people on the street in broad daylight in front of armed police would entail jail time if they didn't kill you). Decisions are made about what to include and what to leave out, and it's reasonable to consider what might be the reasons for those decisions. Sure, there is likely to be an Asian prostitute in an Asian red light district, but why is there an Asian red light district? If she was a journalist or investigator she would ask the developers.

[Sledge]

Because the developers like it, and know the largely-male audience will too.

Hee hee, no I know that! It just seemed contrived -- rather than just look (they remain oblivious to 47 in that bit, don't they?) he goes to the effort of actually peeping. Getting in a box and peeping out! I'm not sure anyone would do that other than to illustrate how it is a thing that is technically possible. Same with the dragging the body around in circles for no reason whatsoever. It's a great catalyst for discussion, that vid, but Smitty and Wiper make some valid observations about its integrity to its subject-matter.

I assume the clip where the player kills a woman and gets an update on his standing, which is still fine, is Fallout 3. As presented it looks like "Hey you killed a woman but it doesn't matter" when my assumption, as someone familiar with games, is that the action of killing someone -- anyone -- merely tipped the player from one internally tracked status to another and it's actually saying nothing about women in particular. So on one hand that's a problem with the video because people unfamiliar with games won't see that example for what it is; and on the other hand it's a problem with the game, because the developer really should've thought about how popping up that message in those circumstances might fucking look.

[Professor Puzzles]

There's a part 2 to this one; maybe that will address some of these concerns, maybe not.

[Straps]

Do the issues she mentioned not become a bit more apparent when you look at how common/one-sided the examples are? Looking at one individual game and rejecting what she says is to miss the point, it seems.

[Rudi von Starnberg]

Interesting to note that Sarkeesian is getting flak from sex workers for this video, accusing her of going full liberal-feminist and denying the possibility of agency for sex workers (who she insists on calling 'prostituted women') by making no distinction between actual sex workers and objectified representations in-game.

[Kryptonian]

I think there's a disproportionate number of prostitutes and the like in games as developers only seem to be able to think of a strip club or bar to illustrate a certain amount of seediness / criminal aspect, ie that's where bad guys hang out and the kind of people they surround themselves with so you get loads of similar environments in hitman / sleeping dogs / gta / etc

[Capwn]

There's whole section of that video where's talking about the player being encouraged to attack or objectify women and she doesn't at any point give any indication that a lot of these things can be done to any characters. Or indeed that in many of these games most NPCs are treated as objects for the player to abuse (or not) - women/men, black/white, prostitute/sexualised woman/non prostitute/non sexualised woman.

I might be misunderstanding you but at around 26:30 she is providing examples of the same 'tropes' being inflicted towards men. The point being that it's dealt with differently, in some cases being played out for laughs.

[Comrade]

You're completely right Smitty. I've been saying this from the start. Anita's got an undeniably true general point to make, but is very often insultingly simplistic or outright dishonest in doing so. I only disagree that this is a new element of her videos - literally the first thing she does in the first of her videogame videos is blatantly misrepresent the development of Dinosaur Planet, just to serve her (admittedly worthy) agenda.

[Captain Novaforce]

I think there's a disproportionate number of prostitutes and the like in games as developers only seem to be able to think of a strip club or bar to illustrate a certain amount of seediness / criminal aspect, ie that's where bad guys hang out and the kind of people they surround themselves with so you get loads of similar environments in hitman / sleeping dogs / gta / etc

To a certain extent away, but to have them pop up in an otherwise excellent game like Human Revolution is ridiculous, and shows systemic and lazy NPC development. It's like they are building the gaming world and are adding hookers as casually as bin bags.

I didn't even notice them to be honest, but having them actually solicit off Jensen is dumb. I mean he's clearly either law enforcement or a hitman. He's a walking tank. I would be scared asking him for directions.

[Dudley]

I'm actually kind of disgusted by the response to this, and the way so many people in this thread are missing the point, because I think it shows how normalised what Sarkeesian is trying to point out is.

In the real world, somewhere up to 40 million people are prostitutes. I make that about 0.5% of the population, so lets assume 1 or 2% of women in the world prostitute. This is less than the percentage who are teachers. What proportion of women in the gaming worlds of this particular genre of games prostitute? Much much more than 2%. What proportion of women in the gaming world are teachers? Next to none. Therefore it is an undeniable fact: Within the gaming worlds that have been created there is a massive over-representation of one specific type of women - those who prostitute and stand around scantily clad soliciting sex.

It's dangerous to read too much into it just from that though.

Compare the % of men who are killers in real life compared to games for instance.

Compare the % of people in general who are in law enforcement compared to the number in US dramas who are.

For want of a better word, some professions are "glamorous" and stylised entertainment media of all types are going to focus a little on them.

Also note we're both using "world" proportions and games like Sleeping Dogs tend to be set in cities where proportions may, even in reality, be different.

[Chadruharazzeb]

I think there's a disproportionate number of prostitutes and the like in games as developers only seem to be able to think of a strip club or bar to illustrate a certain amount of seediness / criminal aspect, ie that's where bad guys hang out and the kind of people they surround themselves with so you get loads of similar environments in hitman / sleeping dogs / gta / etc

Exactly. The presence, and abundance, of prostitutes does have contextual justification in these games.

[Talvalin]

It's all in the context of the area? Great. So where are the male prostitutes then?

[Wiper]

It's dangerous to read too much into it just from that though.

Compare the % of men who are killers in real life compared to games for instance.

Compare the % of people in general who are in law enforcement compared to the number in US dramas who are.

For want of a better word, some professions are "glamorous" and stylised entertainment media of all types are going to focus a little on them.

Exactly. The presence, and abundance, of prostitutes does have contextual justification in these games.

Those are pretty clearly the core reason that prostitutes make such a popular choice of NPC, yes. It's an explanation, certainly, but it's also definitely not a good justification. The core point to be made - the one which I feel this video has let down with its weak tangents - is that it's a lazy trope that is used because it's easy, because it's titillating, and because we see it so often in so many media for those reasons and end up reinforcing the normality of the trope. And that that, by extension, is damaging as it reinforces the idea of women primarily as sex objects, and reinforces the imagery of prostitutes as agency-free non-people (and given an even more unpleasant aspect with its regular inclusion in games that are specifically designed with the idea of murdering NPCs as a core draw), and that it's one of those tropes that game designers could do with thinking a bit more about before using.

On a more cheerful note, this tweet from the animator Jonathan Cooper in response to the video was nice to read:

New Tropes vs Women features ME1 stripper mocap I directed. Would I do this again knowing what I know now? No

[Smitty]

I'm actually kind of disgusted by the response to this, and the way so many people in this thread are missing the point, because I think it shows how normalised what Sarkeesian is trying to point out is.

In the real world, somewhere up to 40 million people are prostitutes. I make that about 0.5% of the population, so lets assume 1 or 2% of women in the world prostitute. This is less than the percentage who are teachers. What proportion of women in the gaming worlds of this particular genre of games prostitute? Much much more than 2%. What proportion of women in the gaming world are teachers? Next to none. Therefore it is an undeniable fact: Within the gaming worlds that have been created there is a massive over-representation of one specific type of women - those who prostitute and stand around scantily clad soliciting sex.

This category of women in these specific games not only stand around scantily clad soliciting sex, but all you can do to them is either sexual or violent. There is also sometimes a mechanic of trafficking, pimping or otherwise exploiting these women. They are kidnapped, traded and murdered. I also felt like all the sexualised women were portrayed as fairly attractive, healthy, scantily clad and actively soliciting sex (and never saying any behaviour was unacceptable). I'm not convinced this represents women who are involved in the sex trade, who are a very diverse group. The men in the games are more clothed, do not solicit sex from the player, and although they can be the victim of violence, this is not sexualised. I would note that the episode showed the killing of a male NPC by way of comparison.

It is clear that in these specific games, women are presented as highly sexualised and this means that they are not represented as intelligent, capable, diverse people - one facet of the female gender is seen much more than any other, and it is not one I am comfortable with representing my gender.

Finally, the nature of killing a smaller, unarmed victim is shocking in and of itself. So I found it very uncomfortable to watch the characters attacking these women, just as I would if they attacked children. For me, that is completely different to attacking soldiers or fellow armed combatants or criminals, or those presenting an immediate risk to the character or people he cares about. I particularly winced to watch the player stamping on the face or groin of victims.

Your comments at the end reflect stuff that can happen to any character. I don't see randomly attacking a male npc as different to randomly attacking a female npc.

It's very strange that you artificially create a distinction by talking about soldiers, criminals or those presenting a risk - as if all male npcs fit into their categories.

Why is that?

Why this generalisation about "sexualised" violence? What is sexualised violence? I mean I really hope it isn't just meant to be any violence against women.

There's a bit in the video where Anita is talking about violence against sex objects blah blah and shows a female NPC being shot in GTA4.

Not a prostitute npc mind or even a "sexualised" woman but a fully clothed woman. Are you saying that shooting her is sexualised violence? Or what are you thinking of with that?

[Smitty]

To a certain extent away, but to have them pop up in an otherwise excellent game like Human Revolution is ridiculous, and shows systemic and lazy NPC development. It's like they are building the gaming world and are adding hookers as casually as bin bags.

I didn't even notice them to be honest, but having them actually solicit off Jensen is dumb. I mean he's clearly either law enforcement or a hitman. He's a walking tank. I would be scared asking him for directions.

I don't see why itd ridiculous to have them in DE3. Also the Jensen the characters are now living in a world of augs and there will be plenty of "johns" with augs.

[Spacehost]

There seems to be a lot of "well, stereotypical crime fiction stories in other media do this so it's not THAT bad", which assumes i) stereotypical crime fiction isn't incredibly bad at depicting women, and ii) blowing up an overused narrative shorthand from a 90-minute movie to the scale of a 100-hour free-roaming world doesn't have the capacity to convert a briefly used narrative contrivance ("behold the lair of the bad dudes, for it doth contain hookers as you have seen from the 30 second panning shot of some hookers") into a problematic blanket representation in a single game ("behold, the city which incidentally the bad dudes live in, which is positively lousy with hookers to the exclusion of pretty much every other kind of female NPC").

[SqueakyG]

I agree with some of Smitty's observations about the way Sarkeesian talks, the way she bends the argument to her terms when she hasn't always proven the truth of her terms.

However, there are also a lot of good observations about the way videogames are overloaded with representations of female (nearly always female) sex work.

- Why does nearly every open-world game have strip clubs and prostitutes? Why is it so over-represented? You could argue that it's a trope of crime fiction: organised crime often runs strip clubs and prostitution rings, so that might be where the mafia boss keeps his office. But isn't that a bit old now? Haven't we seen it too much? Does every sandbox city need a fully-modelled, interactive strip club?

- Why is it nearly always females? (with the occasional gigolo for comic novelty). Videogames never show male strip clubs or male prostitution. Why? Because gamers are expected to be hererosexual male, and heterosexual males are expected to go, "Eww, this game is gay!" if they saw male strippers of rent boys - for anything other than comedy value - in their open-world sandbox games.

- Why are the sex workers usually a male fantasy of a sex worker, instead of realistic? I was playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution the other day (I'm working through my "yet to play" pile), and the hookers on the street (all female) were all like: "Mmmm, hey big boy, I might just give you a freebie for being so handsome!" I cringed a little, because it came across like a lame sexual fantasy for the player. Then I realised that's how the hookers talk in most games. Very compliant, very horny, loving their work, ready to give you a freebie.

- I know one of Smitty's big arguments: "But you can kill any NPC just the same way!" Sure. But you can't deny that prostitute NPCs are put there for more purpose than other pedestrians, and will therefore be interacted with more purposefully. The gamer will test the limits of a prostitute NPC more... he will trigger the scripting, see the sex animations, then ask: "What happens if I kill her?" And we know what happens... she drops more money than other peds are programmed to.

[Anne Summers]

To be honest you all sound like little boys getting pissy that a girl is "having a go" at your beloved hobby. No matter how many times you express the sentiment "It's a good agenda but..." (the overriding theme of the last few pages of this thread, which is all I've read of it).

As I've said before in other threads discussing gender issues, it just smacks of the rhetoric you get when talking about race issues or sexuality issues on other , less (so I thought) progressive forums - "I have a lot of black friends/I have a lot of gay friends, but..."