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Sis, you know the difference between TV shows and a culture, right? :P
You mean they're not the same? =)
Sissyl wrote: Ahhhh... Oh. Well, I never considered that. Thank you for pointing it out, Guy. Of course the Mongols and Scythians had more egalitarian TV shows than we have today, and that's why they had female soldiers! Every culture throughout history has produced art and story, trouble is written language is rare, and even when we do have a written language what gets recorded is equally rare. Consider Robin Hood in English story, our earliest written recordings of him come from the 15th century, yet he's likely a character that comes from the 13 or 14th century, and songs and ballads with him as a character most certainly predate that 15th century recording, but it took a hundred years or more before someone thought it was important enough to write down.
We have no idea the sorts of stories the Mongols and Scythians shared around their camp fires, maybe we had stories of brave and heroic female warriors from those societies, but like most of our culture it's lost in time because it was never written down. It should be noted that some of our earliest stories that have survived, like the Iliad, the Odyssey, and even the Bible were likely entirely oral works before they were ever recorded.
I know you were being facetious but lets not pretend that culture isn't important when we consider what we regard as social norms.
And let's not say that it's everything in the face of so much evidence to the contrary.
Was that comment directed at me? Were you under the impression that I thought nature has no role in the nature vs nurture debate? I do believe that the nurture side is probably the heavier influence on what shapes us as a person but at no point did I discredit biological influences.
Guy Humual wrote: Was that comment directed at me? Were you under the impression that I thought nature has no role in the nature vs nurture debate? I do believe that the nurture side is probably the heavier influence on what shapes us as a person but at no point did I discredit biological influences. And why does culture decide what it decides?
Guy Humual wrote: Was that comment directed at me? Were you under the impression that I thought nature has no role in the nature vs nurture debate? I do believe that the nurture side is probably the heavier influence on what shapes us as a person but at no point did I discredit biological influences. Your argument for WHY nurture is the important side seems to boil down to, and I quote, "but nurture is huge". Circular arguments don't add that much to a discussion, you know.
BigNorseWolf wrote: Guy Humual wrote: Was that comment directed at me? Were you under the impression that I thought nature has no role in the nature vs nurture debate? I do believe that the nurture side is probably the heavier influence on what shapes us as a person but at no point did I discredit biological influences. And why does culture decide what it decides? That's a tough question to answer because it's like etymology, knowing how or why some things get into the lexicon can be impossible to know, but we can speculate. I do suspect that some things are the way they are because of biology, a woman being given homebody roles is likely a result of childbearing, not because women were better at (what we now call) housework, but because they were sort of bound there for a couple of months per child. Why men are soldiers is, as I suggested earlier, a result of equipment getting heavier and the fighting moving further and further away from where they lived, and so fewer women were even trained in combat over the years until it just became something that women didn't do.
Other cultural gender divides likely came about for simply economical reasons, it would have cost money to learn to read or write, and seeing as men were the usual inheritors of households, investing time and money into their education was probably seen as a better investment and as a result women have been marginalized and thought of as being less intelligent then men (they weren't educated after all). Of course we know better now but we don't have to go back many generations to find a society that genuinely feels women are less intelligent then men.
Guy Hummal wrote: Why men are soldiers is, as I suggested earlier, a result of equipment getting heavier and the fighting moving further and further away from where they lived, and so fewer women were even trained in combat over the years until it just became something that women didn't do. Ok, and at what point/year/era where there a large number of these female soldiers?
Sissyl wrote: Guy Humual wrote: Was that comment directed at me? Were you under the impression that I thought nature has no role in the nature vs nurture debate? I do believe that the nurture side is probably the heavier influence on what shapes us as a person but at no point did I discredit biological influences. Your argument for WHY nurture is the important side seems to boil down to, and I quote, "but nurture is huge". Circular arguments don't add that much to a discussion, you know. How is that a circular argument? I think cultural norms are influenced by society and what we consider normal is always changing. Consider homosexuality, within my lifetime our society has gone from viewing this as a mental illness to practically accepting it as a normal, albeit rarer, form of being. We even made gay marriage legal up here in Canada and folks then were thinking that it would cause the collapse of our society, but now people mostly accept it, and it's seen as normal. When I was growing up girls didn't play video games, now they're close to half the market.
Now supposing that boys and girls took jobs and started lives at the age of fourteen or so I might be more inclined to believe that nature has a greater influence in what roles they choose, but many of us have higher education these days, we don't start planing what we want to do with our lives till after the hormones have done their damage, and even then many of us chose to go into an entirely different path. Biology is still a factor but think of how many teens go into certain fields because of popular TV shows, how many young girls take up sport because of female role models, now you might not believe that nurture has as great a role as nature, but you would be foolish if you thought to completely disregard it.
BigNorseWolf wrote: Guy Hummal wrote: Why men are soldiers is, as I suggested earlier, a result of equipment getting heavier and the fighting moving further and further away from where they lived, and so fewer women were even trained in combat over the years until it just became something that women didn't do. Ok, and at what point/year/era where there a large number of these female soldiers? Our earliest writing goes back to about 6th millennium BC, but that was usually used to record finance and such, and regrettably we don't have much actual human history for most of the bronze age, which, incidentally, would have been in my mind when this cultural shift would have taken place. We have discovered the odd grave with a woman burred with full battle regalia (quite a few Scythians actually) but if they actually fought or if they were simply given special honors is still up for debate. What we do know, for example, is the women don't appear in history much. Romans supposedly had female gladiators, called gladiatrix, and although they existed at a time when we had writing virtually nothing is known about them. Although to be fair, not much is known about any gladiators, save for the really really successful ones.
Also I should add that the US military does have 203,000 women in active service. That's a fair amount. The key thing to remember about history is that people really aren't that different over time, so if 14% of the total US army is female it's safe to assume that there have always been women interested in joining the military throughout history.
BigNorseWolf wrote: Guy Hummal wrote: Why men are soldiers is, as I suggested earlier, a result of equipment getting heavier and the fighting moving further and further away from where they lived, and so fewer women were even trained in combat over the years until it just became something that women didn't do. Ok, and at what point/year/era where there a large number of these female soldiers?
How do you factor religion into these ideas of yours, cause I'm quite sure that the world being taken over by a supremely patriarchal religion would have a much larger effect then the weight of gear.
Oh, and since cultures develop from one another, that skews the development of cultures, which skews data, making it rather difficult to discern what is biological and what has merely been a legacy aspect of culture, preserved over many iterations of change. (don forget the butterfly effect)
GM DarkLightHitomi wrote: BigNorseWolf wrote: Guy Hummal wrote: Why men are soldiers is, as I suggested earlier, a result of equipment getting heavier and the fighting moving further and further away from where they lived, and so fewer women were even trained in combat over the years until it just became something that women didn't do. Ok, and at what point/year/era where there a large number of these female soldiers? How do you factor religion into these ideas of yours, cause I'm quite sure that the world being taken over by a supremely patriarchal religion would have a much larger effect then the weight of gear. Religion is just piece of the cultural mosaic, how big a piece depends on both the culture and the religion. It's not till we have monotheist religions taking over that we get the more familiar patriarchal influence. Before that we have many myths and even female deities of war but as to their actual influence I can't really say.
Guy Humual wrote: Our earliest writing goes back to about 6th millennium BC, but that was usually used to record finance and such, and regrettably we don't have much actual human history for most of the bronze age, which, incidentally, would have been in my mind when this cultural shift would have taken place. But there's no evidence, at all, for this supposition.
There's also no reason to think that everyone showed up at the battle armored . While in 1400 bc SOMEONE was rocking the look of a literal bronze god , most armor we find at that time and before is shell cord and leather... materials far too light to cause a discrepancy. Heck, even in the middle ages peasants were showing up with home made light leather when their lords had unbelievably crafted suits of full plate. (which actually weigh less and have a better load distribution than our modern armor+ ammo)
Guy Humual wrote: The key thing to remember about history is that people really aren't that different over time, so if 14% of the total US army is female it's safe to assume that there have always been women interested in joining the military throughout history. There is a big difference between now and then. Women in agricultural societies used to get pregnant A LOT, and deliberately postponing pregnancy until their thirties was pretty much unheard of. And before gasoline vehicles, serving in an army meant lots of hiking (riding if you were rich) in between camping rough. So it wasn't realistic for a woman who might be pregnant five (or more) times in her twenties to keep up with an army that would be hiking as fast as taller, not-pregnant men who didn't have to care for multiple toddlers could march.
Guy Humual wrote: It's not till we have monotheist religions taking over that we get the more familiar patriarchal influence. Before that we have many myths and even female deities of war but as to their actual influence I can't really say. The Odyssey is the most patriarchal work I've ever read (although the Iliad certainly gives it competition!) Well before monotheist religions took over.
BigNorseWolf wrote: Guy Humual wrote: Our earliest writing goes back to about 6th millennium BC, but that was usually used to record finance and such, and regrettably we don't have much actual human history for most of the bronze age, which, incidentally, would have been in my mind when this cultural shift would have taken place. But there's no evidence, at all, for this supposition. Right, that's the problem with human history, we don't have a lot of information about a lot of things. William Shakespeare, the total amount of information we have about him, despite him having wrote all those plays, is about half a page long. He lived and died less then 500 years ago.
There's lots of things we can't really prove, but we do know that women, gays, and minorities have been marginalized within our generation and certainly within our parents or grandparent's generation, and so it's not hard to imagine woman banned from joining the military in the bronze age either. Problem with history and evidence is, the further you go back, the harder it is to prove anything.
For what it's worth though, much of this is personal supposition and I've got absolutely no serious research invested into this hypothesis.
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Thorri Grimbeard wrote: Guy Humual wrote: The key thing to remember about history is that people really aren't that different over time, so if 14% of the total US army is female it's safe to assume that there have always been women interested in joining the military throughout history. There is a big difference between now and then. Women in agricultural societies used to get pregnant A LOT, and deliberately postponing pregnancy until their thirties was pretty much unheard of. And before gasoline vehicles, serving in an army meant lots of hiking (riding if you were rich) in between camping rough. So it wasn't realistic for a woman who might be pregnant five (or more) times in her twenties to keep up with an army that would be hiking as fast as taller, not-pregnant men who didn't have to care for multiple toddlers could march. Which is fine because my contention is that biologically we've pretty much stayed the same but culturally we've changed. There are females in the military now because it's acceptable now, not because women of this century are more aggressive and violent.
Thorri Grimbeard wrote: Guy Humual wrote: It's not till we have monotheist religions taking over that we get the more familiar patriarchal influence. Before that we have many myths and even female deities of war but as to their actual influence I can't really say. The Odyssey is the most patriarchal work I've ever read (although the Iliad certainly gives it competition!) Well before monotheist religions took over.
Well it is true that Odysseus encountered some truly horrible women, some monstrous and others literally so, the really only honest and faithful character in the story is Penelope. Odysseus doesn't really come across as a hero when I read it. In fact I'd say that he wouldn't have been in the predicament he was in if he were an honest character.
But, like the Iliad, the Odyssey is probably a much older work, and who knows what the story might have been like before it was recorded in by Homer in the 8th century BC.
BigNorseWolf wrote: Alice Margatroid wrote: I've totally lost what people are even arguing about here. How about those revolutionary movies, Comrade Goblin? One of them passed the Bechdel test in the trailer. That was the one we "watched." I was all excited because I thought it was the first one which was done by the guy who did Le Samourai.
Anyway, I say "watched" because I fell asleep before the 30 minute mark. I was up past my bedtime. Also [bubble bubble bubble].
On the way home, though, the comrades said it was really depressing. You know, unlike those other, cheery French Resistance movies.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Intrnet Troll wrote: BigNorseWolf wrote: Alice Margatroid wrote: I've totally lost what people are even arguing about here. How about those revolutionary movies, Comrade Goblin? One of them passed the Bechdel test in the trailer. That was the one we "watched." I was all excited because I thought it was the first one which was done by the guy who did Le Samourai.
Anyway, I say "watched" because I fell asleep before the 30 minute mark. I was up past my bedtime. Also [bubble bubble bubble].
On the way home, though, the comrades said it was really depressing. You know, unlike those other, cheery French Resistance movies. better to show the nazi's winning the downer ending than to show the Americans winning the happy one!
Thorri Grimbeard wrote: Guy Humual wrote: It's not till we have monotheist religions taking over that we get the more familiar patriarchal influence. Before that we have many myths and even female deities of war but as to their actual influence I can't really say. The Odyssey is the most patriarchal work I've ever read (although the Iliad certainly gives it competition!) Well before monotheist religions took over.
I spent a while trying to think of the most patriarchalist work I've ever read and I got nothing. I decide, though, that the least patriarchalist work I've ever read was Pere Goriot.
BigNorseWolf wrote: Jean-Paul Sartre, Intrnet Troll wrote: On the way home, though, the comrades said it was really depressing. You know, unlike those other, cheery French Resistance movies. better to show the nazi's winning the downer ending than to show the Americans winning the happy one!
Well, it was about this dude and his cell, so, not even Hollywood could've given it a happy ending.
[Gives clenched fist salute for Comrade Manouchian and Co.]
Jean-Paul Sartre, Intrnet Troll wrote: BigNorseWolf wrote: Jean-Paul Sartre, Intrnet Troll wrote: On the way home, though, the comrades said it was really depressing. You know, unlike those other, cheery French Resistance movies. better to show the nazi's winning the downer ending than to show the Americans winning the happy one!
Well, it was about this dude and his cell, so, not even Hollywood could've given it a happy ending.
[Gives clenched fist salute for Comrade Manouchian and Co.] That's only if Hollywood followed the actual historical events. Which they've always been known to do.
Thorri Grimbeard wrote: Guy Humual wrote: The key thing to remember about history is that people really aren't that different over time, so if 14% of the total US army is female it's safe to assume that there have always been women interested in joining the military throughout history. There is a big difference between now and then. Women in agricultural societies used to get pregnant A LOT, and deliberately postponing pregnancy until their thirties was pretty much unheard of. And before gasoline vehicles, serving in an army meant lots of hiking (riding if you were rich) in between camping rough. So it wasn't realistic for a woman who might be pregnant five (or more) times in her twenties to keep up with an army that would be hiking as fast as taller, not-pregnant men who didn't have to care for multiple toddlers could march. Actually women often did travel with armies. As camp followers and the like.
It's not the hiking that's the problem, though small kids would make that more difficult, it's the fighting.
Guy Humual wrote: Jean-Paul Sartre, Intrnet Troll wrote: BigNorseWolf wrote: Jean-Paul Sartre, Intrnet Troll wrote: On the way home, though, the comrades said it was really depressing. You know, unlike those other, cheery French Resistance movies. better to show the nazi's winning the downer ending than to show the Americans winning the happy one!
Well, it was about this dude and his cell, so, not even Hollywood could've given it a happy ending.
[Gives clenched fist salute for Comrade Manouchian and Co.] That's only if Hollywood followed the actual historical events. Which they've always been known to do. Everyone knows what we Frenchies think of [laughs] American culture, but can you think of a Hollywood film about a bunch of real-life dudes executed by the Nazis (or anyone else for that matter) that got a happy ending? Just curious.
Guy Humual wrote: BigNorseWolf wrote: Guy Humual wrote: Our earliest writing goes back to about 6th millennium BC, but that was usually used to record finance and such, and regrettably we don't have much actual human history for most of the bronze age, which, incidentally, would have been in my mind when this cultural shift would have taken place. But there's no evidence, at all, for this supposition. Right, that's the problem with human history, we don't have a lot of information about a lot of things. William Shakespeare, the total amount of information we have about him, despite him having wrote all those plays, is about half a page long. He lived and died less then 500 years ago. And this cultural shift was world wide? Affecting even tribal cultures thousands of miles away that didn't develop the bronze armor?
While there may be some partial exceptions, warrior culture is overwhelmingly male everywhere we look. Not just in post Bronze-Age societies with heavy armor and weapons, but in tribes that were essentially stone age until near modern times. Even if they fought mostly naked with relatively light spears or whatever.
Strength and size matter more for the actually fighting part than for wearing armor & carrying weapons.
thejeff wrote: Actually women often did travel with armies. As camp followers and the like.
It's not the hiking that's the problem, though small kids would make that more difficult, it's the fighting.
Link (with some culture for you Yanks)
thejeff wrote: It's not the hiking that's the problem, though small kids would make that more difficult, it's the fighting. Actually I believe that it's the dying that makes it a bit hard to perpetuate the species ;-)
thejeff wrote: Guy Humual wrote: BigNorseWolf wrote: Guy Humual wrote: Our earliest writing goes back to about 6th millennium BC, but that was usually used to record finance and such, and regrettably we don't have much actual human history for most of the bronze age, which, incidentally, would have been in my mind when this cultural shift would have taken place. But there's no evidence, at all, for this supposition. Right, that's the problem with human history, we don't have a lot of information about a lot of things. William Shakespeare, the total amount of information we have about him, despite him having wrote all those plays, is about half a page long. He lived and died less then 500 years ago. And this cultural shift was world wide? Affecting even tribal cultures thousands of miles away that didn't develop the bronze armor?
While there may be some partial exceptions, warrior culture is overwhelmingly male everywhere we look. Not just in post Bronze-Age societies with heavy armor and weapons, but in tribes that were essentially stone age until near modern times. Even if they fought mostly naked with relatively light spears or whatever.
Strength and size matter more for the actually fighting part than for wearing armor & carrying weapons. Again, no arguments, size is very important and men are usually larger and thus dominate warrior society. What we see in some of these remaining modern tribal societies is that there is a clear separation between the boys and girls and the boys must prove themselves while the girls are married to older men as soon as they've come of age. Not much chance of becoming a warrior women when you're pregnant at the age of 12.
Keep in mind that these societies are pretty much broken in the fact that they haven't really advanced while the rest of the world has passed them by, so using them as a possible model for our ancient ancestors might not be a good fit . . . but you are right, their existance does throw a monkey wrench into my hypothesis, but on the other hand we do have historical female warriors (and/or just mythical figures) from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Central America. There may even be a few from North America and Australia that I'm unaware of but that's a lot of landmass and a fair number of people that has at least have the stories of female warriors.
thejeff wrote: Thorri Grimbeard wrote: Guy Humual wrote: The key thing to remember about history is that people really aren't that different over time, so if 14% of the total US army is female it's safe to assume that there have always been women interested in joining the military throughout history. There is a big difference between now and then. Women in agricultural societies used to get pregnant A LOT, and deliberately postponing pregnancy until their thirties was pretty much unheard of. And before gasoline vehicles, serving in an army meant lots of hiking (riding if you were rich) in between camping rough. So it wasn't realistic for a woman who might be pregnant five (or more) times in her twenties to keep up with an army that would be hiking as fast as taller, not-pregnant men who didn't have to care for multiple toddlers could march. Actually women often did travel with armies. As camp followers and the like.
It's not the hiking that's the problem, though small kids would make that more difficult, it's the fighting. Also women might be better at long distance travel then men, certainly we find that in modern times the longer the race the closer the gap between the top male and female athletes, but when I cite distance as a factor I'm talking more about the distance from family and property, two things females have usually been relegated to tend to. You might bring everyone you got to a fight if the Romans are on your front lawn threatening to burn everything but if you need to travel a couple of weeks to the far end of kingdom to put down an uprising you might leave the wife behind to look after the castle and the grandmother.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
The 8th Dwarf wrote: Any discussion of gender politics on this board is difficult and complex. Not only do you have by interest in this hobby a skewed demographic and thus an unrepresentative voice, you have an international element where their experience and the maturity of gender/sexual relations differs in many ways...
Politically we are doing ok... We were the second country in the world where women won the right to vote.
Here's a list I dug up. I assume you're Norweigan then? The United States as usual, is pretty late in the Western powers when it came to suffrage.
U.S. 1920 (a couple of the original 13 colonies allowed women to vote, this right however, was revoked in all of them, when the Constitution was put into place in 1783.)
Great Britain 1918 Women over 30, equaled to Men's age in 1928.
Finland 1906
Norway 1913
Denmark 1915
Iceland 1915
The bulk of Continental Europe 1918
Soviet Union 1917
Canada, several provinces 1916, Federal suffrage 1918
Most of the Axis Powers... 1945.
Source: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/suffrage/history.htm
How is it that you can be a mainstay on these boards, Comrade X, and not have a clue about your fellow posters?
Comrade Dwarf is from down under.
It's 1902 for us federally*, although South Australia had it 15 years earlier. I think New Zealand was the 1st, if I recall my highschool history classes correctly.
EDIT: Yup! 1893 for New Zealand.
* And to be fair, we only had a federation since 1901. :P
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Fun fact. (or not so fun if you like me have Feminist sympathies.
Switzerland did not grant women the vote until 1971.
Doodles, have you seen The Lives of Others? There's no full on state sanctioned execution, but it is a story about art and individuality vs the fascist state with a (somewhat) happy ending.
What's this have to do with gender roles in modern culture? Absolutely dick!
The destruction of the DDR and its capitalist anschluss into the Fourth Reich isn't my idea of a happy ending.
We've already got the Stasi, might as well get the health care and jobs: For workers revolution!
Oh yeah, and The Lives of Others wasn't made in Hollywood, I don't think.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Intrnet Troll wrote: Guy Humual wrote: Jean-Paul Sartre, Intrnet Troll wrote: BigNorseWolf wrote: Jean-Paul Sartre, Intrnet Troll wrote: On the way home, though, the comrades said it was really depressing. You know, unlike those other, cheery French Resistance movies. better to show the nazi's winning the downer ending than to show the Americans winning the happy one!
Well, it was about this dude and his cell, so, not even Hollywood could've given it a happy ending.
[Gives clenched fist salute for Comrade Manouchian and Co.] That's only if Hollywood followed the actual historical events. Which they've always been known to do. Everyone knows what we Frenchies think of [laughs] American culture, but can you think of a Hollywood film about a bunch of real-life dudes executed by the Nazis (or anyone else for that matter) that got a happy ending? Just curious. Didn't they make one about Anne Frank, where she married an American soldier and became the first female president of America back in 1960?
Sad part is, wouldn't surprise me.
Kathleen Hanna is the feminist most likely to give me a boner, so I will definitely be lining up for this flick when it comes out.
OHWFA!
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Sissyl wrote:
Didn't they make one about Anne Frank, where she married an American soldier and became the first female president of America back in 1960?
Sad part is, wouldn't surprise me.
That would have required a constitutional amendment. Else the native-born requirement would get in the way. (Although the Tea Partiers will apparently give a Canadian a pass if he speaks the right form of whacko.)
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Ah yes. Sorry. My bad. =)
Don Juan de Doodlebug wrote: Kathleen Hanna is the feminist most likely to give me a boner, so I will definitely be lining up for this flick when it comes out.
OHWFA!
I approve this post. :)
OHFWA!
New Tropes video up on Ms. Sarkeesian's site. It's about the Ms. Character. Want a female version? Just add a bow.
OHWFA!, although, growing up, I spent a lot of time playing Ms. Pac Man at the Pizza Hut.
In other news:
I haven't linked this in a while, I don't think.
A couple more gender politics tunez:
More sensitive soul commentary
More Marxism
MeanDM wrote: New Tropes video up on Ms. Sarkeesian's site. It's about the Ms. Character. Want a female version? Just add a bow. I saw that the other day, and briefly debated starting up a new thread to talk about it, but then remembered some of the . . . unpleasantness from the last thread, so I decided against it.
To me the early examples of the Ms Male character shouldn't have been a problem, we were looking at pixels and there was little to no character, but as video games become more advanced and characters become more defined and developed, the real problem wasn't the bow (IMO) it's the damn lazy writing of female characters.
When you look at characters like Ms Pacman you have a clearly female character and she outsold her predecessor. Clearly people at that point in time didn't care about the gender of a character because it really meant bupkis but later we hear video game companies were hesitant to put a female character on the cover of their games because they feared it wouldn't sell. What I suspect is that while some people might not play female characters because they self identify as the hero, many these days simply see the female character as being weaker because of years of poor writing. Female characters are W while male charters can be X, Y, and Z.
If we look at Valve we have Gorden Freeman and Chell as the two protagonists of two very different games, nether speaks, really it's the other characters that help define them, GLaDOS throws insults about Chell's weight and how she looks in a jump suit for example, hard to imagine a male character being greatly put off by that, but as a computer GLaDOS only has the most basic understanding of human psychology so she can only throw insults that she believes a generic woman would be upset by. Is Chell a Ms. Male character? Clearly not, but it is interesting to see a well written and designed game playing off of those defined and limited female character traits. I wonder however if our character was Princess Peach or a true Ms. Male character, how those insults would feel. Chell wasn't defined so I was able to assume that she, like myself, saw the lame insults for what they were. If I had a Ms. Male character I might have thought those insults were far more cruel and cutting then they actually were.
Guy Humual wrote: Clearly people at that point in time didn't care about the gender of a character because it really meant bupkis but later we hear video game companies were hesitant to put a female character on the cover of their games because they feared it wouldn't sell. What I suspect is that while some people might not play female characters because they self identify as the hero, many these days simply see the female character as being weaker because of years of poor writing. Female characters are W while male charters can be X, Y, and Z. It's funny because EverQuest and EverQuestII featured women on the cover of the main game (and all of the umpteen expansions) often with no male in sight, and if they were they were often playing second fiddle or not leading the party.
Certainly didn't hurt sales.
I think it's strage that the phenomenon never got credit in all these arguments, it was/is a huge MMO and yet not a mention.
Shifty wrote: It's funny because EverQuest and EverQuestII featured women on the cover of the main game (and all of the umpteen expansions) often with no male in sight, and if they were they were often playing second fiddle or not leading the party.
Certainly didn't hurt sales.
I think it's strage that the phenomenon never got credit in all these arguments, it was/is a huge MMO and yet not a mention.
MMORPGs should be different in my opinion, I mean we're dealing with role players here, and I'd hope that game companies would be mature enough to see that we're not put off by female characters. However, those titles you point to aren't exactly a positive female representations, they're essentially cheesecake, and while I don't mind a little sexy woman on the cover, I wouldn't be picking up that game thinking I was going to be playing the female character.
I think a better example of how females are viewed in gaming would be Commander Shepherd from the Mass Effect series from BioWare. Commander Shepherd is playable as male or female, but if you went just on the box art you'd never know that, and based on the promotional trailers you'd assume that the female Shepherd was a Ms Male character. It's strange because the voice actor for the female Shepherd is far superior to the male counterpart, but one assumes because this is such a big title, and because they're trying to appeal to the shooty games crowd, the female Shepherd gets delegated to the back of the box.
Guy Humual wrote: MMORPGs should be different in my opinion, I mean we're dealing with role players here, and I'd hope that game companies would be mature enough to see that we're not put off by female characters. It's still gaming, and my experience of MMO's is that Roleplayers are very much in the minority and the rest are playing a MMOFPS ina fantasy wrapper. I came out of the ultra-hardcore raiding guilds and 'RP' was about the furthest thing from most peoples minds.
Even the casuals in MMO's aren't all that into RP, it was a rarity - they had RP dedicated servers, but once again, that made up a really small fraction.
Cheesecake or not (and the guys are cheesecake just as often) its still women on all their covers leading the show. Firiona Vie to be precise, Elven nature deity and one of the biggest toughies in the game.
Shifty wrote: Guy Humual wrote: MMORPGs should be different in my opinion, I mean we're dealing with role players here, and I'd hope that game companies would be mature enough to see that we're not put off by female characters. It's still gaming, and my experience of MMO's is that Roleplayers are very much in the minority and the rest are playing a MMOFPS ina fantasy wrapper. I came out of the ultra-hardcore raiding guilds and 'RP' was about the furthest thing from most peoples minds. I did say "hope"
Shifty wrote: Even the casuals in MMO's aren't all that into RP, it was a rarity - they had RP dedicated servers, but once again, that made up a really small fraction.
Cheesecake or not (and the guys are cheesecake just as often) its still women on all their covers leading the show. Firiona Vie to be precise, Elven nature deity and one of the biggest toughies in the game.
Guys tend to be Beefcake, like the dude on the second cover you linked, but male cheesecake could exist I suppose . . . I'm not sure I've ever seen it though.
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