Gaming and Sexism

[Mutsukki]

I kind of think it's being looked at backwards.

The argument above (and the one demonstrated by Sarkeesian) is that weak female characters create a societal mind that females are weak, but I don't find that anymore true than violent video games creating violent people. Isn't it more likely that females are portrayed as weak (although in a lot of examples this is excessively exaggerated) being a reflection of that creator's thoughts and their perceived opinions of society's thoughts?

In my opinion, you have to change the thinking, not the product. It doesn't do much good to complain about the media, because the media will shift to sell to the popular ideal. That's where the market is. The media doesn't create the stereotypes, it just reacts to them. We can see this in the way that a lot of AAA media producers are scrambling to incorporate references to popular Internet memes in a good portion of their products.

I also fail to see how many of the supposedly "damaging" tropes (such as Damsel in Distress) are actually damaging to women at all. Actually, one of Sarkeesian's biggest complaints is when a female character falls victim for the purpose of pushing the male protagonist's development as a character, and really... that's just how stories work. All other characters are accessories to the protagonist, and anything that happens to them is solely in the interest of the protagonist. It just so happens that most protagonists are male, but so are most game creators. Instead of putting so much money into essentially creating one-sided reviews, why not put that money into creating a game which reflects upon the kind of merits you (second-person, non-specific) would like to see more widely reflected in the industry?

Because, believe it or not, art mediums actually reflect society in a way. The thing about making violence irrelevant with CoD and violent games is less of a cultural issue than sexism and women being rendered as useless.

"That's just how story works" is what she's going on about! Trying to change this type of thinking. Didn't you just say that the important thing was to change the creator's mind? Well, if he thinks like that, it's a big problem. As a content creator, you do have to be aware of what will be taken from your game. It's fine that damsel in distress games still exist if there is the balance I spoke off. Imagine if you were a women that couldn't relate to any of the characters in the games you love so much, because the male driven comunity and developers refuse to acknowledge you at all? I would say that's pretty bad.

Also the media most definitely creates stereotypes, it's naive to think it doesn't, really.