The Male Gaze

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

I'm not sure if this goes in here as it's a rant, but I deplore Samus Aran's (Metroid) sexualization.
I've always perceived Samus as a blunt and not a terribly "feminine" character, maybe even a tomboy. I'm not only talking about personality but physically, too, because it's her physique's design that bothers me.


/end of rant

[Chutzpar]

And, so I don't end up having to explain this shit ad infinitum:
What is the male gaze?
What is sexual objectification?
also, some of y'all need to check your privilege. Of course you're less tuned to see sexism, you're not the victim of it.
What is male privilege?

Also sorry only talking about women in terms of how they're beautiful
or as ~flowers and lipstick~
is reductive, stereotyping and - gasp - sexist.
Weirdly, some of us would kind of like to be known for being capable, not just being fuckable.

[GrooveMan.exe]

The way he handles game design, and the way he feels about societal norms have nothing to do with each other.

Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe did nothing wonderful for their female leads.

Edit: Also, moving this to Real Life. This deserves to be discussed properly.

[PrettyNier]

Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe did nothing wonderful for their female leads.

i think dmc3 did a pretty alright job with lady.
i dont remember if kamiya had anything to do with 3, though.

[Chutzpar]

The double standard here is that male characters are rarely written as being fanservice for women. They are their own people, who are capable of kicking ass and taking names, without there necessarily being a sexual element to it. It's assumed, you as the player, are a straight male and want to *be* the main character, if he's male. I can't think of many female characters who haven't clearly been written with a straight male audience in mind. In this case, the character isn't written as someone you want to be, it's someone you want to do.

Even male characters who have sexual elements to them (Kratos is the only one suddenly springing to mind) do it from a position of dominance and strength, and it's compartmentalised from their general behaviour. Even though Kratos is basically naked, he's not wearing something that enhances any sexual characteristics -- it doesn't cling to his groin or particularly direct attention to his arse -- and nor does he pose in provocative ways in his general fighting. You don't see him gesticulating madly at his crotch as parts of his finishing moves.

The reason this is problematic and sexist is basically; history. And stereotyping. Women's sexuality is always treated as a reaction to, or the possession of male sexuality. Apart from being heterocentric as hell, it's also part of this idea that women should be shamed about being sexual beings. The idea is that women aren't themselves sexual, it's just that we ~give in~ to male dominance. Conversely, women who are overtly sexual are treated as doing it for the approval of men - regardless of if the woman in question is even attracted to men.

There's what's called the "Madonna-whore complex" (sometimes called the "virgin-whore complex"), which is this idea that women have to simultaneously be chaste and sexually available.
If you're open about your sexuality you're "aggressive", "unladylike", "slutty", "asking for it" etc
if you're not particularly open about your sexuality, you're "frigid" "a prude" "in need of a good dicking", etc
basically: women can't win.

[GrooveMan.exe]

Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe did nothing wonderful for their female leads.

i think dmc3 did a pretty alright job with lady.
i dont remember if kamiya had anything to do with 3, though.

I'll give you that, when I played DMC3, Lady didn't stand out as being a bad example of female portrayal.

V. Joe's Sylvia, on the other hand? Oh dear.

Edit: Oh, I didn't notice this earlier:

Though, to be honest even if it was true it wouldn't reduce my enjoyment of the game much, since I don't particularly care about political correctness or morality in videogames/art in general, but I can see why it might bother other people.

Fuck you. If you 'don't care', about an issue, your opinion on said issue doesn't hold weight.

[Chutzpar]

Treating women like people = political correctness

yeah, ok.

Also it's very easy to shrug off -isms as "political correctness gone mad!!!" when you're not the one affected.

[DavidCaruso]

Well I was going to stop posting in this topic after that last post but okay

Fuck you. If you 'don't care', about an issue, your opinion on said issue doesn't hold weight.

Bad phrasing sorry. What I mean by "don't care" is that, although of course the character design does matter a bit to me, the issues here are at odds with what I'm actually focusing on the most when playing the game (or any 3D action game): kicking tons of ass, executing complicated manuevers, etc. In the hands of a skilled player any action game character is "capable," but oh wait Bayonetta's only capable because she's sexy (Sarah Palin is the epitome of sexiness right? Maybe they should have made it a guy instead, could be a 60s hippie so he could still do hair attacks). But the fact that I give this less priority than you doesn't mean my opinion is suddenly invalid, and obviously I cared enough to write a post about it. And the reason morality doesn't matter to me in videogames is because many of the best videogames focus on immoral acts such as killing, blowing things up, building a civilization to dominate all others whether they like it or not, etc. (and this is no coincidence) so it seems dumb to me to single one taboo thing out. The same generally goes for movies.

There's what's called the "Madonna-whore complex" (sometimes called the "virgin-whore complex"), which is this idea that women have to simultaneously be chaste and sexually available.
If you're open about your sexuality you're "aggressive", "unladylike", "slutty", "asking for it" etc
if you're not particularly open about your sexuality, you're "frigid" "a prude" "in need of a good dicking", etc
basically: women can't win.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy

Also extremely insulting to men. Apparently now every heterosexual man is a CoD-playing fratboy who goes to bars on the weekends to sleep with random chicks, viewed through beer goggles, and the ones that aren't want to be that man. (EDIT: To clarify, what I mean is that the only people who would actually say those types of things would be these people, or "dudebros" as I've heard them called; they're a minority, even if they're definitely a group that's being pandered to.)

Treating women like people = political correctness

yeah, ok.

Uhh what? I was referring to videogame characters in that post, not real people. Their personalities are generally one-dimensional, whether they're male or female, and most of the time they're just empty vessels for the player, any stylish designs or things they do in the movies that play inbetween the actual game notwithstanding. It'd be much more productive for your movement to be focused on creating "strong female characters" in real life than to complain when the cameraman films an ass shot of Angelina Jolie.

Also it's very easy to shrug off -isms as "political correctness gone mad!!!" when you're not the one affected.

Oh shit not another catch-22! I have "male privilege" so if I look at a situation and see that maybe it isn't nearly as bad as the bloggers at the fair and balanced source of finallyfeminism101 say it is then it is just an effect of my sociocultural upbringing, putting me at a clearly dominant position (despite being incredibly scrawny and not even white, never mind that, all males are the same), and I can't win either I guess. Meanwhile the same bloggers equate "female privilege" with "benevolent sexism." I guess I only see a problem with that because of my male privilege?

Anyway I'll duck out here for now because I'm pretty sure no one else is going to agree with me and I feel like all I do on here is get involved in debates. Unless someone tells me to fuck off again or something, anyway.

[GrooveMan.exe]

Well no, there are plenty of situations where "Well it doesn't matter if your argument has evidence to the contrary, I never even cared in the first place" is a backpedaling tactic, and it's inclusion there really felt like one. If that wasn't your intent then fair enough.

You also seem to be confusing the idea of male privilege with "men don't get to discuss gender issues". It's really not too difficult to understand that there are present and problematic gender social norms for women that men don't necessarily get. And while men also have problematic gender stereotypes; they're not as negatively impacting. As such, claiming 'female privilege' is as unfair and misguided as complaing about not getting "international men's day" and the like.

It's late, and I'm not going to make another wall of text while tired, so I'm going to hold off on that for the moment.

[Chutzpar]

Yes, I was explaining that women are subject to a false dichotomy, why are you presenting this as if it is at all contrary to what I was saying?

Also extremely insulting to men. Apparently now every heterosexual man is a CoD-playing fratboy who goes to bars on the weekends to sleep with random chicks, viewed through beer goggles, and the ones that aren't want to be that man. Here goes a preemptive prediction of "I can be insulting to men if I want to because men have been insulting to women for centuries."

Where did I say or even imply that I think this about men? Please show your work.

Uhh what? I was referring to videogame characters in that post, not real people

I am fully aware of this. When we're talking about the male gaze we're not often talking about real people, at least not in real circumstances. Singularly characterising women as sex objects feeds into and normalises sexist ideals. That's why it's a problem.

It'd be much more productive for your movement to be focused on creating "strong female characters" in real life than to complain when the cameraman films an ass shot of Angelina Jolie.

Well golly gee here I am asserting myself as a woman and being slapped down by a dudebro for reading too heavily into things. And then being told I need to do more to assure that women assert themselves. Which is, by the way, victim blaming; you're just looking for a reason to silence the Big Mean Feminazi rather than listening to my point. Where, also, is the assumption coming from that I don't look at bigger issues, too? It's all part of the same problem.

You don't understand sociological privilege. Even having read something that explains what it is.
The fact that you are a man puts you at an elevated position in society. This isn't something subjective. Men run society. As a man, nobody will assume that you got your job due to your gender, or your attractiveness. As a man, you are much less likely to be the victim of sexual harassment. If you choose never to have children, nobody will question if you are a "real man". If you get angry, people will accept it as legitimate anger rather than claiming it's 'just that time of the month' or claiming that you're being 'hysterical'.

The fact that you benefit from male privilege does not suddenly mean you are privileged in all aspects, and it doesn't mean that patriarchy isn't also damaging to you. I never made that statement and you're going off on a massive fucking derail to act like I did.
Where did I say that male privilege was the only privilege?
I didn't.
The fact that you also belong to a different marginalised group is utterly fucking irrelevant. Nobody is 100% privileged or 100% marginalised.

[Alpha Six]

Sexism is wrong, period. But it's sort of hard for us, as men, to bitch about us being inflicted in "sexist" roles, like the "big steroid hero sleeping with all of the women in the world" because... that's not really a negative thing (to society). Being a big muscly manwhore is totally okay, but being a woman who's slept with more than one person in a short period is "disgusting." Why is it okay when we, as men, do such things, but when women do it, it's "morally wrong?"

Like Gillian is saying, we have way more advantages than women do, and that's the way it's always been. Just because we are part of a minority of sexist actions doesn't suddenly mean we actually understand it.

There are a lot more negative stereotypes for women than men that we don't actually perceive as "negative" just because it doesn't actually offend us, as men.

[Kriven]

I dunno. Not wanting to shove my dick inside every ass that walked by has actually gotten my head smashed into a curb.

So much for "non-negative" stereotypes.

[Alpha Six]

I dunno. Not wanting to shove my dick inside every ass that walked by has actually gotten my head smashed into a curb.

So much for "non-negative" stereotypes.

That has nothing to do with "stereotypes" and everything to do with "specific shitheads doing shitheaded things."

[Kriven]

Specific shitheads discriminating because I wasn't a macho pimp :p

[Chutzpar]

Can I just fucking establish for at least the second time: YES. PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY DOES BAD SHIT TO MEN TOO. EVEN STRAIGHT WHITE MEN, SOMETIMES.
That doesn't somehow mean we're magically on an even footing, and it doesn't stop it from being really shitty to derail and talk about men in a discussion about sexism.

I do think it's important to discuss how gender roles affect men, too, but to turn it into an argument of men vs women is short-sighted and disrespectful. While feminism focuses on women's issues, it is not to the detriment of men; if men were to start speaking out against shitty gender stereotyping too, even that which affected men, they'd be fighting the same cause. That doesn't, however, mean that their causes shouldn't be distinct.

If we were discussing racism against people from the middle east, would you all be swanning in demanding to know what we're all doing about racism against african americans? Of course not. While broadly they are the same cause - abolishing racism - it's fairly well understood that different groups have distinct causes with differing needs. Why do people not accept this as the case for gender?