When it Comes to Sexist Game Avatars, You're Meant to Observe the Women and Become The Men

Pussycat Catnap, a regular commenter here on NWN, offered one of the most insightful comments I've seen yet in the whole Dragon's Crown debate... And honestly, said something I'm embarassed I didn't included in my post. Now that the game is out many critics are taking issue with the portrayal of female NPCs more than female player characters, but Pussycat raises a rather good point about why these kinds of overly-sexualized female avatars remain a problem, even when they are given power and agency of their own.

" [...] The offense is found in that the women become not people for themselves, but for visual entertainment.

Put this way: When you play one on the male toons you are "meant" to identify with that hero and take on his persona. He is "you" in the game. When you play on one of the female toons you are there as an observer, watching her bounce around, and taking an indirect perspective on the game."

More from Pussycat after the jump.

"That mentality is best illustrated in comments from many MMO players on forums like WoW forums where, when asked why they play a 'female blood elf' the answer comes back as 'what kind of butt they wish to stare at while playing the game.' Such players do not self-identify with their toon, they observe it. But WoW's toons are not exaggerated (in this way), so there this is a player's choice, and other players will instead answer how they identify with that character.

But here... the female toon is intentionally designed to be '3rd party observed', while the male toon is intentionally designed to be '1st party self identified hero.' [...]"

It's true that some people will identify more with buxom characters -- some people will be more attracted to the beefcake, too -- but this doesn't invalidate Pussycat's point. The next time you see a super-sexy female character next to a broad-shouldered barbarian, ask yourself which one you're supposed to identify with (and which one you're supposed to ogle).

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Iris Ophelia (@bleatingheart, Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.

Comments

[Orca Flotta]

While Mrs Catnap is well-known for her intelligence and her blog (YU not writing anymore, Pussy?) I gotta disagree with her in the case of female chars in MMOs. While I'm not a gamer at all I imagine they are kinda SL a little bit. Why can't I as a female, driving a female avie, not enjoy myself, observing my petite body, just loving to look at my skinny ass. Or why can't I enjoy as well my curvacious physique and my super fatty bottom and my ginormous tatas?

Must I totally ignore my grey mouse avatar in order to really identify with it ... and to be a real gamer girl? It's totally natural for human females to spend more time in front of a mirror and observe ourselves than the males do. Most female SLers are fitting the same slot: we tend to spend our money for clothes, hairs, skins while the boys spend their money for boats and cars and jetplanes and super huge castles and toys of all kind.

That said I don't like the portrayal of women in Dragon's Crown not at all. They are stereotypical little boy fantasies. Just hateful stupid toons. I'd hate to play such an avatar in any game. But that's maybe personal taste.

[Nalates]

When people start to behave as if this sort of thing mattered and vote with their feet and dollars, we'll see the end of it.

Don't expect human nature to change any time soon.

[Kim Anubis]

"It's totally natural for human females to spend more time in front of a mirror and observe ourselves than the males do."

Oh yeah, I read about that ... It's linked to the same gene that totally naturally makes girls bad at math. ;-)

[NetDwarf]

Mirror's Edge. You're playing female character without an ability to see her(first-person view, you know).
Trespasser(1998). Same story.
Beyond Good and Evil. Female protagonist without any particular 'observable' 'features'.
These three are just coming to my mind when I think about awesome, totally sweet and enjoyable games with female protagonists.
I think, it clearly shows that there is a flaw in Mrs Catnap logics, in other words she says no different things than that Armenian girl from youtube videos, who picks just the games that fit her 'discrimination' theory.

[ugh]

Sigh. The sexism in gaming has been at nauseating levels for far too long now. Note to the guys who make games: women are human beings...with feelings and stuff. We are definitely NOT like the females in the porn videos you watch too much and may be addicted to. Sexism is boring and you are about to lose a lot of market share if you don't find a way out of it.

[Jameson]

Personally, I'm done. I'm boycotting games that portray women as whores. Period.

[gack]

I blame porn. The game makers and their funders have watched so much of it that they actually think women are actually like porn characters. For the love of all humanity, I beg them to wake up and take a look around themselves. We happen to have boobs, but we are still real people. We are not all prostitutes and/or Laura Croft. Why is the game industry so narrow and stupid? We are out here with our credit cards. Wake the f up.

[drangon]

As a former teen aged boy, I can say with confidence that we have trouble sorting out the reality from the image.We've got boobs in our face from morning to night, selling us everything from beer to cars to music and games. It's a hard cold day when suddenly realize that we're being distracted by boobs so that we'll buy stuff. Games are no different than the rest. Jerks are trying to lead us around by showing us more violence and more boobs. Every game has more of whatever! Now with louder guns and bigger boobs! It is kind of sickening after a while.

[Adromaw]

It is a little mildly interesting how people who comment on sexism and female treatment, turn around and dehumanise women in the sex/nude industry. I'm pretty sure women that made self-conscious choice are women too (some not getting that choice doesn't invalidate those who do). We might not all like them or what they do. We don't have to, but they are still women.

Hypocritical sexist bigotry within the same gender could be a topic all on its own.

There are a few points you could take from each comment made that might string together to make some decent sense. But we're still stuck with a lot of context free sound-bites that do more harm than good.

@drangon: A lot of that, some women write about, is influenced somewhere around the 1920's America when it moved from how to act in private to how to act in public. The values system changed. Susan Cain has a book called QUIET. The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. I've only managed to just begin the book so I can't tell what kinds of information and all the sources I'll be digesting. But if you're really interested in why you drowned in that kind of thing the book is already on a good start in the first chapter. And from what is said so far, it wasn't just men ruining things by a longshot. Everyone began to attack anxiety.

As an aside, a female gamer friend of mine admitted enjoying a bit of man-candy as much as any "dude" liking a female to observe.

This topic could probably use a bit of objectivisim and some hard work to bring context under control as to the why's and how's and what is really an attack or just people not liking it.

It began to be said that, it's ok to not like things just don't be a dick about it. I'll take that and add it's ok to not like things just don't be a dick about people not liking it. Everyone has responsibility for oneself.

[Orca Flotta]

@ Kim Anubis:
Xeah, I'm bad at math, it just isn't my thing :( It might be in my genes ... but I don't think that's typical for women. In fact I know many who are pretty geeky about math and all sort of science. Einstein himself nicked a lot of material from his wife, believe it or not.

And it doesn't mean I'm not geeky about other stuff. I'm a nerd for sailing, motorcycling, literature, movies, sci-fi and am fairly good with computer hardware.
Nevertheless I spend a reasonable amount of time and money outfitting my avie and play barbie doll with her. And I never use mouselook since I just love watching little Orcsi strutting her stuff. My personal taste is rather pedestrian and my avie is on the small, under endowned side but I'd do the same if I had a curvacious and busty avie.

So there you have it. Women are like Soilent Green, they are human ;)

[Adeon Writer]

The same is true in Second Life.

While there are a few guys who use female avatars for gender exploration or to help gender disphoria, the majority if asked will just tell you they'd rather stare at girlbutt than guybutt. They, I would argue, are not immersionists, they don't see their avatars as themselves, they observe it as a creation viewed from afar. Nothing WRONG with that, but often it becomes an easy game to Pot which avie has a male typist - they are the ones the most exagerated. :P

Then you will get guys who prefer not to wear female avatars because it dosn't "feel" right - this is the opposite camp, they see the avatars as "them" and have a sort of empathic link to their avatar's situation.

[RiftRaven]

I wish I knew my post might possibly disappear after posting a long comment. So much for that :s

[Emperor Norton]

A few points-

As Dragon said; all this T&A is there just to sell the game to hormone crazed teenage boys. Personally speaking, the T&A is so prominent in Dragon Crown I bet they are doing it to mask their game sucks.

And consider this; while all gaming women look like strippers, no male game avatars has a penis. That's a pretty horrible message to give to a teenage boy.

[Emperor Norton]

Adeon Writer @ "While there are a few guys who use female avatars for gender exploration or to help gender disphoria, the majority if asked will just tell you they'd rather stare at girlbutt than guybutt. They, I would argue, are not immersionists, they don't see their avatars as themselves,"

You forget the guys who deliberately chose female avatars so they don't get constantly hit on by women. Second Life isn't normal for the gaming world.

[Kim Anubis]

Orca, I was joking, but I do like your Soylent Green reference almost as much as the nickname "Orcsi!"

Don't you wish more mesh clothing makers made things to fit our smaller-bosomed avatars?

[Adeon Writer]

"You forget the guys who deliberately chose female avatars so they don't get constantly hit on by women. Second Life isn't normal for the gaming world."

I don't know what VW you're in but if it's SL, you have the genders swapped there. XD

[Kim Anubis]

Adeon, when I tried a male alt some years back I was disconcerted to find women (or female avatars, at least -- who knows?) hitting on me all the time. Maybe because I, admittedly, made a male avatar I thought was pretty hot. While getting hit on over and over as a female avatar could wear pretty thin, I didn't have any idea what to do as a male av other than politely flee. I felt ashamed, like a great big liar, as if I had led them on. It was pretty strange, and disconcerting to realize I am more comfortable roleplaying a bunny or a robot or a bird than a male human.

You know, thinking about all of the times I've heard some guy say he only had female avatar for the rear view, I wonder how many in SL were just saying that because they were ashamed to admit they just liked to dress up a female avatar.

[Adeon Writer]

It is true. The best male avatars are often made by women. I hate to steriotype, but that's what I see.

I don't think guys have that problem. We make our male avatars just as awful as we exagerate our female avatars.

[Adromaw]

Actually you'd be surprised depending on who you talk to and where Adeon. There's more to it because of the nature of our developed race. There are too many circles of demographics to just say now, this is how it is.

There are both women and men players in the roleplay community that argue for and against women being "sexually aggressive" depending on the person's objectives to begin with. I have heard both turn away or seek distance from it in preference to another set of specific circumstances.

Emperor Norton is actually kind of right when saying "Second Life isn't normal for the gaming world." in more ways and contexts than one. And contradicted possibly in a few less ways.

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Adeon wrote: It is true. The best male avatars are often made by women. I hate to stereotype, but that's what I see.

@Adeon: I'm laughing like crazy because it does seem to be true for the most part.

Adeon wrote: I don't think guys have that problem. We make our male avatars just as awful as we exaggerate our female avatars.

I think that depends. I know a few non-transgendered men who have very nice non-exaggerated female avatars for various purposes.

That said, I think the nicest female avatars are driven by women and the various kinds of male-to-female transfolk (including crossdressers and transwomen) many of whom identify with women.

[Ener Hax]

Lara Croft was the biggest game hero for years

from wiki: Guinness Book of World Records has recognised her as the "Most Successful Human Virtual Game Heroine."

"It's true that some people will identify more with buxom characters" but some of us, the non-avatar versions, might only be able to identify with the far-from-buxom avatars! =)

great post and lots of truth to it, unfortunately

[Pussycat Catnap]

I came to that observation here and there, but it was crystallized for me by the feminist frequency videos you linked to.

In one of them she tries to explain why its a problem that the princess is always rescued, but not a problem that the prince is sometimes rescued.

In essence: cultural baggage comes with it. One of them is a stereotype, and the other is just funny (the princess versus the prince) because its an exception to our expectations. In fact that we laugh if we see an amazon knight rescuing a prince in a pink thong... only informs that the stereotype that it "should be the other way around" is one we have somewhat, even subconsciously, accepted.

- And that reminded me, as I tend to think by stringing together distant things, of how often I have heard the "I like staring at girl butts" comments from male gamers as a common explanation of why they play a female. Not universal - some actually do talk about their "character" as a person and her stories and so on... But more often, the "fine behind" comment pops in... And female "toons" in games get tailored for this (Laura Croft didn't start as a character, and really wasn't one until Angelina got her hands on the role, she was boobs and a butt wired to your mouse - my father for example, has every Croft game made, and I don't even think he knows she has a British accent...).

The 'Hero' has usually been designed to be who the reader / observer / player identifies: the man on a mission. The 'femme fatale' or 'heroine' is usually meant as 'observer entertainment'.

Look to 'erotica' written about male and female protagonists. The manly hero will conquer a harem and save an extinct world. Ther heroine will be placed into a series of 'situations' where she is exposed, used, abused, and so on until she becomes willing...

- That's what is happening, in pixel form, in games like the one you reviewed.

[Pussycat Catnap]

@NetDwarf: A couple of times, a black guy killed a white guy BECAUSE he was white. [insert 3 examples here]. Which like, -totally- ERASES 500 years of slavery and Jim Crow.

- That's how your examples read to me. :)

NOTHING is always the case, human behavior is complex enough that there is always a counter or a reaction. That's well covered in the research on these things, and I note it less sarcastically in my earlier comment.

[Adromaw]

There's been some growth in how you tackle these topics, Pussycat.C, over the years (or at least I think so). But we could tackle NetDwarf's comment without bringing realworld race politics and try to use it as somehow the same topic or an analogy.

Just point out that mirror's edge doesn't give enough of the female character to assess. And you're talking about all the games that do.

Should really be sufficient logic for most to understand that it doesn't make everything better.

(At least the picture at the top of the page, doesn't have overly exaggerated proportions, but I understand the concern over the pose and facial expression.)

[Shikyo]

Honestly, I am female. My birth certificate states so as does my rl body. I happen to like making all sorts of different shapes in sl, big bosom, small bosom, doesn't matter. I think some games go over board but that's just those games. There is also a reason some men will play a female in a game, "Free lvl/gold/etc" all because they chose to play cutesy female. Which makes everything else harder for the actual girls playing girls, because a lot aren't going to go around wiggling and pleading for help. If there is a bosom size in the character creation you bet your dollar I am going to go with a larger bust size, because I can and want to. If I can make a curvy toon I am going to. If this makes people assume I am a guy playing well my soloing will be much easier without having to stop to reject party offers, that are mostly made because the big strong guy thinks I need help.