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I recently saw a post about this old Amy Lee song being more relevant today than when it came,
when everyone is expected to create a brand and idealized public persona for themselves online,
and after re-listening I couldn't help but agree;

It's so easy not to noun someone, it's generally more respectful. Besides which, calling women "females" makes you 100% sound like a ferengi.

I couldn't have come up with a better example myself!

But what if it was aged 15-20? In my native tongue, referring to grown women as "girls" is quite common, and in my opinion, often derogatory. But where should this line go? Norwegians would most often refer to themselves as girls/boys until they graduate from the school level below university (aged about 18-19). Are there huge cultural differences here?

As a Swede, referring to women over 20 as girls would be considered weird and infantilizing in my native tongue, but I'm aware that native English speakers sometimes do that in English, considering it flattering to empathize the women's youth.
However, as a Swede who's learned most of my English vocabulary as a teen or older, I can't help but feel massively weirded out by some American phrases, like calling a loved one "baby" or a male partner "daddy" in a sexual context,
both of which would be impossible to say in Swedish without giving off massive pedophilia vibes.

It grinds my gears that there are so many nature "documentaries" that are all about painting nature as some kind of giant gladiator arena that's all about animals killing each other,

It was only a few years ago that I learnt that documentaries aren't supposed to teach you stuff. They're just there to be entertaining. So with that in mind, things such as "facts" usually don't matter.
I know that I sound dumb for having not realized that sooner. But you can't blame me for not realizing that something as boring as documentaries, were being made as entertainment. 

The huge problem is that there are documentaries that genuinely do try to teach people facts, and entertainment masking as documentaries, tricking people into thinking their sensationalism is true to life.

For example, Captain America: The first avenger was 100% made to be entertainment, and most people are completely fine with such a film having unrealistic scenes because it's not trying to be realistic,
but if a teacher basically told their students "let's skip the boring WW2 documentary where it's just a bunch of veterans and survivors talking, you can learn all you need on WW2 from watching Captain America
instead, and you'll have much more fun in the process, I say everyone would agree that that teacher either was a moron or wanted to actively make people dumber after attending their class.

And to add to that, I would personally find it offensive if someone used "male" as a descriptor for me, and used a description such as a "male poster".

Perhaps that example was clunky and poorly explained, but if you were to compare these two sentences;
"A male factory worker" and
"A male working in a factory",
which one sounds more grammatically correct and respectful to the person described?

I've seen a lot of people not knowing about this before, and many people don't think any of it when they use it,
but at the same time, I have definitively seen guys using the word "females" to refer to women in a derogatory manner,
and explicitly doing so to dehumanize women, whilst simultaneously referring to men as "men" unfalteringly, (and I've never
heard anyone speaking decent English casually referring to human men as "males" unless it was a strictly biological discussion where women were also referred to as "females")
and I think accepting "females" as a valid synonym for women, you can unintentionally normalize those attitudes, even if you don't mean anything bad by it yourself.

But even if you don't agree with my last point, would anyone here say I'm wrong if I say that you shouldn't use the word "female" for women in any situation where
it wouldn't be natural to use the word "male" instead of saying men?

I hope this clears things up.

My wife was watching a nature documentary that seems to be aware of our human tendency to demonize predators as the bad guys:

She watched in horror as a fox slaughtered a nest of baby birds while the mother was out foraging for them.

And then the film showed the mother fox bringing the dead baby birds back to her lair to feed to the cute-as-hell baby fox litter she was raising.

Even though she knows about how all this works, she still had the gut-reaction to watching the killing of the baby birds of "that fox is evil!" but then the next scene so contradicts that view that she was a bit shocked at herself for getting manipulated like that.

I wish I knew the name of the film because that is subversive genius!

Does she know deer and bovines sometimes also eat small birds for calcium? Let's just say they're not exactly Bambi out in the wild.

It grinds my gears that there are so many nature "documentaries" that are all about painting nature as some kind of giant gladiator arena that's all about animals killing each other,
often just helping spread misconceptions of animals like White sharks, wolves, hyenas, and others being mindless killing machines rather than bringing any real education to the table.

it's so frustrating because firstly, most research has revealed that the majority of all animals have far more intricate social interactions than previously thought, a far cry from the "endless fight for dominance" narrative,
and secondly, very few wild animals pose an active danger to humans and about 90% of the cases of people being killed have been people actively running up and provoking them, trying to pick them up or chase them.

I'm guessing you watched some of the ones with the narrator saying "The fierce beast lurks in the undergrowth, while its unsuspecting prey graze peacefully, never suspecting that anything was amiss... UNTIL!!!!"

More or less. It doesn't help that several nature channels have stuff like "big cat week" or "shark month", meaning nearly all the documentaries will be the same species, sometimes even the same animal trashing some critter over and over.

Plus from what I've heard, some unscrupulous film crews even straighup shoot an antelope to get more footage of lions and their peers tearing a bloody carcass apart.

It grinds my gears that there are so many nature "documentaries" that are all about painting nature as some kind of giant gladiator arena that's all about animals killing each other,
often just helping spread misconceptions of animals like White sharks, wolves, hyenas, and others being mindless killing machines rather than bringing any real education to the table.

it's so frustrating because firstly, most research has revealed that the majority of all animals have far more intricate social interactions than previously thought, a far cry from the "endless fight for dominance" narrative,
and secondly, very few wild animals pose an active danger to humans and about 90% of the cases of people being killed have been people actively running up and provoking them, trying to pick them up or chase them.

KyriakosCH, you are becoming more obnoxious with each single post you make here.

Ok, I've had enough of this trash, bye.

I don't get why you think I'm not allowing you to use the word "female" as a descriptor, using descriptions like female posters is fine, it's using female as a noun that's the problem, it's basic grammar.

It's like the difference between saying "a black person", and referring to all black people as "blacks". Why do you find this hard to understand?
It feels like I have to explain everything twice to you.

I will stop calling women "females", because you project into that that it is somehow connoted as "animals", yet I think it's only fair that you stop using "strawman" because I due to equally respectable personal reasons find it to be bad posting

When it comes to my objection of using "females" as stand-in for "women, I'm not the first or only one to make this complaint. If you've watched a nature documentary in English, you'd see that they always refer to female animals as females and male ones as males
to distinguish the fact that they're talking about animals and not human persons. Here's a list of reasons not to use the word "female" as a noun. This isn't some random personal issue I made up on the spot.

Well, I am sure you agree that it isn't good to present another person's views as different than they are (as Ali did, I am sure without meaning to).
For the record: I am not in favor of sexualized females in games/media, and if a media has such it won't score points with me.

edit: and since you mentioned "strawman arguments" for the thousandth time, you should be aware that your own arguments don't come across as great either; it is just that some are more polite in conversation (because they are angels, no doubt) 

If I mention strawman arguments a lot, that's because they keep showing up.

And even if you aren't in favour of sexualized women in media (and please don't call women "females", I know English isn't your first language, but calling women females makes it sound like you're talking about animals, which I don't think was the intention),
bringing up any random examples you can find on the few women in games that aren't too sexualized doesn't really solve or address the issue. It's like offering up a pack of band-aids to people discussing the horrible US healthcare,
and I think that's what Ali was arguing about.

KyriakosCH has repeatedly given examples of female characters who he doesn't think are sexualised and male characters who he thinks are sexualised. The point he's making, I think, is that stereotyping and objectification are bad writing and affect both men and women. Deliberately or not, this rejects the reality the Bechdel test is based on - that male and female characters are not equal victims of stereotypical and sexist representation.

The Bechdel test is premised on the idea that political critique of media is valid. So when you insists that videogames are mere fripperies "made to amuse and entertain and distract", you reject that premise. That's something you're entitled to do, but it turns a conversation about the Bechdel test into a tiresome argument about the necessity of feminist critiques in general.

This is what seems to me to be a determination to defend the status quo - arguing either that the problem does not exist ("men are sexualised too!"), or that attempts to address the issue are themselves worse ("Oh noes! Anita Sarkeesian").

My thoughts exactly.
I've tried as hard as I could to explain why I've criticized the comments I've quoted in this thread, and I don't know how to make it any clearer,
and it still feels like most answers I get either deny anything I call them out on or complain that I'm not polite enough when debunking their strawman arguments.

I dunno, Ali. I've had a few good laughs here! 

We're talking about entertainment products here, about things made to amuse and entertain and distract, not human rights or criminal justice or politics.

This whole discussion is about how entertainment affects our views on human rights, criminal justice and politics,
and if it didn't have this effect, there wouldn't be so many guys so ardently fighting to preserve the status quo.

What you seem to be saying is, "Well WE thought it was funny to diminish Blondbraid and other feminists' experience, and repeatedly derail a potentially interesting conversation about the gender politics of games."

Of course humour is subjective, but when your jokes target other people and only amuse you and your mates - you're a bully.

If I may use an allegory, let's just say that antelopes aren't exactly known for being amused by lions making jokes about having steak for dinner.

That's quite right, Cassiebsg. However, I don't seem to be getting any. Whatever I say is wrong.

You said yourself that not everyone will agree with everyone, and I've disagreed with some things you've said, but I've tried my best to voice this respectfully towards you.

If you wish to just play games without any critical thinking or discussion, feel free to do so, but for me, half the enjoyment have always been the analysis of the media I consume,
and I'm not just talking about seeing it through a feminist lens or something, but learning about what parts make a story entertaining and what makes it boring or frustrating,
not just because it interests me but because I think it helps me grow and learn as a creator myself.

I just don't understand why the very act of analyzing media vexes so many people, because if you don't want to partake in these discussions, you can simply avoid partaking in any
forums discussing these matters, and stay out of any review/critique related threads online in general.

I remember Darth saying, a while back, that he was concerned that new members may be put off of joining the site because of
the biterness towards certain people. I can certainly see where he was coming from.

As for putting members off the site, I'm not sure what I've said in response that would be worse than any of the other people I've argued against have posted.

If self-promotion is allowed her, I might as well link to The Frame on the wall, a MAGS project I did with a friend.
It's nothing fancy, but it was based on a cool idea I came across and wanted to do something with.

Well said, TheFrighter, I couldn't agree more. They are pixelated, drawn, computer graphics. Not to be confused with real life.

Did you see my post, a few hundred pages back, where I quoted what Alison Bechdel said about the test. It  makes interesting reading.

No one old enough to play the games think Lara Croft is a real person, but fiction affects how we see the world. Just look what Black Beauty did for animal rights.

The early LC games were also a bit of a novelty, since back then you didn't have large world games in 3d; only some shooters and Alone in the Dark (which was ridiculously more clunky than LC).

Indeed, I think it's a shame that the pioneering the Tomb Raider series did for 3D platforming games is so often overlooked in discussions of game history.

Can I say that I find the "sex-appeal" of Lara Croft overrated? More: intentionally overrated? Real girls cosplayers could be sexy in that outfit, but a 3-D avatar just look functional to me.

_

As I said, my experience with Lara was that the worst objectification was in the promo art surrounding the game, especially in the first three games, but as for the reboot making people take her seriously and not see Lara as sex symbol,
I came across more NSFW "fan" art on the Steam community page for the reboot games than I ever did for the pre-reboot ones.

While in games with good-looking male protagonists, you play as that "type" (Broken Sword is another example, although it tried to copy Gabriel Knight anyway), in games like Tomb Raider the protagonist also has to wear sexy clothes... I think it would be far more difficult for male players to play as Gabriel Knight if he was walking around shirtless or with much more skin showing 

That's pretty much what happened with Mevius from Final Fantasy, they had to redesign him because male players complained that his character design made them uncomfortable.

While in games with good-looking male protagonists, you play as that "type" (Broken Sword is another example, although it tried to copy Gabriel Knight anyway), in games like Tomb Raider the protagonist also has to wear sexy clothes... I think it would be far more difficult for male players to play as Gabriel Knight if he was walking around shirtless or with much more skin showing 

Depends on the author's intention and what they wish to evoke. Conan the Barbarian would be a lot more palatable than Conan the Stud-muffin.

True... But I personally never liked the He-Man type in the first place

At least male game protagonists get to have a bit more variety, Super Mario, Guybrush Threepwood, Ezio Auditore, Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid 4 excetera are all a pretty far cry from He-man. Meanwhile, I can't think of a single female game protagonist that isn't super slim and in her 20s or younger.

This thread is going places

Anyway, I wasn't expressing my own view of how women react to romance books - I was going by what female friends say, who are into books in the first place.
I really doubt that women by and large are less into sexual matters or less into looks or more refined on average than men. The sad reality is that the large majority of both genders is rather not very refined*

*also, one can be refined and still be into looks.

I was mainly replying to Honza, though as for your female friends, if they are really into books and reading, I'd say they're a rather biased source. 

[definitely]

I think the idea that women are less visually stimulated than men is nonsense

Women certainly are visually stimulated, and the differences from men might be completely negligible if observed by some alien species (let alone used as justification for oppression of one gender by the other - I'm definitely not trying to do that). They may, however, be enough to make ridiculously exaggerated sexual features more appealing to one gender than to the other. I'm not going to get into the whole "biological vs cultural theory" argument with you, but I think this is a reasonable enough possibility to at least consider.

I don't feel like getting back into an argument about evolutionary psychology either, but I will say it's safe to say that men and boys have received far more visual training in objectifying women than vice versa.

There are plenty of highly sexualized female characters in nearly all media, even stuff aimed at small kids, whereas as a woman, nearly all I've seen aimed at other women in mainstream media has been prim and proper Disney princes,
followed by usually fully dressed men in romance book covers, and only occasionally a man being shirtless (but otherwise fully clothed), all of them still presented as full characters and not just empty eye candy,
and this cultural background is bound to have a huge effect on people's sexuality and how they show it.

I think this Naomi Wolf quote seems relevant.


As for women and gay porn, there is a pretty popular genre of man on man romance exclusively aimed at women, so the idea that gender-swapped examples of objectifying images looking like gay porn doesn't necessarily mean women still won't find it attractive.

[IS]

Today on: "Every opinion I don't like is a strawman."
It's like talking to a wall, and so I shall now cease for the time being.

But it IS a strawman argument to claim that feminists need every female character to be covered head to toe and wear costumes pleasing everyone.
Virtually every single feminist and female game critic I know of would be fine with female characters wearing the same practical work clothes as the male characters,
or street clothes that look comfortable and something you can run in without a wardrobe malfunction. It really is that simple, but insecure dudes keep obfuscating this.

It's a sign of how infantile conversations around video games are that Sarkeesian's unsensational, entry-level feminist takes on the medium cause people to flip their lid. Feminists have been writing like this about media for decades, and society has not collapsed, but macho crybabies can't handle a woman making mild observations on YouTube.

Indeed, I don't think anyone claiming Sarkeesian is an insane fanatic has actually watched any of her videos.
If WHAM had, he'd noticed that I posted one in my reply to him way before Babar posted the one with Lara Croft.