Tropes vs. Women video no. 1 lands

@49, until I see some evidence to the contrary, circlejerk.

@46:

“Women have been traditionally physically weaker than men by upbringing, not by nature”

That’s so wrong on so many levels.

The case of David Reimer is clear and conclusive evidence against the nurture over nature argument.

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

@52 – Ummmm…did you read the article you sent me? Because if you did, you might have seen the part that said:

“Dr. Money forced the twins to rehearse sexual acts involving “thrusting movements” with David playing the bottom role. As a child, David Reimer painfully recalled having to get “down on all fours” with his brother, Brian Reimer, “up behind his butt” with “his crotch against” his “buttocks”. In another sexual position, Dr. Money forced David to have his “legs spread” with Brian on top. Dr. Money also forced the children to take their “clothes off” and engage in “genital inspections”. On at “least one occasion”, Dr. Money took a photograph of the two children doing these activities. Dr. Money’s rationale for these various treatments was his belief that “childhood ‘sexual rehearsal play’” was important for a “healthy adult gender identity”.”

You don’t think the fact that the doctor was obviously forcing children to sexually abuse each other doesn’t taint the results a little bit. In fact, probably was a bit part of why David killed himself?

I’m not sure what you thought you were doing by bringing this particular subject up, but all it proves is that if you abuse someone enough, they’ll probably want to die. That’s not really what we’re talking about here.

The point is that he was raised as a girl, given a vagina and breasts, clothed in girl’s clothes, named with a girl’s name, given girl’s toys to play with and female hormones, but even after all that, he still went bak to being a boy/man.

This nature vs nurture argument that you’ve mentioned is over, and the case of Reimer is conclusive proof that gender and gender roles cannot be forced on a person.

It wasn’t to do with him committing suicide, but that every effort in the world couldn’t stop him from wanting to be his true self.

This idea that girls are brainwashed/conditioned into being soft and fragile that you also touched on, and that is also the cornerstone of many feminist arguments, has been well and truly refuted by Reimer’s case.

I would also like to add to my previous comment, being the male that I am, by saying that I would like to nibble on Anita’s elvish like ear tips…she’s cute.

Watched the vid. Got to say I agree with most of what she says, but I can’t help but feel she’s over egging the pudding at times. Reads way too much into some things.
But, mostly, I agree.

The thing is that the damsel in distress theme is a invention of modern cinema. All the stories of old were cautionary tales for girls, about trusting wicked men & more often than not saw them ruined, or barely escaping with their lives.

The main issues I find with her are that she has a very Blinkered, 1 sided view on this whole ‘Tropes‘ issue without actually looking at the whole picture.

There are probably just as many Male Tropes in games as there are female ones, yet, instead of highlighting how each of the characters in games, male and female, are put into certain roles, she just concentrates on how her narrow point of view.

She brings up some points, but until she looks at it from the point of view of a Game Player I’m really not going to take her seriously.

Meh, I’m not sure how worthwhile this video series is. Sure, issues of sexism in video games will be highlighted, but it would be kind of a dick move for anyone to claim anything mentioned in the videos needed to be changed in the industry when we eagerly accept and defend other forms of sexism. You can’t really say that a princess needing to be rescued by a big strong man is a deplorable staple when you accept other games saying it’s realistic for a woman to start out wanting someone to rescue her when faced with danger.

@54 – Yes, but you’re completely white-washing the sexual abuse involved in this case. That’s like saying that you can give someone a choice of Coke or Pepsi, a person will choose Coke 99% of them, but not mentioning that you shocked their testicle every time they reached for the Pepsi can.

The doctor’s behavior completely invalidates the entire experiment. When you have a doctor whose obviously interested in children in a sexual manner using them for his own jollies, there is nothing that can come out of the case.

@60: That’s some high stakes Pepsi right there. Still worth it.

@61 – *pushes button*

@8 Oh I respect all of vg247′s editors. And a few other people. Very few. But pretty much everyone else? I have no respect for them.

edit: You see, I’ve never been to war so I don’t know how women do there but I’ve studied martial arts and yes I’ve seen awesome girls fighting but if you were to match the best of them vs the best of men they would have obliterated. So that’s why we have male characters saving the world/galaxy or w/e because we are more capable.

@60:

Your analogy is somewhat extreme, and not really relevant in this instance.

The claim from the feminists is that girls are conditioned to be girls, because society (or ‘men’) puts them into a ‘box’ that has already determined what they should/shouldn’t like, and how they should act.

Well in the case of Reimer, the whole world around him, including his parents, a psychologist, and even the outward appearance of his body told him what he should/shouldn’t like, and how he should act. Yet between the ages of 9 to 11, he “failed to identify as a girl”. He wasn’t told about what happened to him until he was 14.

Obviously, the clear sexual abuse that took place is terrible, and would clearly have caused him harm, but it’s not correct to imply that he only didn’t want to be a girl, because of it, and that he would have been happy as a girl had it not happened.

In order to do that, you would have to believe that sexual abuse causes people to “fail to identify” with their sex. But where is the evidence of this?

Both boys and girls suffer trauma in their lives, but I don’t see any evidence that such trauma would cause someone to “fail to identify” with their gender.

I wonder why Feminists never advocate the use or their sexuality? Men are physically stronger, true, but even the strongest men have been brought down by a smarter more sexually aggressive women.

Just seems odd, that they’d try to diminish this advantage.

@64 – But how do you know? You can’t prove a negative! You can’t say he would have been the same if the abuse had not happened. The very presence of it makes all possible lessons learned from this inconclusive. Not to mention, you’re acting like one case proves a rule.

That’s not how science works. That’s not how facts work.

I missed the arguments. But if people are saying that girls (or boys) behave like girls only because they are trained by society is just plain false. Its a mixture of societal and genetic factors. Men are made stronger physically, that’s a proven fact and beyond any doubt. Although about brains, nothing conclusive has been found, so we can safely assume there is no difference there. And that’s all that matters.
Males and females are born almost equal except in physicality and sexuality. All other differences are too minute to differentiate or a caused by society.

@66:

Reimer had already started to reject the idea that he was a girl, long before the abuse took place.

So to say that the abuse was a cause for him rejecting his ‘new’ sex can be discounted. He was already rejecting what everyone around him was forcing on him long before the abuse took place.

In fact, the abuse apparently only happened in a last ditch effort to brainwash him into believing that he was a girl.

See it in Reimers own words here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noqRhuE8_XA

I’m not presenting any rules here, but this case clearly dismantles the argument that society dictates human roles.

@68, Mate, all it dictates is that humanity can be fucked up. Period. I’m sure Mengele would have had something interesting to say about nature versus nurture, but I wouldn’t listen to that fucknut either.

http://s214.beta.photobucket.com/user/Nordic_might/media/motivator7d62414696ec76.jpg.html

My barometer on such stories only involves freedom. I am against losing any of it, including the freedom to engage in traditional roleplaying. Rabid feminists can bark all they want, as long as they don’t try to bite me.

She presents a very biased and sensationalized side of it all. “The hero’s journey”(aka save the damsel/town/world) has existed in ALL storytelling mediums since man(zing) first put charred stick to cave wall, pointing a finger at games and spouting grossly exaggerated hyperbole is worse than useless, I’d say it’s downright detrimental to any discussion of equality. Putting one side of the argument on the defensive through dishonest attention seeking videos like this only serve to make any rational discourse we MIGHT have had even more difficult.

Also, the notion that women are NOT physically weaker than men always cracks me up. The fact is that in most modern societies physical confrontation between genders is almost non-existent(save for bus drivers of course) so most people have a very poor understanding of the STAGGERING difference in strength between men and women. When I was serving in Korea we had a commander who fucking LOVED MMA and I got stuck assisting the Brazilian jujitsu instructor for all of the battalions hand to hand combat drills. Now I’m only 5’10 and about 170-180lbs at the time so not particularly big and certainly not particularly strong but whenever my sparring partner was female it was ludicrous, like wrestling a kitten except a kitten might get a painful nip on your fingers. Until the zombie apocalypse throws us all back to the middle ages and it’s time to “re-populate”(thunk…drag…) this difference in strength is mostly meaningless, but pretending it doesn’t exist at all? That’s foolish.

New God of War has a trophy called “Bros before Hoes”, don’t tell the bitch or she’ll go batshit crazy.

I thought the video was good, if a little dry. One of the more intelligent videos on the topic of video games I’ve seen.

A lot of nonsense flying around this thread, though in fairness I haven’t read every last post (and don’t want to get dragged into it). I will call bullshit on the notion that men are stronger than women and THAT’s the reason why we see more male characters saving the world in video games.

How many male characters are portrayed realistically in games? Next to none. Almost all have superhuman stregth/endurance/agility, etc. Therefore, since video games are pretty fucking far removed from reality as it is, why not have more females in heroic roles? It’s no less believable than the shit we see males do in video games.

Also, I have to laugh at how quick some guys are to equate “men” with only the very strongest elite athletes, special forces & professional fighters, as if that’s representitive of men as a whole, (while of course ignoring the many millions of obese, sedentary, weak-as-a-kitten men that are out there).

Fuck it. I’ll cut it off there. Liked the vid.

Looks like reality check hit a nerve amongst educated next gen species

Internet is the land where women are just as strong as men, drugs don’t harm people and shitty processors are a matter of opinion.

“You can definitely see where that money went, as production values are high.”
You’re kidding, right? I havent watched the whole thing, but quickly skipping through it all i see is a women in front a green screen mixed with some video game footage. This the same production value you find on a load of other YT videos that didnt ask for money.

Yeah this thread is just full of guys agreeing with Ms Sarkeesian…

I’m not sure how this derailed into an argument about differences in *physical* strength between the sexes but somehow we keep coming back to it. Could it be because it’s the one thing that men know they have over women, therefore cling to it?

Here’s an interesting story about my weekend so far.

I spent all day Saturday at my friend’s stag do, wearing a comedy beard so that I could be the manliest of men. We went to spend a day doing archery, was good fun.

What was interesting, the experienced archers did really well as you’d expect. The non archers, like myself, scored between 50-80 points. I got 70, which put me above a lot of the men. Am I super strong for a woman? No, I’m weak as a kitten, but archery is a prime example of a weapon that needs accuracy and finesse over strength, and I found I had a good eye even though my arms were shaking and often throwing me off. Also, and this is the main point, it shows that untrained men and women are just as bad as each other, and would be just as fucked if they were part of an invaded town.

I’ve just re-watched the video and I honestly think the comment about strength isn’t supposed to mean physical strength – it’s just that guys automatically take it to mean that. You can have a strong heart and use it to rule a nation at a time where women are seen as dish washers and child bearers. You can have a strong mind and help to cure cancer. You can have a strong will and never give up against all the odds.

All three of those traits to me, make a stronger and more interesting character (male OR female), than a beefcake.

So yes, I think “strength” has been taken entirely out of context here. It would have been nice to talk more about the damsel never having any of the strengths I mentioned rather than, as per every thread about sexism, ending up with the conclusion that men can lift more than women therefore we should just shut the fuck up.

I’m sorry Silkvg247, I can’t possibly take you seriously until I see you opening a jar of pickles!!

It’s a well known, historical fact, that mans ability to open jars, led to humanity’s place atop the foodchain.

@79 Run it under a hot tap and it’ll pop off much easier – a little tip for the guys that want to look uber strong in the face of jar adversity!

And just to prove I was telling a true story, here you go. Bob (my alias for the day) is indeed the manliest of men.

http://youtu.be/egUvZlNNRjY

Cool story, Bob. :3

I’d also like to encourage everyone to watch her Bayonetta review:

http://youtu.be/XbihPTgAql4

She deleted it from her original account and it was re-uploaded by another user.

I find it rather ironic that Sarkeesian is complaining about the damsel in distress stereotype. This is the same woman who is in the habit of disabling comments, ratings and viewing statistics on her videos.

Before announcing her Kickstarter project, Sarkeesian spend several dozen videos lecturing half the population what they should or should not be sexually aroused by. She left the comments on some of the videos unmoderated, took screenshots of the more abusive ones, posted them on her blog, gathered sympathy and of course MONEY.

If that wasn’t enough she went on to give TED talks about how horribly mean people were to her.

So what’s her problem with the damsel in distress? The fact that it reminds her of herself?

So it’s true, videogames do turn you into a violent psychopath. Shooting arrows at fictional characters just wasn’t enough for you, was it silk? You people make me sick.

I have to admit, I’ve watched quite a few of Anita’s videos now, and while at first I thought “hey, good for you”… I’m finding her more and more like one of those “feminists” who find misogyny in just about everything! It dilutes what feminism actually is – equality between men and women, which I’m sure everyone here believes in.

Just as an example, she finds the lyrics to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” to be sexist (seriously) & all about how women are supposed to want a man and nothing else to be satisfied, all submissive like. Which is funny because the song mentions nothing about wanting a “man”… it says “you”, which could very well be another woman. Either way, it’s a love song! And then she goes on about Justin bieber covering the song and sounding like a *stalker*! Basically, in the same situation, men = aggressor, women = victim. Double standards?

Ugh, this is not feminism and is the reason why many people (including women) think feminism is weird!!

And that Bayonetta review was rediculous.