Why so many "anti-feminists" in the atheist community?

[The Grand Nudger]

There's a difference between making someone attractive and objectifying someone - Male characters are frequently attractive, but to start off, there are different body types, facial features and so on, not all match the ideal of beauty for males (i.e. Gordon Freeman, Mr.47 from Hitman, Solid Snake as an old man, characters from GTA who were not that attractive, Kratos, do I need to continue) and on top of that male leading characters usually have personality, complex traits, good attributes like intelligence, strategic thinking, leadership skills, a lot of willpower, and this is far more important than their physical traits - Many female characters don't pass the test of having a personality that is more important than their body, not to mention there's a trend to make them all look the same with large boobs and curvy figures, cleavages and scantly clad.

Now, perhaps this is endemic to video games...but regardless of the sex of a character in a game they -have- to be objectified. They're dolls that you're playing with - you make them jump and do things. You make things happen to them. Yes, the females get drawn to be precisely what a teenage boy fantasizes about......but so do the males.

Gordon Freeman. Walking gun platform.
Mr. 47. Walking gun platform.
Solid Snake. Walking gun platform.
GTA "anything" Walking gun platform. (course, I think that stereotypes and sexism is pretty much intentionally ported into GTA..don't you?)

It's unlikely that you'll find a male character who's personality is more important than his gun arm, there aren't alot of successful "personality simulators" in the world. In any case, we seem to have a simple difference of opinion. You see depth where I do not.

A secondary character can have a role without being simply a husband/wife or a princess meant to be saved. Uncharted for example has two female characters with roles in the action and story (despite both of them being very attractive)

Never played it, Uncharted, to me, will always be a naval combat/trade top down 2d rpg..lol.

Really not the same.

Seems the same to me. Look, if someone wants to say that games are sexist, and depict females in an unrealistic and objectifying manner I;m going to say "Yeah, no shit, guys too..wtf is up with that?"

-except that I already know "wtf is up with that" -teenage boys.

It's irrelevant if it sells or not.

Umm............devs aren't running a charity. That's -the- relevant thing to them. The reason, for example, that you can beat hookers in GTA - is that this is, apparently, part of what sells the game.

I don't understand this part.

Again, seems to be a difference of opinion between us - but speaking strictly from my own opinion:

Whatever time a dev spends trying to impart a character with depth is going to be limited by a host of factors. Firstly their ability as storytellers - secondly the genre of the game and it's intended audience, thirdly - the time they have budgeted. So your leading character is going to eat up the lions portion of all of that because the leading character drives the narrative (or is the hook by which you experience it). It's unsurprising to find the supporting cast lack depth commensurate to the lead. I'm sure we could have a very long discussion about that. Trends in gaming, or methods of effective storytelling (sometimes you don't want "deep" characters, or you want the depth of your lead to be enhanced by the shallow pools of wasted pixels around them...they're the hero after all, eh?). To me, firstly, it's unsurprising that the leads are commonly male. So is the consumer (though that's changing). It's unsurprising that anyone who isn't the lead isn't a very well developed character. GTA isn't the great american novel and I'm pretty sure the devs neither tried to make it so or could have made it so even if they wished for it to be. I was a reader long before I was a gamer, so when you say "depth" to me.......my mind doesn't wander to -any- video game character.

That's why a lot of games are M rated and the average gamer age goes beyond 14 years old (they're not for kids) - They're fantasy, but as a form of entertainment what is portrayed (like in the media or films etc) influences how we see and expect society to behave -

The M rating is -also- a hook designed to sell more games to kids. It was supposed to be some sort of oversight, but it was a juvenile attempt at oversight...and game houses find a way to turn it into a marketing tool. Think of that deep, gravelly voice at the end of the cutscene "rated m for mature!" - thanks Mr. Movie announcer, sounds badass and manly, I'll take two!

Yes many people like me care about the plot, characters depth of thematics other than graphics or gameplay (an example is Metal Gear Solid)

Walking gun platform. This right here describes our difference in it's entirety. I just don't see the depth...but I do see the stereotype. Great games though, fuckin loved em. Munching on performance enhancing drugs so that I could shoot a nameless faceless bad guy for the millionth time, sign me up.

- And having a sexist tone for any side (this is valid against women and men) supports stereotypes that people who play games are exposed to - If I played games my whole life that had women as prostitutes who had sex all the time, it would be natural for me to go out and think of all women as prostitutes.

Would it? Is it natural for you to think that foxes talk because you read it in aesops? Whatever happened to the scores of kids who played mousetrap (and other boardgames) - they don't seem to have waded into life expecting reality to conform to the contents of the cardboard box. Video games don't -make people sexist-...they cater to -existing- sexism. Business, not a charity, not a social experiment.

There's actually a lot of male characters that could use depth as well, to be fair, I'm merely talking about inclusive gaming and as you cannot ignore a significant part of the market since it can cause less revenue - It's easy for a male to say there's no sexism because you're not the female playing a game and finding female characters without personality (compared to males) portrayed or depicted as sex objects with no intelligent whose only role is to arouse the gamer, or maybe to be saved as a princess, etc doesn't affect you directly - I don't like this BS because some awesome gaming moments and characters who could have been great are reduced to empty concepts that hold little value and ruin my enjoyment. - And because I'm a pragmatic capitalism and I care about the industry since I want to continue to play games.

Except that I'm not saying that there's no sexism, and I'm really not sure why it would be easy for -anyone- to say that there's no sexism in gaming. I -am- disappointed at the predictable and consistent sexism touted out in the design of both the male and female characters.....but not so much I pitch a fit about it - because it's a game and I'm not expecting social justice or the great american novel. If there are titties on the cover I'm not going to expect any mysteries inside the box.

I'm saying that it's all sexist......or do you think that Solid Snake is any more a fair and accurate representation of a man than the hooker on the street corner in GTA is of a woman? Seems to me that you've found an incredibly sexist stereotype that you connect with, a character that you admire, appreciate, want to be. Unhindered by reality or the distracting complexities of an actual male human being. A vehicle for immersion that encourages you to play out your fantasy in the fantasy world. See, they know you......