“The low-maintenance woman, the ideal woman, has no appetite. This is not to say that she refuses food, sex, romance, emotional effort; to refuse is petulant, which is ironically more demanding. The woman without appetite politely finishes what’s on her plate, and declines seconds. She is satisfied and satisfiable.
A man’s appetite can be hearty, but a woman with an appetite is always voracious: her hunger always overreaches, because it is not supposed to exist. If she wants food, she is a glutton. If she wants sex, she is a slut. If she wants emotional care-taking, she is a high-maintenance bitch or, worse, an “attention whore”: an amalgam of sex-hunger and care-hunger, greedy not only to be fucked and paid but, most unforgivably of all, to be noticed.”
Recently, a friend sent me this image. It had been passed on by her boyfriend; it had reminded him of me. One might expect that connection to fill me with satisfaction, that I, a game designer and writer, am instantly associated with forward thinking and feminist ideals. Instead, I felt humiliated.
This is a great article that does a good job of explaining exactly why arguments excusing ”sexy armor” are invalid and altogether ridiculous.
This awesome article not only thoroughly explains why there’s no way to logically justify sexualization of female characters in video games, but also highlights the struggles that women in the industry go through:
The thing is, in this industry, you don’t want to be “that girl.” The world has communicated very thoroughly, with Anita Sarkeesian’s death threats, with so many comments on Kotaku, and with comments in the hallways of the workplace and the podiums of conventions, that being “that girl” is bad. Real bad. Potentially end of career bad.
But it’s not just dangerous for potential ramifications on career trajectory. There’s also a social component of how “that girl” is insufferable, annoying, and should be punishable by shaming.
Many female game designers, anonymously and publicly alike, confess how they have to deal with sexist standards of the industry, just so they can keep their jobs. It’s a legit problem that men, especially the ones chanting “sex sells!” or “it’s intended for male gamers!”, are either blissfully unaware of or willfully ignorant (my bets are on the latter option, though).
Please guys, read the whole thing.
~Ozzie
People are often quick to dismiss arguments against the conventional wisdom that “sex sells” as “politically correct” idealism. But one of the most compelling argument against the slogan comes from the other side of the political spectrum.
David Ogilvy was one of, if not The great iconic Ad Men of the 1960’s. Unsurprisingly he was deeply invested in the idea of gender roles and claimed “I am less offended by obscenity than by tasteless typography, banal photographs, clumsy copy, and cheap jingles”. He also (literally) wrote the book on how to create effective advertising and measure the effectiveness of your advertising.
He was, amazingly, admantly against introducing sex to sell any product that wasn’t inherently sexual in itself for one simple reason:
All his research and experience in advertising told him it would not work.
What did Ogilvy very sincerely believed was the first step in creating effective advertising an massive sales? To create a high quality product.
That way all that was required was to sincerely show the customers why it was a great product and the rest would take care of itself.
So when developers distort their products (comics, books, movies, video games, etc) by cramming sexualised imagery into them with the mentality of “sex sells” so “more sex will sell even more” they are actually sabotaging their product’s reception, reputation, sales and it’s marketing campaigns.
At least according to an old white man from the 1960s who always assumed women should be house wives… and also happened to be one of the greatest thinkers in advertising.
Bringing it back particularly because it mentions how it is a professional suicide
for women in the industry to call out sexism in game design and narrative. And, in light Jessica Price’s of ArenaNet firing, we learned how even talking back to a male gamer community member can lead to the same.
Sadly, we still operate firmly in the reality where “sex” (or rather: erosion of female self-esteem) is considered a marketing booster and women speaking out for themselves in any way get shoved aside, so we don’t have to have the uncomfortable conversation that maybe they have a point.
~Ozzie
Couldn’t help but make this joke out of the accompanying image from the Jessica Price article linked above.
Don’t know if the writer did it on purpose or not, but thanks!
Well, how many women are out making the discoveries compared to men, while how many women are going to be researching recovered artifacts to learn more of them compared to men? The funny thing is, schools have a very high number of women running them. All over. From teachers to the lunch staff. Is that a bad thing?
There is no lab/field gendered divide in professional archaeology. Women are involved in all aspects of archaeological work, from research to project planning to field work to artifact curation and analysis to report writing.
The assumption that “discoveries” happen in the field more often than in the lab, where the collected data and materials are analyzed, is incorrect.
Women holding a wide array of jobs in schools does not actually have any bearing on the subject. We are talking here about figures of authority and influence.
Academia in general is still heavily male-dominated, by which I mean the majority of top-level positions are held by men. But don’t just take my word for it.
Academic archaeology is still heavily male-dominated. Men occupy more professorships, and professors are more likely to have their ideas taken seriously, and their publications read and circulated, even outside academia, in the popular realm.
Most of the “great” (i.e., well-known) archaeologists and anthropologists have historically been (white) men. Their ideas about archaeology and culture have been centered for centuries, with the entire discipline of archaeology built around them. It is only relatively recently that many of these ideas have been seriously called into question or begun being dismantled, as people other than white men have begun moving up in academia and being taken seriously.
There is still a great deal of work to be done before archaeology is not a male-dominated field.
Right Wing Men: women can’t be trusted with political power because they change their minds and are overly emotional and weak
Left Wing Men: of course women should have political power! It’s just that this particular woman has changed her mind on some issues and even though I agree with her position now it shows that she lacks strong principles, so I don’t trust her. I also don’t trust this other woman for similar reasons. And this other one. And
it was really heartening to learn that the purpose of creating such a thick uterine lining during the menstrual period was to prevent the implantation of embryos rather than encourage them, and that our uterus is basically flushing out anything it deems unworthy during the period itself rather than “punishing” us for not being pregnant (which is how it’s usually framed). it’s almost as if your female body is more concerned with the protection and continuation of itself rather than being used as a procreative vessel.
the fact that we’ve come to accept the idea that our reproductive organs are punishing us for not being continuously pregnant is proof of how deeply patriarchal brainwashing has convinced women that we are nothing but broodmares for ‘their’ children.
I think one of my least favorite types of responses to people speaking up on sexual harassment and sexual assault is are articles like “in wake of weinstein, men wonder if hugging women still ok”, and comments like “this is why men don’t pursue women anymore”, “i don’t wanna work with women cause i don’t want a lawsuit”, or “i don’t even look at women anymore cause everything is sexual harassment”. this is a particular brand of rape culture, men acting as if women are overreacting, as if men don’t have the basic social skills to know the difference between wanted and unwanted advances, as if women simply setting boundaries is “cramping their style” and “emasculating” them, as if the rules of respecting women are super confusing, so confusing that they’re supposedly forcing men not to interact with us altogether.
this is an act they’ve been putting on for decades: playing stupid, pretending not to know better and then getting upset when we tell them what “better” is. if that doesn’t show you how emotional and emotionally manipulative they are, i don’t know what does.
When a man starts
explaining a concept you already told him you understand,
instead of saying “I know” over and over until you die, try one of these:
Ok, which aspect is confusing you?
It seems like
you have the basics down; Would you like me to recommend some good articles so you can get a more nuanced understanding?
So did
you have a specific question, or do you just want a more in depth
explanation?
SAVAGE
teacher-zone him
My cousin is an asst psych professor. Her new boss brought up how male students sometimes challenge female professors. He asked how she handles that: she says ‘hold on: let me take notes’, grabs a pen & paper, and proceeds to take no notes. If he asks why, she says ‘Tell me something I don’t know & I’ll have something to write’; no student has tried twice. Her boss laughed and asked her to mention it at the next staff meeting.
@politicsaccordingtohistory replied to your post “would you say that archaeology is mostly a male dominated field?”
i'll apple your turnover 