Sexism and presumed sexism in RPGs

[Umbran]

the RPG industry has taken a lot of steps to improve their depiction of women, whereas the majority of mass media has done little.

Do you want to use the, "The other guy is doing much worse than I am, so you should ignore me," defense?

Back in grade school, if there was a 2-on-1 scuffle on the playground, would your teachers accept, "Tommy beat him up worse than I did!" and let you off the hook?

I agree that, on the whole, the RPG industry has done a lot to clean up its art and presentation. That should be commended. But if the folks in question still feel put upon, it isn't perfect yet. We should not say, "Well, women's magazines are far worse, so we don't have to worry any more..."

 

[billd91]

Do you want to use the, "The other guy is doing much worse than I am, so you should ignore me," defense?

Back in grade school, if there was a 2-on-1 scuffle on the playground, would your teachers accept, "Tommy beat him up worse than I did!" and let you off the hook?

I agree that, on the whole, the RPG industry has done a lot to clean up its art and presentation. That should be commended. But if the folks in question still feel put upon, it isn't perfect yet. We should not say, "Well, women's magazines are far worse, so we don't have to worry any more..."

Off the hook? No. Perhaps not in need of as much extra effort to reform? Yes.

If there's one problem I see in criticism of sexist imagery in RPGs (and other media) is too little acknowledgement of improvements. Rather, it often seems like the focus just gets keener when perhaps the effort would be better spent on shifting to a worse offender. And I think that's discouraging to those making efforts. It's a terrible feeling to work hard at doing something better only to face yet more criticism. You start to feel that the people you are trying to please can't be pleased, so why try?

Fortunately, I think I'm starting to see more of the focus hitting computer games and the CRPG industry where I think the issue is a lot worse than print RPGs these days. And that's what I think should be going on.

 

[Yora]

Again, depends on where you are looking.

I don't really recall any sexist imagery in video games that I played in the last 5 years or so. Mass Effect sometimes seems to really want to get into fan service, but even then they never really get offensively sexist about it.

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Not seeing anything to be concerned about here.
(Okay, since I mentioned Dragon Age 2, there is also Isabella. But she's not a character who is offensively designed, that's a character who is designed to be an offensive person. ^^)

It's some people in the RPG industry and some people in the video game industry, but they all appear like individual cases and not as example of a fundamental value system that underlies the entire industry and associated sub-cultures. You can criticise the offenders, but I just don't see any guilt by association being the case here.

 

[Halivar]

Since I started collecting RPG books in 2000, the only blatant cheesecake I've seen were the 3.5 nymph and the spine-twisting berserker from Complete Warrior.

 

[Umbran]

Again, depends on where you are looking.

It most certainly does. But that means a small selection of images that you feel are okay does not really say that everything is okay. There's dozens to hundreds of images in the WotC oevre, right? So, a few select ones just don't prove the point.

A single offensive image is apt to weigh more heavily than a whole bunch of inoffensive ones.

Off the hook? No. Perhaps not in need of as much extra effort to reform? Yes.

As a man, it really wouldn't be for me to say, as I'm not one of the offended parties. The measure of how much more reform is called for is not to be found in our assertions, but in how many women are still put off by the imagery, no?

If there's one problem I see in criticism of sexist imagery in RPGs (and other media) is too little acknowledgement of improvements.

I don't think anyone's ever made a credible argument that the internet was an unbiased source of critique.

 

[Yora]

Sure, there are dumb people doing dumb things. Go ahead and criticise them, I am all for that.
But I don't see any indication that it's something that affects the industry as a whole. To find habittual offenders, you have to go searching for them or stumble on them by accident. But it's not as if it's something you have to put up with and that's unavoidable if you want to be active in RPGs and video games. It's not something that is wrong with RPGs or video games.

 

[billd91]

I don't really recall any sexist imagery in video games that I played in the last 5 years or so. Mass Effect sometimes seems to really want to get into fan service, but even then they never really get offensively sexist about it.

I notice you didn't include a lot of Asari cleavage and Asari strippers in your collection of images. Interesting that the only non-human race portrayed with any significant number of recognizably female characters is brimming with a lot of sexuality.

It's some people in the RPG industry and some people in the video game industry, but they all appear like individual cases and not as example of a fundamental value system that underlies the entire industry and associated sub-cultures. You can criticise the offenders, but I just don't see any guilt by association being the case here.

There are a lot of critics who believe there's a lot more evidence of a fundamental value system underlying the video game industry. And once they point it out, it's not really hard to see it too. It's mostly a question of getting initially sensitized to it. You just have to try to not be over-sensitized to it if you want to shoot for a balanced approach.

 

[Janx]

Do you want to use the, "The other guy is doing much worse than I am, so you should ignore me," defense?

Back in grade school, if there was a 2-on-1 scuffle on the playground, would your teachers accept, "Tommy beat him up worse than I did!" and let you off the hook?

I agree that, on the whole, the RPG industry has done a lot to clean up its art and presentation. That should be commended. But if the folks in question still feel put upon, it isn't perfect yet. We should not say, "Well, women's magazines are far worse, so we don't have to worry any more..."

and here was me in my OP saying exactly that "While RPGs should continue to work to improve their depiction of women, there are more worthy battlegrounds to fight that cause on in society."

My point is, the industry has gotten better. Raising the banner and rousing the rabble that the industry is chock full of offensive art is disingenuous to the real improvements that were made. That is what I felt [MENTION=87695]TanithT[/MENTION] was ignoring.

 

[TanithT]

My point is, the industry has gotten better. Raising the banner and rousing the rabble that the industry is chock full of offensive art is disingenuous to the real improvements that were made. That is what I felt TanithT was ignoring.

In my perception, and I take full responsibility for the fact that it is my perception, it truly has not. I can't open a single RPG book or comic, or play almost any video game, without seeing a large number of sexualized female figures while the male characters are primarily presented as normal characters - eg, as the real people who are not sexualized.

It's not so much that I get personally mad or feel insecure when my boyfriend exclaims over the large amount of gratuitous bewbage there is for his delectation in just about every RPG sourcebook and video game. Heck, I'll even save that stuff when I see it so he can enjoy it. Or we look at it together, though he is always guaranteed to get more than I do from it because we are both heterosexual and the vast majority of the sexualized images will be female. There's a little for me here and there, but the percentages really stink.

Porn for consenting adults isn't a problem. What I do mind is the sheer amount of gratuitously sexualized female imagery, including in places that don't really fit or make sense. The message that is being overwhelmingly sent is that females are supposed to be sexualized. Not just sexy with other consenting adults where it's totally appropriate to be sexy, but sexualized outside that context. It's a subtle but pervasive and IMO very serious difference.

I'd compare the atmosphere of generally sexualizing women to being immersed in an ocean. If you have always lived there, it can be hard for you to really think about the fact that the water is wet, or salty. It just seems like, yaknow, how things are, how things have always been, and how they are always supposed to be.

Yes, it is all the eff over the gaming industry. I see it just about every single day, and I facepalm to it just about every single day. I respect that your experience may be different, but for whatever it's worth, this is mine.

 

[nedjer]

In my perception, and I take full responsibility for the fact that it is my perception, it truly has not. I can't open a single RPG book or comic, or play almost any video game, without seeing a large number of sexualized female figures while the male characters are primarily presented as normal characters - eg, as the real people who are not sexualized.

It's not so much that I get personally mad or feel insecure when my boyfriend exclaims over the large amount of gratuitous bewbage there is for his delectation in just about every RPG sourcebook and video game. Heck, I'll even save that stuff when I see it so he can enjoy it. Or we look at it together, though he is always guaranteed to get more than I do from it because we are both heterosexual and the vast majority of the sexualized images will be female. There's a little for me here and there, but the percentages really stink.

Porn for consenting adults isn't a problem. What I do mind is the sheer amount of gratuitously sexualized female imagery, including in places that don't really fit or make sense. The message that is being overwhelmingly sent is that females are supposed to be sexualized. Not just sexy with other consenting adults where it's totally appropriate to be sexy, but sexualized outside that context. It's a subtle but pervasive and IMO very serious difference.

I'd compare the atmosphere of generally sexualizing women to being immersed in an ocean. If you have always lived there, it can be hard for you to really think about the fact that the water is wet, or salty. It just seems like, yaknow, how things are, how things have always been, and how they are always supposed to be.

Yes, it is all the eff over the gaming industry. I see it just about every single day, and I facepalm to it just about every single day. I respect that your experience may be different, but for whatever it's worth, this is mine.

It's a pity that's your experience and I doubt if you're alone in seeing it that way. It also seems unlikely to change any time soon.

This recent quote from a WotC post by the guy in charge of D&D Art kind of suggests there's some way to go yet:

'I'd like to dismiss the term sexism for a bit and get down to the meat of the subject. I think that the term "sexist" is convenient, inflammatory, and polarizing. It doesn't actually address the issue that most folks are asking me to address—and that is the issue of the role and depiction of women (and I get a surprising number of requests about men as well) in fantasy.'