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I feel like you are labeling gamerforlife unfairly, by reading more into his comments than is there. I'm just offering my interpretation. My interpretation might seem sort of unreasonable to you, but on the flipside yours seems sort of unreasonable to me. Really, neither of us can get inside his mind and find out what he truly, truly thinks.

All I see here is threetoad putting a hell of a lot of words in others' mouths and a bunch of nitpicking. People need to learn when to take it to PMs.

And where on earth does "uppity" even remotely mean "racist or sexist"? I'll be sure to keep that in mind the next time I am reading Mr. Uppity to my six-year-old. "Yes, honey. Mr. Uppity hates women."

DinnerX wrote:As a disclaimer: I have never played God of War and probably never will due to the content of the game. It just probably isn't something I'd enjoy.

The first game was actually very good. It had a good story and great gameplay. I guess it was the later games that took it to the extreme. I avoided them as well.

Zing wrote:All I see here is threetoad putting a hell of a lot of words in others' mouths

I was thinking the same exact thing, but I didn't want to be the one to say it and get mixed up into the fray.

threetoed, for someone who claims that feeling that "beating up men is ok but beating up women is not" is a strawman, you seem to have absolutely no issues with the concept yourself. All you're railing against is the violence against women. And I think that's a stupid phrase in the first place. Violence is violence. I think more sensible distinctions are "violence against combatants" and "violence against non-combatants". It's not like the female opponents in God of War are innocent creatures cowering in the corner while the big bad Kratos comes and slaughters them. They're trying their damnedest to kill him. You can make a much better case for the sex minigame as being a bad thing. Whether or not you choose to admit it, there is a huge double standard in western society when it comes to violence against women. Sure, people in general feel that violence is bad, but if a story requires violence then that violence is overwhelmingly against men. Injuring a woman is a fast and easy way to demonstrate that a character is evil. That's the real problem with this; it reinforces that double standard.

threetoed wrote:See, look what you've done here. You recognize that since English is not your native tongue, you might not have the command of a native speaker.

Oh no, I'm more than confident in English my skills what surprises me is how bad

"Uppity" is not marked as having any racist connotations in any dictionary. Not Webster, not Oxford, not Collins., not American Heritage. And I would rather take those as an authority on what words mean than you.

"Pussy" encompasses words with very different etymology, with "being a pussy" predating the use of "pussy" to refer to female genitals, which is a german loan and not used by the general public until quite later. Note that a "pussy", that's it, a kitten or otherwise small cat ties into the anglosaxon conception of cats being cowards, which is shown in "pussyfooting around" and other similar constructions.


I also think it's pretty obvious that what everyone in this thread finds sexist and bad is that violence against one sex is regarded as different, more worthy of consideration or more important than violence against the other. I do not know what yo tell you, Threetoed, to understand this.

What people oppose here is the idea that you shouldn't hit a woman, that women can't fight and that they shouldn't go to war because they have titties instead of dicks. And we all oppose it because it's silly, arbitrary and sexist and all-around moronic.

General_Norris wrote:I also think it's pretty obvious that what everyone in this thread finds sexist and bad is that violence against one sex is regarded as different, more worthy of consideration or more important than violence against the other. I do not know what yo tell you, Threetoed, to understand this.

MrPopo wrote:threetoed, for someone who claims that feeling that "beating up men is ok but beating up women is not" is a strawman, you seem to have absolutely no issues with the concept yourself. All you're railing against is the violence against women.

Again, if anyone wants to find someone who is actually advancing the claim that violence against women is bad, but violence against men is good, I will gladly talk about their argument. I'm not going to talk about arguments in the abstract. For the amount you guys complain about this argument, I'm sure it won't be hard to find an example. I'm guessing that, as in this case, you are making the logically fallacy that arguing against claim A is the same as arguing for claim B.

Also, what we're talking about here is not violence against female characters in general, read the article in the first post. The developer was talking in the context of this scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5kfs355GRk#t=04m26s (NSFW, obviously). In that scene, Kratos takes a topless woman, who is begging for her life, and uses her to jam a mechanism for opening a gate so that he can go through. She is crushed to death. If you watch that linked video from the beginning you can see that Kratos moves he to where he wants her to go by grabbing her hair and throwing her to the ground. This appears to be player controlled. All the while, she is begging for her life.

That female character is designed for the (assumed) male player to ogle and dominate, the destroy when he's finished with her. The player is meant to take pleasure both from her disproportionate bust and the power he has to ignore her pleading. She is designed to be a male power fantasy. The game then rewards the player for this with progress. This kind of sexualized domination is what people mean when they talk about violence against women in video games. I cannot think of a single instance in video games where a sexualized male character is dominated like this. Is there one?

For those who are saying that I am being too hard on Gamerforlife, what would a person have to say before you would call them a sexist (against women)? I'm genuinely curious.

threetoed wrote:

MrPopo wrote:threetoed, for someone who claims that feeling that "beating up men is ok but beating up women is not" is a strawman, you seem to have absolutely no issues with the concept yourself. All you're railing against is the violence against women.

Again, if anyone wants to find someone who is actually advancing the claim that violence against women is bad, but violence against men is good, I will gladly talk about their argument. I'm not going to talk about arguments in the abstract. For the amount you guys complain about this argument, I'm sure it won't be hard to find an example. I'm guessing that, as in this case, you are making the logically fallacy that arguing against claim A is the same as arguing for claim B.

Again, ARGUE AGAINST BOTH. By arguing against one but not the other you imply that the other is acceptable. Violence involving female characters is in the minority in video games. So by singling out violence against females you are ignoring the vast array of violence. You might not be saying "violence against men is awesome!", but you are saying "violence against men is not worth speaking out against".

threetoed wrote:For those who are saying that I am being too hard on Gamerforlife, what would a person have to say before you would call them a sexist (against women)? I'm genuinely curious.

He'd have to be talking about how he loved to keep women down, how they deserved it, and how inferior women are in every way.

He isn't doing that.

I almost posted this for fun before. Guess I will now. Just an observation inside an English album cover from a group that was a couple, so no 'dude with entitlement issues' vibe. It is commenting more on western attitudes on sex versus violence, but as Popo noted, there are bad double standards all over the place. Man kicked in the crotch = (uncomfortably) funny. Woman kicked in the crotch = terribly evil.

DinnerX wrote:He'd have to be talking about how he loved to keep women down, how they deserved it, and how inferior women are in every way.
He isn't doing that.

So, after twirling his mustache and declaring himself to be a sexist, would he actually have to tie a woman to some railroad tracks or would just saying he's sexist be good enough?

General_Norris wrote:What people oppose here is the idea that you shouldn't hit a woman, that women can't fight and that they shouldn't go to war because they have titties instead of dicks. And we all oppose it because it's silly, arbitrary and sexist and all-around moronic.

Hobie-wan wrote:but as Popo noted, there are bad double standards all over the place. Man kicked in the crotch = (uncomfortably) funny. Woman kicked in the crotch = terribly evil.

Yes, but who are the ones perpetrating these double standards? It's not feminists, it's the patriarchy.

We've heard from all your imaginary man hating feminists. Let's hear from some real feminists.

First, let's check out this study: Are Feminists Man Haters? Feminists' and Nonfeminists' Attitudes Toward Men.

Scientific Study wrote:Despite the popular belief that feminists dislike men, few studies have actually examined the empirical accuracy of this stereotype. The present study examined self-identified feminists' and nonfeminists' attitudes toward men. An ethnically diverse sample (N = 488) of college students responded to statements from the Ambivalence toward Men Inventory (AMI; Glick & Fiske, 1999). Contrary to popular beliefs, feminists reported lower levels of hostility toward men than did nonfeminists. The persistence of the myth of the man-hating feminist is explored.

Hmm, you might say. Those are just college kids. They aren't professional feminists. Well, what do the professional feminists say? Feministe, Shakesville, thefword.

The progress that Feminists/Womanists make is part of creating a culture that will free everyone from these restrictive and arbitrary gender roles, female and male.

But hey, you might say, none of those articles are about videogames! Well, there is this one, saying basically the same things that I am here. It's not about removing female enemies, it's about getting rid of the sexualized violence that is done almost always to women (or other minorities).

I'm still waiting for one of you to find someone who both advances the claim that violence against men is good and doesn't exist entirely in your head.