Retreading "feminism"

I'm explicitly concerned with societal structures. Good for you for using the word patriarchy, I'm proud.

The society I would like to see evolve has more rights for women, true. It also is concerned with the demolition of male privilege, which includes taking a discussion of feminism and the concerns about the sexualization of women and derailing it with 'but what about the men?'

Male privilege involves being catered to at every turn and being able to take anyone who doesn't fit the typical gender binary and feminizing them. Our society holds the masculine to be superior; to feminize someone is to make them lesser, to hold them passive, to be able to call them uppity when they step out of line and question masculine issues, to be able to trivialize their issues because they don't exist for 'real manly men.'

Rights are a neutral issue - they belong to all humans and know no gender. You have a right to live your life as you see fit, so long as it doesn't impact the lives of others. That's what you believe, how you worship, who and how you love, how you dress, how you live your life at home. These have no gender, and are neutral.

Issues of male privilege, however, are endemic to all forms of media - including this game. Yes, I do want gender equality - high heels and skirts and shoulder kittens and long hair for male avatars as well. But that hardly addresses the issues of the sexualization of female avatars. Click on your walk power on a female avatar to see what I mean. That's a walk that was made to appeal to men.

The options in this game that are female-avatar-exclusive are sexy items, made to appeal to men. There are no similar options for men, and it takes some work to create a sexualized male avatar. For female avatars, it's trivial.

Yes, I'll focus on the men - but only in the matter of saying "not everything has to be aesthetically pleasing to your eyes." I support diversity of body types, because power fantasies are not exclusive to the conventionally attractive. (And, the male avatar in this game is idealized, not sexualized from the get go, like female avatars are.)

I fully support those who want to make conventionally attractive sexy female avatars - I do it myself. I don't support limiting the options to that, though.

And, yes, when men have 80% of the rights and privileges that everyone should have, and women have only 20%, I will focus primarily on the issues of women, and focus on men only when their rights and privileges are infringing upon those of women.

What do you define as male sexualization? Because I'd really like to know.

That's rather the point - outside of certain forms of pornography, men aren't generally sexualized (portrayed in such a way as to create an immediate connection between the image and sex, or to portray a character as a sexual object first and a person second.) Chippendales dancers are sexualized men; otherwise, men are largely portrayed as characters in media, not as sexual objects.

I never said people don't make them. I just see how rare these are, to think Huge Female would be just as rare (if not more so)....but maybe when I think Huge Female, I imagine something akin to Huge Male and you picture something completely different.

As for your work around, like I said before, I say go for it. More costume options? Sure!

Sadly, I think with your costume suggestions, people may feel limited. May not. guess it depends on how many people make uses of all the costume slots. I know I have hero outfit, then various civvie outfits, and it sounds like some of these costume options would limit some of the civvie outfits.

Not to mention, I personally would love to see some other, I would think much simpler, costume options before all that (like sleek bikini 2, to match with sleek tights).

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guessing that you don't really think much about men sexually. Or have ever worked in a job where are required to think about men in this way. Because that comment lacks a lot of insight regarding how the male form and gender (two different things--body vs. social role) are viewed sexually.

Not sure how to help you sort out "What women want." Maybe get a gay friend and indulge in an hour or two of girl talk about what they like in a guy? Nothing dirty, just an insightful abs vs. eyes sort of conversation. Or work as a photo editor in the fashion industry? Anyways, trust me, men are sexualized quite a bit. Not as much as women still are. But more so now than they were even 15 years ago.

And that catty peer pressure described up-thread that occurs between many women? Can't tell you how clearly some corners of marketing understand that and have been trying to foster that culture amongst any segment of modern male populations. From fragrances to balding treatments to exercise machines to fad diets to garments to music, men are definitely sexualized. Sometimes it is to entice those that are sexually attracted to male bodies. Other times its to spark exploitable insecurities in males themselves. But make no mistake, it does happen in our society at large.

Okay, tangent over. Back to the thread about gender roles within a superhero game.

Men can be sexualized. I'm not debating that.

But, within the context of media, sexualizing a man is a choice, and a choice that is rarely made. Women are sexualized, pretty much by default.

I have conversations with my wife on these topics regularly, thanks.

Of course, I know plenty of guys who are more along the lines "What?! I'm viewed as a piece of meat?!" *HIGH FIVE*

Of course I know lots of women like that too.

So new question: Is this question only being brought up to show how sensitive people are?

Maybe it's my Southern California raising, and now small town living, but it's been nothing but "Look at how good I look." or "Damn, I want people to think I look good." on both sides of the gender divide.

I am aware of this, to some extent at least. I suppose it's one way to equalize body image issues between the genders, but I would personally prefer the one that results in less stress for everyone. (I could be in better shape, but I'll never have washboard abs. I try not to let it bother me, in no small part because I know who wants it to bother me.)

And, to bring it around to the topic at hand, that's one way in which there's a direct conflict between aesthetics and diversity. When your aesthetic idealizes the male and female forms down to a relatively narrow band of appearance, and when your aesthetic allows for non-overlapping domains of clothing and comportment, you create the implication that men and women should fall into those respective bands.

As a business, Paragon Studios is not one whit responsible for constructing a message of explicit and implicit tolerance for all bodies and all choices of dress and manner (and if I didn't point it out, I'm sure BrandX would have been swift in doing so for me!). As human beings, however, the developers have to live in the world they help create, and so, within the limits of what business demands, I hope they give some thought to what they want their product to say. And I think they would be wise as businesspeople to see just how much hunger for more diverse product there really is.

Baron coat, for ladies, in the market, 40 PP. Do it, devs, I double dog dare you.

FWIW, nearly all of my female characters have the physique slider maxed, because if they don't, they look unhealthy and scrawny to me. And a few have all the sliders maxed, including height... and also waist, which creates clipping problems for about 90% of the belts, and works really badly with most of the jackets.

It isn't the same thing because men are put in different boxes. Yes, it's a problem, but it isn't the same problem. You want to complain that it's difficult to make a male character who doesn't cling to an unrealistic and possibly personally unappealing ideal of physical strength and aggression, and who doesn't stick to traditionally "masculine" clothing, fine. I'm right there with you. But to claim that men are by default overly sexualized in this game?

This is what you're doing:

Exactly this.

Um, yeah. They're advertisers. They're supposed to try to make you feel insecure so you'll buy their crap. In real life, men who go to too much effort to make themselves attractive are disparaged as effeminate, unless of course said effort includes working out or buying visibly expensive clothes. Then it becomes about showing your friends how strong you are, not how sexy you are, and how much money you can spend, not how well you dress.

Right. Businesses don't have to be responsible, because they have to make money. Individuals don't have to be responsible, because they're just one person, they don't make that much of a difference. So who exactly is supposed to be responsible?

Then you either did not read, or did not understand anything I just wrote.

EDIT: I find this was unnecessarily terse, and maybe the problem is with me not explaining it well. There are people in this thread (Smersh, and to an extent, yourself) that claim that, at least in this game, the choices that restrict men aren't sexually motivated, and if they are, then there's a bigger problem because women have it worse. I reject parts of that notion.

First of all, there is a level of attraction politics that motivate a great deal of the decisions for the male form - yes they have more options, but the restrictions that are placed on them are most definitely based around some socially acceptable view of gender identity (or maybe not, but it certainly seems that way) the same way that the females are. Males do tend to have a broader definition of what constitutes male attractiveness, but in many ways it is still rather slim.

At no time do I suggest that you drop the issues on the female side to focus on the male side. In fact, no one here has suggested that, but it has been suggested by you and by others that we have said that. I am merely taking back control over my own words.

What I suggest doing is to look at the mentality that causes the restrictions. I don't see how that can be particularly controversial. It may be impossible, it may be pie in the sky, but it is most certainly not meant to be, nor is, anti-feminist. I, in fact, think of myself as a feminist, among other things. To say that many of the decisions on the male side of the equation aren't sexually motivated is, quite frankly, nonsense. What I was originally responding to (among other things) was the idea that the look of women was sexualized but the look of men weren't. I think that's a stupid argument to make. In fact, let's look at the part of the post that I think was most important:

That was my original point. That has been my point. Everything else was partly theory craft about gender politics in media (which I am interested in on both sides of the equation) or responding specific points in other people's posts.

I disagree. Underwear ads, as an example, most definitely market the sexual attractiveness of men. Moreover, they do it for an audience that is presumably made up mostly of straight men. I am a man who is attracted to men and there is no possible way that image can be misinterpreted as an attempt to merely characterize the model as "strong." I assume one of two things: 1) advertisers assume women are buying underwear for men, or 2) straight men are enticed by the idea of looking as sexy as the image, or at least being associated with other men who are conventionally attractive.

For an example of explicit marketing of men for women, the Twilight movies are a standout example. They're basically movies about improbable abs and, every now and then, supernatural creatures. Twilight is a basically an outgrowth of gothic romance novels, a genre so replete with the sexualization of men I don't really feel it necessary to expand on it. I'm also not sure if Mel Gibson in the 1980s was so much an actor as a he was a stunt backside.

Didn't they comment on that with National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon?

Probably. While he's now better known for his meltdowns, Mel Gibson more or less made a career of being T&A without the T.

Backup there cowboy!

I admitted a personal oppinion/bias based on what popular culture has provided as well as popular education have given to me to work with, and pretty much everyone here. Which dissapointing to myself and possibly many others, but is changing in todays world. But you cannot talk about femenism or gender roles without bringing up this oppinion, which is not just mine, but general popular culture, Video Games Especially and even in popular movies.

Since the dawn of time or written word (Not religious here, but really since the bibles tale of Eve, but Im avoiding any religious slides) princes have been saving princesses. Waking them up with kisses and battling hoards of evil to get to them. Risking all for the love of a maiden, who never even knew who they were, so that they could marry them, and live happily ever after. How many times did Mario rescue Peach. I mean seriously! It is the way of many popular cultural games and I rarely see it go in a different direction.

I recently looked at a whole bunch of Free MMO's. Each feature titilating, scantily clad, beautiful women, with giant swords, or armour that covers nothing at all, and each soft, delicate, busty, with flowing long hair. While on the opposite side there is a brutish, over muscled man with armour so large and spiky that it is almost freakish. But it definately makes the illusion of his strength to appear much more vast than his more delicate female counterpart, wearing the same armour set.

So my theory is really not mine alone.

But...

I do not considder any of the things I create to be weak because I choose a specific costume type, or have a prefference for the more comic book themed female, who turns heads before blasting them off. I also do not like the word WEAK, which I never used...by the way. Each of my toons have deep stories attatched to them which make them strong, and mighty and since I RP, I can emote that strength of character and will, as opposed to just showing it through my physique sliders, which would only provide the look of strength.

Weak would imply that my character, or myself assume that to be strong you must possess strength in it's physical form, which I most certainly do not, and if you read my post after the one you quoted, I mentioned very strong female characters, capable of altering the world by sheer will or ability, and who have become beloved by many female and male readers based on the fact that they were developed as strong willed women and actually given a shot to be more than a second or third string character.

The reason I said I was dissapointed in my Tank Theory, is because of what is considdered the social norms. However if we are going to discuss it, you need to understand that I am not using it as an argument against feminism, body musculature, or anyone. However you cannot discuss feminism without looking at the whole picture of why the potrayal of woman in comics, games and popular media, supports the statements I made in the first place.

Projecting what you feel is feminism, or a lack there of, without actually looking at why it is the way it is, is like asking half of the question and hoping to get a full answer, and unfortunately the answer to the question really revolves around a Males concept of Feminism.

I definitely picture something completely different

I'll be honest here - when it comes to purely human or even just largely humanoid characters (think rubber forehead aliens), I actually do find it most aesthetically pleasing when these people actually look like human beings. Sure, I could remove a nose here, add an extra set of eyes there, slap on a huge pair of wings or goat feet or lobster claws, but the general body shape and silhouette I still want to retain looking human, and I'd wager that so do a lot of others. That's why you see more Makes and Females than you see Huge models - because Huge just look weird as people.

I've honestly most often seen Huge as genderless giants, something like a rock golem, a robot or a demon, that sort of thing. Female characters are defined by being women, Male by being men but Huge are simply defined first and foremost by being big. Sure, a lot of the time they're portrayed as men and given rough male characteristics (like male voice actors), but that's mostly because of the old irritating belief that the male form is the default and the female form is the deviation, thus if something isn't specifically female - and a huge genderless monster isn't - then it must necessarily be male.

Actually, let me go on a tangent about that: This is stupid, especially when you start making weird monsters. Take, for instance, my alien insect hive queen. In nature, a lot of female insects are larger than than male insects by a SIGNIFICANT margin. Or look at spiders - a female spider is something like ten times the size of a male one, and males have little function other than to provide a temporary mate and a quick snack. Because City of Heroes provides us with the ability to create this many weird and unusual concepts, I've simply grown to regard the Huge model as the "monster" model. It starts out with a human face, sure... But I never let it keep one.

I forgot what I was saying... Right, "huge" females! Yeah, I definitely don't mean something like the current Huge male, but with breasts. Not even close. So long as we're keeping to models that have a gender, I'd like to keep those models to more or less within human physique parameters, which means when I speak of muscular women, I want them to more obvious muscles and more solidly built bodies than necessarily more bulk. They already have more than enough bulk in their legs, for one. Personally, I don't need to see female or even male bodies become much more bulky so much as I'd like to see that bulk redistributed in a different way.

Yeah, sadly, that's the case. But look at it from my perspective - if I had to choose between having this kind of body but not being able to put a jacket over it, or not having this kind of body at all... I'd choose the former. I'm already limited to what I can do with my bigger females, because if I were to strip them of their big items, they'd just look goofy.

Damn! I used up my "monster people" tangent on the quote before! OK, what else can I say here...

I agree with you that feminism isn't just about clothes. That's why I put the word in quotes more often than not - because I don't want to claim to know what the idea is about. However, I don't think the issue with the costume creator is just about clothes, either, not intrinsically, at least. The issue is more about what we should even be allowed to want out of it. I want a woman with more muscular arms, but I can't have that. Why? David would say they just haven't had the time and opportunity to get around to it, because David is an awesome and cool person But others on the forums will say "because you shouldn't want that in a comic book game."

Do you see where the problem resides? It's less about what we can and cannot have and more about what we should and shouldn't want to have. Wanting a square-necked, barrel-chested guy is fine, but wanting the equivalent girl? Not so much, because the "equivalent" girl should be expected to be short, slim and wear high heels. Look at the Barbarian set - men got big boots and gloves and a loin cloth, but their female counterparts got high heels. Granted, there was more to it in the actual released set, and that went a LONG way towards saving the whole thing and making it one of the better ones, but the discrepancy was still there in what the art team felt best represented the set: A muscular male minotaur, a muscular male barbarian and a Santa's little helper Playboy bunny woman.

The reason the costume creator keeps getting called out is because a lot of times, it seems to imply that the female version of a masculine look is a feminine look that often has nothing to do with the masculine one. A male barbarian is strong, muscular and imposing. A female barbarian wears high heels and a low-cut top. I guess if you argue that that's just what's sexy for men, and the counterpart is the closest to it that's sexy for women, this might have some traction, but here's my counterpoint: I didn't want Barbarian gear because it made my character appear sexy, I wanted it because it made my character appear stronger.

Here's something to ponder: Men can look strong AND sexy, and this is how society expects to see them. Women, on the other hand can appear either strong OR sex, but not both at the same time because society expects sexy women to look physically weak and incapable, for whatever messed up reason that is.

That's a very good way of putting it, that I'd like to expand on somewhat. Aesthetic beauty, at least in popular culture, idealises a fairly small band of body shapes and general appearances - for men, it's big, strong and handsome and for women it's small, skinny and busty. On the one hand, I can kind of get that. We're both biologically programmed to look for certain physical cues and culturally pressured to look for others, so society having a small band of "ideal" looks is more or less understandable.

The problem is that this small band of ideal looks is very restrictive and very detrimental to character diversity. This then becomes an interesting issue: Should we have more of what society idealises so that we can feed that obsession, or should we add other options that might not be conventionally appealing, but could be desirable for other reasons? The thing, though, is that these "other reasons" tend to be viewed as weird reasons. I'm fortunate that City of Heroes is more open to differing ideas of aesthetic beauty, but aside from here, every time I mention liking muscular women or insect aliens or catgirls or ghosts or really anything that to a conventional aesthetic would appear weird and unusual, I get labelled as "weird." That's not necessarily a bad thing, since it IS technically true, but the deeper implication of it troubles me.

There seems to be the notion that there are only a select very few types of attraction, and that anything deviant from those types cannot and should not be attractive, and if it is, then there's something wrong with you. There's also the mind-blowing fact that some of us like specific characters exactly BECAUSE they are unattractive, as that's a key part of what makes them so interesting as characters.

Attraction also follows a series of different paths. Let's step out of the subject for a while and talk about cars. Some people like hotrods for their heritage, some like muscle cars because they're big and powerful. I personally tend to like more modern super cars. There's a saying among car fans of "It looks like it's going 100 miles just standing still." That's precisely what impresses me the most - a car which looks like it could go fast and corner well. I'm sure looks can be deceiving and sleek cars can be slower than chunky cars, but speaking purely of appearance, what looks beautiful to me is what looks fast. Also, what looks small, because you have the park the damn thing.

Overall, I get that society at large has a collectively narrow view of what constitutes beauty, but I still feel that divergent concepts should still be given their due attention because many people have divergent tastes. Many more than you'd think.

I didn't mean to insult you, Nyx, and I apologise if I did. I was actually in agreement with you - it's fine to like whatever you like and there's no reason to be ashamed or disappointed in it. Even if I may misinterpret what that is.

That's actually part of the problem. For weeks, when I went to edit my PlayNC account, I was hit in the face with an add for a new NCsoft game that featured a ridiculously skinny woman with rabbit ears, a tail and the most absurdly impractical high heels I've seen since the Witch set, and a large, brutish, thick, hulking male warrior with a box full of swords. That, pretty much, is where my interest ended, because, while significantly more unusual, I've seen this dynamic in practically every RPG ever made. NEXT!

You have a point when you say this - that's how games sell themselves. And I'm honestly sick and tired of it. I admit, it was cool once, or a few times. But I've been gaming for 15 years now, hell, probably even 20 if you count the old 386 days. I am sick and tired of that aesthetic to the point where a game displaying this to me these days just doesn't do anything for me. I want something different and, really, City of Heroes is just about the only game which can give me that. It may not be perfect, but it's a HELL of a lot more perfect than almost anything else I've played.

I guess, speaking purely for myself, the moral is that if you want to grab my attention, show me something I haven't seen anywhere else. And the "tiny woman, big man" duality just isn't it... To put it mildly.

I think we may actually have to disagree here. I'll give you right away that "small" doesn't have to man weak, far from it. With enough of a handwave, a small character could have powers far greater than bigger ones. Spriggan's Colonel MacDoughal looks like just a little kid in a baseball cap, but he's by far the most dangerous character of that whole movie and he doesn't even have to lift a finger to do it. He just looks at people.

However, where the "weak" aspect comes in is when a character is simply never allowed to be visibly strong. I can get that a healer doesn't need to be big or strong, and that her presence of mind could be the strength of an entire group, but when we start talking about female fighters and warriors and how they are depicted in other games, that's where "weakness" comes in. I don't know if you've seen any, but most anime that depict a "cute bruiser" do so more to highlight her vulnerability and weakness, all told, because while a small girl kicking *** is cool to watch, ultimately she's always way over her head, especially if she's on the side of the heroes.

For some reason, fiction always presents female characters filling traditionally male roles as weaker. The do so much to prove themselves, they have some degree of success, but when push comes to shove, they have to fail and be rescued. THAT is what I consider weak, and there's very little you can say to dissuade me after all the many times I've seen it done in movies and games. Hell, remember the other M?

Strong characters are strong not just because we, as the audience, are repeatedly being told that she is strong, because all that is is a faux action girl pretty much by definition. Strong characters are strong because they act strong and appear strong, and I have yet to see a female character described as a fighter, a warrior or generally physically strong, who actually manages to maintain that throughout a movie or game's running time, bar a very few, very famous examples like Samus Aran (most of the time) and what Lara Croft looks like she'll be presented as in her upcoming game.

Hell, look at Katie Douglass. She was supposed to be very strong and committed in original Praetorian content, but come First Ward and she's an ineffectual loudmouth whose only real use is the ability to teleport people, and who gets stuffed in a fridge before the end of the story, with no resolution to be had for her character.

First of all, let me restate - I'm not trying to argue feminism. I don't know enough about it and I'm in no real position to make strong political or social points even if I did. I'm just not smart or learned enough to do that. Secondly, I wasn't trying to accuse you of arguing against feminism, or even against strong female characters. Far from it, I have nothing against what you like to create and what you enjoy playing as. I apologise if I came off as saying otherwise.

What I have a problem with, if anything, is the idea in fiction that men should be the heroes fighting the good fight on the front lines and women should be the kindly healers, waiting in the tent to patch men up when they get hurt. The idea itself isn't evil, and is actually a more or less accurate portrayal of history from about medieval times to about the American Civil War. However, what I have a problem with is that idea being use as reason to exclude other ideas that don't conform to it, like most of the recent Tomb Raider games where Lara Croft did all of her stunts and fights and action while her two male companions spent their time at her manor, researching things for her. And when the manor finally did get attacked, they got their ***** shot up until Lara showed up to save them. Excluding the blatant sexualisation of Lara Croft's actual body, the stories drawn up for her are usually actually pretty respectful.

And again, I'm not saying YOU are arguing against errant interpretations of gender roles. Just because you like one thing doesn't mean you hate another. That's not my point. My point is that people in general all too often do just that, and I'm sure you've seen it even in this very thread. My point is that disallowing women to LOOK strong and only reserving their strength an informed ability is in itself a sign of weakness, if not in any one specific narrative, then in the whole of the genre in general. If the only way for a woman to be strong is for her to be strong of mind whereas a man can be strong of mind AND body, AND often is strong in both, then women are put at a very distinct disadvantage and, by comparison, drawn up as weak.

I mean, think about it: You mention very strong female characters who just look strong vs. male characters who DO look strong. How are women NOT at a disadvantage if men can be just as strong in terms of both emotions AND super powers, yet can also LOOK strong on top of it, which women can't? Do you see where my problem resides? I want my female characters to be capable of more than just being strong because I tell people they are strong. Like men, I want other people to SEE that they are strong just by looking at them, and the inability to do this is what I see as a problem and as an inherent weakness in the general depiction of women in this game as a whole, not just specific to what any one player does. Even when the game goes out of its way to give us a physically strong female character like Dr. Delilah Stein, she still ends up looking like a super-sized skinny girl.

I think I can illustrate the whole thing with an old argument from City of Blasters back in 2004, when Smoke Grenade meant people couldn't die and attacks 6-slotted with damage meant Fire/Devices Blasters were outright broken. People back then said "Why would I need a Controller who can hold people when I can invite a Blaster who can outright kill people so they can't attack me anyway?" Why, in the same vein, are male characters allowed to be strong in story and powers AND BODY while female characters can only be strong in story and powers, but never in body? How does that not make them appear weaker by comparison? Yes, you can explain around the discrepancy, but you can only go so far, and it still makes certain concepts outright impossible, or at least very improbable.

My problem isn't with what you like or dislike or the characters you make. It's with the whole idea that women don't NEED to appear physically strong and don't NEED to have hands-on fighting roles, and more specifically with what that idea doesn't allow me to have.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Because they aren't. They are restricted by traditional gender roles, in some ways more than women are (people are jumping on the "Baron coat for women!" issue but if you attempted to start a "Steampunk skirt for men!" lobby would you get nearly as much support for it? Or would some people object to the idea on principle?) but those roles aren't inherently that of a sex object.

Yes, they do, but the point was about peer pressure. Do straight men really strike sexy poses in their underwear for their straight male friends and ask "how do I look?" Whereas straight women most certainly do adjust their push-up bra and ask each other "how do I look?"

The sexualization of men is the least of Twilight's problems, but yes, from what I've heard there was some kind of "no shirts" rule in effect.

When the shirtless male werewolves transform into their wolf forms, they explode out of their clothes, so when they return to human form, they're shirtless, and thus spend most of their time shirtless. That, to me, is on the same level of "convenient" as people with fire-based powers who burn their own clothes when they flame-on and have to return to their original forms naked, ala Sue Richards in the second live action Fantastic Four movie.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I see wisdom in your comment.