Gamerisms

I was talking to a friend today about a speech I was going to make for class on misogyny in nerd culture/video games, and I'm really excited about it! But when I brought it up he just keep bringing up a time that he saw a game that had hyper-sexualized women in it, but the character design was made by women, and he didn't take me very seriously after that. I didn't really know how to respond to his example, any ideas?

caramelkite

What game specifically is he talking about? I can only hypothesize without knowing the game or the designer specifically. Even if there are game and characters designers who are women, the majority of them are men, and an even greater majority of those in charge are men. Final decisions on a character design were likely not just in the hands of the women who are labeled as the “designers” and is something that needed to be finalized by the team, which would most likely, again, be comprised of mostly men.

Or perhaps the woman/women who designed it felt that she needed to feed into stereotypes of “audience” in gaming by designing such a character. Again, it depends.

Also, one game that has hypersexualized women designed by women does not negate an ocean of hypersexualized women designed by men. It’s not just the individual designers, but it’s the mindset that makes them think this is what gamers, mostly men, want to see.

- Aria

The story writers (who would put the characters into sexual situations/write them sexually) and publishers (who approve the content for launch) were probably men too.

- Taylor

Posted 3 months ago

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