I have no doubt she’s well-intentioned, and she certainly seems to want to be relatively fair, but her entire concept of who stole from whom (and the morality of doing so) displays a whole lot of cognitive dissonance, while her “professional” interpretation of copyrights leaves a whole lot to be desired and suggests she hasn’t even done basic research on fair use. Copyright is complicated, but it’s not so complicated that you should be able to discover the fair use factors without being able to also discover how they’re applied.
I stepped aside to give others time to answer questions or speak on other parts of this topic, but I’ll answer this comment. You may not have noticed during game play the sexualization of the women in SCII (it appears mainly in cutscenes). All that does mean is that you were simply more focused on game play. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.
(Comment from the site: “Comparison images of the statue, the babe from 2005 Blizzcon, and the promo artwork, nearly all of which featured her impossibly perky booty.”)
Meanwhile, here’s a guy in a Jim Raynor costume flanked by two other babes.
There’s a bit of a difference.
Here’s an SCII wallpaper. It looks like an ad for jeans.
Finally, I direct you to this page: The Buttocks of Starcraft II. Some men (and aliens) are included, and they happen to be well-covered (even cloaked) or oddly figured while each cutscene with a woman in it shows a perfectly rounded, well lit, feminine ass in stretch gear with no armor covering it.
The reason women are irritated is that there’s no equality here, we don’t want to see men’s fantasies of huge, muscled men. We wouldn’t mind a little eye-candy of a cleanly-built guys in the same body revealing gear that women wear if we’re going to be subjected to those standards of fantacized women when we play well-developed and main-stream games.
Think about Family Guy. It’s a fair show. Peter can be ridiculously awful to Lois, and that’s OK - to some degree. That’s because it’s a comedy, and everyone, including Peter himself, gets nailed for being who they are. No one is safe. There’s an attempt at equality in all the awful behavior.
Another example (which a lot of people probably haven’t seen) is 8 to 10 Cats Does Countdown, it’s a comedy reboot of a British gameshow on youtube. On it, there’s a young, sexy blonde female mathematician and also a pretty brunette English pro who does word checks from the OED. Comments about miniskirts or possible dates are sometimes made. They’re a part of the show’s comedy. Women’s balance? The prop guys on the show happen to be well-cut guys (not overly built) who wear very little when occasionally deliver props to the stage in humorous fashion.
Most reasonable women aren’t saying “clothe video game women in burkhas!”. I’m certainly not. We’re just saying that the industry should recognize it has a huge swath of other customers to cater to and respond in kind by avoiding tropes and making the effort to play fair with women.
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Great examples.
And to anyone who simply can’t imagine a more realistic/non-sexualized depiction of a female Space Marine, I give you Pvt. Vasquez from Aliens:
Note the combat-ready hairstyle, the dearth of makeup, the body armor/gun harness that weren’t designed to show off her breasts or abs, and the khaki pants that don’t look like they were simply painted on to her buttocks. She does have more exposed skin than her male counterparts, but in this case that was clearly meant to showcase her impressive upper body strength. In short she looks like someone you’d actually want on your side in a firefight.
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Exactly! That’s a series that played fair. Even when Ripley was in underwear, it was utilitarian - white cotton briefs and a tank top. They made sense. (She spent a lot of her time in cargo pants, a tank top and jacket or vest. It was the same thing the guys were wearing because they were performing the same activities.) Sure she was sexy, but it wasn’t ridiculous.
In case anyone’s forgotten, I now direct you to these articles from 2012.
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It reminds me of newsstand magazines (aside from bodybuilder/health) – men are fully clothed, women, no matter how old, successful they are, are in something skimpy or almost naked – and it does not matter if it is a neutral magazine, a men’s magazine – or a woman’s magazine. I think it is so embedded in Western culture that it can be awfully hard to find visual equality.
I wouldn’t care if there was variety going both ways – but when you can’t tell the lad mags from the women’s magazines, there is something annoying going on – but you see it in films, books, comics – and video games…
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I think western game publishers and developers underestimate the “Sephiroth Effect” on their potential sales.
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Your comparison is flawed because you completly ignore the role and function of those two.
Nova (the woman in the first picture) is - like Kerrigan - a Ghost. A very high ranked special force unit with mental psy powers. Their armor is functional for their role and heavy armor would hinder their abilities. It is also not needed when you can generate psy shields with your mind.
Raynor (the guy) on the other hand is a simple marine and needs that armor to have a life expandancy higher than a few seconds on the Battlefield.
Medics (mostly female) also wear heavy armor:
Picture of medic
While male ghosts also wear less:
Picture of Tosh a male Ghost/Spectre
(Sorry, as a new user I can’t put the images directly into my post)
The only reason for that distinction is that even the people writing the stories for the starcraft-universe are embarrassed by the inequality on display and need to make up justifications to make themselves feel better…
Edit: make a quick search on your favourite search engine on marine scout sniper (which I imagine would be an appropriately highly ranking special forces unit real world example). Not many glam-shots in yoga pants are there…? I wonder why.
Edit 2: Also, Tosh there has quite obviously a male power fantasy figure-type and is in no way equivalent to the female sex-fantasy figure.
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Apparently you do need wedgie-inducing spandex bodysuits to generate mental psy powers, though. On the other hand, when Raynor is out of uniform, and doesn’t need to generate these psy waves, he can wear loose cargo pants or other amorphous gear like all the other men.
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To be perfectly fair, super-tight underwear does promote a certain level of … awareness.
I like to imagine that the game’s creative sessions probably went something like this:
A: Okay, so we’ve got this super-psy-powered operative. Cool. But how do they get their powers? Objectively – what’s the scientific rationale we can use believably in-game?
B: Tantric meditation?
A: You mean… sex?
B: Yeah!
A: Not too common, lateral thinking, I like it! But we can’t do it with the target rating.
B: How about ascetic meditation?
A: You mean… like a bed of nails, hair shirt, that sort of thing?
B: Yeah!
A: Okay, okay – again great thoughts! But we can’t really have people toting around a bed of nails in-game. Too bulky. And hair shirts… rendering is NOT going to be pleased. How about something more obvious and more restrictive… like…
B: … underwire butt-thong wedgies that promote a constant-state of self-awareness and abnegation, leading to a paradoxical loss of self and intensification of mind-focus?
A: Perfect! Brilliant, clear-cut, and rational. I love it.
[some months later]
B: Marketing says there’s no room for the ascetic-backstory on our psy-ops, and we’re just going to have to run with the underwire butt-thongs without story.
A: Fine fine, but let’s switch it up. The hyper-80s big-shoulder-pads go to the guys, now.
B: Deconstructive gender-bending, I love it! Ma’am, you are a genius!
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Well, a marine sniper doesn’t have a perfect cloak ability and needs to lift a heavy rifle.
And the fact of Kerrigan being a Ghost and having Psy powers is one of the most important plot points of the whole story, not just a cover up for sexism. And no, the back-story doesn’t mention tight pants as the source of their powers. ^^
Also I find this distinction between “male power fantasy” and “female sex fantasy” funny, considering that they are both sides of the same coin. Females strive to males with power represented through muscles/wealth/might, while males are looking for good genes and health represented through beauty/sexiness. Ripley is a great character, but not that attractive for most men. While on the other hand the small nerd (for example Harper in Andromeda) is of no interest for most women.
You can’t reprogram our hypothalamus by gender-bending, but you can fix the role lock-in. Considering that Kerrigan and Nova are two of the most powerful, influential and decisive characters in the Starcraft universe, I don’t see the problem here.
Also I would argue, that most females gamers also prefer a certain sexyness in their character, as long as it doesn’t becomes absurd, like belly free battle armor. Heck, I once joined a Mass Effect 3 MP game where two girls were discussing the outfits of the multiplayer classes. 
Neither Nova nor Kerrigan (Ghost) are ever shown out of uniform in the games, so you don’t have any data for that conclusion.
That’s exactly what I meant when I wrote
“Pretext” means “a reason given in justification of a course of action that is not the real reason.” The REAL reason we see Nova and Kerrigan in skin-tight body suits is that the game developers and their presumed audience enjoy ogling at shapely young women. The technology to turn invisible is completely fictional, so the ass-hugging pants have nothing to do with storytelling constraints. We don’t see Snake wearing anything like that in Metal Gear Solid IV.
The “their armor is functional” claim is laughable on its face. I’ve already provided one example of a non-sexualized female space marine from science fiction, so now let’s compare those images of Kerrigan to actual female special forces officers.
With a keen eye you might notice a few key differences:
- Real special forces soldiers wear most of their body armor around their vital organs. Kerrigan has a pair of highly polished boulder holders.
- Real special forces either cut their hair short or pin it back to keep it out of their faces. Kerrigan has long wispy bangs that cover those sniper eyes.
- Real special forces soldiers don’t wear a lot of lipstick and eye shadow into combat. Kerrigan looks like she spent considerably more time donning her makeup than donning her equipment.
- Real special forces soldiers look like they are there to kick ass, not to wiggle it.
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Perhaps this “hot babe in combat gear” look is really a distraction tactic designed to reduce the opposing “male” player into a drooling idiot. Very effective! 
Actually, relatively few women find the ultra-bulked-up dudes from those kinds of video games sexually appealing. See the earlier Batman example @PhasmaFelis posted. Women are usually attracted to men who are fit, yes, but not guys who look like the Incredible Hulk.
This is a screenshot of a typical male character from StarCraft when he’s NOT wearing a ridiculous robotic muscle suit.
Peruse through the list of men voted “Sexiest Man Alive” by People Magazine or any other publication that caters to women and compare those arms.
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Um. No. Not everyone is looking for that, actually.
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Well, that is Raynor, with his head replaced with the one of some other dude. Saying the main protagonist is the typical guy, seems a bit strange.
Skin-tight spandex is not “functional” for any military role. No real special forces unit in the last couple of centuries has worn heavy armor, but you never see a Navy SEAL in spandex.
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Again, Ghosts are not marines! Kerrigan and Nova are not counter-parts to Jim Raynor or Tycus Finley, they are far superior evolved super-humans, trained from their early puberty to be a Ghost. Marines on the other hand are grunts, often recruited out of prisons, put into battle armor to die a few days later.
About your differences:
- Ghosts shouldn’t even be seen by the enemy, less shot at. Their “armor” exists to enhance their strength and agility (through special fibers), to not hinder their psy powers and to protect them from environment hazards. And finally to give them perfect cloak (not camouflage).
- Easy dealt with, in combat the hair gets pinned in the area between the ears and the goggles. Or the sensors in those goggles don’t care about a few hairs anyway. ^^
- Well, I’m no expert in that area, but maybe they just have much better permanent makeup in the future?
- Looks can be deceiving.
Combat swimmers anyone?
But in the end, comparing clothing of special forces today with psy powered special units ~500 years in the future is a useless discussion. We could as well argue about the merits of chainmail vs. full-plate.
