No. There is a huge difference between finding someone attractive and sexualizing someone. Finding someone attractive doesn’t mean ignoring their basic humanity. Sexualizing someone actually does that, boilis them down to their sexual traits and ignores the rest of who they are. It’s really not that hard. No one is saying “don’t find sexy women appealing and be an asexual individual.” People are saying don’t use women’s bodies to sell video games and don’t imagine women’s only worth is their sexual appeal.
There is also a big difference in a woman feeling sexy and empowered in that way (because she’s happy with herself, her body, etc) and women being solely valued for how sexy they are.
I praise Anita for making waves and impacting the industry, as well as exposing the cretins in the same way people came of the woodwork in 2008. That doesn’t mean that we can’t talk about the issue as informed adults instead of just shouting one liners at each other.
Slightly OT, perhaps (perhaps not!) - but doesn’t what you are saying here suggest that children don’t have sexual desires? It seems more that chastity is typically imposed upon children by others, rather than being an essential characteristic of childhood. Yes, I was an extremely horny child!
Some will balk, I am sure, but I think that this also factors heavily into issues of agency, empowerment, and representation in the media. Many want to address that sexism and racism are often at issue here, but ageism is as well. Both at the greater and lesser ends of the age spectrum. The same people who argue that representation of different sexes and races are a service for those same groups of people (non-white, non-males generally) often put forth a double-standard with regards to ageism, protesting that sexual games, literature, etc for children cannot be for children (who they readily assert somehow have no sexuality), but rather for predatory adults.
I wonder if this could be solved by having media which can only be consumed by people less than 18, 21, or however many years old. Just like how adult erotica is explicitly only for people who are older than a certain age.
It does line up with it, but a game she worked on is also in Anita’s video (Heavenly Sword)
Let’s see… she also worked on Mirror’s Edge which was about the time when well-made female protagonists were first cropping up in AAA, but I remember the press from the development announcements of the reboot getting shit on by the chans and such for “pandering” in 2011.
I think E3 2011 was the earliest Tomb Raider trailer stuff with Camilla Luddington as the model
I love Mirror’s Edge. My only misgiving was the DLC not being available for Steam, the extra maps look great. Hopefully Catalyst will run on my 2009 hardware.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the 1st person camera in what I played. Mechanically, I thought the original Prince of Persia series did the free running better even with the technological limitations.
Mirror’s Edge would be a fascinating occulus rift game.
I am! I don’t play 3rd person games, if I can help it. There isn’t enough first-person platforming out there, IMO.
I never played any of those.
It is! Although I had to use some hacked graphics driver to enable it. It’s probably borked and in need of updating by now, since I last used it a year ago.
Totally off topic: If you think tights are great, try a skirt this summer. You guys have no idea what you’re missing.
On topic: It’s a bit disheartening coming to read the comments on a new Sarkeesian video only to find the same tired MRA/gamergater talking points as every previous video in her series has garnered. Never any criticisms of the message, only criticisms of the messenger. So much fail mixed with all those male tears.
Sadly middle age metabolism means my Utilikilts don’t really fit anymore but after wearing them regularly for a few years, umm anatomically speaking I am not sure why guys would want to wear pants most of the time.
Continuing way off topic: Other than in winter, I have no idea. Personally, I kinda hate tights, so I do wear pants when the average high temperature drops below about 70 F, but when it’s over 82 F, puttin’ on a pair of pants is the last thing I want to do.
As for your utilikilts, if you can find some matching fabric, a seamstress may be able to help them fit again. Alternately, sounds like an excuse to get a couple new ones.
Well Seattle doesn’t get as cold as where you live but I found that if I could keep my feet warm and my body core warm outside of a well placed breeze I didn’t notice.
Well having to go into an actual office and weather permitting a motorbike for the commute means pants. But it was pretty much everyday wear when I worked from home all the time.
I can’t imagine a skirt being all that comfortable. It isn’t a piece of clothing that has a purpose other than to drape over and hide certain parts. I know this from wearing one for a week in high school – no air conditioning in a sweltering school, against the rules to wear shorts but not against the handbook for wearing a skirt. I got ripped out of class pretty quickly for doing so, only to have my family lawyer come down and fix it. Less than a week later, half the homophobic hillbillies at my school were wearing man-skirts to protest the shorts issue and the next week were were allowed to wear them. So yeah…I have worn them for a SHORT time. Didn’t do anything for me.
As for the rest, I was trying to avoid a lot of this in my original statement because my comment was really on the idea that a lot of the form fitting stuff she complains about should be unisex and desexualized (I’ve seen enough naked people that a body alone does little for me)…so my comment wasn’t attacking Ms. Sarkeesian. I kinda agree with her in a lot of ways, though I think quite a few of the MRA’rs have a point about how superficial she is in her own criticisms. She comes across as someone that doesn’t want a discussion but a condemnation. I see this all the time from activists…men / women, left / right. Hell…I got into a conversation with a friend about Bernie Sanders the other day (she brought it up) and I was condemned for not agreeing with every talking point and I like the dude. This is how I’ve felt with every video and talk she’s done that I’ve seen. She seemingly wants everyone to conform to her talking points or they are the enemy. This is just what I got from it and I believe she is absolutely right about a LOT of what she talks about. My criticism is of how the message is presented. Either way, I’d have her perspective over any of the MRA’rs ANY day of the week.
That’s not the only way, just the way that’s most visible in the static screenshot I presented – have you played the latest two Tomb Raiders? They are literally textbook examples of “how to get better (on gender)” as @Daedalus mentioned.
Hmm, no, I think I’ve complained about the cherry picking of examples before. I don’t think a large selection of heavily gendered media, whether it be books, movies, magazines, or whatever, is all that bad. Provided everyone has choices.
First half of my comment was for you, the second half was a general observation of this and every Sarkeesian thread. I wasn’t going after you, rather the drive-by commenters who have pretty much all been flagged back into oblivion already.
