Armor designs for females?

[Floret]

Well spoken. I agree with some points/assumptions you make but not others. I think a lot of it is just to broad to discuss though.

A few questions which can serve as points for further discussion.
1. Do you think men and women should be portrayed equally in all genres regardless of audience? For example, I think romance novels tend to a large female audience relative to male audience - if it turns out that most protagonists in romance novels are women, is that problematic. Likewise the reverse, if there was a genre where the audience was predominantly male, would it be ok for most of the point of view characters to be mostly male?

2. Do agree with Amazon that it is ok for some games (games were the example her and I used) within a genre to portray women sexually (for the benefit of people who want that) so long as there are some games within the genre that don't (so you and others like you can enjoy the game without seeing women so portrayed)?

If I understand your third and fourth point correctly, you find it problematic that women are disproportionatly portrayed as attractive. Am I right about that? If so I have two questions about it:

3. Is you concern that women are more frequently portrayed as attractive in media than the prevelance of attractive women in real life. I'm assuming that some attractive women is ok. What should it be in proportion to - the proportion of attractive women in real life (assuming similar circumstances)?

4. If someone were able to persuade you that males were overwhelmingly portrayed as attractive - to a similar extent to women (I realise you are not likely to be persuaded of this, so think of it as a hypothetical for yourself, or a real exercise for those who think men are similarly portrayed as attractive), would you concerns be assuaged? In that hypothetical (for you) would that mean that (a) by being protrayed as overwhelmingly attractive both men and women are being done a disservice; (b) because both men and women are being portrayed the same way as each other, there is no problem; or (c) it is still only women who suffer because [reasons]?

Edit: BTW, sorry for the slow reply.

1. Mostly I'd not consider that a problem, yeah. Probably, in an ideal setting, the numbers would be proportionate to the actual demographics of the target group; and not fall into the trap of "more women read this, so female protagonists exclusively".
2. I do not argue against women being portrayed as sexy. As long as it is one option amongst a range of them, I won't be opposed. If the situation were as such as there were games which are exclusively doing good, and such that were exclusively doing skeevy, I probably would still sideeye the skeevy ones, but might not be so opposed.
3. That would probably be a good point for an ideal world, yes. Being brought closer to reality might be good enough at some point, i dunno.
4. If you can show me evidence that I am wrong, I will change my beliefs. Noone has managed to do that, and from all I have seen of pop culture, I doubt anyone can, but I just wanna point out I will try my best to notrefuse listening to facts.
With that out of the way... a), somewhat willing to lean towards b). It would have solved the problem of inequality in representation; but not the (somewhat less important, I find) one of unattractive people lacking representation.

I have always rejected this whole "male pwer fantasy argument.

It sounded to me like another true-Scotsman dismissal dismissal of all counterexamples to sexualized women, People bringing it always seemed profoundly dishonest.

But recently i recognized why this argument never sounded convincing to me : I could never see a male power fantasy in the discussed pictures. And the reason is not necessarily that none is there, but that i, despite being a heterosexual male, simply don't share this knind of fantasy. Like not at all.

Muscular men have never impressed me and i never have fantasised about physical power. My male power fantasy looks like this :

Spoiler: Big picture

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And that is the only reason why i could not recognize, what others could see in those pics.

But thinking about it, i must ask :

Most of the people bringing the "male power fantasy" are not actually male. It is likely that Conan-lookalikes are not their kind of power fantasy either. Where you they get the certainty, that those barebreasted muscle guys in winning poses are actually a power fantasy for a significant portion of men ? How could they know ?

I mean, it is obvious that outdated gender ideas mandate from men to strife for physical strength and define themself through it. But that is only gender, a cultural expectation, not an accurate description of actual humans.

So while those pics obviously propagate some stupid idea about masculinity and might even celebrate that idea, they are not necessarily a power fantasy. Also they are not really that different from pictures promoting stupid ideas about femininity and celebrate those ideas, while many women don't necessarily share them.

Personal preferences of single people are... tangentially relevant at most. I mean, for the discussion about sexualisation, if anyone didn't find the resulting pictures sexy wouldn't really matter, either - this is talking a societal thing, which you do recognize, if I understand you correctly.
And the thing is... A lot of people do try to emulate gender roles. Possibly most people. I don't know any studies done on how much the things usually referred to as a power Fantasy are actually in line with the distribution of actual power Fantasies of men; but from sale numbers and followings (Tobtor gave a nice example) my conclusion would lean towards it actually BEING more or less in line.

Some men not sharing in general societal ideas of how you (should) feel powerful as a man does not subtract from the fact that as far as I can see, many more do. Or, at least, marketing people think they do, and sales numbers might prove them right - the same way some women not liking the kind of guy portrayed in those romance novels discussed (I for one mostly think "uhm... no thanks?") does not really take away the fact that the men portrayed are somewhat sexualized.
At this point, you'd need studies. Does anyone have studies?

Thanks for the tip!

My favorite bookseller recommended Joe Abercrombie to me, but his works just seemed like they'd be too "grim-dark" for my taste, I'll take a second look.

Well, they certainly are Dark Fantasy, done in a rather extreme, bloody, and dark way. Yeah, they might be classified as grimdark, and if that is not your thing, staying away might be good - but I can really recommend them, and their writing style. I must agree with the latter books being better than the trilogy, but reading them in publishing order has certain benefits. The pair of characters appears in "Sharp Ends", a short story collection referencing all of the six other books.

Still confused about the whole power fantasy vs. sexualization thing. Maybe it is because I am a trans-questioning man, but I really am having trouble telling the difference.

Out of curiosity, how would you define this picture:

Spoiler: Large Borderline NSFW Image

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To me it seems to be a sort of cross between stereotypical Sword and Sorcery and Romance novels.

Where does this fall on the sexualization vs. power fantasy scale?

Well, keeping in mind my comments on Conan and Romance covers, let's apply the things I outlined there:

Spoiler: What I said on Conan and Romance novel covers

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As for what separates the male power Fantasy from the male leads of romance novels is usually that the one was written to appeal to men, the other to appeal to women. There might be overlap, but the difference relies in some aspects on context - from the men on romance novel covers, maybe try looking at the way they are positioned in regards to the woman; and the way Conan is positioned in regards to the woman is his picture.
Notice how the male lead focusses on the woman? Looks at her, holds her? Notice how Conan doesn't seem to care much for her, looks at the viewer, the woman holding onto him? If we take "Holding onto a person" as a sign of the direction of desire... We get Conan, the male power Fantasy, being desired; and the romance cover guy; desiring. (Also, tight pants. Tight clothing goes long ways towards sexualising people; a loincloth leaves lots of skin; but as probably noone will disagree - sexual characteristics being alluded to, but not fully shown, is sexy, and a loincloth fails to allude - tight pants? They do.)

The central character looks at the viewer, and the woman is clinging onto her, making the central character be the one that is desired; but that being shown (by her looking away) to be not the focus of her character, but almost incidental. On those points, she fits in perfectly in line with the power Fantasy. (Also, her pose is realistic, not focussing on pronouncing her sexual characteristics, but instead just being a solid, strong standing position.)
I would probably subtract points for the fact that the breasts of muscular women don't work like that, and the fact that the clothing (The panties, if there is enough there to call them that) is figure-enhancing in a way closer to those of the Romance cover leads rather than Conan (Who has his crotch region just covered up, instead of pronounced); but generally I'd say this falls a lot more on the side of the power Fantasy.

Also, much success on that questioning; I hope you find and answer soon - and support and acceptance, whatever that answer might be