Female gamers: Characters you find attractive?

[Psyren]

Except for cleaning cars or cooking meat on a grill. Those are strongly coded masculine.

Anyway, it's similar to why Korra was just about the first cartoon with a female protagonist: execs assumed boys wouldn't watch such a show because they couldn't identify with the protagonist but girls would watch shows with male protagonists because they could identify with them. (It was, unfortunately, not an entirely bad hypothesis. One of the aspects of male privilege is not being forced by culture to take a female perspective, while girls and women are forced to take a male perspective. Fortunately it was proven wrong, both leading to an awesome show and somewhat restoring my faith that we're getting better generation by generation.)

Korra was just about the first cartoon with a female protagonist

....The first what now? So can I assume you skipped Jem, She-Ra, Daria, Kim Possible, MLP, any Disney princess movie, any magical girl series ever...

[Jeff the Green]

....The first what now? So can I assume you skipped Jem, She-Ra, Daria, Kim Possible, MLP, any Disney princess movie, any magical girl series ever...

Sorry, first mainstream western cartoon not specifically marketed to girls. Or at least one of the first.

I'm not generally a cartoon person and so I'm running off of other peoples' arguments. Which means I sometimes mess them up by leaving important things out.

[Tiki Snakes]

Sarcasm aside, this thing is insulting because it implies that women might have trouble with standard pens just because they are women. If they want to make a pen with a sleeker or more curvy design, they can just make and call it that; they don't have to target it as being "for" one gender or another.

BiC for her evidences that when a gender neutral product is on the market and has never seemed to have a bias for men or women, the corporate big wigs have passively assumed that men are the default audience.

Unless of course it is a cleaning or cooking product, or child care related.

Now this, this I feel I can comment on, though I'll do so only briefly right now by linking to this video, which I remember being quite thorough.
Gendered Marketing.

It's a lot simpler than you guys seem to think, and a lot less political.

EDIT - But still pretty terrible.

[SowZ]

Now this, this I feel I can comment on, though I'll do so only briefly right now by linking to this video, which I remember being quite thorough.
Gendered Marketing.

It's a lot simpler than you guys seem to think, and a lot less political.

EDIT - But still pretty terrible.

Although the default assumption of male normativity is still a problem. There was no, "BiC for him." That they split the market by making 'BiC for Her' and allowing the standard BiC to be for men, they admit that men are normal.

Having a 'For Him' or 'For Her' brand is very common, and when a brand previously associated with one gender tries to branch out, I understand it. But BiC never had a gender association. There was no bias or public perception one way or the other.

[Jeff the Green]

It's a lot simpler than you guys seem to think, and a lot less political.

EDIT - But still pretty terrible.

You do realize that that's almost exactly what we're arguing, right? We're just focusing on some of the unconscious biases and unwarranted assumptions that shape marketing strategy within each subdivision and the unfortunate implications of the strategies.

(Also, I kind of like some of the features of that laptop they mention. As a guitar player I wish they'd gone further than just making the latch fingernail-friendly and redesigned the keyboard and trackpad.)

[Psyren]

Now this, this I feel I can comment on, though I'll do so only briefly right now by linking to this video, which I remember being quite thorough.
Gendered Marketing.

It's a lot simpler than you guys seem to think, and a lot less political.

EDIT - But still pretty terrible.

Symptom, not root cause.

[Triaxx]

I always find it very curious, when some one brings up the Power Fantasy, that the first thing that happens is it becomes a 'Male Power Fantasy', especially by females (Term used here in place of the more specific girls/women) who have just been complaining about everything being male-centric. The reason that's weird is because they are essentially self-devaluing that women don't have fantasies of getting what they want, or even desires at all. Which is stupid.

But the idea that a power fantasy is having the strength/power/whatever to overcome obstacles in the path being inherently a male thing is really strange. It's not actually male vs. female. It's physicality vs. intelligence. Yes, there are a lot of characters out there who see a locked door, and smash it open. Have you ever tried to pick a lock? Even under normal, low stress constraints, it takes a while.

Also I really liked the BiC for Her because they eliminated that stupid ridge at the juncture between the soft grip and the barrel of the pen.

[SowZ]

I always find it very curious, when some one brings up the Power Fantasy, that the first thing that happens is it becomes a 'Male Power Fantasy', especially by females (Term used here in place of the more specific girls/women) who have just been complaining about everything being male-centric. The reason that's weird is because they are essentially self-devaluing that women don't have fantasies of getting what they want, or even desires at all. Which is stupid.

But the idea that a power fantasy is having the strength/power/whatever to overcome obstacles in the path being inherently a male thing is really strange. It's not actually male vs. female. It's physicality vs. intelligence. Yes, there are a lot of characters out there who see a locked door, and smash it open. Have you ever tried to pick a lock? Even under normal, low stress constraints, it takes a while.

Also I really liked the BiC for Her because they eliminated that stupid ridge at the juncture between the soft grip and the barrel of the pen.

You are missing the point completely. It isn't that women don't have power fantasies, it is that the media caters far more to men and reinforces the subconscious attitude that the 30s white male is the normal person, and everyone else is a variation on the norm.

[Triaxx]

Gotta establish a baseline somewhere. But what I was getting at was that the moment someone brought it up, it was pushed aside as being a male thing only.

[Psyren]

Sorry, first mainstream western cartoon not specifically marketed to girls. Or at least one of the first.

Daria (and for that matter Kim Possible) still beat it by decades They were not marketed to any specific gender.

You are missing the point completely. It isn't that women don't have power fantasies, it is that the media caters far more to men and reinforces the subconscious attitude that the 30s white male is the normal person, and everyone else is a variation on the norm.

Indeed.

Also I really liked the BiC for Her because they eliminated that stupid ridge at the juncture between the soft grip and the barrel of the pen.

You're kind of proving the point. I assume you're a guy since you've identified as one, and you like the pen even though BiC has decided it's not "for you." Which makes the marketing kinda stupid, as most gendered marketing ends up being.

[Jeff the Green]

You are missing the point completely. It isn't that women don't have power fantasies, it is that the media caters far more to men and reinforces the subconscious attitude that the 30s white male is the normal person, and everyone else is a variation on the norm.

Also, the phrase "male power fantasy" doesn't refer so much to the fantasy itself as its expression in media. Women fantasize about power (though they might be culturally conditioned to do so less/sublimate it more), but those fantasies are rarely given voice in media.

[Tiki Snakes]

Although the default assumption of male normativity is still a problem. There was no, "BiC for him." That they split the market by making 'BiC for Her' and allowing the standard BiC to be for men, they admit that men are normal.

Having a 'For Him' or 'For Her' brand is very common, and when a brand previously associated with one gender tries to branch out, I understand it. But BiC never had a gender association. There was no bias or public perception one way or the other.

I'm no pen expert, can't say I've ever knowingly bought a BiC pen, though I've probably had one or two over the years. But pens are very, very frequently gendered in terms of marketing. It's just that it's usually a matter of colour-palette, shape and texture. The BiC For Her incident is simply a very obvious and very publically failed effort at more of what pen manufacturers have been doing for decades. Just like most other manufacturers. There are plenty of honestly non-gendered pens and pen packaging, but there's also plenty of pens that are either noticeably pink and stereotypically girly and plenty of pens that are all hard lines, black silver and red, Tactical or Extreme. And I bet you that more often than not, these gendered pens will both be more expensive than the ungendered ones, as well as functionally identical.

Just like the products in the video. It's not about who is or isn't normal or default. It's about arbitrarily separating out the market in order to push up prices. Gender simply happens to be a simple way to do that that keys in pretty directly to our cultural hangups and the general human urge to conform. It happens often enough in terms of other arbitrary subgroups. Most of the time when you see a product that may or may not be relevant to a particular culture or lifestyle being targeted at it, this is exactly what's happening.

You do realize that that's almost exactly what we're arguing, right? We're just focusing on some of the unconscious biases and unwarranted assumptions that shape marketing strategy within each subdivision and the unfortunate implications of the strategies.

(Also, I kind of like some of the features of that laptop they mention. As a guitar player I wish they'd gone further than just making the latch fingernail-friendly and redesigned the keyboard and trackpad.)

What I'm saying is that the angle you are discussing it from simply isn't relevant to the particular instance (regardless of your opinions on the wider issue which I'm avoiding), because it's a distinct and specific thing at work there and the only motivation is dollar. You could perhaps argue about the particular ways in which they marketed the failed Bic-for-her pens, or the way in which such products are tailored in order to appeal to the specific demographic, but the motivation for it and so on really do not go deeper than that, loathsome as that kind of lizard-eyed capitalist avarice is.

Symptom, not root cause.

Unrelated issue, meaningless to original claim of there being no gain to designing a character to appeal to one demographic and not the other. In terms of marketing things like that, there is a very specific gain to doing so because it allows you to manipulate the market and control pricing to your benefit at all of our expense.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Korra

an awesome show

A what now? I quit once they started focusing on the love triangle with Asami (the one with Bolin I could kinda stand as Bolin was actually a decent character).

[Surrealistik]

She's really only a jackass to Serah once and otherwise to Snow. And, well, I think that few people would really be all that supportive or even amused if their teenage sister who they gave up their own teenage years to take care of comes home stating a desire to marry her useless, unemployed boyfriend of a few wees and following it up with saying that they're the Antichrist, but it's okay because said boyfriend supports her. Snapping there seems like a pretty understandable solution. As for being a jackass to Snow...It's Snow. He has it coming, both for the whole useless, unemployed boyfriend thing and for constantly rubbing her loss in early on.

Haha, based on your repeatedly bitter depiction of Snow, I don't suppose this situation in any way parallels your personal experience?


Also this has gotten marvelously off topic, though I suppose that should be expected given the particular combination of this forum and the subject matter.

While we're at it though, I've some experience with market research, and it is astonishing how much work and deliberate, thorough, meticulous study goes into something as simple as box art for the marketing materials of large companies, nevermind product aesthetics; most of the time the goal of this is naturally to maximize its appeal to a key target demographic/audience. Though I'm not familiar with BIC's own marketing campaigns, given the size and longevity of the company I would be honestly surprised if the pen designs and the packaging weren't both systemically tailored to its intended demographic, including through several stages of direct customer sourcing/feedback like surveys and focus groups. That having been said, I am absolutely baffled how this mode of presentation somehow made it through all of these checkpoints they no doubt employed, such that BIC's marketing staff and subcontractors collectively failed to detect, at any point from concept to distribution, that the gendering would be so obnoxiously overt (I'm assuming this is the reason for the product line's failure) as to alienate women.

[Psyren]

A what now? I quit once they started focusing on the love triangle with Asami (the one with Bolin I could kinda stand as Bolin was actually a decent character).

Err... without spoiling anything, Korra's love triangle is very much resolved.

Unrelated issue, meaningless to original claim of there being no gain to designing a character to appeal to one demographic and not the other. In terms of marketing things like that, there is a very specific gain to doing so because it allows you to manipulate the market and control pricing to your benefit at all of our expense.

I know very well that businesses benefit from perpetuating these stereotypes through marketing. That doesn't make it moral/ethical to do so, or such practices unworthy of discussion or above criticism.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Err... without spoiling anything, Korra's love triangle is very much resolved.

Yeah I know.

Mako is still a bland character and Korra doesn't grow at all.

[GPuzzle]

I just wanna point out that this thread started out by being a question on which characters did female gamers find attractive, be them male or female, and we ended up on a discussion about the marketing of BiC pens.

The Internet seems to have no rails whatsoever.

[Jeff the Green]

What I'm saying is that the angle you are discussing it from simply isn't relevant to the particular instance (regardless of your opinions on the wider issue which I'm avoiding), because it's a distinct and specific thing at work there and the only motivation is dollar. You could perhaps argue about the particular ways in which they marketed the failed Bic-for-her pens, or the way in which such products are tailored in order to appeal to the specific demographic, but the motivation for it and so on really do not go deeper than that, loathsome as that kind of lizard-eyed capitalist avarice is.

You're assuming that marketers are rational actors untainted by society's bigotry and biases. This is not remotely the case, and it's compounded by the fact that they're primarily middle-class-to-rich white dudes.

A what now? I quit once they started focusing on the love triangle with Asami (the one with Bolin I could kinda stand as Bolin was actually a decent character).

I suck at arguing about the merits of pop culture (as opposed to rhetorical strategies and tropes) and am not particularly interested in having this argument here, so I'll just say that I dislike Bolin, think Korra did show minor but appreciable character growth, and like Korrasami, on both aesthetic and political grounds.

[Hiro Protagonest]

and like Korrasami, on both aesthetic and political grounds.

...Maybe I should've said Love V. >_>

[Tiki Snakes]

I know very well that businesses benefit from perpetuating these stereotypes through marketing. That doesn't make it moral/ethical to do so, or such practices unworthy of discussion or above criticism.

I didn't say it does and I wouldn't dream of suggesting that such practices are unworthy of discussion, let alone that they were above criticism. I just hold that the particular case is a separate issue to the one that was previously being discussed.

Both of which are tangents to the original topic, of course. Gendered marketing could totally support a thread on it's own, I'm sure.

You're assuming that marketers are rational actors untainted by society's bigotry and biases. This is not remotely the case, and it's compounded by the fact that they're primarily middle-class-to-rich white dudes.

Uh... I can't say that I am actually. In fact, whether they are or are not is kind of irrelevant to the specific point I was making.

[Rodin]

....The first what now? So can I assume you skipped Jem, She-Ra, Daria, Kim Possible, MLP, any Disney princess movie, any magical girl series ever...

And just like that, I'm transported back to whe I was in second or third grade and found one of my older sister's She-Ra audio tapes with the tape all twisted and mangled. Being geeky even at that tender age, I spent the afternoon re-spooling the tape and figuring out how it worked, testing my success by playing the tape on the family stereo set.

Of course, it was during one of these test phases that my sister happened to come in, and mock me mercilessly for listening to She-Ra. Because it was a girl's cartoon, not a manly boy's cartoon like He-Man. There was a deep sense of shame at having been "caught" listening to a girly show, even though I was only listening to it as part of the "manly" activity of electronics repair.

This stuff gets ingrained at a really young age - some shows are for girls, others for boys, and God forbid you should like something on the other side of the aisle...

[Frozen_Feet]

Well, yeah, but it's a horrible insult. Social Justice Warrior means you fight for social justice. Which is really hard to twist into a bad thing.

Not hard at all. It's a really basic example of sarcastic ambivalence, where a seemingly-positive descriptor is actually used to point out a person's complete inability to stand up to it. The fact that "social justice warrior" is used to proclaim someone is anti-social, unjust fake-activist by nearly everyone who does not identify as one should give you a stop.

[Ibrinar]

Yeah it's sarcastic. It's however not unprecedented to take insults and use them yourself as positive descriptions. It's called Reappropriation. Nerd for instance is now often used as positive self identifier.
I wouldn't do it with sjw since I think the warrior part makes it hard for the term not to sound silly, but ymmv.

[Jeff the Green]

Yeah it's sarcastic. It's however not unprecedented to take insults and use them yourself as positive descriptions. It's called Reappropriation. Nerd for instance is now often used as positive self identifier.

An it's only barely reappropriation when the targets hear the insult for the first time and say "yeah, that's pretty much accurate", and the people who aren't actively opposing them roll their eyes.

I wouldn't do it with sjw since I think the warrior part makes it hard for the term not to sound silly, but ymmv.

I tend to agree, but I'll adopt a silly name to tweak a GamerGater or ally any day.

[SiuiS]

I've been thinking for a while now that a big part of this is actually just the lack of male secondary sex characteristics in action. Because if there were some rough male equivalent to breasts you can't tell me that artists and directors the world over wouldn't be all over that.

Actually, the triangular torso and musculature with bulky bellies is a male secondary sex characteristic. I think. Maybe tertiary? I'm not sure where the differences lie. But it's definitely a male trait.

On a less divergent note from normal human thought, I read a while back that women have been found in scientific studies to have much greater variance in what they find physically attractive than men do. Which makes the question of what exactly an "idealization of men's bodies" looks like in the first place even less answerable than it was already.

Maybe. Maybe.

Which is why that is exactly what I argued for? I think you misread my meaning a bit.^^

Okay then. That's my faux pas. I keep getting to your poss when tired and can't parse the grammar. Sorry.

Pardon to pull you back in if you were intending to back out, but can you clarify/back up that statement?

I always do a bad job of it, but it's a given in legal and judicial circles, and the explanation given is that there's enough science behind it that it's a good idea. I get the explanation but I can't word it right, and I don't know where any of the specific sources to cite are. You can ask around and more folks will tell you that yes, it's a thing, but so far no one can provide studies specifically.

The least political explanation I have is involving sexual harassment law as it pertains to labor union contracts. Sexual harassment is judged by arbiters from a female perspective because if not explicitly told to, they default to a male perspective and it skews results; when asking if you believe someone would feel threatened in any given situation, we assume tall muscular male would feel less threatened than movie model female.

See, I'm not avoiding that discussion because I'm not interested in the subject, or because I am unaware of the wider context, or because I think it shouldn't be discussed at all. No, the trouble is I find it fascinating and your earnest desire to discuss it is the cheese in a trap not of your making. I am a moth to this topic's flame, only that flame is burning up friendships, careers and safety.

Okay.

And I very proudly wear the monikers "feminist" and "social justice warrior" - I do not see them as pejorative at all.

Heh. Social justice warrior was created as a pejorative, too. Before that we were just called 'activists'.

I consider myself a feminist, too, though I more often see SJW being used as an insult.

^.

The BIC pens are not an insult. It's a marketing ploy to make said demographic feel more special and pampered. As in "We make standard pens for everybody, but for Discerning Ladies we also make special pens just for you!"

It would be an insult if BIC makes standard non-delineated pens, and then "BIC For Him" pens, and then nothing for the ladies. So at this time I am insulted that I don't have "BIC For Him" pens which come with attached flamethrowers.

Heh.
It's sadly effective, really. Take normal product, add frills or gunmetal, market to specific sex, get more sales.

Either that or there's some quirk of hormonal activity that makes women need a slightly different shaped writing instrument, meaning that for the last 6000 years we've been making pens that made women have to work much harder to write than men. This explains why women authors didn't get published—they had to spend so much energy and attention on the physical act of writing that it left little for coming up with good ideas and sentence structure—and why woman-authorship picked up about the same time that typewriters became common. Probably there's still a slight disadvantage in QWERTY keyboards that explains the current imbalance. To rectify this schools should teach DVORAK alongside QWERTY.

... Is this serious?

So they're insulting women by implying that they're easily duped by stupid marketing techniques while men (who don't get special pens) aren't.

Men do get special pens. And it's just as stupid for them.

The truth is that it's very difficult, if not impossible, to treat men and women at all differently for reasons not strictly related to biology and not insult large factions of one gender or the other.

That's the problem, aye.

I always find it very curious, when some one brings up the Power Fantasy, that the first thing that happens is it becomes a 'Male Power Fantasy', especially by females (Term used here in place of the more specific girls/women) who have just been complaining about everything being male-centric.

The reason that's weird is because they are essentially self-devaluing that women don't have fantasies of getting what they want, or even desires at all. Which is stupid.

The trick here, is there is no societally reinforced female power fantasy. And that's the big thing about racism, sexism, etc., is from an anthropological perspective, only one has hard coded societal norms that enforce them; yes, it's possible for black people to be racist against white people on a personal scale, because any bigoted action based on race is racism. But there is no societal force that makes life difficult for white people for being white, so at that level, it's not a thing. (Bad explanation was bad, but hit the broad strokes...)

Society at large in the west glorifies the components of this whole male power fantasy thing, separate from any actual individual trying to make it so. And while the specific concept of a male power fantasy as a concrete thing may be less cut and dry, the idea that society has a lot of baggage that self-reinforces gender roles in ways that are harmful is much less opinion.

But the idea that a power fantasy is having the strength/power/whatever to overcome obstacles in the path being inherently a male thing is really strange.

That's not what is being discussed, though. It's not that it's inherently masculine to want power, it's the specific formats and the social fallout that's being directly told "men do this" and "punish women who try to so this" that's the issue. Any google search for "the kitchen is that way" will confirm that this exists and is an actual problem.

Gotta establish a baseline somewhere. But what I was getting at was that the moment someone brought it up, it was pushed aside as being a male thing only.

It really wasn't, though. I personally corrected that at least three times, and others have as well.
E: I'm responding in part to your tone I think. It's frustrating because a lot of your concerns have already been addressed, but I feel it's rude just to go quote the relevant bits at you. Feels preachy, not like a discussion.

[Jeff the Green]

Actually, the triangular torso and musculature with bulky bellies is a male secondary sex characteristic. I think. Maybe tertiary? I'm not sure where the differences lie. But it's definitely a male trait.

Yes, it's secondary. Primary is differences in reproductive systems, secondary is physical/behavioral differences that appear during puberty, and tertiary is behavioral differences we associate with different sexes that aren't actually caused by them. (It's somewhat difficult to figure out exactly what behaviors are secondary in humans. Mating dances in birds are a good example of secondary, though, and skirts in humans are a good example of tertiary.)

... Is this serious?

...no. I've probably been watching too many BAH Fest talks over the last week.

Men do get special pens. And it's just as stupid for them.

One of my favorite comedy bits is Dara O'Briain ranting about razors.

(Also, I don't think I've seen male-specific pens. Examples?)

[Avilan the Grey]

Female gamers have the same priorities as male gamers when choosing a character to play- pretty much purely mechanical stuff. Not much time to admire your character when in the middle of battle anyway :P.

Well I guess I am genderless then, since I pick my character in ALL GAMES no matter what genre, at least 50% depending on looks and attitude.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Well I guess I am genderless then, since I pick my character in ALL GAMES no matter what genre, at least 50% depending on looks and attitude.

Same. I am a strong believer in Saint's Row level of character customization (although having the character actually look good takes precedent; see Dark Souls which has plenty of sliders but you can never make an attractive character) and think every RPG should have an item transformation option.

[SowZ]

I didn't say it does and I wouldn't dream of suggesting that such practices are unworthy of discussion, let alone that they were above criticism. I just hold that the particular case is a separate issue to the one that was previously being discussed.

Both of which are tangents to the original topic, of course. Gendered marketing could totally support a thread on it's own, I'm sure.



Uh... I can't say that I am actually. In fact, whether they are or are not is kind of irrelevant to the specific point I was making.

Whether or not the market is just doing what makes the most money or not doesn't mean it isn't immoral. The most profitable thing is often to utilize pseudo-slave labor, (or sometimes real slave labor,) and companies do it all the time. That doesn't excuse it.

It's like those email leaks where a Hollywood producer said that he would like to hire a specific black actor for X role, that he was the best man for the job, but they've hit their quota for movies with black actors that year and therefore a white actor will be more profitable. Whether or not that is true, it doesn't remove the moral weight of discrimination from Sony.

And as for the question: Is the market just reacting to prejudices already extant in the market and trying to maximize profits from them, or are those same companies partly responsible for those prejudices, the answer is yes.

[Maryring]

I always do a bad job of it, but it's a given in legal and judicial circles, and the explanation given is that there's enough science behind it that it's a good idea. I get the explanation but I can't word it right, and I don't know where any of the specific sources to cite are. You can ask around and more folks will tell you that yes, it's a thing, but so far no one can provide studies specifically.

The least political explanation I have is involving sexual harassment law as it pertains to labor union contracts. Sexual harassment is judged by arbiters from a female perspective because if not explicitly told to, they default to a male perspective and it skews results; when asking if you believe someone would feel threatened in any given situation, we assume tall muscular male would feel less threatened than movie model female.

No, I think I get what you're saying now. It does raise an interesting question regarding what differences would crop up in the design process 'f it was done with active effort to look at it from a male/female perspective. The designs I've worked on have been as part of multigendered groups, so it may not be all too different in either direction, but now I wanna see that.

Thanks for clarifying.