Getting the Girl

1up.com has a great article up entitled Getting The Girl. Zoe Flower discusses female gaming stereotypes, the role of women in gaming, and the mythical "girl formula" for gaming success. From the article: "Lara Croft continues to personify an ongoing culture clash over gender, sexuality, empowerment, and objectification. It was while standing in my first-ever ladies' room line at E3 2004 as I pondered the Playboy bunnies, the return of Leisure Suit Larry, and the slew of buxom virtual ladies headlining each booth that I questioned whether the industry had evolved at all."

Comments

Re:Sheesh

[cgranade]

RTFA. This article challenges the perception that women are the only ones stereotyped against, as well as that the portrayal of women in games must be inherently anti-feminist. Playboy: Mansion's lead designer is a woman. Moreover, she is pregnant with twins.

Re:How quaint

[Staos]

That's her real name. Her parents were hippies.

I'm being completely serious here. She used to write a collumn for OPM, and she wrote about her name once.

Zoe's website

[khasim]

http://zoeflower.1up.com/

Cute.

Re:Why should it evolve?

[canfirman]

Ms. Flower is trying to manufacture a double standard where none exists

I disagree. There is a double standard: it's ok for men to be objectified because nobody complains, but it's "wrong" for women to be objectified. And it's not limited to gaming. All forms of media (TV, magazines, books, billboards, etc.) have both sexes objectified, but you hear more complaints about scantily-clad women than bare chested men. I wonder if Ms. Flower has read any romance novels or seen any romatic movies and if she's offended by the objectification of the sexes there - especially the "handsome, tall, muscular" man.

The objectification of the sexes to show the "perfect" model is everywhere. Every sane person knows that it does not represent the population at large.

I disagree.

[i41Overlord]

This is an example of political correctness stifling scientific understanding. Over the years people have been taught to despise and shoot down any stereotype, even if that stereotype has a basis in truth. Remember, not ALL stereotypes are bad or offensive.

What the original poster said is true. The brains of men and women are specialized for different functions. It has been proven numerous times that men are more optimized at visual spatial skills while women have inherent advantages in verbal and organizational skills.

http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?l an guage=english&type=24119&article_id=218391881&cat= 1_1

And as far as black people having more fast twitch musle fibers, that's not entirely accurate but there is some truth behind the story. It's not all black people, but specifically people who evolved in the Western Africa region do have a higher percentage of quick twitch muscle fibers and a higher testosterone level than those elsewhere in the world. They have a distinct advantage in anaerobic performance such as sprinting, and the records over the years spell it out clearly. Don't confuse this with "all" black people, because those who evolved in Eastern Africa, notably the high altitude region between Kenya and Ethiopia have almost the complete opposite evolutionary specialization. Not surprisingly, from evolving in a high altitude region, they have a larger lung capacity and better cardiovascular system (more red blood cells) than those who evolved at lower altitudes. They excel at aerobic activities such as long distance running.

http://www.africana.com/articles/daily/index_200 11 106.asp

In the examples I gave above, look at the records. You have a huge pool of competitors from all over the globe yet people from a small area seem to win a *huge* proportion of events that *far* exceeds the percentage that a random group of people should win. I mean just take a look at the Boston Marathon. Kenya is not exactly the most populous country on Earth, but look at the results from the last 20 years when they started competing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_winners_of_ th e_Boston_Marathon

This is not a racist or sexist discussion, this is a discussion of the realities of evolution and the differences that we live with. It's not a reason to hate, it's a reason to understand.

I am not racist or sexist, I'm just not an ultra left-wing PC Nazi or an ultra right-wing Bible thumper. I'm just a regular guy who would like to throw the racism and sexism out the window and find out the *real* underlying causes, even if they are taboo to talk about. I'm firm believer in evolution and I believe that many of the differences you see in races/the sexes is due to evolving in different areas or doing different tasks.