You have an interesting point, but I doubt that every day English users are thinking about the linguistic roots of words when making such value judgements.
I think that the value people place on words is influenced only very indirectly by past usage. People think "intelligent" sounds more sophisticated than "smart" because "smart" is used more commonly. It's a bit circular, I know, but I think it's true.
Remember the first time you heard the word "epiphany"? Since its meaning is so specific, you probably thought it was a sophisticated word. Once you found out that everyone and their mother was using it, it probably lost its lustre. The word "perogative" lost all its dignity when Will Smith explained it to the masses. I guess I just think that language snobbery is a facet of generalized snobbery: things that are common are looked down upon, while esoteric things are elevated. I think there's also a point to be made about polysyllabic words sounding more sophisticated than monosyllabic ones, but I don't think I need to prove it.
-----
As for your story about your experience in that class, I agree with you completely. However, your professor has a point--linguistic connotations can creep in subconsciously, and really affect the way a particular question or statement is framed. While "native South Africans" sounds innocuous, "the natives" might be a bit problematic. For example, "native New Yorkers" would sound fine, but referring to the citizens of New York as "the natives" would only be done as a joke. What your professor probably should have done instead would be to point out some of the negative connotations of that word in order to make people aware of them. Censorship, though, is almost always counterproductive.
This seems like it might be a good step, but it's missing the point. The only thing that will truly curb spam is to rework the SMTP protocol to not implicitly trust every host, as was mentioned in an earlier/. article.
gamegirladvance has been kicking around for some time now, and has provided a great combination of gaming news, personal stories, and theoretical discusisons.
Huh. I think it's interesting that of the four underappreciated movies listed, two of their titles have been referenced by bands (They Might be Giants is, of course, a band; The Hot Rock is the title of my favorite Sleater-Kinney album).
That's an interesting thought. I would think SCO would be a lot cheaper than one billion dollars. I don't know how much of SCO is publicly owned and traded though--perhaps less than 51%.
Hi! Sorry it's taken me a while to reply. I think this is going to be my last post on the matter--every post on Slashdot that takes a firm stance on a controversial topic seems to generate at least 3 replies, and thus replying to each reply takes exponential time.
In your post, you've raised some very good points and articulated them well, and I'll try and respond as best I can.
isn't she a video game character? Isn't she already an unthinking item? Is she somehow being hurt by this, or being degraded, when she doesn't really exist? What does it mean to objectify something that is already an object? This is, of course, true. She is a character in a video game, and therefore it's not possible to hurt or objectify her. "She" is an object already. This point, along with some others that you made, exposes a flaw in my argument that I hadn't clarified. Tomb Raider, and Lara's character, is not itself sexist, nor is it objectifying. If you were to ignore all other video games and focus only on Tomb Raider, it would be absurd to say that her character is objectifying. I was switching back and forth between responding to the overall trend in video games to represent women in a certain way, and the single anecdote of Lara Croft, which exemplifies this trend.
Lara Croft is deliberately given her looks to cater to the male sex drive. So? Is that all it takes to be "objectified"? Again, no--the specfic case of Lara's looks does not objectify her. However, if you look at the overwhelming trend in video games to visually represent women in ways that are unnatural, and cater to the male sex drive, has the effect of objectifying women. How? By the implicit assumption that these unnatural aspects are somehow essential to creating an ideal female character. Lara is just one example, and cannot "herself" show an implicit assumption. However, when you look at all female video game characters, and recognize that it's absolutely commonplace to make them with unnatural proportions (i.e. large if not huge breasts, tiny waists, ridiculously revealing clothing, and slender, delicate limbs), this reveals that the overall focus in the industry is to emphasize the sexual aspects of female characters.
Let me ask you this: Is there a practical difference between creating a character to look pretty and a woman making herself look pretty? Yes, absolutely there is, but it's a subtle point that you bring up. The immediate difference that I would point out is that, by and large, men create video game characters in a form catering to a male sex drive, whereas women themselves choose how much effort they will put into emphasizing their sexual aspects. But I understand what you are saying, and your next few sentences explain it further:
Both are trying to appeal to the sex drive. Is she being objectified by doing that? Is she objectifying herself? Yes and no. She is objectifying herself to some extent, in the sense that she is emphasizing a part of herself that is superficial, but I am not saying that this is a Bad Thing. Everyone (men and women) are free to focus as much as they want on their sexuality. Everyone is, to some extent, a sexual object--but that is just a fraction of what people are. And, just because someone is sexually attractive does not mean that other aspects of their personalities are lacking. See, in this sense, it is difficult to say that anyone can objectify themselves, because objectification implies disregarding (or regarding as less important) all other characteristics of an individual. So simply dressing up is not an act of self-objectification--it depends on the whole picture, and whether or not the person chooses to ignore or play down their other qualities.
It's worth reiterating that when I said "objectification," I was really referring to an overall trend as opposed to an individual case.
Are men objectifying them when they look at them and think "she's hot"? Is that a bad thing? No, not necessarily, and no, it's not a bad thing (at least, I certainly hope not!). Again, you have to look at the whole picture--simply recognizing that someone is "hot" is not objectifying, nor is it objectifying to flirt with someone because you find them attactive, or compliment them, etc. However, if you focus _only_ on a person's sexual aspects, and disregard or downplay the rest of them, that is objectifying.
And if there is nothing wrong with having a sex drive, like you say, then why is there something wrong with fantasies or characters or appearances that stimulate it? And if there is nothing wrong with that, why is there something wrong with "objectification"? This is a good point--inherently, there is nothing wrong with any particular fantasy or character or appearance that stimulates a sex drive. The only problem is when it becomes the rule to emphasize these qualities. In particular, it is troubling that these qualities are overwhelmingly emphasized in female characters and not in male characters.
The question "what's wrong with objectification?" deserves to be answered separately. Once again, I meant the term to refer to the overall trend (which I really think is irrefutable--do I have to list examples?) in the video game industry to sexualize female characters in somewhat ridiculous ways. The reason this is bad is that it is an inaccurate representation of women, and the fact that it is so widespread has the implication that this is somehow an ideal physical form for women to have. This can have the effect of changing the way people look at women, and how women look at themselves--by getting men and women alike to focus inordinate amounts of attention on a woman's sexuality. I realize that playing a couple RPGs is not going to make someone objectify women--but this image is found everywhere, on television, in movies, in print media, advertisements, and video games. This inundation of unrealistic images of women that are created to emphasize their sexual aspects is clearly capable of changing the way women are looked at in real life. This likely leads to many women internalizing these images and seeing them as an unreachable ideal--which can lower their self-esteem. Obviously, how an individual reacts to these images depends on many factors, but I think the trend is still pretty negative. Do you feel comfortable with this?
I found Infonaut's post here [slashdot.org] informative: sure, she's a caricature of the voluptuous female form. But as he puts it: "she's not stupid, she routinely guns down bad guys, she's strong, and she's capable". Clearly she plays a more complex role in the game than that of a mere sexual toy. Is she really objectified? If she is, why is it bad? This is a very good point, and again, I apologize for relying so heavily on the single example of Lara Croft instead of pointing out the overall trend that is the heart of my argument. These positive aspects of Lara, in particular, show that she does play a more complex role in the game than as a sexual being. In _this_ sense, she is quite a bit better than the norm for video game female characters, which, despite their positive attributes, tend as a whole to be physically weaker and more dependant than their male counterparts (i.e. magic users. Look at Squaresoft's female characters--even the fighters like Tifa and Yuffie from FFVII are routinely weaker than the male characters. Not convinced? Look at Resident Evil. This is, in fact, pretty much the rule.). So, Lara is great in that sense. However, you can't deny that Lara is also an egregious example of sexualization--if you really look at her model, you'll realize just how different it is from a normal female, that those differences are purely sexual, and that they are absurd to the point of making it impossible to do the acrobatic feats she performs in the game. She's simply not muscular enough in requisite places! But again, if this was a single example, and she was simply a character who happened to also be incredibly attractive, it wouldn't be a bad thing. The trend is what I have a problem with.
In my experience, the word "objectified" is arbitrarily defined to support the misguided view that men's sex drives victimize women. If you've got a better definition, I'd like to hear it. Well, hopefully I've explained my definition already in this post. I'm reluctant to say the word "objectify" again. It's an interesting thing though, what you said about men's sex drives victimizing women. I think you're right--men's sex drives don't victimize women in and of themselves, just like women's sex drives don't necessarily victimize men. What does victimize women is how men's sex drives are catered to in the media. It seems to me that all media forms choose to portray women based primarily on their sexual appeal, and I think that's negative for the reasons I listed above.
The only other thing I'd want to address is the idea that the same thing happens with male characters in video games (which, by the way, is what I was responding to in the first place!). This is unfortunately very complex, because it requires that you make some assumptions about how male and female sex drives are catered to. I would argue (hopefully without stepping outside the realm of the obvious) that men, as a whole, are more visual in their sex drive, while women are more abstract (i.e. weighing more heavily emotional attachments). That's not to say that women aren't attracted to men by physical appearance--but there's more in the mix. There is also the fact that male characters in video games don't tend to wear revealing clothing (not nearly as revealing as female video game characters!). And lastly, as was my main point before, male video game characters are given visual attributes that are useful outside of a sexual context. Female video game characters are not.
Eck... I've spent far too long just writing this to adequately proofread, so I hope that I'm not rambling. I appreciate the time you took to articulate your points, and I hope that I've clarified my own points and responded to your questions sufficiently.
Heck, if you see some of those characters in games, you wonder if they are *high* enough in the evolutional ladder to walk upright!
Heh... true! I don't envy them. What I meant more, but failed to make clear, was that these guys are at least given the appearance of being different in a way which is useful in some sort of individualistic sense. Based only on the 3-d character model of Chris from Res. Evil, you wouldn't expect that he'd have trouble getting jars open, or protecting himself. Lara's model, on the other hand, makes her look really flimsy (despite her incredible in-game capabilities!), and even unhealthy. It could only be construed as advantageous to her in the context of sex.
You're also right about the most sexist displays of women being found in fashion magazines, which of course are bought by women. But of course, the main point is still that fashion magazines are sexist and lead to women having negative self-images--and the apparent hypocrisy of women buying these magazines doesn't change that fact. As to what makes women want to buy these magazines, it's not too hard to figure that out. Women and men alike internalize societal pressures. Fashion magazines serve as a both a tool of societal pressure and a means for women to decipher it. It's cyclical in nature: Women feel pressure to be attractive at all costs --> women read fashion magazines to figure out how to acheive this --> fashion magazines contain images of women who are impossible to emulate --> women lose self-esteem --> women feel pressure to be attractive at all costs. Blech. But it's certainly good business if you're in the cosmetics or magazine industry.
What? This was not a play on words... the "object" in "objectify" I meant as: "an unthinking item," to use your definition. I never included any other sense of the word "object"--I certainly didn't mean it in the "object of my desire" sense (i.e. synonymous with "objective").
I never said being sexually attractive makes you an object, either, but in case I misled you, let me be more clear about what I meant: in this genre of video games (there are obvious exceptions to the rule for both the portrayal of male and of females), men are made to _look_ strong/independant/capable, and women are made to _look_ appealing to men.
If it's still unclear why this is objectifying, ask yourself this: If a man had the body-type of Duke Nukem, or Chris from Resident Evil, or the character from Metal Gear Solid, what would he gain? Well, those characters are visually different from normal in a way which would give them greater-than-normal physical strength, which is advantageous to them in a way that doesn't depend on other men or women--they are simply stronger and therefore more physically capable. Well, fine. Now, if a woman had the body-type of Lara Croft, what would she gain physically? I contend that anyone with that body type in real life would be physically impeded.
Finally, I never said that men should be ashamed of having a sex drive--in fact, I have no idea what I said to make you said that. What's interesting about the fact that you said that, though, is that it supports my point. If you think that Lara Croft looks different than the normal female as the result of a male sex drive, then you're right. If you think that most male video game characters look the way _they_ do because of a sex drive (female or male), you're wrong. Therein lies the fundamental difference--women are portrayed to cater to a male sex drive and men are portrayed to cater to a male power drive. The result is flimsy, big-breasted females and muscular, powerful males. This isn't exactly rocket science, nor is it some kind of fabricated, liberal nonsense.
Yeah but the men in most games don't bear the slightest resemblence to most gaming geeks either.
That's an interesting and accurate point, but it's missing the main idea. While both female and male video game characters differ drastically in appearance from the average real person, the direction in which they differ from the norm is different. Male characters tend to be more gruff and muscular, implying physical capability, intimidation, and power. Female characters, on the other hand, have ridiculous proportions, including huge breasts, tiny waists, and slender arms and legs. These visual attributes only serve to objectify female characters (like Lara Croft), because they emphasize sexual attractiveness and nothing else.
Of course, I am only talking about the visual differences--one could argue that Lara is an empowering character due to her unrealistic acrobatic and athletic abilities in the game. However, that would be ignoring the egregious differences in her appearance, which, I might add, would probably preclude ANY acrobatic activity in a real person. Like walking upright.
What's sad about this news is that it seems to show that students are spending (far) more time reading "L33T" speak than any other form of english.
I firmly believe that it's impossible to learn grammar soley by learning its rules. The best way to learn proper english is to read it--often--and get a feel for what is acceptable and what isn't. I doubt that anyone actively reading books would be able to make these mistakes.
Thus, I think the best solution is not to limit access to instant messaging, but rather to encourage kids to read more.
several researchers have recently discovered that there is a fifth taste in addition to sweet, sour, salty and bitter. It has been called umami
That's really funny. Umami is a japanese word, meaning approximately "yummy" or "delicious" in english. So now there's sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and "mmmm....".
Check register.com. It looks like the Armenians have your precious.org. Good luck fighting that international battle! It seems to me you'd be better off getting the.com version, while it's still available.
Slashdot Mirror
You have an interesting point, but I doubt that every day English users are thinking about the linguistic roots of words when making such value judgements.
I think that the value people place on words is influenced only very indirectly by past usage. People think "intelligent" sounds more sophisticated than "smart" because "smart" is used more commonly. It's a bit circular, I know, but I think it's true.
Remember the first time you heard the word "epiphany"? Since its meaning is so specific, you probably thought it was a sophisticated word. Once you found out that everyone and their mother was using it, it probably lost its lustre. The word "perogative" lost all its dignity when Will Smith explained it to the masses. I guess I just think that language snobbery is a facet of generalized snobbery: things that are common are looked down upon, while esoteric things are elevated. I think there's also a point to be made about polysyllabic words sounding more sophisticated than monosyllabic ones, but I don't think I need to prove it.
-----
As for your story about your experience in that class, I agree with you completely. However, your professor has a point--linguistic connotations can creep in subconsciously, and really affect the way a particular question or statement is framed. While "native South Africans" sounds innocuous, "the natives" might be a bit problematic. For example, "native New Yorkers" would sound fine, but referring to the citizens of New York as "the natives" would only be done as a joke. What your professor probably should have done instead would be to point out some of the negative connotations of that word in order to make people aware of them. Censorship, though, is almost always counterproductive.
the kernel batches disk I/O, allowing the disk drive to become idle long enough for the drive's power-saving features to take affect. (sic)
On the other hand, once the power to your laptop finally does run out, you lose what you've been doing for the last few minutes ^_^
This seems like it might be a good step, but it's missing the point. The only thing that will truly curb spam is to rework the SMTP protocol to not implicitly trust every host, as was mentioned in an earlier /. article.
jigawhat?
jigawho?
Even better is "showed".
...can be found here.
gamegirladvance has been kicking around for some time now, and has provided a great combination of gaming news, personal stories, and theoretical discusisons.
Huh. I think it's interesting that of the four underappreciated movies listed, two of their titles have been referenced by bands (They Might be Giants is, of course, a band; The Hot Rock is the title of my favorite Sleater-Kinney album).
That's an interesting thought. I would think SCO would be a lot cheaper than one billion dollars. I don't know how much of SCO is publicly owned and traded though--perhaps less than 51%.
No, it's not news, but it seems to have sparked an insightful discussion of different aspects of coding in C.
I think less than half of the value of the average Slashdot article is the content of the article itself...
alias g4u="dd"
Hi! Sorry it's taken me a while to reply. I think this is going to be my last post on the matter--every post on Slashdot that takes a firm stance on a controversial topic seems to generate at least 3 replies, and thus replying to each reply takes exponential time.
In your post, you've raised some very good points and articulated them well, and I'll try and respond as best I can.
isn't she a video game character? Isn't she already an unthinking item? Is she somehow being hurt by this, or being degraded, when she doesn't really exist? What does it mean to objectify something that is already an object?
This is, of course, true. She is a character in a video game, and therefore it's not possible to hurt or objectify her. "She" is an object already. This point, along with some others that you made, exposes a flaw in my argument that I hadn't clarified. Tomb Raider, and Lara's character, is not itself sexist, nor is it objectifying. If you were to ignore all other video games and focus only on Tomb Raider, it would be absurd to say that her character is objectifying. I was switching back and forth between responding to the overall trend in video games to represent women in a certain way, and the single anecdote of Lara Croft, which exemplifies this trend.
Lara Croft is deliberately given her looks to cater to the male sex drive. So? Is that all it takes to be "objectified"?
Again, no--the specfic case of Lara's looks does not objectify her. However, if you look at the overwhelming trend in video games to visually represent women in ways that are unnatural, and cater to the male sex drive, has the effect of objectifying women. How? By the implicit assumption that these unnatural aspects are somehow essential to creating an ideal female character. Lara is just one example, and cannot "herself" show an implicit assumption. However, when you look at all female video game characters, and recognize that it's absolutely commonplace to make them with unnatural proportions (i.e. large if not huge breasts, tiny waists, ridiculously revealing clothing, and slender, delicate limbs), this reveals that the overall focus in the industry is to emphasize the sexual aspects of female characters.
Let me ask you this: Is there a practical difference between creating a character to look pretty and a woman making herself look pretty?
Yes, absolutely there is, but it's a subtle point that you bring up. The immediate difference that I would point out is that, by and large, men create video game characters in a form catering to a male sex drive, whereas women themselves choose how much effort they will put into emphasizing their sexual aspects. But I understand what you are saying, and your next few sentences explain it further:
Both are trying to appeal to the sex drive. Is she being objectified by doing that? Is she objectifying herself?
Yes and no. She is objectifying herself to some extent, in the sense that she is emphasizing a part of herself that is superficial, but I am not saying that this is a Bad Thing. Everyone (men and women) are free to focus as much as they want on their sexuality. Everyone is, to some extent, a sexual object--but that is just a fraction of what people are. And, just because someone is sexually attractive does not mean that other aspects of their personalities are lacking. See, in this sense, it is difficult to say that anyone can objectify themselves, because objectification implies disregarding (or regarding as less important) all other characteristics of an individual. So simply dressing up is not an act of self-objectification--it depends on the whole picture, and whether or not the person chooses to ignore or play down their other qualities.
It's worth reiterating that when I said "objectification," I was really referring to an overall trend as opposed to an individual case.
Are men objectifying them when they look at them and think "she's hot"? Is that a bad thing?
No, not necessarily, and no, it's not a bad thing (at least, I certainly hope not!). Again, you have to look at the whole picture--simply recognizing that someone is "hot" is not objectifying, nor is it objectifying to flirt with someone because you find them attactive, or compliment them, etc. However, if you focus _only_ on a person's sexual aspects, and disregard or downplay the rest of them, that is objectifying.
And if there is nothing wrong with having a sex drive, like you say, then why is there something wrong with fantasies or characters or appearances that stimulate it? And if there is nothing wrong with that, why is there something wrong with "objectification"?
This is a good point--inherently, there is nothing wrong with any particular fantasy or character or appearance that stimulates a sex drive. The only problem is when it becomes the rule to emphasize these qualities. In particular, it is troubling that these qualities are overwhelmingly emphasized in female characters and not in male characters.
The question "what's wrong with objectification?" deserves to be answered separately. Once again, I meant the term to refer to the overall trend (which I really think is irrefutable--do I have to list examples?) in the video game industry to sexualize female characters in somewhat ridiculous ways. The reason this is bad is that it is an inaccurate representation of women, and the fact that it is so widespread has the implication that this is somehow an ideal physical form for women to have. This can have the effect of changing the way people look at women, and how women look at themselves--by getting men and women alike to focus inordinate amounts of attention on a woman's sexuality. I realize that playing a couple RPGs is not going to make someone objectify women--but this image is found everywhere, on television, in movies, in print media, advertisements, and video games. This inundation of unrealistic images of women that are created to emphasize their sexual aspects is clearly capable of changing the way women are looked at in real life. This likely leads to many women internalizing these images and seeing them as an unreachable ideal--which can lower their self-esteem. Obviously, how an individual reacts to these images depends on many factors, but I think the trend is still pretty negative. Do you feel comfortable with this?
I found Infonaut's post here [slashdot.org] informative: sure, she's a caricature of the voluptuous female form. But as he puts it: "she's not stupid, she routinely guns down bad guys, she's strong, and she's capable". Clearly she plays a more complex role in the game than that of a mere sexual toy. Is she really objectified? If she is, why is it bad?
This is a very good point, and again, I apologize for relying so heavily on the single example of Lara Croft instead of pointing out the overall trend that is the heart of my argument. These positive aspects of Lara, in particular, show that she does play a more complex role in the game than as a sexual being. In _this_ sense, she is quite a bit better than the norm for video game female characters, which, despite their positive attributes, tend as a whole to be physically weaker and more dependant than their male counterparts (i.e. magic users. Look at Squaresoft's female characters--even the fighters like Tifa and Yuffie from FFVII are routinely weaker than the male characters. Not convinced? Look at Resident Evil. This is, in fact, pretty much the rule.). So, Lara is great in that sense. However, you can't deny that Lara is also an egregious example of sexualization--if you really look at her model, you'll realize just how different it is from a normal female, that those differences are purely sexual, and that they are absurd to the point of making it impossible to do the acrobatic feats she performs in the game. She's simply not muscular enough in requisite places! But again, if this was a single example, and she was simply a character who happened to also be incredibly attractive, it wouldn't be a bad thing. The trend is what I have a problem with.
In my experience, the word "objectified" is arbitrarily defined to support the misguided view that men's sex drives victimize women. If you've got a better definition, I'd like to hear it.
Well, hopefully I've explained my definition already in this post. I'm reluctant to say the word "objectify" again. It's an interesting thing though, what you said about men's sex drives victimizing women. I think you're right--men's sex drives don't victimize women in and of themselves, just like women's sex drives don't necessarily victimize men. What does victimize women is how men's sex drives are catered to in the media. It seems to me that all media forms choose to portray women based primarily on their sexual appeal, and I think that's negative for the reasons I listed above.
The only other thing I'd want to address is the idea that the same thing happens with male characters in video games (which, by the way, is what I was responding to in the first place!). This is unfortunately very complex, because it requires that you make some assumptions about how male and female sex drives are catered to. I would argue (hopefully without stepping outside the realm of the obvious) that men, as a whole, are more visual in their sex drive, while women are more abstract (i.e. weighing more heavily emotional attachments). That's not to say that women aren't attracted to men by physical appearance--but there's more in the mix. There is also the fact that male characters in video games don't tend to wear revealing clothing (not nearly as revealing as female video game characters!). And lastly, as was my main point before, male video game characters are given visual attributes that are useful outside of a sexual context. Female video game characters are not.
Eck... I've spent far too long just writing this to adequately proofread, so I hope that I'm not rambling. I appreciate the time you took to articulate your points, and I hope that I've clarified my own points and responded to your questions sufficiently.
Heck, if you see some of those characters in games, you wonder if they are *high* enough in the evolutional ladder to walk upright!
Heh... true! I don't envy them. What I meant more, but failed to make clear, was that these guys are at least given the appearance of being different in a way which is useful in some sort of individualistic sense. Based only on the 3-d character model of Chris from Res. Evil, you wouldn't expect that he'd have trouble getting jars open, or protecting himself. Lara's model, on the other hand, makes her look really flimsy (despite her incredible in-game capabilities!), and even unhealthy. It could only be construed as advantageous to her in the context of sex.
You're also right about the most sexist displays of women being found in fashion magazines, which of course are bought by women. But of course, the main point is still that fashion magazines are sexist and lead to women having negative self-images--and the apparent hypocrisy of women buying these magazines doesn't change that fact. As to what makes women want to buy these magazines, it's not too hard to figure that out. Women and men alike internalize societal pressures. Fashion magazines serve as a both a tool of societal pressure and a means for women to decipher it. It's cyclical in nature: Women feel pressure to be attractive at all costs --> women read fashion magazines to figure out how to acheive this --> fashion magazines contain images of women who are impossible to emulate --> women lose self-esteem --> women feel pressure to be attractive at all costs. Blech. But it's certainly good business if you're in the cosmetics or magazine industry.
What? This was not a play on words... the "object" in "objectify" I meant as: "an unthinking item," to use your definition. I never included any other sense of the word "object"--I certainly didn't mean it in the "object of my desire" sense (i.e. synonymous with "objective").
I never said being sexually attractive makes you an object, either, but in case I misled you, let me be more clear about what I meant: in this genre of video games (there are obvious exceptions to the rule for both the portrayal of male and of females), men are made to _look_ strong/independant/capable, and women are made to _look_ appealing to men.
If it's still unclear why this is objectifying, ask yourself this: If a man had the body-type of Duke Nukem, or Chris from Resident Evil, or the character from Metal Gear Solid, what would he gain? Well, those characters are visually different from normal in a way which would give them greater-than-normal physical strength, which is advantageous to them in a way that doesn't depend on other men or women--they are simply stronger and therefore more physically capable. Well, fine. Now, if a woman had the body-type of Lara Croft, what would she gain physically? I contend that anyone with that body type in real life would be physically impeded.
Finally, I never said that men should be ashamed of having a sex drive--in fact, I have no idea what I said to make you said that. What's interesting about the fact that you said that, though, is that it supports my point. If you think that Lara Croft looks different than the normal female as the result of a male sex drive, then you're right. If you think that most male video game characters look the way _they_ do because of a sex drive (female or male), you're wrong. Therein lies the fundamental difference--women are portrayed to cater to a male sex drive and men are portrayed to cater to a male power drive. The result is flimsy, big-breasted females and muscular, powerful males. This isn't exactly rocket science, nor is it some kind of fabricated, liberal nonsense.
That's an interesting and accurate point, but it's missing the main idea. While both female and male video game characters differ drastically in appearance from the average real person, the direction in which they differ from the norm is different. Male characters tend to be more gruff and muscular, implying physical capability, intimidation, and power. Female characters, on the other hand, have ridiculous proportions, including huge breasts, tiny waists, and slender arms and legs. These visual attributes only serve to objectify female characters (like Lara Croft), because they emphasize sexual attractiveness and nothing else.
Of course, I am only talking about the visual differences--one could argue that Lara is an empowering character due to her unrealistic acrobatic and athletic abilities in the game. However, that would be ignoring the egregious differences in her appearance, which, I might add, would probably preclude ANY acrobatic activity in a real person. Like walking upright.
What a surprise... Linux today says linux is cheaper. There are many ways of calculating TCO. What makes this more credible than the next?
What's sad about this news is that it seems to show that students are spending (far) more time reading "L33T" speak than any other form of english.
I firmly believe that it's impossible to learn grammar soley by learning its rules. The best way to learn proper english is to read it--often--and get a feel for what is acceptable and what isn't. I doubt that anyone actively reading books would be able to make these mistakes.
Thus, I think the best solution is not to limit access to instant messaging, but rather to encourage kids to read more.
That's really funny. Umami is a japanese word, meaning approximately "yummy" or "delicious" in english. So now there's sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and "mmmm....".
as long as it takes for Jed Bartlett to say "take him."
To turn off the X10 ads for 3000 days, click here:
t p://www.x10.com/x10ads1.htm
http://www.x10.com/home/optout.cgi?DAY=30&PAGE=ht
I mean, if you're going to post the link, you had might as well hack it...
Check register.com. It looks like the Armenians have your precious .org. Good luck fighting that international battle! It seems to me you'd be better off getting the .com version, while it's still available.