Author: Gabriel Persechino-Forest Published: July 15th, 2018
Debunking the Myth of Video Games and Sexism
It is well known by now that 4th wave feminists and other SJWs push the idea that playing video games that either feature sex or simply sexually attractive women in revealing clothing increases hostility against women and instils sexist values, especially in young gamers and even more so if the game also features violence against said characters (i.e. fighting games). Many articles such as Lara Croft and Rape Stories: Breaking Down the Bitch by the New Statesman, Kotaku’s The Real Problem with Sex Workers in Video Games, the Atlantic’s Why a Microsoft Employee is OK with a Rape Joke Made About her at E3 and many more such articles that came before, during and since that time were made accusing the industry of sexism and attempting to make a case of the “Rampant problem” that “Sexualization” poses in video games.
Well it turns out that this argument was exactly the line of bull it sounded like, especially in light of a research conducted by Glenna L. Read, Teresa Lynch and Nicholas L. Matthews which disproved the entire line of reasoning. The research, part of Sex Roles: A Journal of Research project, tested 300 college students by making them play a video game, or watch someone play, as either a “Sexualized” or non “Sexualized” female avatar and the results were surprising: They actually had reduced rape myth acceptance (Rape myth is the erroneous belief that a woman deserved to be raped or invited it) and reduced hostile sexism towards women.
From the study:
Results contradicted hypotheses that greater task demands and sexualization would produce greater RMA, hostile sexism, and self-objectification. Instead, we found that sexualization did not affect these variables. Greater cognitive load reduced rape myth acceptance and hostile sexism for those in the sexualized avatar condition, but it did not affect self-objectification.
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These results provide tentative evidence that cognitively demanding video game environments may prompt players to focus on stereotype-inconsistent, rather than stereotype-consistent, social information.
A similar research by Martha Fernandez de Henestrosa and Andrew Melzer at the University of Luxembourg also found no link between “Sexualized” avatars in video games and rape myth acceptance:
The results of the present study do not support the hypothesis that encountering sexualized violence in video games (i.e., playing a sexualized female game character in a fighting game) has an increasing effect on RMA compared to playing the same game with a non-sexualized female character…
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This result is in contrast to previous findings that the exposure to sexual and violent video game content increases the acceptance of rape myths…
And an even more recent study reaches the same conclusions:
In the experimental group, participants played the game with a confederate, who exposed participants to sexual objectification and violence against females. Study results indicated that both the experimental and control groups had equivalently low levels of rape myth acceptance prior to game play. Immediately after game play, there still was no statistically significant difference in rape myth acceptance between groups; however, there was a decrease in rape myth acceptance for the experimental group.
As you can imagine, this is not stopping the mainstream media from pushing the fictitious scenario of the dangers of video games and other mediums nor are any mainstream institutions rushing to correct the clearly erroneous reports released over the last six years. Considering that a lack of exposure to sexuality and a lack of understanding of it seems to actually be an indicator of greater likelihood of rape myth acceptance, according to these studies, one might call the current narrative against video games not only false, but dangerous and damaging to society; I won’t say criminal.
Source: Article Image: Springer Link Logo
More Attacks on the Medium
And with this bit of good news, let’s jump right back into the dumpster. Modder QNando created a mod which he recently updated for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and in spite of complaints about the shoddy work he did on Zelda’s behind (Compared to the makeover of the rest of the character), he insisted he “Wasn’t going to sexualize a 17 years old“. This nice bit of white knighting was made in spite of the fact that people’s problem was with how shoddy it made the character look, not that they wanted to look at her butt; not to mention that the original creators of the game obviously had no problem properly depicting said butt.
We also have an article from Comicverse that focuses on Citrus and writes:
Like most, I was lukewarm on the whole “step-sisters dating” aspect of the CITRUS anime. Initially, I thought this was nothing more than an attempt to appeal to a very niche audience.
In case you didn’t catch it, they are implying that there is something wrong, or at least off-putting, about catering to anything but a mainstream audience. It then goes on to lambaste the series for having “Sexual assault” in it and the writer somehow seems to be under the impression that such themes shouldn’t be tackled in art or should only be from what the media considers the “Appropriate” perspective. It’s sort of amusing to see them both criticize the series for its anime elements and bipolarly support it for its LGBT elements.
As I’m sure it comes as no surprise, the Saturn Awards join other award outlets in giving the middle finger to anime. That’s right, no anime won this year either.
And Now Censorship
The mainstream media has taken to calling teabagging in video games during multiplayer, online play an act of “Sexual assault”. I’m not even remotely making a joke here:
Despite it happening to digital avatars, the practice is still widely considered in poor taste. Teabagging is a horrifying act of sexual assault in real-life, which is why so many take extreme offense to its representation in video games.
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Teabagging is a fairly common practice in many competitive online games (anecdotally a very toxic community to begin with). Getting teabagged is always a frustrating experience, mainly because it’s adding insult to the injury of in-game death, and even worse, it foster an unwelcome environment for those that might want to avoid triggering examples of sexual abuse.
One has to wonder how you can have any fun with people this damaged calling the shots. For future reference, the only thing that’s truly toxic are the lies and half truths propagated by these so called “Journalists”.
Anyways, it continues:
Typical of the wider gaming community, tons of gamers are complaining about the people who are supposedly complaining about the teabagging, spewing vitriol about “SJWs”. Yet it’s virtually impossible to find anybody that actually complained about the teabagging.
Gee, I wonder if no one gives a damn.
The game Battletech also became the source of some controversy for the lack of an option for blonde hair in the character creation tool (Weird considering the insanely abnormal hair colors you can otherwise make) and a gender neutral option in the character select screen. While most people didn’t actually give a damn about both of these things, the controversy came when the developers decided to censor the discussion about said topics. Additional threads about similar and other topics were also locked. So it seems that blonde hair will now be the next victim in the Social Justice Crusade. I mean, you can’t make this up anymore, they are intentionally removing the ability to create a specific hair color and censoring discussion of those who complain.
Meanwhile, a few people decided to complain about Furia in the game Paladins and this resulted in her costume being altered to hide her thighs. The community was not having it though and managed to force the staff to restore the character’s original design. A small reminder that fighting back is always worth it.
Also a quick update on an old situation. The Japanese police has launched an investigation into the Mangamura pirate website as a result of various publishers (Including Kodansha) filling criminal complaints. The website has been inaccessible since April but that still isn’t enough for them.
Further Reading:
Social Pressure on Geek Mediums