6 Sexist Video Game Problems Even Bigger Than the Breasts

Where exactly does she "kick plenty of ass and demonstrate backbone?" If I took stuff from the story cutscenes alone, it shows that though she does kick some amount of ass, her backbone is virtually nonexistent with regards to her interactions with Adam.

I would believe you that "she fights through it all and saves the day" if say, for example during the Ridley scene, after her episode, she not only fights back, but destroys Ridley yet again by her own hands rather than have him killed offscreen by some creature that came out of nowhere. Since the latter happened, there was no true closure to that subplot, she never got payback, she never truly overcomes her obstacles, that particular subplot was not resolved. In the end, we are left seeing her as a weaker character than she started out as, and for seemingly no other reason than as a vain attempt at giving her some character depth for the sake of doing so.

@darji: No one's complaining that caring for each other is sexist. Everyone's complaining about the out-of-universe reasons for putting in stuff like Damsels in Distress in the first place (ranging anywhere from "they're lazy and can't come up with a better reason" to "they simply think women exist only to be rescued and not to act as independent entities").

I have one small contribution: Metroid Other M put huge, impractical, ridiculous fucking heels on the zero suit. They most definitely were not there before, and most definitely cannot be palmed off as simply bad writing. What possible reason could these heels serve other than to sex her up? - Something the zero suit had somehow up until then managed to dodge - despite being a skintight leotard - using the "practicality inside a big suit of metal armor" argument. What the hell is practical about six-inch, platform heels?

Actually, Ridley's fate explains his state in Metroid Fusion, where he first appears as a corpse in cold storage with no explanation. And you know, sometimes, you don't always get the opportunity for the finishing blow. Ridley planned to live and fight another day. When Samus came across his corpse later, she knew that something was obviously fucked and had to change her plans accordingly.

As for Samus's backbone, how do her interactions with Adam undermine that? In order to even be part of the mission, she had to agree to follow his orders. It's fully explained that it's standard Galactic Federation protocol that if the military arrives at a site of a distress signal first, they have jurisdiction and if anyone wants to help, then they have to play by the commanding officer's rules. Samus is respectful of the law enough that she isn't going to just barge in and agreed to Adam's condition that she follow his directives like any sane person would do. Is that complicated by the fact that he's also her former CO from her time in the army and the reason they parted ways years before? Sure. But up to the point where MB tries to fool Samus into the belief that Adam was somehow behind the metroid project, she was also staying professional in terms of their relationship during the mission. Adam recognized that Samus was being misled and that, had he tried to face her on even ground, it would be difficult to get her to see the truth based on the skewed evidence that MB had presented to her. So he had to resort to some underhanded trickery for the sake of being able to both talk to her and prevent her from finding certain death against the unfreezable metroids.

In the meantime, while Samus is on her way there, she's discarded the need to listen to Adam. He's not on the communication link anymore and she's not just going to wait around for him to authorize the use of her screw attack. After her encounter and conversation with Adam, her path remaining on the mission is clear: Take out Ridley. (Of course, neither she nor Adam knew that Ridley was already being taken out.)

This is just easy website hits, isn't it? No wonder it won't die.

At least people are using the more appropriate "sexism" instead of the more extreme term of "misogyny." It was starting to sound like school children fighting for a second there, with no idea what the words they were using meant.

That seems like the kind of stat the ESA would want to promote, but is defined by a very broad definition of video games. Especially since they're obviously including smart phones and the like in their other statistics. Also... to be truly pedantic... that stat is stated as game players, not buyers.

It would be nice if it was true though, wouldn't it?

I totally agree that it is lazy writing. The damsel in distress is a easy tool to give a player motivation. But many people claim that it is sexist and bad for women representation. Like Anita for example does. She called it objectification and making the women a reward which I totally disagree with.

Most of the problems we have is not really sexism but rather bad writing and that goes for males and females in video games and calling this out is really a fair game you even can combine it with your sexism "rampage" sorry could not find another word for it...

But it really gets strange if you criticize a game like The last of US with brilliant writing and 2 really and even equal main protagonists. Naughty dog did a lot to make Ellie that special. They fought for her to be on the cover in the front. They made her and Joel complex than many many many other video game characters. They treated her like a real person but people still criticize this game for Ellie being weak? Ellie grow a lot in this game and in the winter scenario she never needed help from Joel. She cared so much for him not to die she put herself in great danger just to save him.

This is really when i get upset.... The stuff like calling spelunky sexist is just stupid and does not even deserve attention but "finally" for many people you get someone like Ellie and people still calling this a bad representation for women and sexist? I am sorry but if you are not even happy with someone like Ellie you really do not deserve any attention at all anymore. IT makes you look like a fool just seeking rage and attention for the sake of being upset and trying to victimize yourself.

@darji: Whoa hey, I actually agree that picking out The Last Of Us as an example of poor representations of women was a bad thing. I'm talking about stuff outside of that.

I did not say you are doing it but rather the article and this is where I stopped reading because if your first example is something like that I really refuse to pay any attention to rest. This is a very very bad start to begin your argument about such a topic. And after reading it all I can say it these games the author has picked are pretty pretty bad. I do not speak for Metroid because I have not played or seen much of other M or I can relate much to other Metroid games but lets take Tomb Raider for example:

I really like the new Lara croft because she was not the emotionless superhuman from the past. She now had emotions and felt like a person. Yes the strong opening hour has not coherent with the rest of the shooting gameplay and her being suddenly a merciless killer of thousands of people but the set up was great in my opinion. Again showing emotions like anyone would in such a situation is now called weak caring and even crying is making a whiny and weak and I really do not like that. Video game characters try to become more and more human and I really love this fact. I am tired of male of female being able to kill thousands and thousands of people without showing any emotions. I want my games to have these moments of weakness for male and female characters. And this goes for male ones as well if its fitting of course.

If you do a game like lets say Strider there is no real place for that but if you have creative writers like the ones Naughty dog has or even David cage which are not afraid of doing this I think videogames become more than just fun games. The Last of Us was not really fun for me yes the gameplay was good and I enjoyed it but I was more invested in the story just I was in the beginning with the new Tomb Raider.

For Heavy Rain not even forgetting that the first scene in this game was basically a naked man taking a shower. The dream sequence from Madision was for me very powerful not because she wore underwear which people actually do at night but rather because it made me curious what happened in her past to be so afraid to sleep at home. For me this scene was a memory of the past with maybe a different ending. For example maybe she was assaulted and raped in her home and it was like she was dying and that she now can not sleep in her own home alone anymore. They only sad thing is that Cage did not explore it further but if he did there would have probably a lot of outrage because he included a rape scene in his game and while it is totally fine in Movies and you win even awards with such moments it is a taboo in this industry....

Which brings me to Hotline Miami 2. The scene for me showed exactly how america or the movie industry is. Violence is not enough anymore and that they need more than just that and even rape is not enough anymore. You can clearly think that if you listen to the director telling the guy to be more rougher and to the women to be more feminine. It was a great meta commentary for me. But what did this "PC mob" do? They never thought about it ones but just saw a women getting violated which is really showing for the whole discussion that is going on. As soon someone treats a women badly in games they call it sexist and misogyny and not the character in the game but rather the developer and writer for doing such a thing. They try forceful to censorship video games and this is really where your own opinion is not ok anymore.

Overall I think this was a bad article with very bad examples.

phew´normally I do not write so much because I make more and more errors in long posts but I hope I showed my standpoint clearly.

@darji: I think you need to understand that people don't have a problem with women showing weakness. They have a problem with the *way* that weakness is shown in comparison with male characters going through the same thing. In the case of Tomb Raider, a lot of the game is basically a lot of shit happening to Lara and her reacting to it. And the way she reacts to it is mostly whimpering and crying and wailing rather than toughening up and occasionally giving a cry when the pressure is too much to handle. She actually doesn't do a whole lot of *acting* until near the end. I think Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation said it best: the game tries really hard to demonstrate that Lara is becoming this battle-hardened woman-at-arms, but at the same time, things continue to happen to her to make her appear as a re-actor rather than an actor.

Also, amongst the many sequences where Lara gets injured and has to treat herself, there's one in particular that might be somewhat troublesome. There's a part where she gets a medkit from a helicopter, and when she's either trying to get the medkit or attempting to heal herself with it, it hurts her just enough for another slightly uncomfortable torture-porn sequence where she performs extremely painful field surgery on himself and we get what felt like about a minute of agonised gasping whilst the camera focuses on her heaving, sweat-streaked chest. Compare this to Big Boss in MGS3 after he got his ass handed to him by The Boss. The game did not focus nearly as much on looking at Big Boss's injured mangled body and hearing him scream in pain (he had one big scream of pain and a few yelps, but other than that the scene was relatively short), despite likely having more broken bones in his body than Lara at that point.

BTW, I understand your points fairly well, although I think you need to attempt to see it their way in order to fully understand why they say what they say. And not everything you say they said was actually said by them. Also, keep in mind that many of these feminists are not out to ruin your hobby, but to make it more acceptable to a wider range of people outside of just guys like us.

But isn't this than a male representation problem? For me personally I play games for the story. .Like Uncharted for example. I had fun with the shooting but I played the game for the story I liked how these characters were more human in cut scenes that is what keeps me playing. If I compare it to lets say gears of war with the typical super hero I can not make any connection to these guys because I see no real emotion and humanity I really find it off putting. So yes I want to see more weaknesses for male and female characters. Many female characters feel way more human and emotional than the male ones. But many Feminists who criticize games see this as a weakness and this upsets me...

I really want better written characters but to me it seems you can not do that right now because everyone will complain about it and PR companies do not even want to risk a bad Pr than anymore. Lets take for example: The new Devil May cry. I thought story and characters were much of an improvement because Dante was not cool action emotionless action hero anymore. He had characteristics and his own share of problems and the try to make it more human and a character with more feelings gave these developers a lot of hate. Not forgetting the sexism comment because Virgil the evil guy killed a pregnant demon.....

As for feminism in general. I think the idea of feminism is totally outdated in our countries and times. It is not about fighting for equal rights but Feminism rather became a lobby which always needs a reason to fight. It is not comparable anymore to the real women movement back then. Feminists are not for equal rights but rather for rights for women. It is egalitarianism I am standing for. And the current movement of feminism in games is ruining our hobby because developers and publisher can not even try stuff out anymore because the moment you have in women in a game she will be judged based on her looks, her character, her story basically everything and even before the game is out take MGSV and quiet for example and this upsets me.

We have so many bad male characters but these are only labeled as dumb and stupid but if you have a bad female character they call it misogynistic and sexist..... They even call out games like a mario or Spelunky or super meat boy games with no real story at all. Damsels in these games is just a tool to give the player a motivation.

What I find hilarious in these claims is that their writers don't seem to be from our world. They want women to be equal to men in strength and emotional stability in art, when in fact in real life they are NOT, for the most part.

Go find a couple on the street and attack them, who will scream and who will fight you? The former is the woman, the latter is the man, I'm talking about shit I see in real life, that's how it is, most women want to be protected by a man and it shows in real life, most women indulge in emotion much more than men want to or do, most women scare easily than a man and scream, rarely do I see a man scream in panic.

Also, when a man fights a woman in whatever circumstance or scenario, in most cases he out-powers her, that's why most domestic disturbance cases blame and prosecute the man, because in most cases he is physically stronger and thus is to blame because he can cause more damage, and that's why, SADLY I might add, most rape cases consist of a man raping a woman, because he's stronger, (and an asshole). This is a general social fact, you can't close your eyes and believe we are equal in our traits, we're only equal in our rights as human beings, employees, citizens and so forth. There is a massive difference between RIGHTS and TRAITS.

Here, explain this shit:

Yeah, that's how it goes down in real life, that's how it is, the man is the protector (or attempted protector) when push comes to shove, so enough with the blind misguided political correctness.

@darji: Agreed.

This is pointless, you could make any character and still find some reason to throw the word sexism on it. Maybe we should just get rid of all entertainment all together.

Remember the times when sexism was not invented yet, like, 2 years ago?

I have always come from the school of thought that thinks its fine that we have over sexualised characters as long as we have a good amount of female characters that are dressed normally and are fully rounded and realised characters, but we don't and that's a problem. There are a lot of other problems that we need to address that are really important such as the ones listed in this artical that people don't call out as often because we have made the community so tired of it being brought up by essentially calling wolf every time some ones boobs are too big when we should be saying that's sexist to things like tomb raider and saying tropes like the damsel in distress trope needs to stop.

Yeah MGSV 5 and quiet was such a thing. The world is highly sexualized men are as equal sexualized as women but not for these people. And then they try to argue with a picture showing snake in a BRA which makes absolutely no sense. The stockings on him were totally fine but the bra made it looks just stupid in regards of their argumentation. Or the best one is comparing showing boobs with showing dicks...

That is why I can not take these people seriously at all....

But it's pretty much the same for 2008 (the earliest year I could find), and smartphone games have only really taken off in the last few years, haven't they? And what's "and the like"? Are you implying that they're including POP Station games in their statistics, somehow?

If sexism is problem, let free market auto correct that. If it is real issue, customers will not buy product that they don't like. If there is this great market for "games with strong women in it", somebody will make money out of it.

@sinusoidal: Everyone hated Other M.(Except Brad)

It was sexist not because how the character looked, but how she acted compared to the older games. "I CANT USE THE VARIA SUIT UNTIL MY MAN TELLS ME IT'S OK" and various other out of character things. The game made her(A genetically altered human/chozo hybrid with inhuman powers, a feared bounty hunter) look inferior to some asshole captain(normal human officer) by having her obey his every order like she couldn't think for herself. They also gave her PTSD outbreaks when seeing Ridley, even though she had killed him 3 times before without any problems.

They could have kept the sexy Samus( sans the heels) and had a good story and character development, but they managed to fuck that up. Metroid: Other M is the Dmc2 of Metroid games.

@jouseldelka The guy who beat the crap out of those guys got shot in the stomach by them later in the full video. :(

Straight white men telling me what sexism is.

@librorumprohibitorum: Are you telling me that straight white men can't be sexually harassed. Are they immune to it?

so now you are discriminating straight white men? Everyone's opinion is worth the same and it doe snot matter what race gender or sexuality he or she has.

Unfortunately sexism is live and well in real life, take the newly elected PM of Australia for example, his every interaction with women is awkward, he literally has less women in his staff than the opposition party has ex-PMs. Also take the rhetoric used against our previous female PM, it was all "burn the witch". I could see these insults arising without even a hint of sexism, except for the people who were responsible.

The funny thing for me is that the gaming outcry nicely with a similar outcry in the scientific scepticism and humanist movements, the same kind of ill thought out arguments are being used by some feminists in both. Unfortunately I can't just dismiss the entire concept of feminism because some people are incapable of putting together a straight and logical argument to support their claims.

So in summary; to say that there's no need for feminists, and that feminists are not for equal rights isn't true, some groups of feminists are exactly as bad as you think (see skepchick.org for some examples), others actually do just want a fair go.

Well, I value my doctors opinion more than I do that of my hippy friend that totally has psychic powers. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but not all opinions are made equal.

But those are very different games, with very different marketing. Like facebook games.

A lot of this issue is subjective to what the individual finds acceptable or offensive. If you dont like it dont buy it. It wont change if we all keep buying that "hot lady on te box art game" <-- That's a great title for a game though, right? ;-)

I am personally not offended by any of it, not the scantily clad lady ninjas and not the oiled up muscle flexing marine dudes. I just like games, man.

They've been tracking these stats for a while, and they haven't changed all that much in that time.

This has always struck me as something of a defeatist strategy, although I can't completely mentally organize the reasons for this. Something about developers taking notice of what they sell rather than what they don't sell, or a limited selection of games limiting what you can say with your purchasing power, or even how this strategy only works in large, organized groups rather than a smaller series of people independently making these decisions. Besides, a lot of people find out whether or not they like something by experiencing it, rendering this advice almost completely worthless.

"If you don't like it, don't buy it" only works as long as who your buying from would actually notice. The free market idea is bullshit like that. So long as there are people buying a product in significant numbers there's not going to be any attitude change. If you want to enact change, you've got to take your fiends, and your friends-friends out of the market.

Boycotting isn't going to work if sales numbers reach expectations.

Many former feminists calling today's feminism out saying it has nothing to do with the women movement back then and for the most part I totally agree. I heard lectures from former feminists who have shown evidence how statistics are wrong on purpose in their textbooks to keep this hate about men and patriarchy in their women study sessions in Universities going. They are manipulating these young women with all their hatred just to push an agenda and to establish the lobby they have build up over the years.

As for the PM situation in Australia I can not say much about and yes sexism still exist. But so does sexism against men. In our world (first world countries) women have more rights then men they have more opportunities and they are certainly not oppressed anymore. Of course there are cases which are still real but i am speaking in general. WE should not fight for women but rather for people. Don't talk about domestic violence against women but rather talk about the problem domestic violence against anyone. In the UK for example The victims of domestic violence have a 60:40 gender split. Sexual harassment at the workplace also exist on both sides but men rather not talk about. We should not fight for certain gender or races but rather fight for people.

As for the gaming world. None of these "good" feminists are fighting here. It basically started all with Anita which is one of the worst on this regard. Her videos not only about video games but as a whole are embarrassing and actual feminists who have a name are staying far far away from such people.

I pretty much agree, but I agree completely with the bolded part :)

I like how you just completely ignored the comments in this very thread that support the game. It's not like Brad was alone in his praise of it.

What, specifically, is out of character for Samus? For most of the series, she had no character, aside from various external materials. Also, as I said before, her agreeing to take orders from Adam had everything to do with GF protocol and jurisdiction and nothing to do with sexism. The game was not the DMC2 of Metroid, either. DMC2 was a poor gameplay experience. Other M is not.

@darji: @nekroskop: Yep, that is literally word for word what I said and not you overblowing a statement at all.

@librorumprohibitorum: Sexism is ignoring a person's individualism and replacing it with stereotypes and generalities of a social group that you place them in. For instance, taking arguments made by straight white men and declaring them ignorant because they were said by straight white men. Those straight white men couldn't possibly say anything resembling logic or fairness, the misogynist bastards. They wouldn't know what it's like to have their individuality demeaned or dismissed in favor of negative stereotypes.

@MeaslyTwerp; there is as much need for feminism as there is for 'masculinism' or any ideology that favors one gender over another. Which is why people who really care say they are egalitarian. Feminism cannot, by definition, be worried about equality over being worried about women. It's why they chose to use a word for female in their name rather than a word for equality. I will never understand how anyone chooses an ideology that is concerned for the welfare of a single group, and sees everything that another group does as threatening, even when it amounts to playing games quietly all by themselves, and then has the nerve to say it's 'for equality'.

The places where feminism is 'needed' is the third world and brutal theocracies, not free Western liberal democracies. Especially not in western democracies in which women make up the second-largest voting bloc at 57%, are better employed, live longer, are more safe, and have millions of dollars funnelled to organizations that are only looking out for the welfare of women. Despite all this, I get told how western countries 'need feminism'. No, it's women who can't go outside without putting on a burka that need the protection, it's women (and men) who suffer depravity because of whatever ridiculous caste they were born in, it's women who suffer being mutilated because of people believing in supernatural nonsense like witches and curses, these are the people who need help. But they'll never receive it, because western feminism is too busy attempting to stop men from enjoying anything that doesn't have women in it, anything that has women in it that are too sexy, too weak, too strong, too aggressive, too passive. A man wants a woman to put on more clothes, he's a misogynist, stop telling women how to dress. A man wants a woman to take off some clothes, he's a misogynist, don't abuse her with your gaze. There's no winning, and even when some men give up, and just try to invest their energies into art that has nothing to do with women, they're STILL misogynists because the art doesn't interest women enough. Remember, men, the only way you can have value is if women think you have value.

The only thing that keeps me sane is knowing that more and more women are refusing to play into the victimization, the threat narrative and the endless sense of personal entitlement that feminism advocates for. Without them I don't know what I would do.

This shit is getting really tired

The top rated comments on that article pretty much sums up my feelings on this article.

"But as soon as the guy turns up, she dissolves into tears and nursing. She could be machetifying a rapist cannibal into sashimi, but if the hero arrives she'll instantly collapse into helpless tears, safe in his arms. Because that's exactly what happens."

No, you're right. Its a well known fact that when a real 14 year old is put through the indescribable trauma of fighting off a rapist and being forced to hack him to death, she will just light a cigarette and utter a one-liner. Terror isn't real, and certainly never affects a person once its over. Thats how sanity works, right?

If there is a like button I would hit it. great post. And much better to the point than I could ever do^^

Cracked should stick to humor.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was implying.

I am so fucking fed up with the sexism/misogyny bullshit. So fucking fed up.

One thing. It's totally right for a woman to slap her husband, or any man for that matter, right in the face on national TV. It happened to that racecar driver a couple of weeks ago. But if a man did that to a woman? Game over, man, game over.

It's totally right for them to read soft porn like Shades of Grey that turns men into dark, brooding sexual deviants. But if we watch a movie with a bond-girl in it, then DAMN, misogyny!

Why do we need to be the '' man of the house '' and lift up heavy objects and do repair work everywhere? We're EQUAL, right?

Yet another very interesting, well-put article getting crushed by gamers because they feel like some outsider is sneaking into their sock drawer and taking a piss.

@klei: Ya sound pressed as fuck here son.

Also, what is it with dudes and always bringing up how "unfair a double standard it is" that they cant punch women? Why y'all wanna beat ladies so bad?

how was this one well put? I have not heard a single argument why it was well put? Or why a game like the last of us deserved to be on this list. Hell even Heavy Rain does not deserve to be on the list or the new Tomb Raider. All these games feature women which are much much better written than like 80 or 90 percent of male video game characters.

But please enlighten us.

while i usually enjoy reading certain cracked articles this one was kind of annoying. i've noticed that cracked usually points out things that kind of suck (and they are usually right on point) and then exaggerate the point a whole lot to make it a funny read.however in this case it feels like the writer was simply trying to get attention, but i do agree with a few of his points.

i think the reason there are less strong female characters in games is that there aren't as many females making games, which is also the reason that society as a whole still sees gaming as a boys club.

to be honest i wish female gamers were more active in the gaming community, and i dont mean sitting there pointing out that they are gamer girlz, just be part of a community like on gb. why does it matter what gender or sexual orientation or race you are as long as you are smart and passionate about games like the rest of us

on a side note i just watched the girlfight quick look...

This is exactly why I brought up the heels. Sure, you can explain away the PTSD, the not using her suit's power and the unreasonable devotion to a dead baby metroid that she previously donated to science and was nearly killed by by blaming bad writing. What's your explanation for the heels? They're obviously not practical in any way, unless you're going to suggest she stores something in there, in which case there are ways to store a few cubic inches of stuff without seriously impeding your locomotion.

It's pretty clear they're there only to make her look taller and her legs longer at the expense of her ability to run or even walk efficiently: something very out of character for a planet hopping bounty hunter known to wander into extremely dangerous situations on her own.

@hailinel: Too bad...

@librorumprohibitorum Ok.

There are quite a few female writers in there. For example the new Tomb Raider was written by a female. Amy Henning is also a fantastic writer. And maybe they carter much more for boys because these are still the people who buy most of these games and a lot of them. There is nothing wrong with a boys club. If women are not interested in gaming they should not be forced to enjoy it nor should gaming change. Rather than change try to add new things. Do not change old IPs but rather create new ones. Create new opportunities for men and women to enjoy. And you can all do that by leaving the other games be. But sadly that is not the case...

As for the quicklook: Yeah dumb game but it has as much reason to exist like the Sims or Fifa. As long there is a market who want to play this game it has all the right ot exist, It will not make women look bad nor will it damage any representation of women in our real world.

@sinusoidal: They're obviously a design embellishment. I have no idea why specifically they were included or whose decision it was to include them. That's unfortunate, and I agree it is silly and needless, given the heel-less depiction of the suit in other games (not to mention the impracticality). But is that the only aspect that is truly out of character?

You're not very good at this whole debate thing, I see.

You are terrible at this whole "argument" thing.

It is artistic freedom and sexualizing a character which is not a bad thing. What I never would do is questioning things like how can she do all this with these heels because it is all fantasy and not set in a realistic world like a Battlefield for example. If they would have high heels there than I would call FOUL there but not really in a fantasy setting like this.

@darji: She appeared in multiple games released prior to Other M with a heel-less Zero Suit. There is no reason for them to be there.

This comment was so terrible it gave me constipation.

Some recent games have featured independent, well-developed characters with amazing powers, intriguing pasts, and mental off-switches activated by ball sweat.

I stopped right here.

what