HOW TO USE THIS BLOG: FEMINISTS AND ALLIES

[Note: This is a work in progress, folks. Don’t be surprised if you see this expanded, added to, or changed]

Hi, there. If you’ve found your way here, it’s probable that you fit into one of two categories; either you were linked to this blog somewhere , or you’re someone looking for material to address a certain point regarding sexism in gaming. Since the two cases are pretty different, I’ll address them separately. If you don’t feel you identify as a feminist or ally, please be sure to read this post addressing possibilities for why you were linked here.

User’s Guide: feminists or allies looking for posts about a specific issue

Maybe you’re having an argument with someone about some crappy aspect of gaming that is sexist. Reactions that you’ll typically get might fall into one of three categories: 1) you can’t get the other person to believe you (‘facts or it didn’t happen’) 2) they flail defensively at strawmen 3) they try to justify the sexism as not being a big deal.

If you’re dealing with numbers 2 or 3, there’s a good chance you’re dealing with a lost cause. You’re welcome to look for pertinent rebuttals here, but don’t expect too much. You’re much more likely to have success with gamers who don’t agree that sexism in gaming doesn’t exist because they’re not personally aware of it. And that’s okay. Hopefully they can be persuaded to at least see your point of view.

Categories that will be the most helpful:

numbers:

If you’re looking for hard numbers on “this is how women compare to men in game art”, any of my posts tagged as “numbers“ will help you out, but here’s a list of specific posts for those of you looking for something in particular:

My original article: examining art from MMOs, console games, CCGs, and D&D 4th Edition
World of Warcraft: Part 1: raw numbers, Part 2: caveats, Part 3: unequal class depictions)
Major gaming fansites & misogynist language: Part 1: initial numbers, Part 2: correcting for flawed methods, Part 3: conclusions
Magic:The Gathering: Part 1: trends in sexist art over time, numbers, Part 2: (side debate) male mages versus female mages, Part 3: actual pictures and caveats
Dragon Magazine (D&D fan magazine published by WotC): Sexist trends in artwork in Dragon Magazine for 2010.

doing it wrong

This is a bit more general of a tag, mostly applied to anatomy of game art but also applied to anything spectacularly fail worthy concerning the bodies of women in games and/or game art. If you’re looking for a more general post about gaming and anatomy fail, “doing it wrong” will help you out. If you’re looking for one of my posts in which I actually draw over fail-worthy game art and correct the anatomy, then you can see one of these posts:

Soul Calibur: Taki: torpedo breasts and lack of internal organs
Street Fighter: Chun Li: waifish arms, ridiculously exaggerated legs, lack of internal organs or ribcage
World of Warcraft: Human mage: disembodied arm, lack of internal organs/ribcage, anti-gravity boobs
Magic: the Gathering: Azure Mage – Magic 2012: arm disconnected from body, non-Euclidian ribcage, impossible cleavage
Forsaken World: Promo art: 80 year old breasts, anorexic torso, obese butt and thighs, freakily distorted Dhalsim arms
Blade and Soul: ridiculously exaggerated legs, lack of internal organs/ribcage, ginormous boobs, ridiculously small head

On a semi-related note, you might also be interested in these posts about famous game artists that I hate:

Reinaldo Quintero, aka “Reiq”: ridiculous breasts, ridiculous cleavage, ridiculous everything
Hyung Tae Kim: flopping distended lemon boobs, outthrust ladybits, chest TARDISes, lovingly detailed camel-toe, over-use of boob perspective
Wayne Reynolds: compulsively adds cleavage to female characters, even while clearly capable of drawing non-sexualized women (see also: Paizo fail and D&D fail)

blogosphere

One of my most general tags, this pretty much covers “shit that happens on the internet”. There’s a lot of stuff tagged as “blogosphere” worth reading, but some people in particular on the internet I have singled out as worthy of criticism, if not outright scorn. Here are some internet-famous people I have criticized here on my blog:

Jim Sterling (Destructoid.com: Part 1: extensive quotes by Jim Sterling proving that he is a misogynist, Part 2: Jim’s non-apology for misogynist language and subsequent rape humor in his professional work, Part 3: Even more misogynist rape humor from Jim Sterling subsequent to the first two posts
Dale North (Japanator.com, Destructoid.com): Part 1: Response to Dale’s faux-introspective post asking his fans if he is sexist, Part 2: Reaction to Dale’s promotion to Editor-in-Chief of Destructoid.com
Shelly Mazzanoble (Wizards of the Coast/D&D): why I really don’t want her to represent female D&D players
Louis Porter Jr. (3rd party Pathfinder publisher): My response to his very patronizing comment about how he’s glad that Paizo is progressive wrt race, but he doesn’t think gender equality much matters

gender swap

They say a picture is worth 1000 words. Posts tagged as “gender swap” are those in which I took female video game characters in sexualized poses and costumes and swapped their gender to turn them into men in order to illustrate how what we take for granted in our depictions of women is actually pretty ridiculous:

FFXIII: Vanille -> Van
World of Warcraft: gender-swapping “Crapping Frost Mage” (most successful BY FAR)
Hyung Tae Kim: Magna Carta gender-swap
FFXII: Balthier & Fran -> Balthiera & Frank
FFIX/FFX-2: Yuna & Kuja
Civilization the board game: Abraham Lincoln (not quite a gender-swap, but close enough)

You might also be looking for…

It might be that you’re looking for something that doesn’t fit into one of these categories. Here are some other frequently-linked posts that are harder to categorize: