Women get judged by how they look more than men do. Women actually lose out on some jobs because they are "too attractive": http://www.mybanktracker.com/news/2010/08/17/attractive-women-hiring-discrimination/

Leaving aside all the discrimination that women face based on their appearance alone, you are still missing the point in the video -- it was talking specifically about video game characters. The point was that nearly nobody expects men to meet these unrealistic body images (eg being like Kratos), while women are expected to try to meet them in real life.

No, I'm talking about the argument in the video that men have more choice between playing different characters.

I was suffering from this stereotype since middle school. Now I just got tired of my metal hair, so it's probably going to go soon.

By the way, back in the old days, short hair was only seen among slaves, their heads were shaven to prevent bugs spreading.

On a second note, it also depended on culture. In egypt shaving head was common, short hair in ancient Rome also, but in the north it was common for men to have long hair also (not long all the way down to the waist, but still)

must have something to do with the temperatures :P

This is why I wish entertainment continues to grow more and more to being truly dynamic, interactive, and emergent entertainment instead of a static story that everyone plays the same way . That doesn't mean that writing isn't important though. Deus Ex had elements of emergent story mixed with good writing. The people in Morrowind felt unique and the world was a fun place to explore in different ways, and being so open to modding really took it to another level actually making factions and some of your choices mean something.

I don't care how other people play games and I want to be able to play how I want to play too. I will be what I will be when I play virtual games. If I want to hypersexualize a Bethesda game with different body type mods, I don't see how that is anyone;s business. Likewise, if other people want to desexualize games with mods, it doesn't affect my game experience at all.

The problem, it seems to me, is trying to appeal to as many people as possible with the base game available for public sale. To me this would seem to lead to bland and neutral games so they don't offend anyone and then private people on all sides would be stuck with doing much of the work to get it to their taste. That or game companies could put many, many toggles in the game menus so players can fine tune the game just the way they want it. I can see moral police getting upset even with that though because it's not that they have a choice to play the way they want to, it's that other people could play privately in a way that they don't want them to.

edit: Or just play games you don't like. There are plenty of games that I don't like. I really dislike the art style of most JRPGs enough that it keeps me from enjoying some games more than I would have otherwise.

That kind of discrimination is more likely done by female bosses who have a bee queen syndrome.

My gf doesn't have F-cups (or even D-cups), and I love her very much. And she doesn't seem to have a problem finding a job either, or getting positive attention from others. And as said before, men also face expectations for their appearance, like looking healthy, being tall etc. in the society in general.

So is the argument now that only F-cup women get jobs (or don't get jobs, if they are too sexy? Which way was it again?) _because_ some games have sexy female characters?

BTW, I'm a bit perplexed by these photos of buttnaked F-cup characters, as if most games had them. For some reason I've been missing them, for now I can recall only Tomb Raider (where the big-chested lead character was actually the protagonist, and kicked men's ass) and Bloodrayne 1-2, where the high-heels protagonist vampire was kinda sexy (apparently she should have been old, overweight and losing teeth?).

In e.g. Icewind Dale there were sexy looking portraits available for the female characters, but then there were also less sexier, stumpy female dwarf types to choose from.

Maybe I am playing the wrong games, or this "problem" is mostly with some Japanese console-only, or PC hentai, games... or then it is really a small subset of games that the feminists are now getting all worked up. Oh yeah, that Hitman Absolution trailer (which looked like a Tarantino/Rodriguez movie trailer in style), no idea if all the female characters in the game were like that. I haven't played the game yet.

Possibly those games are mainly aimed at men then, because men mostly like to play such action games, while women play Bejeweled, Farmville and The Sims. As soon as women rush to buy bloody action games where they can choose an old, overweight Australian native woman, more games start having choices like that, because publishers like to sell more games.

Come to think of it, I think Saints Row 3 gives lots of options for your characters appearance, so you could choose also an overweight woman? Does that now mean that SR3 is a big success among female gamers? If it isn't, then being able to select your (female) appearance in a game loses its importance, apparently women don't care about that as much as you think, when choosing a game.

Also any hair stylist will tell you that short hair looks much better on obese people than long hair because longer, curly hair will make them look bigger. I don't usually retort with this reason for why I think they cut their hair short though because pointing out someone's weight is considered rude even though they could lose weight and I usually try to be civil. I don't blurt out "Hey, why don't you lose some weight!" even though having a bunch of extra weight could be considered feminine because you're much more likely to have low testosterone if you're obese.

I also remember reading a study where women were asked if they liked beards on men. A small majority did not like beards. Sure, whatever floats your boat. What I didn't understand though was the #1 reason women gave for not liking beards. It wasn't because they thought it looked unkempt or that it was scratchy. I could understand that and adjust if that was the case. No, it was because it made men look aggressive, like men should be docile or something. Whatever, my beard and hair has a practical purpose to keep me warmer in the winter and I'm not cutting it just to look docile.

Well, it was you who was stupid enough to suggest that what arouses us is _completely_ learned. Yes, that includes also which gender (the characteristics of each gender) you are aroused by.

You weren't earlier talking about only what kind of colors we like or irrelevant shit like that, the question was about what arouses us. According to people like you it is completely a "social construct".

Talk about pseudo-science...

I have long hair and no one seems to care in my college. Probably because I counter balance it with a full facial hair.

No, the argument is, as it has been, that the criticism "men get the same treatment in video games" does not hold water, because these portrayals do not affect men in the same way that they do women. The sexism in the workplace was just one example of how women are judged by their appearance. It wasn't the crux of the argument.

Of course the reason is because these video games are aimed at men, or more precisely teenage boys. The point in the video was that even if men are offended by those overly muscled characters, they have more alternatives to choose from.

You should tell that to Jenny Haniver. She seems to be under the misguided impression that these games have a wider audience, including ladies like herself... Silly woman, she should know better, right ;)? After all - playing bloody shooters is not only unfeminine, but also immature. She should stay in the kitchen.

They affect men and women exactly the same way: none at all. It is a ludicrous idea that someone wouldn't employ a woman unless she has G-cup tits, because he happened to play games where there were G-cup tit women. Yes, some man who has a fixation with ultra-huge tits might prefer to employ such a woman, just like some female boss who has fixation with young and tall athletic men, would employ someone like that instead of an obese and short old man who has a hairy back.

People prefer the company of people they find attractive. So what else is new?

Men are also judged by their appearance, also when they are trying to find a job.

So, women should buy in droves games like Saints Row 3 and 4 where they can create protagonists like that, _if_ that really was so important to them liking the game. Yet, GTA V without such an option apparently sold buttloads more, which suggests either of the two:

- There were relatively few women who are interested in GTA-like games (compared to the amount of male gamers).

- There are lots of women playing SR3-4 and GTA V, but they don't care about the ability to choose a female character.

You forgot the 3rd option. (see attached)

Wow, somehow this thread turned into a morass of pointless arguments, closeted bigotry, and misbegotten "opinions". To think that none of this should have even been debatable... :(

You are so amazing.

Will do! :)

It's not about big tits -- you can have a character with huge... tracts of land who isn't objectified. The issue is that a sizable amount of female characters are objectified and sexualised in video games, no matter how impractical it may be.