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Originally Posted by vometia
In my experience, it seems that psychiatric interestingnesses often hang around in gangs, so while they may be distinct and different to each other, in practice I think it's often quite easy to relate. It's one of those subjects where they can often seem more different than they are alike on the basis that all people are different, speaking as someone who for a long time rejected the idea of autism because "but I'm not like that". No, I'm like me, which is the whole point! The autism angle no more identifies me than having brown eyes (or whatever colour I've chosen today: one of the advantages of wearing contacts is that it conveniently panders to the indecisive in that regard at least).


Ah, I see!

I should learn from your example. My mental illness has really been controlling my life lately, between the medication side effects keeping me bedridden and the disorder itself flaring back up in the absence of any antipsychotics. Also, I would totally do colored contacts, but I was born with crystal blue eyes, which I've been told look really pretty! Then again, I've always been partial to the thought of glowing neon green irises, so I'll have to give it a shot someday!

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Weird Life Fact of the day: Weird people like other weird people :P Weird being nonstandard for general utility in this case

Opinion: Normal gets boring

2nd Opinion: Guh, I could never do contacts. I'd poke out my eye; sides nerdy is sexy. I love my girlfriend wearing her glasses while wearing a Japanese marvel comi-con t shirt.

Oooooh, you should go into work with Sharigan or something lol

*sigh* well, I'm making my way to bed to see if I can force catch some sleep. These forums are part of my new entertainment lol and it's horrible on my habits


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Originally Posted by aj0413
Weird Life Fact of the day: Weird people like other weird people :P Weird being nonstandard for general utility in this case

Opinion: Normal gets boring

2nd Opinion: Guh, I could never do contacts. I'd poke out my eye; sides nerdy is sexy. I love my girlfriend wearing her glasses while wearing a Japanese marvel comi-con t shirt.

Oooooh, you should go into work with Sharigan or something lol

*sigh* well, I'm making my way to bed to see if I can force catch some sleep. These forums are part of my new entertainment lol and it's horrible on my habits



Alright, I'll hit the hay too, then, so neither of us is tempted to stay up. Sleep well, man! Say hi to your beautiful girlfriend for me! laugh

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*sigh* No, there is not a general trend of discrimination against women in the workplace anymore, it has been made largely illegal. Yes you can find an anecdotal example of someone discriminating against your mother, and I can throw anecdotes right back abut the reverse.

Lets touch on this women in IT for a moment shall we, because not only are women not being barred from entering these fields, they are actually prefered for hire over men because there is such pressure from certain *ahem* groups to "get women into STEM"

I will however not be trying to spin an emotional argument based on some anecdote, lets instead look at some statistics.

From: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/04/women-preferred-21-over-men-stem-faculty-positions

"For decades, sexism in higher education has been blamed for blocking women from landing academic positions in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields.
But a new study by Cornell psychologists suggests that era has ended, finding in experiments with professors from 371 colleges and universities across the United States that science and engineering faculty preferred women two-to-one over identically qualified male candidates for assistant professor positions."

The question is, now that I can direct you to solid evidence that the situation in STEM is actually the reverse of what you were trying to argue based on some anecdotes, are you equally upset over reading about the reverse?
If we were to start extrapolating what kind of anecdotes of one gender being passed up for promotions based on specifically gender over merit, does the situation in reverse make you equally upset or do you take a neutral or even positive attitude towards it? I ask you this question more for you to honestly ask it of yourself than to present me with an answer, because if your spontaneous reaction to reading about preferential treatment of women in STEM was anything but an equal amount of disapproval you showed previouisly, why should anyone take your hypocritical indignation seriously?

Another relevant point when opting to explain the gender disparity in STEM fields as caused by sexism is the implications of this explanation. If the reason we find fewer women in these fields in the west, then what is the explanation for women earing a majority of science degrees in the following countries:

Iran
Oman
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
Romania
Algeria
Bulgaria
Malaysia
Kyrgyzstan
Italy
Uzbekistan
Georgia (the country, not the state)
Panama
Lebanon
Argentina
Jordan
Palestinian Authority
Mongolia
Azerbaijan

Are we going to conclude that this list of countries is less sexist than a list of western countries? Is the explanation that Sweden has one of the most gender segregated workforces in the world that Sweden is simply more sexist than this long list topped by middle eastern countries?

http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/mariacharles/documents/WhatGenderisScience.pdf

One might think that the sexism drum should start wearing out at some point considering how hard people are beating it over anything and everything.
But if Saudi Arabia is doing a much better job at curbing sexism in education, perhaps we should start taking cues from them as how to best eliminate the persistence of sexism here in the west? What do you say?

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There is stuff, that makes women biological superior to men in specific areas, and stuff that makes men superior to women. But no every man and every woman are the same, some men are more like women and some women more like men, natur is strange. Men in general are strong in body but weak in mind, they are better soldiers and heavy workers but more likely to kill themself, sometimes just out of recklessness. Women can withstand far more suffering and because they are weaker bodywise they tend to be smarter, if you are weak you need to outsmart the stronger one. "Behing a strong man is always a strong woman" just a different kind of strong. Also women tend to be far more hard-working than men.

There is of course still sexism in the first world, there are many fields where women need to work harder to gain the same, and some fields were men are looked at as less competent. Overall women are getting more and more on the same field, but they still get more discriminated, mainly because men are afraid of their competition.

Men prefer to look down and women prefer to look up. If men and women met on a plain field, neither side will have a lot to look at.

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Feel free to try backing up your claims with some substantial evidence. It would make them a lot more credible.

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It's for a job as assistant professor. So an underling job.

Edit : and no, I won't check the other link when the first one is already crap.

Last edited by melianos; 04/10/16 11:53 AM.
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Ah, so the sexism only starts for professorships? I see. I guess we better make that call to Saudi Arabia and ask them to help us with this sexism problem. No.... actually lets look at some more possible causative factors before we continue mindlessly banging the sexism drum.

From:
Gender differences at critical transitions in the careers of science, engineering and mathematics faculty
https://www.nap.edu/read/12062/chapter/1

Page 153
"The surveys of academic departments and faculty have yielded interesting and sometimes surprising findings. For the most part, male and female faculty in science, engineering, and mathematics have enjoyed comparable opportunities within the university, and gender does not appear to have been a factor in a number of important career transitions and outcomes."

Page 154
"Women accounted for about 17 percent of applications for both tenure-track and tenured positions in the departments surveyed. There was wide variation by field and by department in the number and percentage of female applicants for faculty positions. In general, the higher the percentage of women in the Ph.D. pool, the higher the percentage of women applying for each position in that field, although the fields with lower percentages of women in the Ph.D. pool had a higher propensity for those women to apply. The percentage of applicant pools that included at least one woman was substantially higher than would be expected by chance. However, there were no female applicants (only men applied) for 32 (6 percent) of the available tenure-track positions and 16 (16.5 percent) of the tenured positions."

Tell me, why would we expect gender pairity in these positions if women simply do not apply for them?
People and governments are bending over backwards to try to accomodate womens entry into various STEM fields, but they just don't apply in equal numbers. Could it possibly be that a full time academic career is simply less appealing to many women? No it has to somehow be sexism doesn't it?

Well then if the one true explanation for women becoming tenured professors because this just has to be something happening by design, lets have a look at the lower rungs of society. Lets tear our gaze from the top levels of academic positions and look at all the dirty and unpleasant jobs. Who works on deep sea fishing boats, oil rigs, in mines, with garbage disposal, heavy construction, and so on?
Oh whats that? Is it once more a category of job mainly held by men? Lets have a look at another gender disparity in the workplace. The work place fatality gap.

Fatal occupational injuries by worker characteristics and event or exposure, all United States, 2013
http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cftb0283.pdf

Apparantly there were a total of 4585 fatal work place injuries in the US 2013.
4265 of them were men and 319 were women. So 92.5% men and 7.5% women.
If the explanation for the number of women becoming professors in STEM fields is because this is what society wants and not the collective result of millions of peoples individual choises, does this means society want women to not be professors and wants men to die?

Shall we go have a look at the statistics for homelessness and suicide next and start drawing conclusions on how this is some sort of inentional agenda society has towards men?

How about you just put the identity politics stick down, stop mindlessly beating the sexism drum with it and stop trying to push god damn gender politics into every aspect of art and culture?



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Originally Posted by SlamPow
Originally Posted by CharityDiary


In first-world countries, there is no sexism against women. Yes, the genders are different, but these differences go so far back historically that they have been made biological through natural selection.


Whoooooaaaaaa there nelly, hold your horses a gosh darn second. Have you ever experienced sexual discrimination before? Have you not listened to a woman who's gone through it? Have you not read a word about how Vometia feels talked down to because of her hender, did you not read a word that Testad said in the other thread about men being the kings of the household, about how women should be protected from themselves? Are you seriously going to say,

Originally Posted by CharityDairy
In first-world countries, there is no sexism against women.


when people like my mother, a woman who has multiple patents for things that she has invented herself, who went from a poverty-stricken, unemployed single mother to having a master's in materials science and a bachelor's in mechanical engineering, has had to file multiple sexual harassment charges, has been passed up for promotions because he boss believed (and this is a quote, by the way) "I think women should know what it's like to have a man on top. Especially when they don't have one in their life."? Hold on for a second. Let me look up the definition of sexism for you.


sex·ism
ˈsekˌsizəm/
noun
noun: sexism

prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.


My mother has been told to her face that she is seen as unfit for a leadership position explicitly because of her genetic makeup. This is the definition of discrimination on the basis of sex. This happened in the US. Do you think this is an isolated incident?

She was hired at Experian because her boss wanted to sleep with her, and when she didn't give in to his advances, she was fired.

When she was at Raytheon, her boss wouldn't stop sending her love messages and giving her special treatment, so she had to file a restraining order against him because he wouldn't listen to her pleas for him to stop.

Hell, it gets as small and petty as that men in my family are notorious for getting tickets for traffic violations, but over Thanksgiving one year, it became very clear after a few minutes of discussion that the women were being pulled over far more often, and being let off with warnings.

And then there was the discrimination that I faced. I was not allowed to play the flute growing up because my family thought it was a girl's instrument.

I was not allowed to be in Choir because my mom thought it was "for girls".

I have been called a freak and sent death threats because someone found out I tried to put on makeup once when I was 14.

The list goes on and on, from the subtle, every day things that people tend to write off, to the major, career-impacting phenomena that are constantly happening to women like my mother year after bloody year. I could keep going with examples if I need to, but your argument that these are "biological" differences is completely baseless, unsupported and downright inane. The thought that there is no more sexism in first-world countries is downright ignorant on so many levels, I don't even know where to begin. It's not like I'm the only one experiencing these things. Look up any of Michelle Obama's talks about feminism and what it was like to face adversity as a successful woman. Hell, go walk up to any woman on the street, and ask them, "do you believe elements of sexism are perpetuated in our culture today?", or anything along those lines, and you may just find that there are societal expectations placed on women to be mothers first, and businesswomen second. Hell, my aunt (who is a self-made millionaire, by the way) taught a whole class on feminism. My grandmother is constantly going to women's retreats and women's bible studies to speak about her degree, and the challenges she faced in attaining it. She has to teach classes on a regular basis about how women are not inferior to men, because here in Texas, where I live, it is not a commonly held belief that women can be or should be allowed to be successful. It's disgusting, I hate it, I've seen it all around me all my life, and I've had to experience my fair share of "special treatment" that comes with being a white male in American society. It's real. I can feel it. I can tell it's there. From the way cops will not at me when they whistle at my sister, to the way the women in my family are expected to do all the kitchenwork (yes, even my self-made millionaire aunt who is somehow simultaneously a stay-at-home mom and an incredibly wealthy businesswoman working from home, God bless her heart). And the way that anytime I go over to help wash the dishes, or chop the onions, or peel the potatoes, my grandpa will stop me and call me over. Just to talk. And when I bring my work with me, he says things like "put that down, Grandma'll handle it". I don't know if you are truly living in blissful ignorance, or if you truly believe that this is the product of biology, but either way, this is not an issue that you have demonstrated that you are holding an informed opinion about. Please, explain to me , with utter clarity, no ambiguity, and unequivocally, exactly why you think that
Originally Posted by CharityDairy
In first-world countries, there is no sexism against women.


And as soon as you are done making your point, we are going to drop it. Because it is insensitive, irrelevant to the discussion presented, and just generally genuinely insulting on behalf of every female in my family who has to go through all of this.


No no no, lets go back to that post and read it again:

"We have a saying "Any man is a king of his own house." What it probably means to you - Any man is free to do whatever he wants with his woman. What it really means - The man is responsible for everyone living under his roof, first of all the safety, physical mental and moral."

As I understood, I may be incorrect, that you were raised without a father figure?
Can we assume if this is true that your thought on this matter lack the (how should I say that) "a man responsible for his family and his woman" kinda vision? And overall mans vision on the issue of equality of man and woman.
If you were raised without a man to guide you to the meaning of being a "man" we will not understand each other at all. And everything I write will turn Arabic when you'll read it.
Being born a male doesn't necessarily makes one a mature man thus some understanding of what is right and what is wrong about this topic can be incorrect. I guess this, cause I wrote that very clear - about "being king of your household" but you apparently took it in a wrong way.
And I'm telling this not to offend anyone, especially you, God forbid, I'm just letting people see some other perspective on the issue. On the whole topic of being a man and a woman.
To give you some thoughts : try not to think about right now and what is right for the time we are living in, cause a lot of things that are accepted now is so wrong and was forced on us through decades. Try to think what is the natural way of things? What is the nature of man and a woman.
Someone said that man is meant to be a stupid warriors and die a lot and woman are suppose to be intelligent housekeepers.
Well one of the greatest warriors of our culture is a woman. There are a lot of great woman warriors throughout the history.
And its ok! There are no apparent stone written rules on the roles of woman in the society but there are some general differences. A woman can be anything and anyone she wants as any other human being. But lets go back to the q "what is the natural way of things". Warrior woman - is she happy being a warrior? What does she do when she comes to her tent after some battle. Is it not true that despite the circumstances that made her take arms and lead forces in her heart she wants to be a woman, she wants to care for her family in peace, shake all that responsibility from her shoulders and be loved and love? Tomorrow she can be a fierce warrior again (and even love the thrill of battle) because that's the role she took but what is her deep desires when things calm down.

As for man being a warrior for example is natural. Now keep a man at home and give him 3 babies to take care of them alone. That will be frustrating experience to a man. I mean on a deep level. Ask a man what does his child wants when he cries and he would not be able to explain, but woman senses those things, she knows exactly why the child is crying (he wants food, he wants to sleep, his stomach hearts, that kind of things). Have you ever felt frustrated when your woman will not stop asking you about what you feel or what you are thinking. They have this. They need to know whats going on in your head. They know when something is wrong, they kinda feel the air of the relationship. Man will never be able to do that.
Now that shows me (therefore its my opinion) that the whole this movements of man and woman being ABSOLUTLY the same is like some man are just looking for an excuse to not have any responsibility for a woman. An excuse to keep abusing and using a woman (sex sells).
Whereas I'm telling it again, woman should be protected, helped and cared for.

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Yeah! Managed 4 hours of sleep! .... though my girlfriend woke me up twice in that time frame: once for thinking class started at wrong time and conce to complain about me eating too much of her ice cream. ....Beware, all, never touch your gf ice cream @_@

So for funsies, here's a quote from Stabbey on the topics connected to here
Originally Posted by Stabbey
On these forums there have been amazingly long and tiresome flamefests about skimpy armors and high heeled boots. The 'Yay Skimpy' (YS) side usually ends up falling back onto a "if you complain about how the female characters are portrayed, you're engaging in CENSORSHIP and are therefore terrible".

This is a forum for the alpha. The developers have said that pretty much anything at all is still up for negotiation or change. Most of the players agree. The YS group's position though, is that the Alpha's artwork and portrayal must be set in stone. It must not be changed, it is SACRED and to change it is BLASPHEMY, CENSORSHIP. They are only doing this because the artists integrity is paramount in their minds, of course. The fact that they enjoy that art style is a complete coincidence.

Anyone who disagrees, who has a different preference for the art style is evil and committing CENSORSHIP. They must be shouted down and called names. They're trying to Destroy High Art. Remember, even though this is an alpha and basically anything can be changed, artwork is verboten, off-limits. The first impressions from the art must be preserved through the final version.

Any changes are not because the developers changed their minds on their own, or reconsidered what they wanted to do. Of course not. Everyone knows that in games development unlike gameplay coding features skills stats economy enemies, all of which require iteration, the first rough artwork is always final and always perfect. The first artwork never needs any improvements or changes. Even though the first impressions of gameplay and balance are usually in need of tweaks and changes, the first artwork always gives the exact impression intended by the artist and never should be changed.

If a developer ever does make changes, it's not because they decided that the impression that was received was different than that which was intended, or because they wanted to refine the art more. No. changes only happen because an evil cabal of nazi women ganged up to threaten the developers with consequences if they do not comply.

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They say that diamonds are a girls best friend.
"they" are wrong. Ice cream is a girls best friend. Its srs business. Girls are imo spot on in this matter. I have been to Italy and met the ice cream king.
...well, maybe not met him, but I ate what must have been the finest ice cream in his kingdom, stolen and then served to my unworthy taste buds.

Anyway stabby is really funny and a masterful weaver of straw men. They should let him have a TV show or something. ^^

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1. [Finesse] *Say everyone on the thread is wrong.*

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All this is fine and dandy, until you realize two major things:

-Despite their vocality on the issue, feminists/sjws are not the majority of consumers, nor is their view on the issue the prevailing one.
An average woman will not play video games, because she doesn't want to play them, and making them more inviting to her will not change that.
An average woman has never even been 'on the internet' outside of a few blogs and facebook and, once she reaches a certain point in her life, she will deliberately remove herself from the internet to take care of her career or family.
So long as the actual rights they have are not being threatened(such as the right to abortion in Poland right now), average women do not give a damn about how they are depicted in media, and often times will instead aspire to be as successful/beautiful as those depictions portray, rather than demand those depictions be altered.
"First world sexism" is an issue average women consider only when polled about it directly.

-The second thing is a small one, called 'artistic integrity'.
Larian chose a direction for their world, and how it depicts the sexes. It is an artistically sound direction, with it both tested and new ideas. It is a world many of us enjoy in it's current form, and while it might make it enjoyable for more people to introduce some changes, more often than not doing so was to the detriment of the final product.
It is better to please those that already enjoy your work to the fullest, then to leave a mild impression on everyone.

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Diamonds were never really girls best friends. That was just marketing to make men buy diamonds for their women. If there exists no need for your product, create one...

@ Testad:
Yes, men and women will always be different and no neither men and men nor women and women will always feel and think the same. Not every man wishs to be a warrior or would feel happy doing so. I sure like the competition in MOBAs or the fight against evil in video games like DOS. But all that violence in real life just shows, how savage we humans still are. Not every mother has a real connection or understanding for they kids, not every father has no understanding at all. Do understand their needs is mainly a matter of empathy, something wich sadly seems to be more of trait that is dying out. But it is true, women are better at all those emotional things, partwise because they are women so softer and more sociable, but also partwise because men tell boys how a 'real men' has to be, like my father tried.

Anyway the problem with most kings is: They really think it is the green interpretation, their right to reign and command.

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tl;dr : "I feel offended and have imaginary problems"

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Originally Posted by Limz
1. [Finesse] *Say everyone on the thread is wrong.*


Lmao I've noticed this new trend in posts from you. Decided to just have fun with it?

Loved the God-Emperor reference earlier though ;P

**Officially killing time in Apple Soho while my iPhone is looked at -_- Man this placed is packed

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Sexism will always exist so long as people acknowledge that males and females are inherently different.
If you believe that males and females are inherently different then you shouldn't view sexism as something negative but rather view it as an undeniable part of reality.

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Originally Posted by Fyrestorme
Men and women are not equal. For one thing/person/idea to be equal to another, they have to be perfectly identical. There are no two people (regardless of gender) who are equal.


What is the point of pointing out that men and women are not equal if first and foremost no two people are equal to begin with? What practical benefit does a society gain from acknowledging that on average men and women are better in certain spheres if exceptions exist anyway and those exceptions should ideally be able to pursue whatever they feel like pursuing?

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Originally Posted by Ayvah
There have been a few topics that have tackled issues of gender and sexism as presented in D:OS2. As some of those threads have gotten out of control, I felt it was time to start fresh and try to cover the subject as comprehensively and maturely as I can.

Biological and cultural differences between men and women

There are clear biological differences in athletic aptitude between men and women, and that's why sports generally are uncontroversially segregated by gender. However, Lyrhe made some comments where he argued that there are fundamental biological differences in intellectual aptitude between men and women.

Addressing a comment by Skallewag, I made the case earlier that culture is much more significant than race when it comes to athletic aptitude.

First strawman

Originally Posted by Ayvah

That's why Americans are good at basketball, Australians are good at swimming & cricket (and summer sports, generally), Canadians are good at hockey, New Zealanders are good at rugby, Europeans are good at soccer, etc. I can't imagine anyone trying to argue that there are significant biological differences between these groups.

This paragraph literally follows the definition of racism.

Originally Posted by Ayvah

Likewise, all evidence points to differences in intellectual aptitude between men and women, but further analysis points to this being cultural, not biological. This has been demonstrated repeatedly in different contexts, as per the following references:
Think Again: Men and Women Share Cognitive Skills
Men Are Better At Maps Until Women Take This Course
Why you should send your daughter to an all-girls school
Girls and boys have different cognitive abilities

Those references are simply demonstrating a capability to do something which is not the same thing as aptitude. This is your second strawman.

Originally Posted by Ayvah

Text vs subtext

To be clear, it is not a problem if the world depicted in D:OS is sexist. First off, it's far less sexist than the real world anyway. In the real world there are few women taking on the roles of warriors, particularly in the medieval style of society that is depicted. The removal of this sexism makes the world less realistic, but I can accept it and I appreciate the freedom it provides.

On the other hand, there are media like Witcher 3, Game of Thrones & Dragon Age which also present sexist worlds with sexualised characters, and yet this does not bother me.

Art is more complex than just the world it presents. In art, it's important to remember that there are different layers of text:
  • -> text (in this case, the world that is depicted)
  • -> context (the cultural lense in which we view this world)
  • -> subtext (the attitudes presented by the manner in which this world is portrayed)

The subtext is the part that really raises eyebrows. To be clear, the subtext in D:OS is much less sinister than the subtext in highly sexist examples like Metal Gear Solid V or Grand Theft Auto. D:OS2 could be worse, but there's still room for improvement.

So far, the concerns I've had regarding the subtext regarding gender relate to:
  • -> Contrast between male and female poses during character creation
  • -> Sebille (female) as the only scantily clad playable character, and the first character you see during character creation

This is certainly not exhaustive. There are potentially other issues that will be more apparent through further exploration of the game and as more content is released.


Traditional gender roles and why it matters

There were some very problematic comments by Testad I'd like to highlight. He's right that he comes from a different culture that views gender differently from my cultural background. But we all need to analyse our cultural views on gender, and consider how individuals push their cultural attitudes (which Testad admitted to be unjustifiable) onto the broader society they inhabit.

Traditionally women are not idolised for their intelligence or their strength. It's not seen to be attractive for a woman to be strong or intelligent.

Traditionally - where? Weren't you just talking about culture-based views? Which culture traditionally does not idolise women for their intelligence or strength? Because there are some cultures which have/do!

Originally Posted by Ayvah

Under this dichotomy (and as confirmed by thebonesinger's comment) the men are attractive for taking poses that emphasise their strength or intelligence, but for women who want to take on a strong or intelligent pose, they also need to also sway their hips or otherwise emphasise their female sexuality in order to also be seen as attractive.

This is the reason women seem to be inherently less apt in masculine fields. There is clear research showing both men and women unintentionally rate equally qualified women as less competent than men in traditionally masculine fields. Media sends the message that strength and intelligence are masculine traits that are less important to women their femininity. This is the direct cause of experiences such as the one that Vometia expressed where colleagues questioned her aptitude in IT because of her gender. (This not only affects women, mind you. Men also face roadblocks if they want to take on feminine roles.)

Ok, first off - I don't think the majority of people would rate a woman less intelligent than a man just because the woman is female and the man is male. Even the most narrow-minded person would have a lot of other considerations than just that.

Second, males generally have a biological predisposition toward garnering more muscle mass and thus are traditionally seen as naturally stronger than females. This is not dealing with culture. This is simply a result of biology. And since this is the natural order of things, it is no surprise that the generalised view of males being more muscular or masculine than females is a societal norm in many cultures. This is certainly not wrong and no one should have a problem with this. Also, no one is saying that a female can't be stronger than a male.

Originally Posted by Ayvah

Regardless of our culture, I think we can agree that men and women should have the same freedom of choice and the same opportunity to succeed, but we all need to acknowledge that this is not the reality we live in. This is the reason I care about how women are represented in a game.

First... yes, I think that all reasonable people would agree that any person (regardless of gender) should have the same opportunities at success in life. Also, you're right that that is not the case everywhere. What you don't specifically say, here, though, is that the lack of opportunities is a result of gender, but you implying it through the context of your whole post. I think most people would agree with that. Maybe, in some countries this is true. I would say that in America this is not true. And believe me, gender is one of the least likely reasons someone will not be given the same opportunity as someone else to succeed in life. In fact, your birth place, family, race and even the economic state of your home country are all far more likely to affect your likelihood to succeed at life than is your personal gender.

My advise to 3rd-wave feminists and 3rd-wave feminist apologists is to turn your head 90 degrees. Take a good hard look at that chip on your shoulder. Remove it. And then admit to yourself that shit happens to everyone, everywhere. Get over it, and overcome it by ignoring anyone who judges you based solely on your gender, and prove them wrong rather than bitching about it everywhere 24/7.

Originally Posted by Ayvah

Gender imbalance among fans of D:OS

Ok, first off I just want to address this terminology quickly - "gender imbalance". This is a loaded phrase with a lot of negative connotations nowadays, and I ask, why? Why is it wrong for men and women to be different? Men and women are better at different things. They are not equal. Does that mean males are better than females? No. Does that mean females are better than males? No. It means we're DIFFERENT. a!=b. a!>b. b!=a. b!>a. I think a lot of feminist apologists nowadays, unconsciously adopt this outlook on life as being victims or not good enough - and I think this is where a lot of their animosity, misunderstandings and general disgruntledness comes from. Men and women are not equal. For one thing/person/idea to be equal to another, they have to be perfectly identical. There are no two people (regardless of gender) who are equal.

Originally Posted by Ayvah

Finally, there is this article from Swen lamenting that only 4% of the visitors to the Kickstarter were "female", and that only 9% of the followers of Facebook were "female". In the end, one conclusion Swen reached is that the Google analytics used for the Kickstarter were inaccurate. He accused the analytics of being sexist because when demographic data can't be obtained directly, Google will guess gender for purposes of Adwords. Because these are guesses, it's impossible to understand its accuracy.

However, when Google Analytics guesses, it does it in a sophisticated way -- that is, it won't assume you're a male just because you visit a website associated with a male interest. However, it will look at the known audience of that website and assume that you're male if you spend a lot of time on websites where most of the audience is known to be male. The results of these processes appear to be very accurate.

The fact is that all evidence points to the D:OS audience being overwhelmingly male. As a business, Larian needs to recognise that it's unlikely they're reaching the gender diverse audience they expect to be reaching. Given that Swen pointed out that PAX attendees are 35% female, this is clearly a problem that cannot simply be explained by blaming the overall demographics of hardcore gamers.

Even highly masculine games like Battlefield have a 22% female player demographic, so it's unlikely that less than 20% of the players of D:OS2 would be female, but there is something very problematic about having only 4% of visitors identifying as female. I'd be interested to know if there are any Google Analytics that have been done to see if this forum's demographics look any better.

If Larian wants to attract female gamers or address sexism, then they will need to do some navel gazing that doesn't simply rely on fielding opinions from their core fans. I'm not necessarily suggesting that the gender imbalance will be solved by reducing sexism in the game. As we are all living products of sexist culture, eliminating sexism in the game may actually be irrelevant to the goal of attracting women and Larian may be better off focusing on introducing explicitly "feminine" elements such as romance.

This is what is called the "false cause" argument. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/false-cause
Audience is mostly male because females don't like this game because dos/larian is sexist! There is no evidence showing this is why the game does not have more female players. There is no evidence showing that this is the cause/case/reason.

And that's not all. You've actually had another "false cause" as well, in assuming that because the website's audience is mostly male that the game's audience must be mostly male as well. There is no evidence to show this.

Originally Posted by Ayvah

But it's important to recognise that there's a problem and I do not think it is unreasonable to hope that Larian could also try to aim to present any new or existing elements in a manner that does not invoke or reinforce regressive sexist attitudes.

I do not believe there is a problem with larian/dos/dos2, and you have failed to provide valid evidence to the contrary.

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Originally Posted by Kadajko
Originally Posted by Fyrestorme
Men and women are not equal. For one thing/person/idea to be equal to another, they have to be perfectly identical. There are no two people (regardless of gender) who are equal.


What is the point of pointing out that men and women are not equal if first and foremost no two people are equal to begin with? What practical benefit does a society gain from acknowledging that on average men and women are better in certain spheres if exceptions exist anyway and those exceptions should ideally be able to pursue whatever they feel like pursuing?


You're complaining about what I posted without saying that it's wrong. What's your point??

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