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But they call her a ‘bitch’ because they’re the bad guys.
This qualifies as a derailment.
This one came up repeatedly in the context of criticism of Arkham City, a game that I (and other bloggers and journalists) dinged for being an excellent game with some troubling aspects. In this case, the various henchmen running around Arkham City constantly refer to Catwoman as “bitch” and make repeated comments about beating and/or raping her and Harley Quinn.
Now I will give you this much: yes, the characters saying this are criminals locked up in a city-sized jail, presumably with very few female inmates.
However, let’s keep in mind that these are not real people. All of these characters are constructs without free will or animus. They aren’t making jokes about “Riding the Harley” because that’s just how they roll; someone had to decide that this is what they were going to say. Someone had to record those specific lines. This wasn’t a case of emergent gameplay that took the creators by surprise – it was decided that whenever the player controlled Catwoman, the henchmen would call her bitch and threaten her with sexual violence.
Worth noting: these characters are violent offenders in a prison and male-on-male rape is rampant in the prison system. Yet nobody is telling Batman that they’re going to make him their bitch or that they’re going to bust out his teeth so that it feels better when they force Bats to blow them. Nobody’s calling Batman a faggot or threatening to run a train on him after they beat him unconscious. Rape, after all, is a statement of power, domination and degradation… and who represents everything the criminals hate or resent more than Batman?
But they don’t. Because they weren’t designed to.
The writers and designers didn’t include these behaviors or lines for when the player controls Batman. They did for Catwoman. This makes all of the difference.
You’re the one who hates women – you’re saying they can’t be both sexy and tough
Another deflection, implying that by criticizing the portrayal of these characters the critic is, in fact, the sexist.
Of course, this requires that the definition of “sexy” mean “wears extremely revealing clothes” and “has massive breasts”, which is patently untrue. Sexiness doesn’t derive solely from the level of fan-service the character provides, and it’s absurd to try to limit to just how much skin we can or can’t see.
There are a number of female characters – sadly, a relatively small number – who manage to be strong, fully realized and sexy characters without wearing stripper-tastic costumes.
Just off the top of my head I could name:
Ashley Williams: Mass Effect
Elena Fisher and Chloe Frazer: Uncharted 1, 2 and 3
Kate Kane: Batwoman
Matoko Kusanagi: Ghost In The Shell
Jade: Beyond Good and Evil
Agatha Heterodyne: Girl Genius
Nausicaa: Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind
Interestingly enough, Lara Croft – once the poster child for absurd outfits and gag boobs – has undergone a redesign making her far more realistically proportioned and sensibly dressed. And speaking as someone who has gone climbing over and in ruined temples in the jungle… yeah, you’re not gonna wear shorts.
But Trash Talk is Normal on XBox Live. Women Are Just Too Sensitive to Rape Threats and Feigned Masturbation.
Another deflection, and one that relies rather specifically on XBL or Playstation Network multiplayer games, because it falls apart fairly quickly if you look at it with respect to, say, voice chat in World of Warcraft.
So again, I will give you this much: Yes, there’s a lot of shit-talking in online games. But ask any woman who plays a first-person shooter and you’ll quickly hear about the difference when guys realize there’s a woman in their midst. Suddenly it’s all about the rape or the fapping sounds. Guys may threaten to make other male player their bitches, but they’re not going to be asking those other guys how big their cocks are, if they’re cut or uncut and whether they’re a top or bottom. Women on the other hand will be told to show their tits and inundated with demands for cybersex. They’ll be called “cunt” and “whore”, but if they complain they’ll be told that they’re too “sensitive” or “emotional” to play.
And hey, if they’re especially lucky, the harassment doesn’t end just because you quit out of the game!
But as I said, as soon as you step out of the world of first-person shooters and into MMOs, the argument that trash-talking is a normal part of online gaming starts to look thin. Many women will use male avatars, gender-neutral sounding names and refuse to use voice-chat systems such as Ventrilo. As soon as other players – guild members, pick-up groups or even PVP opponents realize that there’s a woman in their midst, the conversation now becomes about her gender… and more importantly, whether she has a boyfriend or will show her tits.