McKay, on 20 March 2013 - 15:23, said:
What I don't like is she contradicts herself, doesn't know what she actually wants. She says its sexist even if women want to show off their bodies like that. She says its sexist if women are shown in games as the weaker character in need of rescue, if the woman is the strong leader character she says its sexist because the Woman is pretending to be a man by mimicking "manly" traits.
I don't think she's right to call these things sexist but I think her positions are pretty explainable and not so contradictory.
Whether or not some women want to show off their bodies, it doesn't change the fact advertising and games will mostly still show off women's bodies and not men's bodies, and in my view, at least, it will never be equal opportunity where both men and womens bodies alike will be used for advertising. So its still putting women in a certain role in our culture, one that she doesn't think is good for women. The "sex positive" feminists that the guy that made the video is quoting have a naive idea that the culture will adapt and start showing off men's bodies too. That's assuming a lot that isn't true. Personally, I'm not feminist, but I'm more conservative leaning and I'd argue our culture teaches people that expressing yourself sexually is really important, and you get a lot of young girls modeling themselves over pop starlets who wear skimpy clothes to get attention -- and in the end I don't think that's a good thing.
On the second issue, you have this running cliché in the culture a woman wanting to do a man's job, even the guy that made the video used the cliché, he shows clips from Mulan. Often you have cheesy lines like with one person saying "No man can defeat me" and the woman responding "I'm not a man -- ha!" This is just really tiresome for me. Its also often ahistorical. She personally thinks a military attitude is more common for men than women, that soldiers will always by a large majority be men, so socially it won't ever be equal. So she wants the culture to show women in a more positive light in the social roles they'll more commonly have, rather than in ones they won't have. Also, she thinks that men being violent isn't a good thing, so she wants it to be portrayed as a negative thing, and she doesn't want to see shows try to put women in that role. So, she isn't against women being shown in strong leadership roles, its the way those roles are written. Personally, I think she's asking a lot, because it takes really good writers to get passed clichés, and the majority of people who are writing things will be bad to mediocre writers. If you want better writing, its better to write stories yourself rather than complain about the ones that are out there.
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