This is why Sheva from Resident Evil 5 is one of if not, the best female character. None of these things apply to her, and she's awesome.

Almost every woman from the Resident Evil series is awesome. Jill, Claire, Rebecca, Ada, Helena, Sheva, Sherry...even Moira.

Yeah, she sure just looks like an average woman...

Some of these are true but some kinda cancel each other out. For example, the "ladies are helpless" + "Ladies are world weary and sarcastic" = "Ladies have the same diversity of characterization styles as most males in gaming" :P .

Think about it. Most male characters in games are world weary and sarcastic and/or dry to the point that all personality has been sand blasted right out of their head. Or, if they aren't that, they're probably the dude who keeps screwing up who you wish would just go away. That's not a problem with females that's a problem with all video game writing ever.


The "ladies lack strength but are flexible" bit is kinda true but also kinda not. On the one hand, a woman can be plenty strong enough to wield a full size sword, wear plate, etc. But you take the average male and average female and bulk both up to their maximum the male is going to come out on top. This isn't "sexism" it's just science. That's why the NBA and WNBA are separate. That's why men and women's tennis are separate. And women do tend to have quite good balance. Just watch a competition like Ninja Warrior for example. The differences are pronounced.


But setting aside the aesthetic ones most of these are not "lies about women" they are just numbers 50 through 57 in the "writers for dummies handbook," specifically the part on romantic subplots. Actually developing a character takes work and most game writers either can't, won't, or don't have time to develop more that one to three. Therefore, if you want a romantic subplot and your pitifully small party is full, you stick the female character (or male, if that's the situation) in a job in close proximity to the main character but not so close that you might have to put some effort in.

What I find funny about this never ending blaring of the rage trumpets is how they expect their din to cause us all to catch spontaneous amnesia and forget about Marle, Luca, Samus, Lara, Zelda (from OoT onward mostly), Melia, the entire cast of FFX-2, the numerous female party members of FF as a whole, Commander Miranda Keyes, and all the other good female characters from great (and often beloved) franchises dating back to the late eighties and buy into the "misogynist conspiracy" narrative they're preaching. Most blatantly misogynist games aren't even popular anymore and were never the titans of the industry anyway. Case in point Duke Nukem.

The most funny part is that they basically are complaining that female characters are poorly written. But let's be serious here, that's an epidemic in game writing in general. Male characters don't get much better treatment 90% of the time and most games that do have a really well done male character also do their female characters well (Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite, etc) because the writers could actually be assed.  Most male characters in the yearly blockbuster that is guilty of weak female characters (basically CoD) are a derivitive of either burly marine, burly cop, or burly vigilante.  Which are the options one tends to go for when the publisher has all but guaranteed his pay and he so cannot be assed that his ass occupies a different level of reality. 

So instead of complaining that the average woman in video games is not precisely representative at all times of the "ideal woman" (cause who even defines that?), how about we complain about the fact that most game companies have "quality writing" listed at number 127 on their priorities list right below number 126: honesty in E3 presentations?

It's a video game, it's not supposed to be representative of real life or anything.

lets do this point for point...

"The average bust size is EE

The problem hardly stops at Lara Croft though. On this issue, the prime-evil is no doubt Team Ninja. Their Dead or Alive series was once known for its "jiggle physics," a physics engine that was about as true-to-life as Mario Galaxy. And who could forget Rachel from Ninja Gaiden, (read: everyone) who embodies just about every problem on this list."

the average bust sice in germany, the uk and the us is D, and so E isnt so uncommon, and who can say if its E or D in a game? alot of women have big boobs, dont hate on em just because you are flat like a little skiny boy.

"Women account for 1/5 of the population
This problem exists across all media, but it's just as prominent in video games: the token woman. It is exceedingly rare to find a video game in which 50% of the characters are of the female gender."

i think this is the stupidest point, they dont mean gameworld population, they mean (main)characters.
game world are full of females. and female meaningfull npc and playable characters arent that rare in alot of games. other games have close to 0 females, but what do you expect from a war game? alot of women just have not the constitution to serve in an army and they normaly dont get drafted.

"They're completely and utterly helpless
Some appearances of this trope are mostly accidental. Sometimes the game's AI is just terrible, causing the escort mission to be a frustrating mess as the lady you're escorting stands around getting shot. Other times the entire game is purposefully built around the idea of the woman being helpless"

yeah fuck escort missions.
and women are helpless most of the time because they are normal humans and you are a hero, nobody askes the shopkeeper to slay a dragon, so why should a princess fight soldiers, skeletons or something like that`?

"...or they're world-weary and sarcastic

Not every female character is inept, but if they're not incapable of walking down the street without a brave man helping them they're a world-weary soldier who has nothing left to believe in or a sarcastic jerk who has seen it all. Optional additions include: dark secrets, or a nurturing heart deep beneath the gruff exterior that only needs to be reawakened by the warm manly embrace of compassion."

welcome to the world of bad writting. yeah most female characters are as flat as pancakes, but well thats true for male characters too.


"Common female occupations include Attractive Scientist and Daughter of Important Man
Women living in video games have a relatively small pool of jobs to pick from. Maybe they'll find themselves a clipboard and a pair of cute glasses to become Attractive Female Scientist, earning their keep by knowing passwords to doors you need to open."

what? since when? how? i never encountert this, has anybody? most females in games are shopkeepers or just walk along the sidewalk the whole day.
and whats wrong with beeing a scientist? they are atleast usefull to the world, unlike genderstudies majors....


"
Approximately 75% of women are blonde Caucasians
Male video game characters have enough problems with getting equal representation of all races and body types, but women have got it even worse. We’ve already established that in the world of video games women represent just 20% of the population."

this is just true in western games, and i dont see the problems, the majority of people that worked on those games ARE caucasians. and the other point is, women from the north are bigger, and well blonder and have blue eyes, women are to small and weak to carry heavy weapons or armor, bigger women can.
an average grown up german women is higher in size than a fully grown average male egyptian.
there are REASONS why most female warriors have light skin and blond, light brown or read hair.

"Ladies lack strength, but make up for it with gymnastics training

This might be the most prevalent lie on this list. We've all seen it. The female RPG character whose strength stat is at 3, but her agility is 14. Or the action game character who can't wield the bazooka, but has a special move where she cartwheels onto the enemy's head and breaks his neck with her mighty, dangerous crotch.
"

and from the article:
"The real-world differences between man-strength and woman-strength is pretty slim. Yes, sometimes men can open jars that women have trouble with. But there are also women who have ripped biceps. So yes, on average you might find a small bump in strength among average, but if you think you're going to beat Michelle Obama in an arm wrestling match then you're sorely mistaken. "

bring it on idiot... wiki says this:

Gross measures of body strength suggest a 40-50% difference in upper body strength between the sexes, and a 20-30% difference in lower body strength.[32] One study of muscle strength in the elbows and knees—in 45 and older males and females—found the strength of females to range from 42 to 63% of male strength.[33] Another study found men to have significantly higher hand-grip strength than women, even when comparing untrained men with female athletes.[34] Differences in width of arm, thighs and calves also increase during puberty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_human_physiology#Muscle_mass_and_strength

so 40-50% in the important areas are pretty slim? women cant operate a battle hammer, longsword,warbow, battle rifle, high cal pistol, etc for long.

"Latex is armor for women

We won't be the first people to comment on the absurd outfits game developers put their women characters into, but it's worth dredging up this sore subject one more time. Video game ladies run off to battle in outfits that look more like they're headed to a Zumba class than a war."

i dont know what they are talking about- if anything, female armor looks like the sexy dress of princess leia.
yes its useless, but knights armor would be useless too because most female are way to small and weak for knights armor, that shit is heavy.

"Women battle demons while nude

Latex may not be the optimal battle raiment, but at least it might protect you from a few scuffs, bruises, and scrapes. Some game developers don't even have the courtesy to give their characters a t-shirt before sending them off to fight the prime evils."

but male monks with bare chest are fine battling demons`? just knights and mages wear alot of clothes, all other warriors wear very little... like the classical barbarian or eastern monks.

"Their gender defines their entire existence

Take a look at some average video game ladies, and a striking pattern begins to emerge: They're almost universally driven by the fact that they're women. The following is a collection of the usual character motivations of the average video game woman, usually said through fountains of tears: "Because I'm his mother!" "Because I love him!" "Because he's my husband!" "Because I can't have babies so I have no reason to liiiiiiive!"

Being a wife/mother/daughter/niece/love interest are generally the only traits average video game women have, and it's what drives them. While men get to be war criminals, duty-driven soldiers, pioneers, engineers, secret agents, Kings, princes, chosen ones, etc. Oh, and if she's a villain, watch out because we guarantee she has an alternate form where she turns into a monster that looks like a vagina."

what games are they talking about? and how is beeing a soldier not gender based? all those poor guys you shoot in Cod and BF are sodleirs because they are male, they would have never been drafted without a penis.

to end this... FUCK THOSE STUPID ASS CLOWNS IM TIRED OFF ALL THIS BULLSHIT.

@generic-user-1

Well the plate armor thing isn't really true. Plate isn't as heavy as you would think. 33-55 pounds. Wearers remained agile and could jump even. And plate armor that is well made balances the weight over your whole body so it's not like you are carrying 33-55 pounds but rather that you weight 33 to 55 pounds more. Just saying

From Wikipedia: A complete suit of plate armour made from well-tempered steel would weigh around 15–25 kg(33-55 pounds).[2] The wearer remained highly agile and could jump, run and otherwise move freely as the weight of the armor was spread evenly throughout the body. The armour was articulated and covered a man's entire body completely from neck to toe. In the 15th and 16th centuries, large bodies of men-at-arms numbering thousands or even more than ten thousand men (as many as 60% of an army) were fighting on foot wearing full plate next to archers and crossbowmen. This was commonly seen in the Western European armies especially of France and England during the Hundred Years War, the Wars of the Roses or the Italian Wars.

So women having to wear next to nothing because they can't wear plate is dumb. That point is true :P

Ya and I am Lu Bu in real life. 7 foot tall, huge halberd killing 1000s in 30 min. Not even tired 30 min more.

Or Nathan Drake, good looking (I think?), kill armies of men.

Or etc. you get it.

Qunari males don't need armour either.

I think Mass Effect does a good job at minimising the effect of pretty much all of those tropes. Though one does notice that the female Shepard model underwent a boob job which she was being entirely reconstructed at Cerberus. Those evil bastards. She didn't graduate to a EE cup though. Indeed Dragon Age also has good female representation covering a large emotional and psycological range. Though in the case of Dragon Age Origins the female rogue armor pretty much always has an exposed midriff, but at least the bewbs are well protected with proper hardened leather.

Which points apply to Western games?