Sex and the Zero Suit: Why Samus was Great Only in Metroid Prime

[Mr Khan]

Khuutra said:

Pineapple said:

His perception about feminism isn't completely wrong, and it isn't wholly uncommon either.

Plenty of equal rights workers - including, and probably especially, feminists - are working for equal rights, but from a false view of justice. A good example of this is the fight for equal salaries between male and female workers in Norway today (it might be true in other countries as well, but Norway is the only place I know the situation well enough to speak of). To a very large extent, I believe Norway has now reached fairness in salaries. There are some apparent problems that are still being fought though, such as a larger portion of leaders being male, and women on average earning less than men.

These apparent problems are, however, largely down the genders not actually being identical. Women and men don't choose the exact same things in life, and women are more prone to choose family, while men are more prone to choose work. I'm not sure how widely accepted that is, but it seems likely, especially from a biological viewpoint. The leaders in companies are, ultimately, the ones who put their heart and soul into the company, and who focus on little else. If you believe that men and women are different, it makes sense that a larger portion of men end up in leader positions.

Additionally, women in Norway have a tendency to choose working in the public sector, while men tend to work in the private sector. Salaries in the public sector are lower, but you have a better pension, and a far more secure job, as it's (virtually) impossible to be fired in the public sector, and there's no chance the government will go bankrupt. So the women have slightly lower salaries, but it's a tradeoff for other benefits.

Many feminists in Norway don't really get this viewpoint at all. They see that the situation is unequal, and therefore decide that women are being discriminated against, and that therefore laws have to be changed. Several laws have been passed that haven't really been about equal rights, but evening out the differences what men and women choose. Which isn't necessary, because it's perfectly fine that people choose differently.

Women should have all the same opportunities as men do. And they more or less do today (at least in Norway). Up to a few years ago, this was all equal rights working wanted - and they succeeded. Which is brilliant. But several equal rights workers today are working toward making equally many men and women choose the same - or even forcing them to - which is completely wrong. I'd say they aren't really feminists, but "homogenists".

Feminism is now partially a bad word because it has been soured by people doing stupid things in its name. Stupid things that aren't proper feminism at all.

This ended up being a bit of a digression - and a bit longer than I expected - so sorry about that. I don't really have a lot to add on the Samus-specific part of the debate.

That is a fascinating look into the gender culture of Norway, but I lack the cultural perspective necessary to make any kind of commentary on it, as I think you (might) lack the sort of perspective necessary to comment on similar situations in North America.

I will say that in the US and Canada, there is still a considerable pay disparity within the same fields for men and women of similar levels of experience. I will also say that pay equity and legal status at this point are not the largest part of the feminist movement in North America (though they might be over the course of a few years, and they always deserve high priority as some conversations go). The largest part of the feminist dialogue is taken up by cultural assumptions about the intrinsic qualities of gender, how it defines the way we view people - such as Rol's assertion that women don't enjoy sci-fi, they enjoy feelings and puppies and shit - and how we allow that to shape our own behaviors. It has to do with cultural assumptions about social inequalities, about the intrinsic responsibility inherent in both privilege and personal agency, on and on.

Discussions like this one, wherein we discuss the role of gender and sex in the portrayal of a faceless and voiceless hero, are just as much feminist discussions as ones about more practical and real-world issues. We can learn a lot about ourselves by what we put into our art as well as in how we react to it.

It's part of what makes this discussion so interesting: I simply don't think Samus should be a strongly gendered character, and where her gender is presented I don't think it should be a reward to players. People's reactions to these ideas have not been uniform. Seeing everything from "Samus's essential androgyny is necessary for the character" to "She's a woman, why shouldn't we be able to look at her?" teaches you a lot about the people you're talking to

Is her gender the reward, or her identity? That's assuming i'm buying into the terms of argument where the reward has more than superficial meaning or should be interpreted as such. For we could take the notion of her identity as being something deeper than mere gender, one that her gender happens to be incidental to. But then of course we risk falling into the sticky argument of how thoroughly gender and identity are entangled.

As an aside, Kotor does NOT autosave as often as it should :S