Most "nerds" would be unsurprised (though the masses would be) to see how many comic books actually pass [the Most "nerds" would be unsurprised (though the masses would be) to see how many comic books actually pass [the Bechdel Test] .

Comics have been talking about their problems with the representation of women much longer than games have, don't need (or expect) nearly the audience games get, and there is still a lot of tension in trying to represent women as people without giving up the cheesecake. There is nothing like Comics Journal in its heyday, there are people who study games but they're not primarily talking to the gamer subculture. Also, Bechdel is a comics writer.

Even if its cause was fundamentally good (which is up for debate), it's got too many bad apples and too many co-opted sections to get itself anywhere other than the derision of the masses. I sometimes think similarly of feminism, but feminism's been around for a hell of a lot longer and keeps kicking, so maybe I'm wrong.

Feminism had a few coherent bodies of thought and a lot of history behind it before it became a thing on the Internet, and the Internet still spawns enough batshit that it's not surprising that people who haven't been exposed to it before only see the batshit. I'm not sure that objections to the quality of games journalism warrant the name, but social movements that start on the Internet are at a huge disadvantage in that unless they're very focused or esoteric enough that people who are really passionate about them are also well-informed, they start picking up nuts too soon and there's a good chance the nuts will take over.

The images you show are characters in video games, not expectations of reality.

Just as video games do not make people more prone to being violent, just as games do not normalize killing people, games do not make people think "everyone should look like that". They are an excapist fantasy, not a sitcom that attempts to depict what people think of as regular.

Also, skinny women with large breasts are attractive. Large, built, muscled men are attractive. The issue is not that these games may define attractiveness, but that they could define what we expect people to be like. They do not.

However, the companies will keep on making them until gamers stop buying them - It's an economically viable strategy. It has been shown over and over and over again that people will still buy these games. You can say "well real gamers would never buy these games", but the fact is that all those millions of people who buy those games are gamers, even if they don't fit your personal definition.

Most all of these games tend to also have fun mechanics and other things for which gamers buy them. Most games that attempt to purely get purchases based on sex do not sell. Companies using the "half naked girl" marketing approach are trying to appeal to the teenage audiances who tend to buy things like COD and such, a group of people I do not consider the average "gamers" as the public tends to view them.

And what would you have these women do? Go to the police? they've done that. Ignore them? tried it. Call their mothers? probably tried it.

And has all this bullshit helped them at all? No, it's done the opposite. The police will tell you specifically to not publicize this stuff, because it attracts more attention.

Hundreds of games are released every year. I would love to see a list of 20 even remotely popular games from the past ten years that pass the Bechdel Test.

When most popular games are about war, which involves very few women, do not focus on discussion of any form, etc, then the Bechtel test really fails to capture the essence of games.

Games are not TV shows. They are not movies. That test is flawed even for those things, and it's even worse for games.

Games do not represent any form of normalcy, nobody plays games and allows them to shape how they view the average women they interact with. The only real issue that exists with games and gender representation is that many games are forced into having male protaganists simply because it means the largely male demographics are going to buy the games, and that this is a self-feeding loop.

Yes, I do, because this is the smokescreen that is continually thrown up around this issue.

And nobody made a single mention of it before you decided to bring it up preemptively.

People hated Zoe Quinn long before anyone found out she was sleeping around. I don't agree with everything women like Sarkeesian and Wu have to say, far from it, in fact, but I do feel that they shouldn't have to move house to avoid the prank-called SWAT teams

Do you understand that most of the people having had SWAT called on them have been people in support of gamergate. Not those against it? So far as I am aware, at least, although where I get my info from is a bit biased.

and they shouldn't have to cancel speaking engagements because of mass-murder threats.

In that speech, Anita did not have to cancel because of threats. The police had already informed them they believed the threats held no backing, and the only reason things were canceled is because the state wasn't going to have police ensure nobody brought guns into the speech.

I understand the caution, of course, but that threat was empty, it was hollow, it was meaningless. The only reason it holds weight is because they gave it that.

The inference, by the way, that calling the mothers of twenty-somethings men Is a feminist issue, because it implies a.) that their mother was the primary caretaker, and b.) that these people, not being "real men", need to be chastised by their mother like children.

Where is this coming from? Who called mothers of twenty-somethings men?

Again, all your talk of privilege, of scot arranson, etc, is coming out of right field. I don't believe I made any mention of those things in my post, and I don't believe I said anything about nerds being oppressed in my post either.

... you're going to have to clarify this whole section for me, because I feel like we're talking about the same thing. The "basement dweller etc" stereotype is a problem because it infers that people who are enthusiastic about MLP or whatever are somehow lesser in some way.

The issue with such images, the reason they exist, is not because they are not manly. It's the regular people being insulted in the image, not the nerd. It's the regular person being told "you are not a nerd" rather than the nerd being told "you don't get any dates".

Most of them are great people. But just like I call out bullshit feminists, you have to call out the bullshit aspects of gamer culture. You've got hold up the mirror to yourselves and point out your problems.

Except what I consider the bullshit aspects of gamer culture are very different than what others do.

I do not for a moment believe that having kratos in games is going to make me feel insecure about myself as a man. I have not once felt that I have to be a big, strong, muscly, guy. Nor do I think that any woman should act or be like the female characters in video games.

Now, to be fair, the games I play are minecraft, factorio, RTS games, etc, which are very inhuman and really have zero characters who really have any form of gender or personality at all. Perhaps if I commonly played all of those other (shit) games, I would speak differently.

However, I doubt it.

even if I didn't know you from around hubski already I can see that you are the sort of person who wants positive change

Nah, if you knew me on hubsi I imagine you would already have me muted and hushed.

What i'm trying to say is that gamergate is not going to get it. Even if its cause was fundamentally good (which is up for debate), it's got too many bad apples and too many co-opted sections to get itself anywhere other than the derision of the masses.

I can/could say the exact same phrase, but copy paste feminism right in there.

but feminism's been around for a hell of a lot longer and keeps kicking,

There is a reason they call it "waves" with third wave, second wave, and first wave. Modern feminism is not the same groups or ideologies of the older sorts.

Also games and gamer culture couldn't have been around a lot longer.