Depictions of Women in Gaming (and other related issues)

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

I think the difference is more between what is tolerated and what is taken for granted, or at least considered normal. Tolerance doesn't imply condoning a point of view, whereas acceptance does.
Personally, I think the questions we should ask are: "why is x depicted like y? is this is a fair representation? if not, how can we make it fair?" I think we should get out of this idea of being allowed or forbidden, or even acceptable, because it's a form of judgement, and if push came to shove, censorship: if we want more social justice, I think each social force has to push their strengths forward, and together compensate for their weaknesses to reach a synergy. This can't be done if each force isn't represented fairly and objectively for what they are.

From this, we can ask ourselves how can we change these unfair views; one possibility is to change our relationship with the products and the images we consume - we absorb media in abundance more or less passively. The consequence is that we are given this information that we won't necessarily have a critical view on, as more information is coming in straight afterwards, and as such we won't give ourselves the time to think. To be critical is to put a distance between yourself and the object of your criticism, to be able to assess what is at stake.
The reason I insist on this is that whatever you're consuming is politically charged. You could consume bigoted shit like you could consume some nasty microwave shit: you're choosing what you're exposing yourself to, therefore responsible of what you're consuming and its consequences on you. As I said, media aren't benign, nor are they objective, nor neutral.
Your responsability then extends to situating yourself politically in regards to these: you are now critical of what you consume, because you can see what is at stake and how you position yourself in relation to them.

I think it's pretty clear to know why women tend to be objectified in videogames: science, computer science and then videogames at its beginnings, tended to attract a majority of men, and unless I'm mistaken, both areas are still male dominated to this day. That's when the concept of the male gaze comes in, but this isn't exclusive to videogames, of course: I'm sure you've seen some vintage adverts of cars, cigarettes or household objects portraying women in a reductive way - but also in books and films, too. We still haven't got out of this world of men pandering to men.

We can blame those producing media for encouraging disparities, but once again, I think it's up to how we receive them; after all, they are supposedly appealing to the masses, the majority. So if anything, it's a vicious circle in which the consumer feeds the producer, who feeds the consumer. I don't think it's up to them to give us a moral lesson on what is right or what is wrong, or how things should be done or what thing should be like: it's up to us to respond to these media and to engage in a discussion to hopefully bring a fair compromise. From there will the media follow.