Sarkeesian predicts Witcher 3 will be "misogynist".

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@shawn_kh
I don't have any issues with some female characters liking Geralt. What makes them appear less strong and independent is the fact that it's just too easy for Geralt to have sex with them. And my issues with the sex cards are not only that they seem like something the player can collect, but also that there are way too many of them. Sometimes less is better. The lack of LGBT characters bothers me as well.
Having sex really isn't that hard. If a woman really likes you, then you don't have pursue them. Plus I see it as strength and independence, because strong women know what they want and get it. And lastly you think when a woman has sex it means that they are weak and dependent ?
Geralt doesn't rape them, and it is an RPG. So the players control Geralt and how many women he has sex with, CDPR has just provided the options for players to choose how they wanna play the games since it is an RPG.
 
Uh, have we forgotten the topic of this thread?
No, why? We just transformed the thread into a discussion about certain topics in the game(s)...


About the sorceresses: I think we should differentiate between emotional relationships and just "sex for fun". We don't know if Philippa is heterosexual or homosexual, the only thing we know is that she had sexual encounters with both sexes. Some of these encounters may be just rational, other just for fun and others also emotional.

Having strong and independent women like that in the TW2 is actually a good argument against the game being misogynistic imo.
 
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Can you please elaborate how Witcher 1&2 were misogynistic in MANY ways ?
Damsel in distress you say ? As far as I remember Triss saved Geralt's life several times when he was in distress during the course of the games.

Don't worry, I do not take it as a personal attack. I hope you don't take my reluctance to write an indepth answer personally either. I have already invested a lot of time and energy on these forums discussing these points that I've grown tired of it.

But misogynistic elements / tropes include:
- Sex cards, whether deliberately or not, women were presented as collectibles
- Making the silliest sexual encounters in TW1, some of which triggered out of nowhere with literally one sentence. Most of these women have no personality or role other than to get fucked.
- Turning Triss and Shani into children, when it comes to Alvin, because of who Geralt likes. A very poor love-triangle that demeans both women.
- Other than Triss / Shani, no other serious and active *main* female character. Even Shani is more of a secondary character and a side romance to Triss.
- Unequal nudity. We see Triss fully naked and Geralt with boxers. No need to show Geralt's penis since we don't see Triss' vagina, camera angles can do the trick.
- All main female characters are very attractive (it makes sense for sorceresses, so I'm not counting them). Main male characters are more varied in looks, ranging from handsome (as fuck like Iorveth) to average, and ugly (Letho).
- Saskia's impractical cleavage armor (the rest of the armor is great)
- Ves' lack of armor and completely exposed chest, the only one in the Blue Stripes
- Ves being consistently promoted as a great fighter, but displaying none of her skills in TW2's plot. She ends up being a damsel in distress twice in the same game. A case of us being told but not shown.
- Triss, the female lead, being relegated to mostly passive actor in TW2. Not doing much, if anything.

Etc etc.

Which is not to say I do not believe TW2 did great things in terms of female representation, some of which I believe very few games do, as a matter of fact.
I think its cast of female characters, in terms of role in the plot and story, to be mostly excellent. Especially Saskia, Sile, and Philippa. I find them excellent characters, interesting for being characters first and foremost, multi-faceted and believable. Even Ves, I love as a character and would only criticize the plot under-utilizing her.

I have always said and will continue to say, that TW2's cast of female characters, in general, is one of the best ones I've ever seen.

Do not take my criticism of matters of representation as a dismissal on my part vis-a-vis the entire game. TW2 is literally my favorite game, and specifically the game with some of my most beloved female characters. Perceiving its flaws in no ways reduces my love for it AND my appreciation over the things it did get right, which a lot of detractors ignore.
 
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See, I reserve the term "misogyny" for something that actively expresses contempt towards and hatred of women (and that isn't just depiction, obviously). I think the Witcher's mistakes wrt to female characters, for the most part, would fall under "relatively mild sexism" at worst. For instance, CDPRs tendency to sex-up female characters, even if it blatantly contradicts the books. E.g., Triss's ultra-cleavage and fishnets "field" outfit and the fully-nude-for-no-apparent reason (and green) dryad in the first game.
 
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My only guess is that misogyny as a word gets a lot more attention than regular old sexism. Never heard misandry used instead of sexism, then again that word doesn't get used a lot.
 
My only guess is that misogyny as a word gets a lot more attention than regular old sexism. Never heard misandry used instead of sexism, then again that word doesn't get used a lot.

This is also what concerns me, the word itself has been debased by being used over-much. Attaching the label to absolutely everything that smells even remotely of inequality trivialises actions that are a lot more serious than whether or not women are pretty in a video game, and polarises views to the extent that nobody can be reasoned with any more. Arguments just get dismissed, often with cause, as simply the rantings of a rabid feminist/misogynist.

Every time that someone like Sarkeesian opens her mouth, or tweets something, the quest for equality between the sexes takes a step back.

And, putting on my moderator hat now, what Guy said. Also no, please do NOT go off-topic. Attempts to derail it will result in appropriate surgical action.
 
Every time that someone like Sarkeesian opens her mouth, or tweets something, the quest for equality between the sexes takes a step back.

Well, it would be nice to understand what equality we re talking about. It seems to be neither equality between sexes, no equality between genders.
First of all, sex is a biological category. Males (biological term) have XY, and penises (among other things). Females have XX, and vaginas. There is no biological equality there, whatever this means. There are certain general characteristics, about muscle mass, and such, but this is pretty much a matter of fact.

Gender is a social category, and it has to do with distribution of functions, roles, and power in the society. Men (social category) had, have, and will always have more social value, and more power (which means that the society will always value more people of such occupations as CEOs, professors, engineers, military, lawyers, and so on than it will value housekeepers, secretaries, people taking care of children, be that full-time mothers, or professionally). People belong to men category because they have socially much more valuable occupations. Women have less power because their occupations, occupations that traditionally deal with family, care, and children, are in every society on Earth are deemed less important (to a different degree, but still). And let me tell you, no one now is fighting for more social recognition of women, and for a higher status for persons with "women" occupation.

All feminist fuss is about making a social class of men open for persons who are biologically female. You see, traditionally only persons with XY had a chance to become men in the social order, while persons with XX, does not matter how gifted, were restricted to the social role of women. After two world wars, and all changes they brought, our contemporary society can't sustain itself economically with only males occupying positions of men. Capable women now can reach the same heights in any occupation, be that jet fighter pilots, prime-ministers, or CEOs. Also development of medicine (in vitro, surrogate motherhood) allows to adopt the guys' attitude to life. A friend of mine saw her babies for the first time only when they came from the hospital (she was busy otherwise), and promptly dropped them from surrogate mom's laps onto babysitter's. Lookie there, just like me! I did not know what to do - feel proud for her, or lament that the world is getting screwed beyond belief. (Will all the mothers be gone as soon as we invent an artificial womb and robot babysitters? I hope I won't live long enough to see it en masse.) Great job, ladies, mission accomplished. Now you sure can be men in every respect. :victory:

But it has nothing to do with gender equality because nobody still gives a damn about women, females who did not become men in our society. They are still under-paid and abused quite often.

Female nudity and "easy women"? Well, here it is totally opposite. It is a sexist view that women should be depicted modest. If a man screws everything that moves, he is a stud and a hero. If a woman agrees to have sex too easily, she is a whore, and a sex object. Nope. If we are talking about equality, it should be an equal perception. Either Dandy is as much a whore as a dryad in the swamp, or neither of them, and they are simply free people who freely choose to follow their desires. Whoever thinks otherwise pretty much demands that women behave differently from men in order to be decent and respected. And it ain't any kind of equality. (unless you see sex as radical feminists do, when sex (penetration) is always a violence against a woman. But in this case the nature itself is a sexist bitch, nothing we can do about it).

We discussed sexy clothing elsewhere, and in my opinion it is not about sexism, or any social equality, but about social attitude toward sex.

I can guess why females who are men do not like to see damsels in distress. Probably, it is similar to guys not liking to see other guys abused, raped, and humiliated. So, should we ditch this concept of a female in need of help completely? Should we balance it with males in distress? I say screw it. In the West we are so fucking sensitive, game devs are so afraid to insult certain groups and are forced to make PC games in order to please everyone, that it gets fucking ridiculous. I hope CDPR won't listen to all this crap about sexism, misogyny, and such, especially given that most people who talk about it, don't really understand what they are talking about.
 
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But misogynistic elements / tropes include:
- Sex cards, whether deliberately or not, women were presented as collectibles
- Making the silliest sexual encounters in TW1, some of which triggered out of nowhere with literally one sentence. Most of these women have no personality or role other than to get fucked.
- Turning Triss and Shani into children, when it comes to Alvin, because of who Geralt likes. A very poor love-triangle that demeans both women.
- Other than Triss / Shani, no other serious and active *main* female character. Even Shani is more of a secondary character and a side romance to Triss.
- Unequal nudity. We see Triss fully naked and Geralt with boxers. No need to show Geralt's penis since we don't see Triss' vagina, camera angles can do the trick.
- All main female characters are very attractive (it makes sense for sorceresses, so I'm not counting them). Main male characters are more varied in looks, ranging from handsome (as fuck like Iorveth) to average, and ugly (Letho).
- Saskia's impractical cleavage armor (the rest of the armor is great)
- Ves' lack of armor and completely exposed chest, the only one in the Blue Stripes
- Ves being consistently promoted as a great fighter, but displaying none of her skills in TW2's plot. She ends up being a damsel in distress twice in the same game. A case of us being told but not shown.
- Triss, the female lead, being relegated to mostly passive actor in TW2. Not doing much, if anything.
-I'm not arguing with sex cards, because I thought they were a poor design choice. But they could be interpreted in different ways even in a romantic way. Maybe Geralt took his time and drew them to cherish his time with a lover.
-Go to a bar, and there's a good chance that you'll make the silliest encounters and you'll end up having sex. Are bars misogynistic ? Is sex misogynistic ? Why do you assume that Geralt used those women as sex toys ? Why not assume that Geralt was used as a sex toy by those women ?
-There are plenty of cases where two women fight over or for a common goal. I do not think they were portrayed as children, and think they each thought that Alvin would be safer with them. They fought for the safety of a child, because they each had confidence in themselves that she would be able to protect and guide Alvin the best.
-Is there any special number of serious and active *main* female characters that would make the game not misogynistic ?
Plus Saskia was a main character, as she was there for a whole chapter and she was very influential.
-Many would say the fact that Geralt's penis was not shown is misandrist or anti-men. Female's body is deemed beautiful and it was fully shown, while a penis was deemed as ugly and disgusting and that's why it was not shown. As you see there are two ways of interpreting this.
-I wouldn't call Loredo's mother or the madam very attractive. Some women might find Letho to be attractive; the manly face and muscles might be attractive to some women.
-Free women show cleavage in free countries even today. Women and men want to show off their beauty, and thus both genders wear cloth to attract attention of the opposite sex. Some say restricting women from wearing provocative clothing is misogynist.
-Same point as above. And Ves states that she is still a woman, and she needs to hear that she is beautiful and get attention from time to time. Same goes for men.
-Yeah. People say many things, but that doesn't mean they are true. people might say Ves is great, but it might be proven otherwise in action. People also say Geralt is this and that, but he was almost killed by Vilgefortz and Javed and there are many other instances that he loses and gets injured. The ending of the books is a good example.
-How the fact that the actor doesn't do a good job makes the game misogynist ? Are you suggesting that CDPR deliberately chose a passive actress to make the game misogynist out of hatred for women ?

And most importantly misogynist is harming women out of despise. I don't think any of your points leads to the conclusion that CDPR makes these games out of despise for women to harm them.
 
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@new&improved_vivaxardas

I had to read through this twice, to properly understand it. Which is weird since it pretty much sums up my views on the matter.

This might be a problem for someone who reads your post and sees: "Men had, have and always will have more social value and more power." Maybe you should change the word Men into something else, or have the (social category) written in bold letters. Because I'm not sure most people will continue to read on, after misunderstanding the first sentence like I did.

Oh anyway, thank you for this great post.

I am pretty much of the same opinion. Women (and men) should not fight for "Women becoming equal to Men". They should fight for the "social category" of Women to be equally respected and valued as the "social category" of Men.

Now I am not against women being able to live their lives as a person belonging in the "social category" of Men. They can do as they please. Same applies for men that want to live their lives as a person belonging in the "social category" of Women, though I don't think there are nearly as many.

Gender equality, as well as racial equality, social class equality and so on, have not been pursued in the right way so far. It is simply a matter of Respect.

We are all humans, regardless of our social status. What we need is for everyone to respect and value everyone else. This is not happening at all right now. However, I believe it is a matter of the Progress of the Human Mind. The more educated and knowledgeable we become, the closer we get to true Equality. The further away we get from feelings and thoughts of hate/revenge/social competition. Which are the reasons for the efforts towards equality, simply being fought towards the wrong direction.

Anyway, I think it's a matter of Time. Maybe I am naive, but I think we will get to that point in our education that we will be able to achieve equality. It might be a long time from now, we might encounter many other difficulties along the way, but I think we'll manage. No that's wrong. I don't really think we will, but I choose to believe so.
 
To a large extent, I agree with vivaxardas. I don't, however, agree entirely with StaGiors, in particular with this:
I am pretty much of the same opinion. Women (and men) should not fight for "Women becoming equal to Men". They should fight for the "social category" of Women to be equally respected and valued as the "social category" of Men.

Now I am not against women being able to live their lives as a person belonging in the "social category" of Men. They can do as they please. Same applies for men that want to live their lives as a person belonging in the "social category" of Women, though I don't think there are nearly as many.

Gender equality, as well as racial equality, social class equality and so on, have not been pursued in the right way so far. It is simply a matter of Respect.

While I agree that there should be equal respect for those activities traditionally carried out by women, I think that for full equality it's also necessary to remove the concept that any of these, other than the strictly biological ones relating to childbirth, should continue to be considered as gender-linked. Even though society may accept women doing "man's work" and men doing "women's work", for as long as it continues to be described as such, there will continue to be a social stigma attached to it, that somehow it is "less feminine" to have a career or "less masculine" to raise the children. The traditional reasons for the separation of roles have gone, at least in the first world, and the attitudes also need to change.

I do fully agree with this though:
The further away we get from feelings and thoughts of hate/revenge/social competition. Which are the reasons for the efforts towards equality, simply being fought towards the wrong direction.
which is what disturbs me most about the current direction that feminism is going in. It seems to be all about hate and competition, and not at all about respect. If we women can't respect men for what they are, rather than what we would want them to be, how can we possibly expect them to respect us for what WE are?
 
@Dragonbird

Allow me to rephrase then, since what I failed to make myself clear. What you said is exactly what I was trying to say. Every person, regardless of gender can lead his/her life as he/she wants to. A woman can choose to base her life around her career, and a man can base his life around his family. And the other way around. Career is not a man's issue, and Family is not a woman's issue.

However you've pinpointed yet another problem with feminist efforts. A lot of feminists argue that women can do "men's work" just as good as men can. Which further adds to the problem. Categorizing people as men and women in this situation, does not help the equality between genders in people's work environment. It simply highlights that a man and a woman are different, since they are referred as such. And that women can do things just as good as men can, maybe even better. Which can certainly be true, but it is a really unnecessary statement.

So yeah, I think we pretty much agree in this aspect as well, just a failure on my part, to make my point clear. :)
 
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@Dragonbird

Allow me to rephrase then, since what I failed to make myself clear. What you said is exactly what I was trying to say. Every person, regardless of gender can lead his/her life as he/she wants to. A woman can choose to base her life around her career, and a man can base his life around his family. And the other way around. Career is not a man's issue, and Family is not a woman's issue.

However you've pinpointed yet another problem with feminist efforts. A lot of feminists argue that women can do "men's work" just as good as men can. Which further adds to the problem. Categorizing people as men and women in this situation, does not help the equality between genders in people's work environment. It simply highlights that a man and a woman are different, since they are referred as such. And that women can do things just as good as men can, maybe even better. Which can certainly be true, but it is a really unnecessary statement.

So yeah, I think we pretty much agree in this aspect as well, just a failure on my part, to make my point clear. :)

To the extent that women are not paid equal to men or given the same respect given to men when they do the same work, no, it's not an unnecessary statement at all. Women can indeed do things just as well as men; and when they do, they should not be patronized, underpaid, or held back just because they are not men. So long as they are, and they most certainly are, there remains a need for the manner of feminism that calls this out, decries it, and demands things be put right.
 
To the extent that women are not paid equal to men or given the same respect given to men when they do the same work, no, it's not an unnecessary statement at all. Women can indeed do things just as well as men; and when they do, they should not be patronized, underpaid, or held back just because they are not men. So long as they are, and they most certainly are, there remains a need for the manner of feminism that calls this out, decries it, and demands things be put right.

Agreed, when the differentiation is used in this context.

I also think that it's important to go beyond "misogyny" or "sexism" as a simplistic sound-bite answer to the question of why certain jobs still pay men more for doing the same work as women, and on why certain careers attract men more than women. The root cause may still come back to that in some form, but based on my own experience in an industry that would be considered "male-oriented" in the West, it isn't as simple as "men won't employ/promote women", "women don't want to be engineers" or "women find the workplace culture intimidating".
 
@Guy N'wah

Ah I always answer according to my experiences so far in life. In most discussions I've had about this issue, the arguments presented to me where these. That women can do what men can and so on. To me these statements are not needed, since I think them to be true. To me the point is to be found elsewhere, as I've tried to explain. Which has always brought trouble to me, since I come across as disagreeing with the original statements, which is not true.

The fact that a lot of people in our age, do not think that women, especially now, have pretty much the same capabilities as men, regarding work that does not involve physical effort, seems to me so "alien". I grew up, going to the same school with girls, I studied along girls, and I've pretty much figured out, that my capabilities, regarding the mind, are not much different that the capabilities of a girl. I have never even made that comparison. It has never occurred to me that men are smarter than women somehow. However, I admit that I do not have any experience at all, regarding the work environment. I have never seen discriminations such as these happen in real life. I have not seen examples of women being underpaid, in comparison to men. That does not mean that it is not true. I will have to say that it is, since you guys, that have experienced such things, say so.

I guess that's the reason I use the word unnecessary. I have not yet seen much of the world. Well then, I should be more careful with what I type down. Since I do agree with what you say.

I'm just not really aware of some things. I understand that they exist, but I am not aware of them. If that makes sense. :p
 
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