I like how Bethesda manages to be more progressive than most of the games industry by doing as little work as possible.
Unnamed npcs like bandits are randomly assembled from the available body features, which inadvertently leads to more balanced gender and race representation, because every physical attribute has an equal chance to be chosen. In Skyrim, marriageable npcs are marriageable no matter what the player is, because having a single “marriageable” box to tick when coding npcs is easier than having to check for multiple variables like race and gender in the player.
No one in any bethesda game will treat you any differently or even speak differently other than “he” or “she”, and even then a lot of dialogue uses “they” or your characters titles rather than your pronouns to save dialogue lines.
It is literally less work to just represent everybody equally. The next time a game dev tries to say they don’t have the resources to include more diverse representation, you push that shit back at them because that shit is bullshit.
Ppl be like “ I want an actual male gem, not just Steven.”
Jeez, it’s like having only one character
to represent your whole gender
in a group composed all of another gender
is a bit upsetting huh?
I wonder
what
that’s like
no really
can you
even imagine
what this lack of representation
MUST
FEEL
LIKE
This
post
isn’t
long
enough
none of the listed shows are named after the one female character, either
it’s actually physically impossible for me to not reblog this post.
I want to say I’ve reblogged this before, but I’m reblogging again for the brilliant addition of, “None of the listed shows are named after the one female character, either” because FUCKING THANK YOU.
OMFG CLIPPY WAS DESIGNED AS THE ORIGINAL MANSPLAINER
THIS MAKES THIS MEME EVEN BETTER
Baaaaahahahahahahahaaaa
I was trying to make sense of the different ways men and women related to Ophelia. Women seemed to invoke her like a patron saint; men seemed mostly interested in fetishizing her flowery, waterlogged corpse. I tried to argue that Ophelia resonated because Shakespeare had made an extraordinary discovery in writing her, though I had trouble articulating the nature of that discovery. I didn’t want to admit that it could be something as simple as recognizing that emotionally unstable teenage girls are human beings. It would be depressingly close to admitting that a male writer would have to be as gifted as Shakespeare in order to come to a conclusion like that.
This comes up because a male friend is posting on Facebook about all the things he’s introducing his new girlfriend to. She’s “gee whiz” about everything, and very wide-eyed, but all I can think is, “man, you two have nothing in common, do you”.
And it’s always the guy bringing the girl into *their* world. Not vice versa. They don’t ever enter the woman’s world. They usually hang out with *his* friends, and he introduces her to *his* hobbies. In some ways, it often works out better than if he found a woman from his own social group, because the “golly gee whiz” wide eyed stranger is never, ever going to be competition. She’s never going to ever threaten the guy’s status as alpha geek/sports fan/etc.
I don’t think heterosexuals are even aware that they do this. These are some of the most “feminist ally” identified guys I’ve known. They’re not self-aware enough to recognize how gendered the dynamics in their relationships are.
omg why is this viralling
cause it’s true?
I hate to be the person who adds their own stuff to a post but like, this is exactly what happened to me with my first real boyfriend. Like I didn’t notice it when I was in the situation, but looking back it’s exactly like the post describes it. Not to mention he was exactly the type of guy to self identify as a feminist and was very proud of the fact.
It was really very easy for him to make me believe or at least feel like he was the authority on most things and we always did things he was into (it didn’t help that I was 15/16 at the time and he was 18/19 but that’s a whole other list of issues.) He never took any real interest in my hobbies or passions but would get insulted when I wasn’t interested in investing my time in things he wanted to do. It wasn’t until a really long time after we broke up that I started seeing just how many things were unhealthy in that relationship.
And like, if you’re a straight girl and you’re dating guys that’s unfortunately one of the many things you have to look out for. Very few people will point stuff like this out to you, they probably don’t see it themselves cause it’s so accepted and normalized. So many men are used to the world revolving around them that they don’t question that their partner should also become part of their niche. If you’re taking an interesting in his life and hobbies he should be taking an equal interest in yours. More often than not you’ll have to demand it from them and if they object to it you need to walk the fuck away from that relationship imo.
The thing interesting on this dynamic is, this is the one socially sanctioned moment when girl is allowed (even encouraged!) to be interested in masculine hobbies. Nobody motivates girls to be into football or fishing on their own, and when they do they’re seen as strange exceptions. But when their bf is into those things, it’s celebrated as ideal girlfriend behavior. But there is also the implication that she isn’t REALLY interested, she’s just following. She isn’t in it for herself – otherwise she would be a competition and we can’t have that.
But then God help them from then onwards because even if they actually do have a genuine interest in these things they’ll be forever branded a Fake Geek Girl who is Only Doing It to Impress Guys and the Circle of Bullshit continues to move us all.
In 1964 Bernie Sanders was 23 years old, graduating college, and had developed his own life and ideals as an independent adult.
In 1964 Hilary Clinton was a 17 year old high school student, being influenced by her family and school teachers who were mostly conservative republicans. By the time she was 23 she had been active in the anti-war campaign for years, during law school she worked on civil rights issues, and by the time she graduated Yale Law she had fully changed her political alignment to be a liberal democrat.
Once again, people are pitting an adult male against a teenage girl and denouncing the teenager for not having reached the same level of maturity and life experiences as the grown man. I do think Bernie Sanders is the better choice for president but we should be showing this through their current politics, not by claiming that a 17 year old girl should have had all of her political views fully sorted out before graduating high school. The real life experiences that shape our political views usually happen in our early 20s, it’s not uncommon for someone to change their mind about political issues during this time.
Off the top of her head, before going to work this morning:
Specifically robots:
Neptune’s Brood, Charles Stross
Saturn’s Children, also Stross (which does have lots of Teh Sex but is nicely trope-subversive – it’s a reimagining of Heinlein’s Friday)
Sort-of robots:
Ancillary Justice/Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (beware, the third one isn’t out yet)
General non-titty-based sci-fi:
Women Destroy Science Fiction! a compilation published by Lightspeed Magazine. I’m pretty sure some of these stories do actually contain robots. (there is also Queers Destroy Science Fiction but she hasn’t finished that so can’t recommend it yet)
Conservation of Shadows, Yoon Ha Lee
Glitter and Mayhem, a compilation published by Apex
Heiresses of Russ: technically categorized as “lesbian speculative fiction”. As such, some does contain Teh Sex, but at least it’s with lesbians. It’s an annual collection, some years are better than others.
Litany of Earth, Ruthanna Emrys: post-colonialist Lovecraftian.
ursulavernon has lots of good stories, although they tend to be more fantasy-oriented than sci-fi.
Tea with a Black Dragon, R. A. Macavoy (also her other stuff)
She also suggests trawling the Tiptree Award winners.
Kimchi and Justice 