Skyrim is weird and confusing?
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@omgriri said:
@serguey123 said:
Errr, omgriri, please if you are going to get annoyed at something, get annoyed at more important and real things. (I mean, srly?)
When worst things are happening in the real world, complaining about some vague gender discrimination thingy on a game seems silly to me.
your comment is breathtakingly ignorant, massively irrelevant, provides a shining example of a false dichotomy, and also neatly proves my point. impressive!
you're essentially saying that, because there are, say, real life children starving somewhere in a faraway country, I should sit down and shut up because my argument is thusly without merit and "silly." and, for some equally hilarious reason that is entirely beyond my comprehension, you appear to expect that your opinion regarding something you don't actually understand and have no experience with is actually worth something in the first place, but we'll ignore that, and I'll humor you, for now.
I'm not talking about all possible real world problems ever, I'm talking about one specific video game that has manifested one specific societal ill in a thoroughly inappropriate way. I read a statistic recently that 40% of gamers as of 2010 are female. why alienate almost half your fanbase for bullshit "authenticity" and then turn around and, say, put a ridiculous talking dragon in the game? I just completely can't understand people, both developers and other players, who complain that "not enough girls play video games," and then turn around and defend unnecessary aspects of games that alienate female players in the first place. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you weren't openly trying to be offensive, but clueless types like you are as much a solid part of the problem as the openly malicious ones.
I don't even need to explain why misogyny is a very real issue to half the world's population, and it would be off-topic and tangential to do so, but since you've mentioned "worse" real world problems: misogyny is, simply, the root cause of a wide array of very real issues that plague the world, ranging from issues like the completely inexcusable pay gap even here in the developed world (women in the united states still only make 77 cents on the dollar that men make), to absolutely horrendous issues worldwide like abuse, assault, sex trafficking, genital mutilation, even female infanticide, where female babies are valued so much less than male babies that they're literally killed off (you can read more about that last example here, if you don't believe me. http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html ). with that kind of shit going on in the world, yeah, many of us (even we comparatively lucky pampered ones with the luxury of playing a stupid game with talking dragons in it :P) are still going to be sensitive to and annoyed by unnecessary displays of the root cause, however innocuous "just a little sexism" may seem. try to remember that. it may not be real to you, but it's very real to half the people you'll meet walking down the street.
(anyway, back to the grind... I'm setting my spam filter to catch email notifications, because I really need to get this mess done and I'm pretty sure I've said absolutely everything relevant that I could possibly say at this point anyway. toodles!)Hmm, so you have dedicated a big portion of your time to complain about a stupid thing on a videogame, what have you done in real life about those real life issues?, also, they might seems problems from a faraway land to you but where I live they are very real! (however you don't know where I live or what types of genitals I have so I'll cut you some slack from your post and chalk it up to cultural differences). Why should I care about this when people are dying of starvation here? This is sooooo first world thinking.
@dhromed said:
Great. Now they know where you live
Nahh, I use a PO box for this, very cloak and dagger delivery, on the plus side no money trail either
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@omgriri said:
why alienate almost half your fanbase for bullshit "authenticity" and then turn around and, say, put a ridiculous talking dragon in the game?
What you're saying here makes no sense. It's obviously fantasy, but that doesn't mean that the bad guys should act nobly except for their nefarious plots. How would you expect the bad guy to act towards a serving wench whom he probably owns (I'm just going from memory from the earlier description)?
@omgriri said:
...however innocuous "just a little sexism" may seem. try to remember that. it may not be real to you, but it's very real to half the people you'll meet walking down the street.
Sure, there are places where misogyny is a pretty major thing. But it's not that major in what I'll assume are the main markets for this game (e.g., US, Western Europe). Not like it is in Islamic countries or in China. Or maybe you're mistaking the slavery issue for mysogyny?
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@omgriri said:
I'm setting my spam filter to catch email notifications,
You know you can just click that button at the top of the thread to unsubscribe, right? CS sucks ass, but even it doesn't suck SO much ass that it's hard to turn off email notifications.
@omgriri said:
your comment is breathtakingly ignorant, massively irrelevant, provides a shining example of a false dichotomy, and also neatly proves my point.
The problem here is that you haven't really made a point, other than "omgriri doesn't like Skyrim as much as Oblivion". The examples you gave of sexism in the game were all easily shot-down. When I said "let's agree to disagree" I did it because you have this annoying habit of typing 500 words without actually making a point, and I prefer talking about the actual video game itself. Not because I was conceding that your argument was valid.
@omgriri said:
you're essentially saying that, because there are, say, real life children starving somewhere in a faraway country, I should sit down and shut up because my argument is thusly without merit and "silly."
I agree with you that it's a false dichotomy. On the other hand, as you said to me after you spoiled important plot points of a brand-new video game it's just a game.
@omgriri said:
I'm not talking about all possible real world problems ever, I'm talking about one specific video game that has manifested one specific societal ill in a thoroughly inappropriate way.
You're talking about it, but you haven't actually demonstrated it with solid examples or analysis.
@omgriri said:
I read a statistic recently that 40% of gamers as of 2010 are female. why alienate almost half your fanbase for bullshit "authenticity" and then turn around and, say, put a ridiculous talking dragon in the game?
Wow. This paragraph.
1) Those 40% of female gamers by and large play The Sims and Farmville, not Skyrim. Not that it's relevant to your point at all.
2) You haven't shown that anybody is alienated except, possibly, yourself-- but then again, despite this thread, you're still playing the game. So who's alienated?That's not even getting into the other assumptions and logical failings in that paragraph that make my brain hurt.
@omgriri said:
(women in the united states still only make 77 cents on the dollar that men make)
Except women also purposefully pick lower-paying jobs (with more free time) than men and are less likely to negotiate for higher pay when applying for a job. When you average up every woman in the US and every man in the US, yeah, it comes out statistically to 77 cents on the dollar, but that doesn't (necessarily) mean any social injustice is being done. It's not evidence one way or the other.
I'd wager if you just looked at employees who did at least one back-and-forth negotiation on their salary with employees who didn't negotiate at all, you'd get somewhere like 80 cents on the dollar from that alone. (Wild-ass guessing; don't quote that anywhere.)
Remember, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
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@omgriri said:
hell, if I heard even one single comment about the menfolk? I'd immediately be fine with it
What about the woman in Whiterun who, whenever a male PC walks near her says, "What's wrong, can't stand the sight of a strong nord woman?"
Or the several strong female characters? I have trouble with names, but the woman whose husband is in love with the Jarl (She's in the temple in Whiterun; most of my time is there so far) is a strong woman.
There are many examples of both chauvinism and hateful feminism. There are examples of men and women working together, or existing equally. There are many example of racism, but there are also many examples of people of different races working together.
Have you considered the idea that maybe this is an attempt at creating a realistic world? There is racism in the world, and there is cooperation. There is sexism in the world, and there is equality.
This isn't a game that is trying to be politically correct. It is a came that is trying to be realistic. It is trying to show the world as it is, not necessarily as we wish it would be.
This man you keep referencing is a bad guy. You acknowledge this yourself. He is doing something that is universally recognized as a terrible thing. That's why he does it. It's shocking and terrible. That's the whole point. How do you not see that?
SPOILERS:
There is a child who tries to summon assassins. There are several men who want to kill all dark elves. There are many quarrelling couples. There's a drunk who won't pay his bar tab. There is a woman who wants to buy a bar. There's a woman who will fight you with the slightest provocation just to prove she's strong. There is a woman who wants you to damage one tree to save another. There's a pair of guys fighting over a woman, and trying to trick her. There are countless examples like this.
There is more than one person who kills others on sight, many of them women.
END SPOILERS
The point is, this is a world that strives for realism and seriousness. This isn't a PC game (none of the TES games have been), and it isn't trying to win points of politeness. It is a serious game depicting a serious world. And that world has things in it we don't always like. Men and women of all races both hating each other or cooperating in a spirit of friendship. Men hating women, women hating men, elves hating "humans," "humans" hating elves. Most people hating Kajiit. It's a complicated world, and it doesn't hold punches with regard to serious issues.
As you say, these things exist, so to have a realistic world, these things exist in it. I think it would hurt immersion if there were not chauvinists, if there were not man-hating feminists, if there were not cheating bastards and good-for-nothing husbands and out-of-luck drunks. They help make the world a complex, vibrant world that feels real. And that's the point. Feeling real. Not treading lightly on the tough issues.
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So, outside's perspective: I found this thread via google (it's the third result on a search for "skyrim misogyny", which is hilarious), and I find it truly amazing that nobody in this thread is actually capable of recognizing what's going on in here: namely, that an actual female arrives in this thread, calmly lays out her opinion on the issue of why she should have to deal with a sensitive real-world issue while playing her $60 video game about beating dragons to death with claymores, and is immediately set about by a swarm of nerds who insult her and tell her why her opinions are wrong and stupid.
THE FUCKING IRONY
@boomzilla said:
There's also the fact that these guys are in business to sell games, not effect any sort of social change. Obviously, if you're offended by the game, it's your right to speak out against it and not buy it. But others are equally OK in enjoying for what it is and ignoring those who are offended.
It's an original fantasy world that THEY CREATED. If they wanted to leave it out, they could have easily done so. Plenty of other fantasy universes (and, indeed, Elder Scrolls in recently past incarnations) have existed just fine without including, say, a quest where one woman sends you off to punish another woman for the crime of being such a horrible slut that she slept with three different dudes in a month. Acting like that's a demand for Bethesda to "effect social change" is a ridiculous fucking straw man and claiming that it's somehow okay because not including it would have violated some peoples' nebulous concept of "authenticity" is just straight up ridiculous in general.
And claiming that it's okay because more males play video games than females would be hilarious if it wasn't such a hideously offensive concept to anyone who's actually touched a girl that wasn't a) related to them or b) handing them a Bacon Beef 'n Cheddar at Arby's.
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@leodious said:
Have you considered the idea that maybe this is an attempt at creating a realistic world? There is racism in the world, and there is cooperation. There is sexism in the world, and there is equality.
Yes, but, DRAGONS!
@thejim said:
So, outside's perspective: I found this thread via google (it's
the third result on a search for "skyrim misogyny", which is
hilarious), and I find it truly amazing that nobody in this thread is
actually capable of recognizing what's going on in here: namely, that an
actual female arrives in this thread, calmly lays out her opinion on
the issue of why she should have to deal with a sensitive real-world
issue while playing her $60 video game about beating dragons to
death with claymores, and is immediately set about by a swarm of nerds
who insult her and tell her why her opinions are wrong and stupid.Look, it's not our fault that you're both wrong.
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@leodious said:
The point is, this is a world that strives for realism and seriousness.
*Except for the bit with the talking dragon.
But I get your point and it's a good one.
Well, I hear so many good things about this game, that I might buy it and see what all the hubbub is about with my own eyes and then I'll have a more informed opinion.
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@thejim said:
So, outside's perspective: I found this thread via google (it's
the third result on a search for "skyrim misogyny", which is
hilarious)This forum has an incredibly high siterank, considering how full of crap it is.
@thejim said:
I find it truly amazing that nobody in this thread is
actually capable of recognizing what's going on in here: namely, that an
actual female arrives in this thread, calmly lays out her opinion on
the issue of why she should have to deal with a sensitive real-world
issue while playing her $60 video game about beating dragons to
death with claymores, and is immediately set about by a swarm of nerds
who insult her and tell her why her opinions are wrong and stupid.THE FUCKING IRONY
Ok, I has a sad because I wrote up a long, scathing, brilliant reply to this last night and I lost it when the forum software crashed before I could hit post. So here's the short bullet-listed version:
1) I didn't say his/her opinions were wrong and stupid, I said they were unsupported by evidence. Unless you can prove an assertion with evidence, it's nothing more than a knee-jerk "gut-reaction", and I don't care to debate those.
2) At no point does omgriri state his/her gender, so you're making unwarranted assumptions in your post.
3) Everybody on this forum knows what "white knighting" is, so you're not fooling any of us.
4) Now that Arby's has a decent cheesesteak, nobody's going to order a Bacon Beef 'n Cheddar anymore.
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@blakeyrat said:
3) Everybody on this forum knows what "white knighting" is, so you're not fooling any of us.
Are you accusing him of being in league with the KKK? And I thought this thread was bad enough with misogyny accusations.
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@blakeyrat said:
This forum has an incredibly high siterank, considering how full of crap it is.
It is because we discuss at length what nobody else cares about, thus google finds us as one of the few viable results.
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@blakeyrat said:
4) Now that Arby's has a decent cheesesteak, nobody's going to order a Bacon Beef 'n Cheddar anymore.
The fuck. Why would I want cheesy crap on my meat?
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@blakeyrat said:
Now that Arby's has a decent cheesesteak
But it isn't, it's a little better than other fast food chains attempts but that isn't a shining endorsement by any means.
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@blakeyrat said:
2) At no point does omgriri state his/her gender, so you're making unwarranted assumptions in your post.
I think we can infer this pretty accurately from her issues with the game and this part of her post:
@omgriri said:
hm.. interesting food for thought. I've got my boy and my best friend over here and we've all been sort of bitching back and forth watching each other play, but it's interesting, the extra bits of insight that start to pop out when discussing it with neutral/differing viewpoints. I appreciate the sounding board.
Gonna chuck my 2 cents in... I'm tired of the mysogynism "debate" in gaming, not because it's without merit but because all it ever does is go round and round in circles and nothing ever changes. Blogging and forum posting isn't going to change anything; if you want to weed out the attitudes that offend you, you need to become a game dev/designer yourself (or a game dev's friend/partner) so you can actually influence games. Is it easy? Probably not. Is it worth fighting for? That's up to you.
As for Bethesda, I don't particularly care what they choose to put in their games; it is, after all, their game. And this particular game is set in a medieval world, and we all know that medieval times were not kind to women; this is not mysogynism, it's fact. They're not using mysogynism as a game mechanic, they're using it to set the tone of the timeline in which the game is set. If you want to create a believable, immersive world, you need to include the bad stuff as well as the good.
Disclaimer: (1) I am male (2) I do not pretend that my viewpoint is correct or unbiased, only that it is mine (3) I would be very happy if there were more female devs/designers in the games industry so we can have more, believable game heroines like Alyx Vance.
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@The_Assimilator said:
@blakeyrat said:
2) At no point does omgriri state his/her gender, so you're making unwarranted assumptions in your post.
I think we can infer this pretty accurately from her issues with the game and this part of her post:
@omgriri said:
hm.. interesting food for thought. I've got my boy and my best friend over here and we've all been sort of bitching back and forth watching each other play, but it's interesting, the extra bits of insight that start to pop out when discussing it with neutral/differing viewpoints. I appreciate the sounding board.
Ohhh! Now who's being hetero-normative!?
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@The_Assimilator said:
@blakeyrat said:
2) At no point does omgriri state his/her gender, so you're making unwarranted assumptions in your post.
I think we can infer this pretty accurately from her issues with the game and this part of her post:
@omgriri said:
hm.. interesting food for thought. I've got my boy and my best friend over here and we've all been sort of bitching back and forth watching each other play, but it's interesting, the extra bits of insight that start to pop out when discussing it with neutral/differing viewpoints. I appreciate the sounding board.
No, we can't, there is a least a couple of explanation for that paragraph that could make sense for a male, I assume you mean the "my boy part"
- he could refer to his son
- he could refer to his boyfriend
- he could refer to a friend/gang member in some sort of african american/gang slang, etc
- Slip of the tongue
- Other plausible explanation
Hmmm, also women in the internet do not exist, is one of those things you hear about from the friend of a cousin of your neighbor but never see yourself
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SO ANYWAY!
I rejiggered my dude to be a one-handed sword dude with destruction and/or restoration spells in the spare hand (using each hand independently a'la Bioshock 2 = MASSIVE IMPROVEMENT that all games should have ever), and it turns out the one-handed finishing movies are almost as cool as the hand-to-hand ones. (But alas, I will never again see my character suplex a ghost...)
I'm still annoyed there's no perks for hand-to-hand though. What were they thinking? "This form of combat is wholly supported in every way-- except the MOST IMPORTANT one."
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@"blakeyrat:"
I've done my absolute best to politely ignore you in pretty much the same way I might ignore a wailing child in a restaurant, but you're only getting more and more absurd and completely off the mark as a result.
77 cents on the dollar refers to the SAME jobs, and no, that's not okay. and your farmville response is a total fucking condescending cop-out. of COURSE sexism still exists in the western world. have you ever even spoken to an actual woman? I could give you a personal example of being openly denied a job on the basis of my gender, but this isn't about my personal life. for chrissake, for a good example, look at the way even my most measured and tactful expression of a "scary foreign opinion" has been ridiculed and belittled here. your replies have consistently been a joke, and you've been focusing in on minute details and completely ignoring the big picture so you can continue to condescend because it's all you seem to be able to do regarding something you're too socially stunted to wrap your brain around.
with that out of the way, it's absolutely laughable for you to insist that I don't have a point, when I've been consistent this whole time and you've been flip flopping about absolutely everything. first you said the elder scrolls games WEREN'T sexist, then you said morrowind WAS sexist, then you said skyrim ISN'T sexist when presented with actual examples (sexual harrassment of the weak serving girl, the slut shaming quest with no other outcome that thejim referenced,etc.) that were massively different from anything the elder scrolls had previously included. I'm NOT the only person who has noticed this, either.look, one LAST time for the record, here are my points, as simply as they can be put. you may have to pay attention because some of this is cause and effect and you seem to have a pretty tough time with it, so I'll go slowly.
1. bethesda has a hard-earned female fanbase because their games tended to be inclusive and didn't generally treat female characters in stereotypical ways (didn't objectify them, didn't box them into stupid stereotypical roles, didn't generally treat them differently than the male characters). female gamers bought this game in part because they were, naturally, expecting more of the same, and this is a slap in the face.
2. any and all "authenticity" arguments are complete and utter bullshit. period. a game's realism doesn't hinge on how well it alienates and marginalizes a specific group of players. this is a FANTASY UNIVERSE. it is FICTION. there absolutely no obligation to perpetuate a societal ill from the real world as a prop to add "grit" to a fantasy universe to make up for how hollow it feels otherwise. there is nothing original or edgy about sexism; it's an extremely tired concept and its usage here only reflects poorly on the developers (and the social outcasts on internet forums who defend it).
3. if the game simply gave you a choice to do something about all of the sexism, that would be a different story. if you could, for instance, turn around and shame the woman who gives the quest to slutshame the woman who makes her own choices regarding who to sleep with, that would be 100% okay. if you could stand up to the nord who was sexually harrassing the serving girl, or even if she stood up for herself, it would be an entirely different story. the weakness and helplessness portrayed, and the player's complete lack of ability to take action, is what makes it actively misogynistic instead of nobly making the statement that misogyny is wrong.
4. people play video games for escapism. why would any gamer want to play a game that makes them feel marginalized and alienated just because they were born with a specific genital set? since you've made so many assumptions about me, I'll do a bit of the same, based on how breathtakingly clueless you are about real life issues and also since you appear to be constantly posting on the internet at all hours of the day because your internet ego seems to depend on it. would you want to play a game that was otherwise completely awesome, but a large and unavoidable part of which consisted of, say, a simulation where your character was constantly being harrassed and beaten up for being a pimply clueless nerd who never leaves his mother's basement and will die a virgin? where a constant stream of girls walked past your character and laughed at how poorly endowed and ugly you are, and you were completely unable to do anything about it but passively watch it? I'd personally be unaffected by that portion of the game and probably not give it a second thought because it doesn't prey upon my own sensitivities, but I'm sure you wouldn't find playing it any fun at all because it would hit a little too close to home. (no, no one wants to hear stories about how wicked cool you actually are. no one will be convinced. you spend the whole day posting socially inept opinions on an internet forum all day and that speaks for itself.)
look, it's OKAY to like a game despite its flaws. I do! it's not a binary thing where you either hate it or you cream all over it. emotionally mature adults can recognize and acknowledge flaws inherent in a specific piece of media while still appreciating it for what it is instead of kneejerk defending any aspect of it like it's a fucking internet holy war. I didn't come in here telling you to hate skyrim because I said so. I came in here hoping to gently raise a bit of awareness regarding something I think a huge majority of people (yes, PEOPLE, not just those crazy hairy grunting menfolk, women do it to each other too) completely overlook. but since you've been neatly proving my point by trying to shut me down and condescend, then I figure I might as well abandon the tact I've teeth grittingly maintained too, because all the carefully crafted words in the world would do about as much good as a diarrhea jet against a brick wall when it comes to educating the tragically socially inept. (and all the tl;dr's in the world won't do anything to convince anyone that you didn't actually read every single word this far. oops!)
and since I'm going to get either kneejerk flamed or completely ignored because I'm positive at least a few of you sweaty keyboard warriors are too safe in your own bubble of denial and cheeto dust to examine the flaws in your own thinking, this is the last response I'll give. no, I won't be checking back again to read anything you closed fist pound into your keyboards in impotent nerd frustration. I've already wasted enough time here, and real life is a hell of a lot more fulfilling. really, I promise it is. and I do sincerely mean it when I say I hope you find your way out of your mother's basements someday and meet some real people! :) toodles!
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@omgriri said:
I've done my absolute best to politely ignore you
I thought you unsubscribed.
@omgriri said:
77 cents on the dollar refers to the SAME jobs, and no, that's not okay.
Doesn't matter; the statistic is still meaningless without more information.
Simple question: if Bob and I (both men) are applying for the same job, and I negotiate with the employer for a higher salary, and Bob doesn't, and I end up making 15% more than Bob-- is that unfair?
@omgriri said:
and your farmville response is a total fucking condescending cop-out.
The point was "40% of gamers are woman" doesn't necessarily mean "40% of Elder Scrolls purchasers are women". Hell, for all we know, of those 40% of gamers who are woman, only 5% even own an Xbox 360 or a PC capable of running Skyrim. Again: the statistic means nothing without more information.
@omgriri said:
your replies have consistently been a joke,
Duh. Well, either that or trolling. Or maybe me claiming to always be trolling is a joke... I'm slippery that way!
@omgriri said:
with that out of the way, it's absolutely laughable for you to insist that I don't have a point,
I never "insisted" on that. I never even said that.
@omgriri said:
1. bethesda has a hard-earned female fanbase because their games tended to be inclusive and didn't generally treat female characters in stereotypical ways (didn't objectify them, didn't box them into stupid stereotypical roles, didn't generally treat them differently than the male characters). female gamers bought this game in part because they were, naturally, expecting more of the same, and this is a slap in the face.
The company that brought us Fallout: New Vegas? That Bethesda? ... ok.
@omgriri said:
2. any and all "authenticity" arguments are complete and utter bullshit.
Yeah, I agree. I never made those types of arguments, you'll note, re-reading the thread.
@omgriri said:
3. if the game simply gave you a choice to do something about all of the sexism, that would be a different story. if you could, for instance, turn around and shame the woman who gives the quest to slutshame the woman who makes her own choices regarding who to sleep with, that would be 100% okay.
Ok, first of all: is "slutshame" a word now? Am I expected to know what that means?
Secondly: this is an Elder Scrolls game. Of course you can not do the quest. Just... don't do it. Hell, you can even get crazy and vindictive and kill whoever gives it if you want. Where is this "you are forced to complete this quest" attitude coming from? (I don't know what quest we're talking about, but every quest in Elder Scrolls is optional, including the so-called "main" quest, so I feel confident that this is accurate.)
@omgriri said:
would you want to play a game that was otherwise completely awesome, but a large and unavoidable part of which consisted of, say, a simulation where your character was constantly being harrassed and beaten up for being a pimply clueless nerd who never leaves his mother's basement and will die a virgin?
At least it would be an original game concept, not some big-budget cookie-cutter Yet Another Space Marine game. Note: that may be a joke, I'm slippery that way!
@omgriri said:
look, it's OKAY to like a game despite its flaws. I do!
Last time I checked, it's also OKAY for me to disagree with you.
@omgriri said:
I came in here hoping to gently raise a bit of awareness regarding something I think a huge majority of people (yes, PEOPLE, not just those crazy hairy grunting menfolk, women do it to each other too) completely overlook.
Look, I just wrote a thread saying it's weird that hand-to-hand doesn't have its own perks and doesn't contribute to character leveling. That's it. I don't know why you felt this thread was the place for your rant, instead of creating a new thread. Then above it all to post spoilers in the fucking thread. Then, to top it off with a cherry, when I try to bring the thread back on topic, you post this ginormous follow-up rant. When you're going so far out of your fucking way to ruin my thread, what am I supposed to feel?
I don't know what you want from me. A dozen ad hominem attacks isn't going to change my mind, if you're trying to change my mind-- I've already told you what will: facts and/or analysis backing-up your assertions. If you're going to debate, come in here and debate, don't just sit there like your opinion is unassailable capital-T Truth and fling insults for 10 paragraphs.
I've tried living up to your ideals by not making any assumptions about you*, I've tried to gently encourage you to examine your own opinion and back it up with logic, I've been far more polite than normal, and it's gotten me nowhere.
Here's the thing: I don't give a shit about your "gut instinct" or "vague feeling of unease" or whatever the fuck you're going on about, because to me, it's not real until you back it up with cold, hard facts. I'm not saying that because I'm treating you differently than anybody else here-- ask around, everybody on this forum knows me enough to fill you in on that... I'm saying it because I have a basic education in psychology (that is, I know how often your brain is lying to you**) and you can't run a fucking civilization on "gut instincts" and I like being in a civilization. If you don't think the way I do, fine. If you disapprove of the way I think, again, fine. You're welcome to do that. It makes me sad to see it, but in the end it's not my problem, it's yours.
*) In fact, you still haven't stated your gender in an unambiguous say, so it's pretty unfair to criticize me for "not understanding what you go through" when, as far as I know, you're just as male as I am.
**) Almost constantly.
@omgriri said:
I won't be checking back again to read anything you closed fist pound into your keyboards in impotent nerd frustration.
Cry wolf again.
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While i agree with omgriri about her topic i don't think that skyrim should completely get rid of sexism while yes there was sexism in the medieval towns all conversations were not about how much that girl is a whore or what ever but that is what seems to happen in skyrim and they just need to turn it down a notch. Also white i haven't seen the seen with the evil bad person (little redundant) it seems they could of just left him at hitting the stuff she was bringing him and yelling at her. Now while i agree that it may be offensive to many people my girlfriend loves the crap outa skyrim and she has gotten to that part so it doesn't completely alienate their fanbase. there anyways hand to hand can become the best tactic because enemies don't scale with it and you damage for a cat person can get somewhere around 26 and low levels using the heavy armor bonus
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A friend of mine mentioned sexism in Skyrim, and I ended up here looking into it.
I don't see how anyone see a problem with this game. Yes, there are men who hate on women. They are usually the villains. How is using a bad thing to indicate a bad guy a bad thing? There are also women who hate on men in this game. There are racists too. It's a world. There are good people and bad people. I saw a couple people mention dragons as a reason we shouldn't be glad of realism in the game, and that's just ridiculous. Fantastical elements in a story does not mean we should throw out the things that make a world seem real. That's why Tolkien and Jordan and Martin are some of the most well-respected writers of fantasy: because there worlds are realistic with regards to human relationships (ignoring the fantastical elements).
Sexism is a very real issue, and I have had to deal with it myself (yes, I am a woman). But I have found, as with racism, these sorts of discussions never help. Omgriri, you are obviously over sensitive to the issue, and cannot see this for what it is. The fact is, there is not evidence to back up your claim that Skyrim is racist. It is a varied world with people are all stripes. That's part of the appeal.
I remember people complaining that Avatar was racist. They totally missed the entire point of the story. If anything, it was an indictment of the Western "white" civilization. I think you are falling into a similar trap. You are missing the point and not seeing what the story is telling you. You are just seeing the sexism and not the context, and certainly not the wider world in which the game takes place that includes sexism in the other direction, and racism on all sides.
Sexism is real and dangerous, and I have found that, like with racism, when we complain about things like this, it makes it worse. When we are overly sensitive to portrayals of a thing, we make ourselves seem weak, like we need to be protected (part of what I, at least, want to work against).
Equality means just that. You wouldn't be here hijacking someone's thread if you saw that Nord woman whoever talk shit about a man, or men in general. It is just that a man was rude to a woman that has you all upset. There are both in the game. Are you saying there should be no prejudices in a game that is largely about prejudice? That's ridiculous. Are you saying women should be given special treatment in games or the media because sexism is a real thing? That's also ridiculous. When we ask for special treatment, we are just proving to the sexists out there that we are deserving of the prejudice because we need protecting, and that need makes us less worthy than they.
I am a strong woman. I point out sexism when a sexist is sexist. But I know we live in a world with varied people, and people behave and see the world in different ways. I hold the door for men. But I don't jump down a man's throat when he holds the door for me. I'll split a bill on a date. But I don't freak out when a guy wants to pay for me. I believe that to be equal, we must both recognize and embrace the differences between us, but also realise that that does not make one group inherently superior than another.And this game has an equal and fair portrayal of men, women, sexism, racism, violence, hate, love, compassion, goodness, evil, etc. It's a good game. It's a fair game. It's a game that is trying to be a world, and that means not pandering to any group because their feelings might be hurt.
I just do not understand people like you, omgriri. You make ridiculous arguments about a media portrayal of a real issue, when that portrayal is decent and fair. The problem isn't going away. If that's your goal, your wasting your time. People will still be sexist. Always will, on both sides. We should try and educate people when we can, but this is a portrayal of the issue, not part of the issue.
You obviously have strong feelings about this, but to paraphrase blakerat, you can't run a civilization on feelings. The fact is that this game is decent and fair. And frankly, I think you are part of the problem.
I am sorry. I just realised I wrote an essay.
TLDR: Sexism is real, and this game isn't the problem. Equality means equality, which means equal portrayals and fair representation. This game has it. It isn't the problem.
And now, I think it is really weird that there are no perks for hand-to-hand combat. Frankly, it doesn't make sense. Of course, I like athletics, acrobatics, and medium armour. I like short blade vs. long blade. There are some changes I do not like. But it is weird how it seems like the game supports hand-to-hand, save when it comes to the most important thing. It would be one thing if the game just assumed you were going to use a weapon all the time and provided no support or almost no support for hands as weapons. But to provide that support and make it look like you can use it as a viable option, and then not include the single most important part of that support, well, it is weird and confusing.
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@leodious said:
What about the woman in Whiterun who, whenever a male PC walks near her says, "What's wrong, can't stand the sight of a strong nord woman?"
And she stands right in the middle of a high-traffic area and attempts to fellate my female character every time I walk within 50 feet. I think I'm going to murder her in her sleep.... Does murder still get you into the dark brotherhood? If so, I'm ALL OVER IT.
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@Weng said:
And she stands right in the middle of a high-traffic area and attempts to fellate my female character every time I walk within 50 feet.
OK, now you've got my attention. How does that work, exactly?
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@omgriri said:
@"omgriri:"
you're only getting more and more absurd and completely off the mark as a result.FTFY
@omgriri said:
look at the way even my most measured and tactful expression of a "scary foreign opinion" has been ridiculed and belittled here.Did you research this site before posting here? That is what we do
@omgriri said:
[long winded opinion]
As blakey says we want facts, not opinions or feelings and whatnot.... and again try to explain to people whose live expentacy is like 30-40 years and will likely die in a very horrible way after living a shitty live why some fabled sexism in a game is relevant to them (and yes, that is my reality so please explain...)
@blakeyrat said:
ask around, everybody on this forum knows me enough to fill you in on that
Who are you again?
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Ok bitches, I just got the final word on this subject from an intelligent, socially aware female gamer I know who plays and enjoys Skyrim:
dhromed: Quick question: how do you feel about the treatment of women in skyrim?
S: .....huh?DISCUSSION CLOSED.
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Gee Gobo!
Am I the only one that, in Oblivion, when I killed a female enemy, stole her clothes just to see her in bra and panties?
Didn't even want them, so I put them back in her ... idk, satchel afterwards.
If you can refrain from giggling over the name Nine Toes Three Balls, I don't know what kind of person you are.
Ever think that the Nord scene might offend a man as much as a woman?
All I could hear in my head while reading this thread (and I didn't make it through the whole thing) was that PETA thing where they're complaining about Mario's racoon suit.
People will bitch about anything if they're crazy enough.
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@omgriri said:
77 cents on the dollar refers to the SAME jobs, and no, that's not okay.
I seen several studies that state that women earn less than men. I have never seen a study proving that women earn less than men [b]for the same job[/b]. The reasons for these differences usually are bad negotiating skills, part-time jobs, unable or not willing to do overtime due to care for kids, ... Women often choose a profession in social sectors with very little opportunities for promotion
Two years ago my wife had the opportunity to become a manager. She asked the company to work part-time but they offered her a full-time job for a modest pay. Her first reaction was to reject the offer and accept another (comparable) offer because she felt hurt by the low-ball offer. It took me a lot of work to convince her this was just part of the salary game and that the next step was not to accept or reject but to negotiate it. Never in my life I have accepted/rejected the first offer and I have switched companies every time I felt my career was being held back. THAT's why I earn more than my wife without being manager.
You want to know a fun fact: the company that made the low offer for the manager position was represented by the FEMALE HR director and my wife's future FEMALE director but feel free to keep blaming men for holding back women
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@omgriri said:
I could give you a personal example of being openly denied a job on the basis of my gender
Now are you SURE it wasn't because you complained to the hiring manager that the pictures of his wife and daughter made it seem like he was treating them like trophies?
Also you might just consider that you are just unlikable. It's certainly worth considering. See, when the hiring manager got security to escort you out of the building because you were writing "EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK" all over his office furniture, that might have been a good time to reflect- "did I make a good impression?" And then later when he phoned and said you weren't a good fit with the company, instead of leaping to the conclusion that the decision was based on your gender, it might have just been based on the fact that he didn't like you for other reasons, such as, for example, being an opinionated asshole. That transcends genders, you see.Men can are are opinionated assholes. To assume that you aren't on the basis of your gender is sexism on your part.
As for skyrim, I'm finding it to be immensely buggy. Dragons flying through mountains and getting stuck to trees, mammoths floating in the air mysteriously and then when aggro'd falling to their death, Giants buried up to their heads in solid rock. Pretty much what was expected, I guess.
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@BC_Programmer said:
As for skyrim, I'm finding it to be immensely buggy. Dragons flying through mountains and getting stuck to trees, mammoths floating in the air mysteriously and then when aggro'd falling to their death, Giants buried up to their heads in solid rock. Pretty much what was expected, I guess.
I'm starting to think that relatively harmless, cute, hilarious bugs are being left in games on purpose to drive buzz. I wouldn't be surprised if Red Dead Redemption actually sold more copies because of all the YouTube videos of cowboys flying around like birds.
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@omgriri said:
"The world doesn't adhere to my standards!"
Note that I was paraphrasing omgiri's words in the above quote. Just so that there's no misunderstanding here. People like that seem to misunderstand a lot of things. Not in the least that people other than her might not actually know what it is to be mistreated because of one's gender.
While I've thoroughly enjoyed reading up to the part where omgiri decides to repeat herself and talk about diarrhea jets against brick walls.. (Sounds like someone wants to do a sequel to 2girls1cup?) I do have to note that I, as a transsexual female, have had plenty of my share of gender-related abuse.
Yet, other than omgiri, I am actually quite enjoying my time in Skyrim as I can see the -isms as part of the world that was created since Elder Scrolls 1.
You see my dear damsel-in-distress, for in distress you seem to be about this one game discussing things of a nature that you might not agree with, there's a lot going for this game. There's dragons you can slay, daedra to annoy and Jarls to cheat into making you part of their government (so you can then steal and kill with relatively more ease).
With my character more often than not stealing the clothes off of a beggar's back, or murdering innocents between the ages 18 to 99 (Why can't I kill those rotten kids? And that kid from the Dark Brotherhood doesn't count, for obvious spoiler reasons...), it might be that my ethics are slightly off.. but I am not at all concerned with the fact one lady makes a quite obvious comment about her hulky man having less than the minimum amount of brains, or a man somewhere treating a woman as if her body was her most promising asset.
Looking at the past events in Tamriel, it only seems natural for Skyrim (where the hardest of the hardest Nords steel themselves against the ice-cold winds) to show a further progression into acts of barbaric indifference when other-gendered are concerned. If you don't see it, I feel sorry for you and sincerely hope you love your womyn-born-womyn rallies. I'm sure you'll grow a brain eventually.
More on-topic;
I, too, was amazed by the lack of so many things we have come to rely on. Statistics having all-but disappeared, skillsets that have disappeared (where's my fletching skill?), and an over-simplified UI that, even on the XBox, often makes me whine as I have to flip through menus mid-combat just to get my weapons and magic sorted properly.. (or I might just be doing things wrong in that respect...)
One thing that really gets me, though, is that these stupid horses which you can buy run INTO rather than AWAY FROM battles. Cost me a pretty penny before I decided that they just weren't worth it.
OP, I share your pain with regards to the unarmed combat system. Not sure what they were thinking, but it's a definite oversight that has no excuse. Here's to hoping a future patch will restore that which is lacking.
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I also made an account just to reply to this thread. I'm at work atm, so I'm only responding to one post at a time as I come across them.
@omgriri said:
<FONT size=2></FONT><FONT size=2>the thing is, no one's going to legitimately be offended by racism against their argonian, for instance. because no one in real life gets shit on for being a fucking lizard person. sexism, unfortunately, is still a very real part of our culture, and the devs should have been sensitive enough to that to avoid alienating half the population, and not only that, whatever percentage of male players aren't too socially inept to recognize it.
A portrayal of racism is a portrayal of racism. To those who have experienced racism in their lives, be it of the overt Jim Crow variety or a more modern version of color-blind racism, it should resonate all the same. Someone is being discriminated against for a completely unfounded reason. The fact that you shrug this off as if it’s entirely insignificant demonstrates your own propensity for ignorance when it involves a topic that doesn’t concern you directly. HOWEVER, portrayal of any social discrimination in a game isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In these cases, the game is not promoting these ideals. They’re portraying them as a problem. How do you feel when you walk into an Orc camp as any race other than an Orc and you get all those nasty stares and jeers? "You’re not welcome here!" they shout. Probably a little insulted. If anything, these in game experiences should help generate empathy for such real world parallels.
I’m a sociologist in real life. I’ve dedicated a large portion of my education and life to fighting against social inequalities on the basis of race, class, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion and any other unjustified reason that involves nothing more than the unfortunate circumstance in which you happend to be born. I don’t see in-game parallels to real world discrimination as justifications for those ideals, but rather opportunities to re-humanize and empathize with the discriminated figures.
</FONT>
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@Homitu said:
I also made an account just to reply to this thread. I'm at work atm, so I'm only responding to one post at a time as I come across them.
Blakey, I think you can stop envying Nagesh. Clearly, your troll-fu is strong.
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@blakeyrat said:
@omgriri said:
contrast this with skyrim. the first example to pop to mind is a scene in the thalmor embassy where a serving girl brings a wealthy nord a drink. he tells her to stop so he can look her over, appraises her like a piece of meat, and tells her to not go far because "he may need something more later." completely unnecessary, disgusting, and alienating.
Ok well I haven't done the Thalmors yet, but... that's... that's it? The Thalmor are evil in the game, right? They're the bad guys. The guys you're supposed to hate. So you're objecting that the bad guys have some behaviors that are bad. Is that an accurate sum-up?@omgriri said:
I understand fully that you're not SUPPOSED to like the character,
... oh you do? So... negating your own example, 'kay. @omgriri said:but why use the girl and a deeply rooted, very real societal ill as props to illustrate how unlikable he is?
What do you recommend they do instead? Frankly, treating a woman like a slave (in the Elder Scrolls universe) is actually more objectionable than murdering people, considering how many thousands of people get murdered every day in that fucked-up little fantasy world. Or, at least, it's more distinctive and thus more memorable, if not more objectionable.I have to completely agree with Blakerat here. The ONLY way to create a villian in a story (fictional or non-fictional) is to give that character evil qualities that we can relate to in some real way as evil, qualities that cross our moral boundaries and make us cringe. That is precisely what makes them villians. In turn, it is precisely their "villianness," which is made complete by their other villianous acts, that reinforces the very fact that each of these acts are indeed despicable.
If it was the hero, the good guy, who participated in these discriminatory acts, it would be a whole other story.
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@boomzilla said:
@Homitu said:
I also made an account just to reply to this thread. I'm at work atm, so I'm only responding to one post at a time as I come across them.
Blakey, I think you can stop envying Nagesh. Clearly, your troll-fu is strong.
Ssh! You're interrupting the socialogist.
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@bjolling said:
@omgriri said:
77 cents on the dollar refers to the SAME jobs, and no, that's not okay.
I seen several studies that state that women earn less than men. I have never seen a study proving that women earn less than men for the same job. The reasons for these differences usually are bad negotiating skills, part-time jobs, unable or not willing to do overtime due to care for kids, ... Women often choose a profession in social sectors with very little opportunities for promotion
Two years ago my wife had the opportunity to become a manager. She asked the company to work part-time but they offered her a full-time job for a modest pay. Her first reaction was to reject the offer and accept another (comparable) offer because she felt hurt by the low-ball offer. It took me a lot of work to convince her this was just part of the salary game and that the next step was not to accept or reject but to negotiate it. Never in my life I have accepted/rejected the first offer and I have switched companies every time I felt my career was being held back. THAT's why I earn more than my wife without being manager.
You want to know a fun fact: the company that made the low offer for the manager position was represented by the FEMALE HR director and my wife's future FEMALE director but feel free to keep blaming men for holding back women
The 77 female cents to the male dollar is indeed a real statistic representing earning discrepencies based on gender for the exact same job (Ie. male bank managers versus female bank managers.) Although it's not quite 77 cents anymore, it has only improved a few cents over the past several decades. I can provide links when I get home.
And no, it will not be fair until that number is exactly even, with perhaps a standard deviation of a few cents to account for varying degrees of individual merit across both genders and possibilities for slight error in the studies.
It is also true that certain jobs have become "womanized," which is to say dominated by females (such as secretarial positions or bank tellers), and as this has occurred, the value of those positions relative to "male-oriented" positions has declined (after accounting for salary inflation across the market.) Employers welcome this because they know they can get the same (or better) quality work done for a cheaper price. Men then tend to leave these fields as the jobs begin to pay less overall (even if the men will still get paid a little better than the women,) and the vicious circle ensues.
Your isolated counter-example proves nothing. For one, it's the system that oppresses, not just men. If feminists blame only men, well then they're making their own fallacy. Once cultured into the system, whether you're a man or woman, you can become well conditioned to perpetuate the oppression. I can provide a glaring example of this. I once had the opportunity to work for a women's rights NGO in Cameroon, Africa. One horrifying traditional village system of oppression I got to witness (and work to alleviate) was the blame widowed women received if their husbands happened to die before them, whatever the cause of death. It could have been the result of natural causes or a hunting accident, the widowed woman was considered at fault. She would be at the complete mercy of her sons or her husband's brothers. Depending on how lenient they were, they may let her stick around as a servant of sorts. Otherise they often sent her away to live in her own gated community with other widowed women.
This is where my point comes in. One might think that these women would use each other for support. One might think they would empathize with each other and care for each other, perhaps live out the rest of their lives in peace. Even if isolated from their families, one might think that they could perhaps form new family-like bonds. While this did sometimes occur to a small extent where small individual friendships were forged, on the whole, these women were entering a new cut-throat oppressive society, where the eldest widows--those who had been there the longest--were the top dogs (I refrained from using the word "kings" here) and would basically treat newcomers like slaves, which including beating them as punishment.
My point? When the system conditions you to behave a certain way, you are going to behave that way, sometimes even if that means helping oppress the very group to which you belong. It just becomes the way of life.
Thankfully, this is a dying tradition, and those many women in the city of Yaounde have embraced the globalization of the feminist movement. Through their efforts, they're rapidly getting all the locals (both men and women) to abandon such archaic practices.
Leaving work...I think i had one other point that i'll have to edit when i get home...
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@blakeyrat said:
@boomzilla said:
@Homitu said:
I also made an account just to reply to this thread. I'm at work atm, so I'm only responding to one post at a time as I come across them.
Blakey, I think you can stop envying Nagesh. Clearly, your troll-fu is strong.
Ssh! You're interrupting the socialogist.
It's sociOlogist, bro. Get it right!
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Since I can't figure out how to edit a post on these boards... continuing, hopefully briefly.
Even if it hasn't been demonstrated countless times how a culture of oppression can permeate an entire society until the oppressive behavior becomes the invisible norm, your (bjolling) counter example is merely one isolated incident that couldn't possibly be representative of the entire global workplace structure. There's a reason studies survey more than 1 person.
So yeah, although I consider myself a rather hardcore liberal, I find myself in the position of a moderate relative to the other opinions expressed in this thread. I view the ignorant opinion that there exists no social mechanism of oppression for women whatsoever and that women's struggles or inequalities are entirely (or even mostly) their own fault to be just as ridiculous as the opinion that Skyrim is actively promoting this same oppression because of a story in a book and a villian character who sexually harassed a female servant.
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@Homitu said:
@blakeyrat said:
That's not normally how I spell Scientologist....@boomzilla said:
It's sociOlogist, bro. Get it right!@Homitu said:
Ssh! You're interrupting the socialogist.I also made an account just to reply to this thread. I'm at work atm, so I'm only responding to one post at a time as I come across them.
Blakey, I think you can stop envying Nagesh. Clearly, your troll-fu is strong.
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@Homitu said:
Since I can't figure out how to edit a post on these boards...
For a short time after posting, there's an Edit button you can use. I hope that's not too complicated for you....
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If anybody cares and/or is really, really bored, I'm Livecasting Skyrim right now: http://www.livestream.com/blakeyrat. No guarantees it'll still be going when you click that link.
Edit: but at least now the link works!
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This isn't (much) of a spoiler, but if you get the Thieves Guild armor, DO NOT SELL IT. If you do, you will only find things are broken hours and hours later, when restoring your save game would be very very painful. And there aren't any other copies of the item in the game, so there's no workaround. (Well, the PC version, you can use the console to create a set, but... point remains.)
There's also a nasty bug relating to Esbern but I don't really know what triggers it, or how to avoid it.
I popped off an email to Bethesda support about both these issues, but fair warning: the workaround (if one exists) probably involves the console, and so console gamers (ironically) are fucked until the patch comes out, and even THEN you have to hope the patch fixes existing games and not just new ones.
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Ok, I just watched a guy (not blakey) play Skyrim for an hour or so, and a few clips on 'tube and I don't think I want it any more because it's just Fallout 3 but with an all-Conan cast.
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@blakeyrat said:
This isn't (much) of a spoiler, but if you get the Thieves Guild armor, DO NOT SELL IT. If you do, you will only find things are broken hours and hours later, when restoring your save game would be very very painful. And there aren't any other copies of the item in the game, so there's no workaround. (Well, the PC version, you can use the console to create a set, but... point remains.)
There's also a nasty bug relating to Esbern but I don't really know what triggers it, or how to avoid it.
I popped off an email to Bethesda support about both these issues, but fair warning: the workaround (if one exists) probably involves the console, and so console gamers (ironically) are fucked until the patch comes out, and even THEN you have to hope the patch fixes existing games and not just new ones.
I've already had two quests end up getting me stuck on the XBox360.
One is with the Dark Brotherhood when you have to crawl into the coffin (don't ask) and one is with the Alik'r (sp?) prisoner who can't be freed no matter what you do.
The first has since been patched, the second I haven't dared try yet. But good to know the Thieves Armor is causing a bug. It's currently occupying a nice dresser in my house in Whiterun.
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@Homitu said:
I was expecting this reaction. At least I was stating a fact. My [b]isolated[/b] counter-example only proves that I didn't have time to write up more. Another fact: ALL my women friends earn the same wage for the same job as their male counterparts.@bjolling said:
@omgriri said:
...snip...77 cents on the dollar refers to the SAME jobs, and no, that's not okay.
I seen several studies that state that women earn less than men. I have never seen a study proving that women earn less than men for the same job. The reasons for these differences usually are bad negotiating skills, part-time jobs, unable or not willing to do overtime due to care for kids, ... Women often choose a profession in social sectors with very little opportunities for promotion
Two years ago my wife had the opportunity to become a manager. She asked the company to work part-time but they offered her a full-time job for a modest pay. Her first reaction was to reject the offer and accept another (comparable) offer because she felt hurt by the low-ball offer. It took me a lot of work to convince her this was just part of the salary game and that the next step was not to accept or reject but to negotiate it. Never in my life I have accepted/rejected the first offer and I have switched companies every time I felt my career was being held back. THAT's why I earn more than my wife without being manager.
You want to know a fun fact: the company that made the low offer for the manager position was represented by the FEMALE HR director and my wife's future FEMALE director but feel free to keep blaming men for holding back women
Your isolated counter-example proves nothing. For one, it's the system that oppresses, not just men.
1. At my first employer, I was coach to 2 new team member, one male and one female. They both started at the same salary and were doing the same kind of job in my team. For several years they got the exact same raises but this one year, he negotiated a bigger raise then her. So she went back and [b]re-negotiated[/b] with the manager and got the same raise again. I don't see any discrimination against gender here.
2. One of my closest female friends at university (graduated with a similar degree as me) inherited her father's business and made a lot [b]more[/b] money than me. On top of that her husband (same degree again) was doing his PhD meaning she got financial support from the government to support him because he had no official salary, just a monetary compensation. Forward a few years now, she decided to work as a consultant for another company. Now every time she gets a raise (which happens regularly because she's damn good at her job) she decides to work less so she can spend more time on her hobbies and kids
3. One of my friends is super ambitious. After graduating (again same degree as me) she took on a job in a business consultancy firm. She worked crazy hours and worked her way up to the level just below senior manager. She would have gotten that promotion had she not decided to start working 9-to-5 so she would have more time for her daughter. Me on the other hand, I have been switching employers from time to time and managed to get decent pay raises over the years and I'm now working at the exact same consultancy firm as her. I earn less because I'm not that crazy about working 70 hours a week and the only reason I'm slowly catching up is because she has decided to take things a lot easier
4. Another one? Friend number 4 (same kind of degree as me again - I made lot's of female friends at university) took a government job and quickly worked her way up just because she's that capable. She doesn't have the same salary as me but being in a government job means she works 9-to-5 and gets a LOT of perks and other benefits that I don't have. If you would express these benefits into monetary value and factor in she's on a 9-to-5 job, she does earn more than me.
5. Then there this girl that is the daughter of a wealthy industrial who was driving around in a BMW when I met her and owned her own apartment at the age of 18. Would her father have given her even more if she had been a boy? BTW, I'm only including her in this list because at one point she fell in love with me but I didn't go for it :(
I have never seen those women earning less for the same job. Every women I know that has made the same efforts as me (same age, same degree, same region,... different gender) earns about the same as me. So the statistical relevance of my post has gone up from "a billion to 1" to "a billion to 5". You are still at zero
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@Homitu said:
Since I can't figure out how to edit a post on these boards... continuing, hopefully briefly.
Even if it hasn't been demonstrated countless times how a culture of oppression can permeate an entire society until the oppressive behavior becomes the invisible norm, your (bjolling) counter example is merely one isolated incident that couldn't possibly be representative of the entire global workplace structure. There's a reason studies survey more than 1 person.
So yeah, although I consider myself a rather hardcore liberal, I find myself in the position of a moderate relative to the other opinions expressed in this thread. I view the ignorant opinion that there exists no social mechanism of oppression for women whatsoever and that women's struggles or inequalities are entirely (or even mostly) their own fault to be just as ridiculous as the opinion that Skyrim is actively promoting this same oppression because of a story in a book and a villian character who sexually harassed a female servant.
You can't expect me to befriend all women to find out their wages. :-)
The only concern that companies have in our capitalist regime is making money. They do what they can to keep EVERYBODY's wages down, mine included. If a woman earning less then me doesn't complain about it, why would a company give her a raise?
This year I had to threaten to leave my company in order to get my raise. I went past my manager, made a small detour via my departmental manager and went (almost) straight to the Regional Director to make sure I got a raise after my manager gave me an average evaluation. Did he approve my raise because I'm male or because I'm making more money for the company than the raise would cost him? He just considered the risk of me leaving, assessed it important enough and mitigated it by giving me what I asked. I have only ever seen one woman do that. (See example one in my previous post). To be honest, I learned it from her
So my hypothesis is: there is no real difference anymore in how gender is treated in the western world. There is however a difference between assertive and non-assertive people, between ambitious and non-ambitious people, between people that get it and people that don't get it. And it's you that is saying that women are less assertive, less ambitious and/or don't get it.
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Bethesda refused to answer my ticket because they only handle "technical issues" and busted-ass quests are considered "gameplay issues". Grumble... grumble...
The support guy was nice and all, but that was not helpful. He basically just apologized, then said those bugs are scheduled to be fixed in next week's patch. But he didn't say whether the patch would fix existing save games, or rather I have to start a new char.
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@blakeyrat said:
Bethesda refused to answer my ticket because they only handle "technical issues" and busted-ass quests are considered "gameplay issues". Grumble... grumble...
Hey, I got one of those as well today. Funny, because it actually contained a technical bug:
I shot an arrow up in the air outside Whiterun and now it's stuck on the steps up from the market square. I can't target it. It's loaded as an outside element and thusly out of my reach. But apparently this is also a "gameplay issue" rather than a "technical issue".
@blakeyrat said:
The support guy was nice and all, but that was not helpful. He basically just apologized, then said those bugs are scheduled to be fixed in next week's patch. But he didn't say whether the patch would fix existing save games, or rather I have to start a new char.
Probably the latter. :/
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@Maki said:
@blakeyrat said:
The support guy was nice and all, but that was not helpful. He basically just apologized, then said those bugs are scheduled to be fixed in next week's patch. But he didn't say whether the patch would fix existing save games, or rather I have to start a new char.
Probably the latter. :/
No doubt. That's what they did with Oblivion patches. (My memory isn't good enough to remember if the same applied to Morrowind patches...)
I mean, replaying the game isn't much of a burden-- I'll be playing it another month anyway. It's just annoying I can't (practically) use the same character to finish the game. The bug I have isn't technically blocking my progress in anything except (perhaps?) the thieves guild quests, so what I might do is finish all the non-main quests on this game, and start a new game to do just the main quests.
Or maybe I'll start a new character tonight, not dink around wasting time with the hand-to-hand stuff, and just not do the quests I know are buggy until after the patch hits-- hm. That might be the best option with the least gameplay wastage.
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@Maki said:
I've already had two quests end up getting me stuck on the XBox360.
One is with the Dark Brotherhood when you have to crawl into the coffin (don't ask) and one is with the Alik'r (sp?) prisoner who can't be freed no matter what you do.
Both are fixed. Just FYI.
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@blakeyrat said:
Prepare to call me an idiot, for my Steam copy did not come with a manual! Nor is there one in the Steamapps folder, like sometimes you see!
Morrowind was even more rediculous because you could cumualitively create potions that would increase you int. Which in turn allowed you to create Utterly insane fortify skill and attribute enchantments. Need to get across the entire game map? Well just jump across in one bound. Need to be able to carry more? Well heres 500,000 to your strength...Skyrim's great, even if it runs a little jerky on my computer, but I have a couple issues I haven't been able to figure out which are plain weird. I'm level 5, BTW...
1) There's no hand-to-hand skill. I Googled this one and pre-release, people thought that hand-to-hand would either be contained in 2-handed weapons or heavy armor-- it's in neither. Which means my brawler character gets no perks? Well... ok I guess... I prefer light armor anyway.
EDIT: 1.5) Since hand-to-hand isn't a skill, you don't level-up from getting hand-to-hand kills. I've only been leveling from sneak, lockpick, and light armor due to that. Annoying.
2) But then you get to the really weird part: there's no stats. AFAICT, you can't even increase your hand-to-hand by increasing strength because you can't increase strength? So between those two points, it seems like hand-to-hand would be a poor choice for a character, EXCEPT:
3) The devs put a TON of time into hand-to-hand! They coded custom finishing moves (at least 4 I've seen), Khajit have a special 15-damage bonus to hand-to-hand attacks. You can even brawl as a persuade option! There's every indication in the rest of the game that the devs loved hand-to-hand.
So... why no it get perks?
Also, in another weird change, there's no acrobatics, or athletics. AFAICT, your max running speed and jumping height just doesn't change at all over the course of the game. Which I guess isn't so weird, considering that in Morrowind and Oblivion it was ridonkulous and by level 20 you were out-running your own horse and jumping from the ground onto second-story roofs. But still, it's a lot of change to have no tutorial, manual, in-game explanation, etc... so I feel kind of lost.
Also, there are barely any Khajit or Argonians in the game, although considering the setting it's not that surprising. And you can still play as one yourself, so that's not a biggie. It's kind of a shame though, because the dinosaur-looking Argonians look awesome now-- whoever designed their character model went way above and beyond. (Khajit are still pretty blah-- it's 2011 and they didn't bother giving them a fur shader? Cripes, shitty Xbox games were doing that 8 years ago.)
What are your guys' thoughts on Skyrim?
I do love Skyrim. Really I have as of yet to disapponted by an elder scrolls game. So far I've finished the dark brotherhood and theives guild factions. Next will probably be the college of winterhold and companions.
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Skyrim has gay marriage, I discovered literally 45 seconds ago. I had to come here and post it.
