Gender bias in MPQ

Unknown

theHappyDance wrote:

[For reference, the ratio of women to men globally is ~1:1 or ~50% of the total population]

This isn't a question of global. This is a question of demographics within risky, physical careers.

Women in the US military, a volunteer only, high risk, physical career, is 14.5%.

Women in US Law Enforcement, a volunteer only, high risk, physical career, is between 13-14%

If this game is 20% women, then they are clearly over-represented within the demographics in question.

Unknown

Der_Lex wrote:

The thing is, you're the only person who thinks it sounds that way. Seriously, how can you objectively say that 'gives a burst of health' equates 'putting out'? I like you, Happy, you know that, but that's either some messed-up thinking on your part, or Jezebel-level searching for offense. Neither is particularly healthy or helpful to the cause you wish to support, and creates a 'Boy Who Cried Wolf' situation where people will ignore valid points you're making.

I disagree, I think it's careful contextual analysis. The first part of the description is vague, while the second part is very specific, which implies the former doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the latter. If they wrote something like "stolen kinetic health stimulants" or some other techno-babble, I'd have no problem with the wording.

But you're right. Maybe I'm just venting my frustration with the fact that they seem to nerf any characters that are actually useful. TBH this new mstorm nerf I think is the nail in the coffin for me. I was watching the forums to see what direction they were taking the game in, and it just seems to be on a downward spiral. I think it's likely I'll stop coming here soon and stop maintaining my tools, though I'll probably still tweak them so people can update the new level/stats data before I go. I no longer feel like this game is one that holds value for the player-base, so forgive me if it seems like I'm nitpicking when there's so many larger problems with this game that are just going to get much worse, until they ultimately manage to drive everyone away.

Unknown

fidsah wrote:

theHappyDance wrote:

[For reference, the ratio of women to men globally is ~1:1 or ~50% of the total population]

This isn't a question of global. This is a question of demographics within risky, physical careers.

Women in the US military, a volunteer only, high risk, physical career, is 14.5%.

Women in US Law Enforcement, a volunteer only, high risk, physical career, is between 13-14%

If this game is 20% women, then they are clearly over-represented within the demographics in question.

Okay, I'm sorry but that frankly is plain horse manure. In the past, women in combat situations, in the US military, were ~0%. They have a growing presence in military and law enforcement, as they're now given more choice in what careers they want to pursue, and they're no longer expected to conform to **** old-fashioned stereotypes. Your statement amounts to, "traditionally, women weren't allowed in the military, so instead of showing equal representation, we should make games conform to national averages to reinforce unhealthy stereotypes" (namely, that women can only be support characters, they shouldn't be as represented as men, and that they're overall weaker than their male counterparts). All of which is just rubbish. I'm sorry to call you out on that, but I feel I have to, neg reps I'll likely get be damned.

Der_Lex

fidsah wrote:

theHappyDance wrote:

[For reference, the ratio of women to men globally is ~1:1 or ~50% of the total population]

This isn't a question of global. This is a question of demographics within risky, physical careers.

Women in the US military, a volunteer only, high risk, physical career, is 14.5%.

Women in US Law Enforcement, a volunteer only, high risk, physical career, is between 13-14%

If this game is 20% women, then they are clearly over-represented within the demographics in question.

On the other end of the spectrum, I think comparing the prevalence of women in real life risky careers to the prevalence of female superheroes is comparing apples and oranges as well. The very basis of the superpowers fantasy is that anyone can stumble upon them (or be born that way, in case of mutants), regardless of gender, race, career or social status. For every genetically bred supersoldier there are three average joes or janes who got bit by a radioactive spider or stumbled upon a magical doohicky.

In fact, the only big, well-known superhero group that actively selects members, DC's Green Lanterns, have plenty of female members. If you have the willpower and the conviction, you're good enough for them, whether you are man, woman, virus or planet.

Unknown

theHappyDance wrote:

Okay, I'm sorry but that frankly is plain horse manure. In the past, women in combat situations, in the US military, were ~0%. They have a growing presence in military and law enforcement, as they're now given more choice in what careers they want to pursue, and they're no longer expected to conform to **** old-fashioned stereotypes. Your statement amounts to, "traditionally, women weren't allowed in the military, so instead of showing equal representation, we should make games conform to national averages to reinforce unhealthy stereotypes" (namely, that women can only be support characters, they shouldn't be as represented as men, and that they're overall weaker than their male counterparts). All of which is just rubbish. I'm sorry to call you out on that, but I feel I have to, neg reps I'll likely get be damned.

The good news is that you couldn't be more wrong. We're talking total military participation, not combat roles they weren't allowed to do until recently. However, their participation in direct combat roles has nothing to do with their participation in the military, and seriously nothing to do with their law enforcement participation. The combat role issue you're focusing on doesn't apply to law enforcement rates at all.

You haven't addressed the core point of lower female participation rates among these types of careers in the least.

Der_Lex

fidsah wrote:

theHappyDance wrote:

You haven't addressed the core point of lower female participation rates among these types of careers in the least.

Why should he, when it's an utterly irrelevant tangent in the discussion of the amount of fictional female superheroes in a Marvel game? That's like saying there should be no raccoon superheroes in the game, because there are no raccoons in real life law enforcement.

Unknown

Der_Lex wrote:

Why should he, when it's an utterly irrelevant tangent in the discussion of the amount of fictional female superheroes in a Marvel game? That's like saying there should be no raccoon superheroes in the game, because there are no raccoons in real life law enforcement.

I'm sorry, I thought his complaint was that the number of women didn't match real world demographics. Either we're talking about the percentage of unicorn farts, or we're comparing it to real life. Since in the original post, he clearly references the ratio of men to women in the global population, we're not basing our preferred ratio to the percentage of survivors in the leprechaun civil war, but instead to the real world. In the real world, we can see that despite having a rich history of participation since the 1800s, only 2% of firefighters are female.

I can't find a good number for the demographics of comic book heroes, so I'm not sure on the exact percentage of female to male superheroes. If we scale the game up to 100% of all superheroes, will the females then be represented at 50%?

Der_Lex

fidsah wrote:

I'm sorry, I thought his complaint was that the number of women didn't match real world demographics. Either we're talking about the percentage of unicorn farts, or we're comparing it to real life. Since in the original post, he clearly references the ratio of men to women in the global population, we're not basing our preferred ratio to the percentage of survivors in the leprechaun civil war, but instead to the real world. In the real world, we can see that despite having a rich history of participation since the 1800s, only 2% of firefighters are female.

I can't find a good number for the demographics of comic book heroes, so I'm not sure on the exact percentage of female to male superheroes. If we scale the game up to 100% of all superheroes, will the females then be represented at 50%?

Dude, way to callously bring up one of the most traumatizing wars in leprechaun history. My granddad is one of those 'survivors' you casually mention. And when I hear him screaming late at night, I know that the losing side found out the hard way where they hide that pot of gold, and that's a place where sun nor rainbow shines.

On a more serious note, there's a difference between 'considering what the male female ratio in real life is, I think there should be more female superheroes in the game' and somehow adding the comparison to gender ratios in real-life high risk occupations into the mix, because, as I tried to point out in my previous posts, 'superhero' is rarely if ever a career choice in comic book land. Who does and doesn't get powers is, alien/government experimentation aside, pretty much random, so it doesn't make sense to see it as a career path that a certain gender doesn't participate as actively in as the other gender does.

The only point where this comparison would hold up is that in the past, women were nudged more towards the damsel in distress role instead of being seen as heroes themselves, which leads to comics not being marketed towards women and therefore a lower number of female superheroes. Because you do have a very fair point about the percentage of female to male superheroes, which is definitely not 50% (although the mutants might be getting there). I personally think Happy would be better off complaining to Marvel for not creating enough female heroes for D3 to put in this game. Although (jeez, I'm devil's advocating all over the place here, aren't I?) I do think there are still quite a few female characters out there that are important and popular enough to be considered in the next 10-20 additions to the game. Captain Marvel, Rogue, Emma Frost, Mystique, Scarlet Witch, Elektra and Victoria Hand (this being Dark Reign and all) are the first that come to mind.

Unknown

If the case was being raised that it's clear that D3 hates women, the most recent nerfs being slammed against the most popular female characters might be used to show that it's pretty clear that they do have some unresolved malice issues. Now, whether that's towards women in general, or against the players who enjoyed using female characters, that remains to be seen.

Pwuz_

fidsah wrote:

theHappyDance wrote:

Okay, I'm sorry but that frankly is plain horse manure. In the past, women in combat situations, in the US military, were ~0%. They have a growing presence in military and law enforcement, as they're now given more choice in what careers they want to pursue, and they're no longer expected to conform to **** old-fashioned stereotypes. Your statement amounts to, "traditionally, women weren't allowed in the military, so instead of showing equal representation, we should make games conform to national averages to reinforce unhealthy stereotypes" (namely, that women can only be support characters, they shouldn't be as represented as men, and that they're overall weaker than their male counterparts). All of which is just rubbish. I'm sorry to call you out on that, but I feel I have to, neg reps I'll likely get be damned.

The good news is that you couldn't be more wrong. We're talking total military participation, not combat roles they weren't allowed to do until recently. However, their participation in direct combat roles has nothing to do with their participation in the military, and seriously nothing to do with their law enforcement participation. The combat role issue you're focusing on doesn't apply to law enforcement rates at all.

You haven't addressed the core point of lower female participation rates among these types of careers in the least.

How much of that participation is discouraged due to hostile attitudes and a general willingness to let sexual harassment up to and including **** occur with little to no punishment? As a man, I don't have a lot of personal experience to draw upon, but if you told me that I could "choose to volunteer in an occupation where I'm likely to be put at risk of not only being ****, but then the perpetrator actually getting a promotion after rather than canned" I don't think I would even consider it.

I'm not saying that all men in the military or police **** or even harass all of their female coworkers, but that it happens at all and rather then the perpetrator being properly disciplined the victim is then accused of inciting the assault! ****?!?!

Dayv

fidsah wrote:

theHappyDance wrote:

[For reference, the ratio of women to men globally is ~1:1 or ~50% of the total population]

This isn't a question of global. This is a question of demographics within risky, physical careers.

Women in the US military, a volunteer only, high risk, physical career, is 14.5%.

Women in US Law Enforcement, a volunteer only, high risk, physical career, is between 13-14%

If this game is 20% women, then they are clearly over-represented within the demographics in question.

That's not solely due to lack of interest, you know. Both are insular, socially conservative organizations with a history of resistance to women joining their ranks and unwillingness to treat women as full equals when they do join.

Dayv

fidsah wrote:

The good news is that you couldn't be more wrong. We're talking total military participation, not combat roles they weren't allowed to do until recently. However, their participation in direct combat roles has nothing to do with their participation in the military, and seriously nothing to do with their law enforcement participation. The combat role issue you're focusing on doesn't apply to law enforcement rates at all.

You haven't addressed the core point of lower female participation rates among these types of careers in the least.

And the other good news is that military and police forces aren't the same thing as superhero fiction. For every square-jawed super-soldier Steve Rogers, there's a skinny, wisecracking science geek Peter Parker. Your comparison wouldn't be valid even if "superhero" were a real world occupation.

Dayv

Der_Lex wrote:

fidsah wrote:

theHappyDance wrote:

You haven't addressed the core point of lower female participation rates among these types of careers in the least.

Why should he, when it's an utterly irrelevant tangent in the discussion of the amount of fictional female superheroes in a Marvel game? That's like saying there should be no raccoon superheroes in the game, because there are no raccoons in real life law enforcement.

Actually, Racoons have a noted outlaw bias.

Dayv

theHappyDance wrote:

Anyone else find the OBW nerf wording questionable?

"Stolen stark tech increases enemy countdowns by 4. Gives a burst of 504 health to allies, plus 504 if there are no countdown tiles."

Kind of makes her sound like a prostitute providing temporary services for her clients (*cough* allies). The reason I say that is because without any further explanation of what the "stolen Stark tech" was and the weird specificity of the effect, it kind of implies that it's not the tech that's providing the "burst of health" to allies.

A bit disappointing, given how she previously was the one really badass female in the game, even if she had weak health.

You've raised interesting points in this thread, things worthy of real discussion, but I honestly don't think this is one of them. The new description no more implies sexual activity than the previous version, or just about any other skill in the game.

Okay, who's going to find a way to sex up some of the skill interpretations to mess with me now?

Honestly, I think focusing on this point damages the credibility of your larger argument.

HairyDave

DayvBang wrote:

Der_Lex wrote:

fidsah wrote:

theHappyDance wrote:

You haven't addressed the core point of lower female participation rates among these types of careers in the least.

Why should he, when it's an utterly irrelevant tangent in the discussion of the amount of fictional female superheroes in a Marvel game? That's like saying there should be no raccoon superheroes in the game, because there are no raccoons in real life law enforcement.

Actually, Racoons have a noted outlaw bias.

Must me the mask.

Everytime I see pictures of racoons I keep expecting to see a bag with "SWAG" or "$$$" lying nearby

Unknown

theHappyDance wrote:

So I was kind of stoked for Lazy Storm going into TaT, but after grinding hard for those covers, it felt a little anti-climactic after details of her fully maxed version were revealed. They soft-nerfed her so she went from weak health, but OP to make up for it, to strictly weak health, and only average otherwise. In principle, the reasoning behind this is that red would be too OP, but really they needed to either keep it as original (5ap at max red) or increase her relative health to make up for that, and make her more viable. They didn't, and while I'm sure the devs didn't intend it to be this way, it conforms to the pattern in MPQ of female characters who're pretty easy to beat-up, making them ideal targets in PvP.

One of the things that screwed me in prologue was leveling MBW (she was the only one I had covers for at the time) without realizing that you needed damage tanks in this game, and that specifically only 2 of the female characters in this game (that you ever get covers for - iw doesn't count) can soak any damage without getting instantly downed.

Looking at the other Lazy characters:
Thor went from top-tier 2* to top tier 3*
Daken went from bottom-mid tier 2* to top-mid tier 3*
Cap went from bottom-mid tier 2* to mid-top tier 3*
LStorm went from top tier 1* to mid-tier 3*

More generally:
Iron Man went from mid-tier 2* to mid-tier 3*
Mags went from mid-top tier 2* to top-tier 3*
Spiderman went from bottom tier 2* to top-mid tier 3* to bottom-mid 2*
Wolverine went from mid-tier 2* to top-tier 3*
Black Widow went from top tier 1*/2* to mid tier 3*

It's kind of problematic IMO when there's only ever a token presence of female characters in MPQ to begin with, and the few that there are get soft-nerf'ed when they're converted to 3*.
1* - 3/7 women (43%). 2 useful, but low health, 1 completely useless
2* - 3/12 women (25%). 2 useful, but low-health, 1 decent health, but generally a second-class hero
3* - 3/21 women (14%). 3 mid-tier, but all low-mid health
4* - 1/3 women (33%). No real usable 4*'s at this point so irrelevant

So in summation, 10/43 of all characters are women (23%), and none of them can be seen as strictly-speaking badass (okay, we'll be getting a token "she-hulk" character soon, but I'm not sure "hulk" characters can even be counted as female or male). All the female characters are pushovers on D. Let's be honest, ALL female characters in this game have a target on their back for easy wins in PvP because they're all stereo-typically weak (except maybe Psylocke who has decent health, but is by no stretch OP) and won't generally mess you up like their male counterparts will. Yes, it is subtle and there's far worse instances of gender bias out there, but is this really the message that Demiurge wants to be sending?

[For reference, the ratio of women to men globally is ~1:1 or ~50% of the total population]

First off, your arguments lose validity when you have to say that certain female heroes (IW, shulk) don't count for them to be true. Secondly, most of the female characters in the game dont have powers that make them physically tougher so they should logically have less health. The ones that do, moonstone and shulk, have solid health. On defense, they are quicker to kill but often more annoying to face. You kill obw first so she doesn't use recon. You kill cstorm first because raging tempest is real annoying when you're using stronger abilities, especially when it triggers twice or three times on the same attack. Also, giving people like obw and mstorm high health would make them ridiculously op for their star level. By your suggestions, all female characters would be op or at least top tier, you even said that psylocke is "by no means op". Why should she be? Why should all female characters occupy top tier spots? There are good male heroes and bad male heroes, why should female characters be different? Do you think that storm and widow should have comparable health to say, hulk and Thor? Finally, you cannot compare the male to female ratio of this game to real life, because we do not live in the marvel universe. There are significantly more popular male characters than female ones, so it makes sense that there would be more male characters. By your logic, they would be scraping the bottom of the female superhero barrel while there are still many popular male superheroes to be added. So to rap up, you think all female characters should be among the strongest and have high health, making many of them op and superior to most male characters. Who's biased now?

Unknown

DayvBang wrote:

fidsah wrote:

The good news is that you couldn't be more wrong. We're talking total military participation, not combat roles they weren't allowed to do until recently. However, their participation in direct combat roles has nothing to do with their participation in the military, and seriously nothing to do with their law enforcement participation. The combat role issue you're focusing on doesn't apply to law enforcement rates at all.

You haven't addressed the core point of lower female participation rates among these types of careers in the least.

And the other good news is that military and police forces aren't the same thing as superhero fiction. For every square-jawed super-soldier Steve Rogers, there's a skinny, wisecracking science geek Peter Parker. Your comparison wouldn't be valid even if "superhero" were a real world occupation.

Somehow, the fact that there are square jawed cops and skinny cops, as well as squared jawed soldiers, as well as skinny soldiers, somehow invalidates the premise that women are less likely to be in these fields.

I'll get back to you when I figure out how that works.

Pwuz_ wrote:

As a man, I don't have a lot of personal experience to draw upon, but if you told me that I could "choose to volunteer in an occupation where I'm likely to be put at risk of not only being ****, but then the perpetrator actually getting a promotion after rather than canned" I don't think I would even consider it.

I'm not saying that all men in the military or police tinykitty or even harass all of their female coworkers, but that it happens at all and rather then the perpetrator being properly disciplined the victim is then accused of inciting the assault! ****?!?!

You're, uh... You're talking about occupations where the incident rate of sexual assault is lower than in the civilian world, even with an overwhelming male to female ratio. So it seems to me that this is a complete non-argument based on some sort of anecdote that can probably be found in the civilian world as well.

Unknown

Typhon13 wrote:

snip

The point is not that female heroes should all be OP and male ones should be useless. The point is that there should be balance. There should be just as many physically strong female characters as male characters, there should be as many weak but useful support male characters as female characters. If it were ~50/50, I'd guess that Demiurge would probably do a pretty good job on balance, but part of the problem is that Demiurge opted to make a few very useful female characters, but otherwise not focus on them much. Then when they nerf ones like OBW, the female chars end up looking a lot weaker as a group than the male ones. The solution is to release a lot more female characters, of more variety so they correspond more closely to their male counterparts, rather than having one gender dominate the playing field, regardless of which one it is.

Unknown

DayvBang wrote:

You've raised interesting points in this thread, things worthy of real discussion, but I honestly don't think this is one of them. The new description no more implies sexual activity than the previous version, or just about any other skill in the game.

Okay, who's going to find a way to sex up some of the skill interpretations to mess with me now?

Honestly, I think focusing on this point damages the credibility of your larger argument.

Hey, if they want to sex up all the skill representations, that's fine by me, as long as they make sure to equally sex them up so male and female characters are equal opportunity sex objects.

Dayv

fidsah wrote:

DayvBang wrote:

And the other good news is that military and police forces aren't the same thing as superhero fiction. For every square-jawed super-soldier Steve Rogers, there's a skinny, wisecracking science geek Peter Parker. Your comparison wouldn't be valid even if "superhero" were a real world occupation.

Somehow, the fact that there are square jawed cops and skinny cops, as well as squared jawed soldiers, as well as skinny soldiers, somehow invalidates the premise that women are less likely to be in these fields.

I'll get back to you when I figure out how that works.

I wish I believed you were just trolling. Sadly, it really looks like you just don't get my point. I was saying nothing about the physique or personality of soldiers. I was saying that superheroes are *not* the same as soldiers or policemen, and only in some cases is there an obvious comparison to be made.

Marvel superheroes (and villains) featured in this game include but are not limited to:

Super-soldiers
Unpowered spies
Reformed criminal marksmen
Science-y types empowered by technological accidents
Relatives of science-y types, similarly empowered (that's kind of an odd one)
People from all walks of life who discovered they have mutant abilities
Rulers of fictional, highly technologically advanced kingdoms
Plot devices (hi, Sentry)
Small-time criminals with magic cloaks
Wealthy technocrats in robot suits
Deities
Cyborg clones of deities
Lawyers
... and at least two serial killers. (Bullseye and Punisher)

So yeah, every time you return to the poisoned well of "but real life demographics of these two professions I'm a little obsessed with", you kind of spray foamy TinyKitty into this poor, innocent thread.