Sexist Stereotypes in Blue Mars

[Sorina Garrigus]

Are you serious? Have you even been in Second Life the apparances of the avatars are down right church going by comparison the majority of what you see in SL. Sure more animations and choices is fine. But in SL you have a horrid default anim and I am sure more anims can be will be available later to customize with. Besides the devs at blue mars as far as I know don't engage in brainwashing if someone flirts or acts like a bimbo. Second Life is full of over the top sexual stereo types its pretty much at its foundation. I didnt see any basketball sized boobs all oiled up. I for one am glad there are better animations than someone trotting along and looking like they will trip over their own feet every 10 minutes. Nothing wrong with more animations and choices. But Sexist Stereo types OMG. I can start a post on SL's forum complaining how I strut around like a teenage boy without buying some animation overide. Choices are good but lets get real. I agree there needs to be more animation, clothing and other choices for default. Again people keep forgeting its still in beta.

[DaleInnis]

Yes, I think we're pretty much entirely serious. The point is exactly that at the moment there is no choice in Blue Mars about how we walk and stand, and very little choice in how we dress. And the things that we have no choice about aren't neutral, they're based on sexist stereotypes (female NPCs flirting with only male players, female AVs walking "sexy" and male AVs strutting, etc). Sure lots of people *choose* to do that sort of thing in Second Life, but it's not imposed on anyone. The default walk is that same stupid duck-walk for everyone. Very fair.

I don't think anyone's forgetting it's a beta. We're just expressing our opinion that this sort of thing, while understandable in a beta, wouldn't be desirable in the real game. That's a big part of what the beta is for, after all: presenting things to potential users, so we can give our feedback on them. And some of us are giving honest negative feedback about the animations and the bimbo-swarms.

[JumpmanLane]

lol wtf are those bots?

[Sorina Garrigus]

I haven't seen any Non playing characters if thats an accurate term. I don't think of my avatar as a character unless I am playing a role playing game like world of warcraft etc. When I first game to SL way back when I didnt have much choices of how I dressed either until went out and got some new clothes. But Avatars or whatever flirting in chat is far from a sexist stereo type thats their choice to act that way. If someone doesn't like it and they say so they should have enough general respect to stop. Should we have a policy that says if you flirt with one person or one gender you have to flirt with everyone and all genders? Thats a dangerous path to go down and it becomes very thought policey very quickly. I really doubt thats going the be the only animation for the life of the "Game". Sexist stereo types is very extreme wording. More choices for default walks and cloths is valid fine and good. But at the same time if you try to please everybody there will be so many wardrobes and animations that there will be no point for a content creator to make more. Also why arent we complaining more about something more obvious and basic like body customization? Male or Female can't be short, tall, fat or whatever. Maybe we should make a new thread saying Blue mars hates fat people now.

I find it perplexing when people refer to things like Second Life or Blue Mars as a game. It doesnt qualify as a game by any sense of the word. There can be games within them but neither are games themselves. There is no objective,goal, points, leveling etc.

Yes, I think we're pretty much entirely serious. The point is exactly that at the moment there is no choice in Blue Mars about how we walk and stand, and very little choice in how we dress. And the things that we have no choice about aren't neutral, they're based on sexist stereotypes (female NPCs flirting with only male players, female AVs walking "sexy" and male AVs strutting, etc). Sure lots of people *choose* to do that sort of thing in Second Life, but it's not imposed on anyone. The default walk is that same stupid duck-walk for everyone. Very fair.

I don't think anyone's forgetting it's a beta. We're just expressing our opinion that this sort of thing, while understandable in a beta, wouldn't be desirable in the real game. That's a big part of what the beta is for, after all: presenting things to potential users, so we can give our feedback on them. And some of us are giving honest negative feedback about the animations and the bimbo-swarms.

[DaleInnis]

I think we're mostly agreeing here, just in different words. If NPC sounds too game-like for you, maybe "bot" would be a better word. I haven't seen them either, but if you'll look at the very first posting in this thread, you'll see a nice screenshot of them. And I think you'll agree they're based on a sexist stereotype.

(I *definitely* wasn't saying there's anything wrong with people flirting in chat or whatever, or that residents should be required to flirt with everyone equally lol; hope I didn't say anything that implied that.)

We could have a whole thread, I'm sure, on whether or not SL is a game, and whether or not BM will be. My own position can be summarized as "whatever".

[Markadian]

That hardly qualifies as sexist, especially as the Ai programmer either did or is doing a female version, where knights in shining armor cheer on female avs.

[DaleInnis]

That hardly qualifies as sexist, especially as the Ai programmer either did or is doing a female version, where knights in shining armor cheer on female avs.

Good one.

[Beebo Brink]

Until I can put on a pair of blue jeans (which the male avatars get by default) without having to make them myself, I will consider Blue Mars to be suspect where gender expression is concerned. There is NO REASON to limit clothing choices by gender, especially something so generic as blue jeans. Someone at Blue Mars made the deliberate and conscious decision that "Girls wear shorty shorts or skirts" and "Boys get blue jeans and t-shirts" and no one can jump the gender line they have established in the interface itself. Same goes for their approach to animations -- male and female, choose one, the one we deem sex appropriate.

I don't care whether you label this as sexist or just plain stupid, but it shows a very conventional, almost outdated frame of reference for user options. It makes me twitchy, not because I expect more options at a beta stage, but because of the WAY those options are being structured. Two options or two hundred options, if I can't shop in the men's clothing category because the interface won't show it to me, then I'm stuck with what content creators made for female avatars. I'm not here to beat the drum in favor of SL, I'd like to assess these platforms on their own merits, but in SL I can wear any damn thing I want. The entire range of clothing is available to me, and as it happens I'm a woman who likes to wear very tailored clothing that is usually pitched toward men. If SL segreated clothing options the way in which Blue Mars is doing now with a sex segregated catalog, I would have about 5 pieces of clothing.

The same is true for animations. Most of the animations I use in SL are tagged for men, but are actuallly androgynous and work pretty well for a woman who doesn't want to simper. The female animations all tend to be extremely feminine. My AO is about 90% male animations, and Blue Mars is structured to technically prevent me from picking and choosing what I want from ALL designers.

[Markadian]

Incorrect, Beebo. Blue mars clients all have a built in 'AO', so when you get new animations from content developers, just use the animation window to switch the animations for each actions with the animations you want, then you are good to go.

[ryanschultz]

Yes, I think we're pretty much entirely serious. The point is exactly that at the moment there is no choice in Blue Mars about how we walk and stand, and very little choice in how we dress. And the things that we have no choice about aren't neutral, they're based on sexist stereotypes (female NPCs flirting with only male players, female AVs walking "sexy" and male AVs strutting, etc). Sure lots of people *choose* to do that sort of thing in Second Life, but it's not imposed on anyone. The default walk is that same stupid duck-walk for everyone. Very fair.

My point exactly. I am also quite serious about this.

In SL we have a CHOICE. If you don't like the defaults, you can buy AOs and animations and poses to change the defaults any way you wish.

But right now, in the current beta of BM, we don't have a choice. For its eventual launch, BM would be better of giving the same default animations to all avatars, male and female, and convert all the currently-segregated-by-sex animations into ones which can be chosen by either sex.