Biologically, we ALL are programmed to find healthy-looking people attractive. That generally means that the person looks at least somewhat athletic, strong and also beautiful. Because in order to look good, you need to be healthy, you need to be well-fed and free of disease. You needed to be strong enough to survive wildlife attacks and exhausting hunts. That was true for men and women. A crack addict or malnourished farmer never looks pretty.
Our current beauty ideals do only partially still represent that. I fully agree with those of you who argue that social ideals are harmful to both men and women. Nobody can live up to them unless they dedicate their entires lives to looking pretty. However, what is considered attractive in women today is the exact opposite of healthy and fit, while the beauty ideal for men hasn't changed that much.
Yes, seeing extremely muscular men all the time leads to self-esteem issues in male teens. But at least they go to the gym and try to get strong. That is not a bad thing in itself. But what about girls? They ****** starve themselves half to death because the current beauty ideal for women is to be weak and helpless.
In other words, the idealized man of today is still as valid a sexual partner as he would have been in our cavemen days. But the idealized woman wouldn't last a day. She is malnourished, weak and would probably die in childbirth. In fact, some women stop having their period because they are too thin and the body shuts down reproduction since surviving a pregnancy becomes questionable...
THAT is what our society does to women. It has nothing to do with biology. Biologically, only healthy individuals are attractive partners. Our super-models do not look healthy at all. Most actresses do not look too healthy. Most male models still look healthy, our male actors look healthy.
I have to say though that women in video games are actually not portrayed as weak as society demands real women to be in order to be desirable. There are many many kickass women in video games. They look much less athletic than male characters, but at least they are portrayed as strong in all games where you can play a woman.
The damsel in distress is as popular as ever, but the representation of women is actually much more diverse than that of men. Decades of gender discussions have left a very positive mark on gaming for women. It's male characters that need work very desperately now.
The job is not done when all women are presented as extremely capable and strong. We need an equally diverse representation of men. But I cannot think of more than a couple of examples of male protagonists that are appealing to me as a female gamer. And it's not just women who have grown so tired of the testosterone monsters that keep being thrown at the player. I have no problem finding cool female characters in video games as role models. What kind of role model do male players have? Very poor ones. The average male protagonist is ridiculously muscular, sometimes grotesquely so, unemotional, doesn't talk much, single, only lives to fight and bang women. In other words, games dehumanize men. That's actually not better than objectifying women. It's just as harmful. It leads to boys thinking they can never show weakness, they are not allowed to be afraid or cry. They MUST suppress feelings, only solve conflicts with violence, and sleep around as much as possible to be cool. It's always male characters that smoke in games, too. A lot of things that are harmful to one's health are being idealized as sexually desirable in men.
There is still a lot wrong in video games, but to me there is more wrong with male characters these days.
I am starved for complex emotionally balanced male characters. I have to gush over female characters like Cassandra and girl-crush on Liara hard because there are so few male characters I can cheer for. Sweet male characters like Alistair are so incredibly rare. That makes me very sad.
In games we have seductive women, very feminine emotional women, nerdy women, shy women, outgoing women, funny women, gloomy women, stoic women, cruel women, sweet women, smart women, dumb women, strong women, weak women - in abundance. They are protagonists as well as NPCs. I have a hard time coming up with a specific type of woman in video games other than always being pretty. But personality-wise they are very diverse. Both men and women find these women attractive for all kinds of reasons that aren't just their looks. But to me anyway there is a very specific, narrow definition of a heroic male video game character. Male players are being shoehorned into a certain power fantasy. I'm not saying that it isn't one that men find appealing naturally, but it's one that denies any other type of fantasy by just not offering it.
The way I see it, women and men get poor male characters to idealize. But maybe it's just me who strongly dislikes almost all male video game characters and finds most of them incredibly boring.
Ok, this might have been a bit long and too off-topic, apologies...
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