Gender and Violence and Blame

POSTED BY: Magonsdaughter
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 25, 2026 20:14
VIEWED: 35151
PAGE 16 of 31

PREV PAGE 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 NEXT PAGE

SIGNYM

Tuesday, January 1, 2013 5:04 PM

BYTE- How do you feel about violent videogames? Do you buy them? Play them? Do you feel they're useful for catharsis, useful for practicing violence, or irrelevant to the way most people look at the world? Do you perceive, either thru your own experience of by observation of others, that there is an overall difference between genders in how these games are valued and viewed?

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, January 1, 2013 5:14 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
I'm glad this thread didn't die while I was away.

Just some general responses to some of the conversation -

I can't abide victim blaming. No one deserves or is responsible for violence being inflicted upon them, even though they may have made poor choices which may have resulted in being in the wrong place or with the wrong person.

The long winded discussions around protection through strength or martial arts are pretty immaterial as far as I am concerned, especially when it comes to family violence. The violence I experienced impacted on me psychologically, so I couldn't make good decisions, couldn't demand to be treated how I thought I should be. Because victim blaming is so prevalent in our society, I felt responsible for the violence, and I felt ashamed for putting up with it, for allowing it to happen. I was so shamed I hid it from most people, even loved ones, long after the relationship was over, because of responses like Hero's. It took me a long time to be able to talk about it and not feel dirty and sullied, or weak and pathetic, when I was never any of those things.

My then partner used violence and put downs and humiliation because he felt powerless and he hated feeling that I might have had any power over him. He had very sexist views in general which were not obvious when we met (except in hindsight) but basically his needs and wants were always more important than mine. When I think back on it, I was barely human to him, just an accessary, someone to make him feel better, meet his needs.

It was hard to leave because I had been told for so long that I was worthless and unlovable and mad that I had started to believe it.

All these things are features of a violent relationship, so its not just about standing up for yourself physically. There are many ways that power can be abused in a relationship that make it hard to leave.

Magons: as I said to you already, I think you're actually very strong. I've never been in a domestic situation or even experienced psychical abuse from someone I know, but I do know what it's like to have someone play games to try to make you stay with them. That kind of manipulation is very hurtful, and it is really hard to break away. They make you apologize for things that weren't your fault. They tell you you're very important to them, but they don't really care about your opinions or your personal boundaries or your choices, they pressure you and override your personal decisions and pursue personal matters that are your business not theirs, and they don't actually care about you as a person. They tell you if you leave, they'll become suicidal, and they try to blame that on you. But you're not responsible for anyone's happiness but your own. And you stand your ground and get yourself away, and months later, they're fine and you know it was an act.

I didn't have anyone telling me that I was worthless though. :(

It's very hard what someone who is abusive will do to someone, it makes a very difficult situation to extricate yourself from, because you don't know what about them is real, if you actually would hurt them (and you care about if you're going to hurt them! After so many times they hurt you!), if they're really abusive. It is very hard to decide, no, this is abusive, and I'm not going to take this anymore.

So I say again, Magons. You're very strong.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, January 1, 2013 5:18 PM

Military training videos... so much more effective than having to train people IRL!

http://videos.howstuffworks.com/science/military-training-videos-playl
ist.htm#video-30217

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, January 1, 2013 5:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
BYTE- How do you feel about violent videogames? Do you buy them? Play them? Do you feel they're useful for catharsis, useful for practicing violence, or irrelevant to the way most people look at the world? Do you perceive, either thru your own experience of by observation of others, that there is an overall difference between genders in how these games are valued and viewed?

Depends on what you mean by violent, I tend to play games that don't even depict blood. MMORPGs mostly, there's fighting but it's not realistic. The only one I've played recently with any blood in it was the new Diablo, and you don't fight other people in that, you help people and have conversations with them, then you go out and fight zombies and undead things and monsters. But on the other hand, Diablo is pretty grim, it's a demonic invasion story so there's a lot of people who die before you can really help them.

I've never played FPS or RTS, which actually do have predominantly male gamers, but the gender gap is getting smaller. There are getting to be more girls who play those, they're kinda pioneers in the field and they catch a lot of flack from the dudebro crowd.

All the same, I'm not really comfortable blaming art for being the cause of social problems. That's how you get book burnings. Art is just a depiction of society. The only time you can say the art contributed to violence is when the violent actor lost the ability to tell the difference between fiction and reality. Even then, the art isn't to blame for that. The art just is, it's how people react to the art that potentially creates problems.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, January 1, 2013 5:51 PM

I've actually heard that training videos and video games are a poor substitute for hands on training. It's like that simulated study you guys were talking about after the Sandyhook gunman, where they gave people some hand gun training then put them in a room, they were all carrying but a more experienced shooter came in with a paintball gun and tagged them all anyway.

The only way to get good with a weapon is to have experience with it, practice with it. And even with a hyper-realistic game like Call of Duty, there were some studies done suggesting that Call of Duty couldn't teach the kids where the safety on a real gun was or how to reload a new magazine, you had to already know how to do that from somewhere else, generally from experience with an actual gun. About all a video game can do is teach someone hand eye coordination and aim, and that's without factoring in that real guns can pull off-center.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, January 1, 2013 5:53 PM

Art is not the media. Commercial media isn't "just a depiction of society" it is a profit-generating enterprise geared towards people who are easily parted from their money... 18-49 year-old males is the prime demographic, so I'm told.

An actual depiction of society wouldn't look ANYTHING like what we currently see on TV, in the movies, or in videogames. It would involved a lot more actual working people who live much more impoverished lives, a lot more women, and a lot more people of color. Instead, it still focuses on white yuppies leading rewarding lives of intense engagement as detectives and lawyers.

I understand your point about videos not preparing someone for action IRL. You DO need actual physical practice. But looking at a lot of videos involving shooting may bring that action to the fore in a situation, when the best action might be to walk away.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, January 1, 2013 5:58 PM

Well, that also says something about society then. The art itself isn't to blame for what's popular and in demand. It's not like big corporations are forcing violence on us. Violence in media is something society decided it wanted after it got sick of how stifling the Hayes Code was. Artists started testing the edges of the Hayes Code because art is about expression, and they push the edge because they know that's what creates interest among an audience. One trend later, pushing those boundaries got us to this level of violent depiction in about 50 years.

I still am not sure violent art actually causes more violence. It's not like the violence didn't exist anyway back when all the movies were sterilized. People in the middle east still killed each other. Husbands still raped their wives. Wars still happened. People talk about desensitization, but, isn't it more important to know that some things are real and they happen? I can't imagine living in a world where we keep everything bad all hushed up.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, January 1, 2013 6:13 PM

The media is structured the way it is because they sell advertising time. Men between 18-49 are the prime demographic because (1) they have more discretionary income than anyone younger (2) they are parted from their money more easily than either anyone who is older, or women. Most women in that age group are busy taking care of children... buying diapers, groceries and other necessities.

That leaves one group over-represented by a large margin; and therefore the product is going to be skewed.

If art were just a representation of "what is", it would look just like reality. But it doesn't, does it?

Art... not individually made art for private contemplation, but art made for and distributed to the masses... is an expression of something else. What we hold dear, or think is important. It's a form of propaganda and a mechanism of social cohesion. When I look at our "art"- commercials, TV shows, videogames and so forth... what I see are paeans to individuality, competition, greed, and consumption, the founding core of our corporate culture.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, January 1, 2013 6:20 PM

...I'm not sure that argument necessarily follows, unless we're prepared to argue there are no women who enjoy explosive action shows, splatter horror, or space cowboy shows.

The real difference between gender consumption of media isn't currently violence, it's how much romance in present in a show.

Also, what a show represents depends on the views of the creators. You say shows are all paeans to rugged individualism and consumerism, and yet a show like Star Trek promoted what appears to be a socialist society, and many of the producers, directors, and actors in Hollywood are liberal.

I don't deny there's propaganda, but the propaganda is all stuff like focusing on cops as heroes, or support our troops messages, or yanking messages they think might cause reactions that endanger public health. Like when the new redone series of V was preempted for a while because they were doing a storyline about tainted vaccines during a real world flu season crisis, it's obvious TPTB were concerned that the storyline would create real world risks. That's propaganda.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, January 1, 2013 6:26 PM

And the choice is between violence and romance? So the heroine's role in the story is to cling like a vine to the heroic male?

There are few representations of women having true friendships with other women, and with men. No representation of people banding together, except in that tight male-female dyad. The solution to your problems... bad schools, crappy jobs, rapacious banks... if to have sex with some hot guy.

Out of all of the things they COULD portray, they focus on (1) sex (romance) and (2) violence nearly all of the time. If you took that out of the programming, there would be nothing left! (There go the cop shows.)

Just trying to point out that our media has a very narrow scope, on purpose.

PREV PAGE 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 NEXT PAGE