All I was trying to say is stuff like this seemed unnecessary and mean spirited. But, perhaps I'm being a little too sensitive, which may very well be the case. I'll drop it, let's move on.
I had the same impression about the game. By balancing the sexes among the groups in the game, it destroys the parody. This may or not be a good thing, actually; I'm a bit torn about it..

I'd just like to point out that this is one of my favorite aspects of the game. I'd point out the poll thread, although there hasn't been many replies, but I can see how some people would rather protect one sister over another based on their personality. It helps prove that it isn't just fan service or anything like that, they really put effort into making them human and not just objects.

I was just hoping that perhaps at least here, with the glorious anonymity the Internet so kindly provides, we can have a discussion based solely on our words, not gender, sexual orientation, and what qualities people might think come along with them. And you know what? I think The Void in its medium (video games) transgresses and challenges quite a lot! Sure, maybe not traditional gender roles, but I think there's little art that's transgressing and challenging in every one of its aspects - form, theme, method of presentation, etc... Gosh, it seems all the artists should try better!

And no, I haven't been dismissing or endorsing, merely trying to find an explanation for the way things are. And I'm sorry, but my observations say little about me personally, except that perhaps my insight is lacking. But don't worry, I'll gladly admit it.

Do you find every art with a fictional society featuring some kind of injustice offensive? ("Society is inherently mysoginistic", you said.) Do you get offended whenever you read a book or see a movie in which there's a housewife or a Prince Charming, and then assume that it must have been made by and for mysoginist insecurely straight men? And then, when somebody else perhaps might not, you find that insulting?

The thing I'm wondering about is whether the fact that historically there have been fewer positively "strong" female characters (let's take for instance Xena, the Warrior Princess) mean that having "weaker" female characters (this time let's say Princess Leia - who might need to be rescued once or twice, and even is made to put on a metal bikini!) is automatically wrong? Should, for instance, a movie be judged sexist because it includes a Leia but not a Xena? Or more Leias than Xenas? Or... Wasn't that what I was saying all along, that there exist both collective and individual differences? And sure, while some female wrestlers may be stronger than average man, most sport disciplines are still divided into categories of gender (how sexist!), and usually it's men who get better results, right? So, if art features a physically strong character, why should it be offensive and insulting if it's more often a man? Similarly, if art features a metaphor of giving birth, why should it be offensive if the character involved is more often a woman?
I couldn't be more aware of the fact that we're not enjoying blissful gender equality. I just wondered, if it's a "man's world" after all, does that mean that men are (more?) to blame.
I suppose the joke might be on you after all, since beside choosing this particular avatar I've offered little information about myself and my believes so far; but I can't really force you to draw any conclusions or make you drop any preconceived notions. What about outright declarations of misandry? Seems to me we'd have a hard time deciding which of the sexes is presented in a more favourable light. Are the Brothers really better off because they wield the "power"? They hardly come through as just rulers who are following only the natural order of how things should be. What about the themes of emancipation and rebellion against patriarchy? You admitted The Void could be an artistic commentary about how women have been treated.

(Funny thing, both my English spell checkers don't recognize "misandry"...)
Oh sure, just because we don't agree with each other let's call each other stupid and tell each other to shut up, and then let's figure on our own what was all that about. Except, you know, it's a discussion forum, where people come to discuss stuff.

Hmm, if it hasn't been clear previously, the point I was trying to make is that if art features things that may not be in some way right (crime, slavery, gender oppression, etc.) does that mean that it corresponds with his or her personal beliefs? Or of those who enjoy the art? Or that it's "promoting" those things? Does every character need to be a positive role model and should all art be didactic?

Finally, I think we could do with a bit less of the condescending attitude. You started writing here with a warning that others had better meet your expectations and not turn out to be like average straight males (oh, what a horrible thing to be!), and then you try to treat them like oppressors or backwards unwitting masses.


About MasamuneSSX's important bit:

While I feel that with balancing out the genders The Void would still be interesting, some of its meaning and interpretations would certainly be different. I suppose the difference between those "born" in the Void ("Sisters") and those in the Nightmare ("Brothers") might be less clear, so it could be necessary to implement some other very basic division between the two groups. Although on the other hand, maybe all those metals bits sticking out of various places would be enough? I agree with what Ledger said about how it would affect the gender images - sure it would remind us that women can be monsters too, and men can be those under somebody else's control - but every character has its good and bad sides, and people might still wonder they were distributed among the genders one way and not the other.
Sure, women too have facial hair and sometimes can sport a pretty impressive beard or moustache.

Yesterday I put on some of Throdax's longplay as background entertainment while doing stuff, and, thinking of this thread, two things jumped out at me: at some point, Una mentions that if the Brothers found out that you could process and use color, you'd get pinned down into a chamber just like the Sisters. At another, there's talk of Sisters that got dragged down into the Nightmare and became mechanical aberrations - Brothers. This seems to signify that the way the Brothers/Sisters are has nothing to do with their gender, and there may have even been examples - you just haven't run into them because The Void is dying and there's so few characters left.

On a different note, while there's nothing wrong with feminine, weak women and damsels in dress in the media - it's a fact of life, we're not saying every woman is supposed to be she-hulk - the reason that feminists get annoyed is that there's very, very few strong ones. For every Xena and Wonder Woman there's a thousand Bellas and Sleeping Beauties. (Don't even get me started on Twilight...)

And it's not even about wanting super-heroines. Here's a simple test: Name me a Hollywood movie where...
a) There's at least two women
b) And they talk to each other
c) About something other than a man

It's surprising how hard that can be, and it's something so simple. Here's a blog post about that phenomenon in screenwriting for those that are curious.

A lot of feminists are undeniably very angry in their writing, and may even lash out and over-react towards men. It's got nothing to do with "general man-hating" for the most of them, though. It's just that when you're constantly told by the world around you that you're inferior, that you can't be as strong or as smart or as successful and you should just focus on marriage and children; and especially when you study these things and keep finding out how pervasive and subconscious the problem is... It's easy to get overly threatened by peoples' comments, to misinterpret honest questions as mocking insults, and yes, even blow things out of proportion. You're so used to seeing people deride your gender that you start to expect it from anyone and anything.

And honestly, it is an issue worth getting angry about, and it's made even worse when people take that anger and use it against feminists, labeling them bitchy overemotional man-haters. The sad part is that it tends to scare people off, they see someone ranting and raving and just assume they're crazy instead of paying attention to the issues presented.

There's NO issue. Men hunt, women keep the fire. It has been so for thousands (if not millions) of years. Every other way leads to decadence and eventual downfall.

Spoken like a true Brother.

Ledger, I agree with everything you write. I too lament that there are few strong women characters; or, for that matter, more men with "feminine" traits! But the sad thing is that it goes both ways - women have been getting less space in life, and so they get less space in stories, while men have been getting more power, had professional lives, did all the "exciting" things. So movies featuring for example historical settings or national conflict/war, etc. are less likely to feature prominent female characters. Hopefully we will be able to break this circle once and for all someday. (I wonder though who decides that the things women were doing all this time are "less interesting"?)

As for the test, here goes off the top of my head: Kill Bill, Monster, Steel Magnolias, Fried Green Tomatoes, Dune series, Mystic Pizza, Gone with the Wind, Chicago, Alien Resurrection, Terms of Endearment... Maybe Cukor's The Women, I remember the plot was about fighting for men, but it's two hours long, they couldn't have talked about it all the time, could they? I don't know if the tricky part wasn't the word "Hollywood" - I had to dismiss every other movie that I thought of.

(Also, thanks for all the interesting links, the writer's story was particularly chilling.)

And coming back to The Void... I forgot about the possible Sister-Brother transition (I played the game long ago). Some possible interpretations: it's like reincarnation, where only the "soul-energy" gets re-embodied (as far as there are physical bodies in The Void); maybe it proves that Brothers and Sisters are more like representations of more abstract concepts; or maybe it differs from Void to Void, and depends on its creators' dreams and nightmares? (Of course, it might also be some statement about transsexuality... ) Eh, it's hard to tell anything definitive, especially since the characters who are our only source of information themselves have limited understanding of the world they inhabit.

Now this single statement is a recipe for a flamewar. I strongly suggest thinking carefully before posting further sentiments along these lines - we're trying to have a *reasoned* debate here.

Aside from anything else, this statement is fallacy. Certainly amongst the species homo sapiens, men have traditionally filled this role but to say that nature intended for this to remain static is wrong. That's the wonderful thing about evolution - you start off with a fish shaped thing and end up with a weird green creature millenia later sitting on lilly pads breathing air. Its is more than possible that humans as a species are evolving more rapidly than we give ourselves credit for. Sentiency has thrown a major spanner in the works with regards to this and many humans that would have naturally died out are kept alive and non-alpha males (e.g. those with less physical strength and other less appealling traits) have pretty much free reign in the gene pool. The part of it is to do with populations. A species with a small population will evolve at a much slower rate than one with a larger population. 7 billion and rising rapidly is a pretty big population to me...

The point I'm trying to make, in a rather meandering way, is that humans as a species are evolving and that does include physical and mental characteristics for both genders. If not in our lifetimes, I'd be willing to bet that before long, we'll be seeing almost no difference at all between men and women, aside from sex organs. As for the second part of the quote - I'm going to call you on this one. I've yet to see a matriarchal nation establish itself anywhere yet, let alone one fall into decadence and disripute. Of coure if you do know of a society run by decadent women, please point it out to me on the map and I'll be on the first flight out there.

It's good the evolution was finally mentioned. However, don't you think it's a double-edged matter? An evolved society may offer equal opportunities for both genders, of that there is no doubt. But is it truly such a good thing? Let me explain: while females are eager (or maybe just don't make fuss of it) to take on male functions (like "hunting" = making money) and it's becoming more and more common, I know no male that is eager to abandon his status given by nature and become willing to sit home, raise children, do the housework, the laundry, feed the wife after job, etc. It's unnatural and alters the society structure at a much deeper level than simple equality of opportunities. What has become of modern family? One child is OK, two is less common, three and four+ is a feat worthy of recognition on the state level. My grand grandmother had 17! (seventeen) children and it was not something extraordinary at that time. Would she be able to run such a crowd if she had no "hunter" (grand granddad) beside her? And look what happens now - the gender fuss emerges and the family institution is being reduced to rubble even as I'm typing this. I'm no some fatalist or whatever, maybe my views are rather "stale" by modern shit standards, but at least I'm not some hypocrite saying "Ok, let us run the show on equal terms with the girls". In my house it's not going to happen any time soon. I love the girls exactly because they are feminine, and really don't want to see a man (by character) with boobs beside me. We all have our roles and I'm willing to devote myself to my family in the way a man should do it, but I except my other half to do it as a woman should, and if anybody sees any inequality in such concordance it's his perverted mind's problem and I believe the relationship model where the genders are concordant rather than equal feats the Void quite well. Hope, I made my point clearer now.

Yeah, there are some movies that pass the "test", and that's a good thing; hopefully there'll be a greater ratio of them as time goes by. But like strong female characters, they're pretty rare. It's a bit surprising to me how many major releases absolutely lack something so simple and everyday.

As for bratt_n, I don't know about you but I've known plenty of "stay at home dads". There's feminine men just as there are masculine women. Some women even have male-type brains (there's minor biological differences), and they're not necessarily transexual, gay, or even masculine. Same thing goes for men, some of them have the type of brain that's typical of women.

But a lot of things that are stereotypically "masculine" or "feminine" have nothing to do with our biological differences. Having a penis doesn't make it any harder to do laundry just like it doesn't make it any easier to fix a car. People just think of certain things as "men's tasks" or "women's tasks" because that's how they're represented in society. You wouldn't say that black people are more predisposed to housekeeping just because old TV shows only show them being servants.

Besides, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who was completely "feminine" or "masculine". Most people have pretty varied interests - some men like sports and housekeeping, some women like motorcycles and pretty dresses. Humans aren't binary beings.

Anyway, nobody's saying that all women should be masculine, so why claim that women should be feminine? You're welcome to go find yourself a feminine woman if that's what you want, so why care about what the others are doing? Leave them for the ones that want them, whoever they may be. Some people like concordance, some people like equality, some people want people the same as them (e.g. some masculine people want a relationship with another masculine person so they can go work out and go to the bar together or whatever.) That's why people should be allowed to be different and judged on their individual merits rather than blanketing them based on what genitals they were born with.

As for the family stuff, I don't really see that as having anything to do with feminism. Back in the old days we didn't have modern medicine and most people worked on farms, so you needed as much help as you could get - and you had as many children as you could because you knew that a lot of them could get sick and die. (Also people not knowing about contraception, having certain religious beliefs, etc.)

The world has changed a lot since then. There's more resources to provide for everyone and you can have one child knowing that they'll probably survive and be well taken care of. And since few people are working on farms these days, the children aren't extra help but extra expense - if you wanted to have ten children, you'd have to be very rich if you wanted to give them all the best support, send them off to college (in the US at least), etc. Plus there's nothing to repopulate - no plagues, no major wars; in fact there's too many people around. (The birth rates in developed countries may be bad right now, but they're still over capacity in case of something like oil running out - 1/3 would starve.)

Because of this, as nation gets richer the birth rate drops whether they're "feminist" or not. More resources, more education, more to go around, and more development - less agrarian lifestyles - so no reason to split it up so much. Not everyone makes a good parent, either - and yes, this goes for males and females. There's no such thing as maternal instinct, it's all learned - even sex is learned. If you take a group of apes and separate them from the others before they reach the age of mimicking, they won't know how and will live and die without breeding. If you get female apes that have not been around mothers pregnant, they won't know how to take care of their children (and won't even care). Sometimes they don't care even if they do know how (just like humans).

How would it have been society altering if your great-grandmother had gone out to make the money and your great-grandfather stayed to take care of the house (supposing that she could get a desk job or somesuch in that society)? As long as someone's taking care of the kids, be it a father, a mother, or a good daycare, I don't see any problem.

2 Ledger

You toss a lot of generic stuff into one cauldron. Why so afraid of giving YOUR POV?

Err... What exactly do you mean? I think what I just said is my point of view: I think that people should be accepted based on their individual merits. The rest is just the scientific backing that I have for my opinions; I may be able to dig up the actual research papers if you want but they're very long and dry (and hard to access for me at the moment). But if you want to know what I think about some specific topic rather than hear a bunch of generic stuff, just say what.

It's OK, but how does it relate to the thread? Male bias, was it?

Now, bratt_n, I think you shouldn't be rude, ok?

Oh, please, we were just starting to get along

Don't you see, I've broken a textwall.

Well, you asked my point of view. Thought you were talking about feminism. As for male bias in the game, I mentioned in my first two posts that I don't think the void portrays its characters in an inherently sexist manner because it's a messed up setting for both the sisters, the brothers, and you; and nowhere is it insinuated that a man cannot be a Sister or that a woman cannot be a Brother - they're not even real men or women, just "potential souls" and... well, I'm not sure what exactly the Brothers are... but they're both abstract concepts portrayed in a stylized fashion. And despite the Sister's positions in the game, it does not follow the common tropes of them being submissive "damsels in distress", they all have very distinct personalities and motivations. They don't need you because you're a man, they just want your color; you could be a floating chicken and it wouldn't make a difference.

Won't you agree that there's a vast contigent of real women in real life that "just want your color " and provide a solid motivation why you should part with it? And won't you agree that even the most abstract concept is based on quite discreet real matter? And I won't agree on the "not follow the common tropes of them being submissive". Their absolute submission to their guardians is hardly disputable. In you they see and opportunity, though vague, and they are OK to betray you if the issue is enforced (this part was poorly presented, IPL should have added one or two betrayals, like "you did well that you helped me, but I'm loyal to my brother and you are screwed" or "thank you for helping me ascend, I'm gonna have lots of fun that does not involve you").

I don't know, they may be in a bad situation (that they don't seem to be able to do anything about), but I don't see most of them as actually willingly submissive (Ima, yes, and maybe Uta at first but Uta seems more pessimistic/depressed). Otherwise they wouldn't be so eager to tell you to go against the Brothers. Otherwise Echo and Ava wouldn't be running around, the banished sisters wouldn't have tried to break through, and Eli wouldn't have built a blimp. It's not that they don't want to fight back - very much the opposite - they just can't. It'd be like calling someone in jail "submissive" because they can't fight or escape very well.

I don't know how willing they'd be to betray you, either. After all, you're their one and only ticket out of there.

As for real life women that give you motivation to part with your color, I'm not really sure what you're saying. Prostitutes? "Gold diggers"? Sure, but they're hardly representative of all women, and most of them do it because they can and not because it's their only option. Well, maybe you could compare the Sisters to women that have to whore themselves out because they're extremely poor and have no other way to survive, but men do that too. But the Sisters aren't really tempting you either, other than Ava and Ire. They have information, but it's cheap, and hearts, but you can get them elsewhere. So you're on your own to decide why you'd want to give any sisters more color than is necessary to open up the chambers.

Basically I don't really see how the Sisters are supposed to be saying something about the female gender. Please elaborate on your thoughts on this.

Then there're the pseudo-strong females who do wield power and blah blah, but suddenly a man comes along and they... er, melt into uselessness. (See this trope or this one.)

I've been mulling around the idea of the sisters who were banished to whatever was under the void and how the brothers come from there, and I started wondering if the brothers were once sisters, and that their ascension transformed and disfigured them..

Just an odd interpretation, I guess.

I think Bratt has a lot of misconceptions about equality and such. A working woman doesn't equate a man with boobs, there's nothing wrong with an independant woman, and hell, I'll admit I find it attractive. It shows a person has goals and aspirations. I dated a girl who dropped out of high school because she was planning on being a house wife, and it just made me sick. Who doesn't want at least an education?

I don't mean to say that taking care of the kids is a waste, but rather I believe you're missing something in life if you just turn your back on it like that..

And honestly, people are so diverse, there are so many women and men who have similar interests like raising kids, motorcycles, and hair styling or whatever. It doesn't mean they're this or that or are those kind of people, it just means they're human.

A mighty fine post, Fuzz.


I hasten to point out that we are, or at were least discussing male bias in regards to The Void, so it would be cool if we could start seeing more references to the game, rather than general battle of the sexes stuff. >.>

They don't have to. A girl in real life doesn't stress on her gender either, she just doesn't have to, because she assumes you are smart enough to see that she is a she with everything it involves.
Won't agree. They all tempt you, but in different ways. Some may do it passively, like the above mentioned "damsel in distress" when you are so charmed by their helplessness that you are tempted yourself.
I was not talking about equality in general. I just expressed my condolences to the societies that force their women into labour depriving them of their primal natural functions and replacing them with such trivial priorities as career, feminism and such. No misconception here.

Not odd (and I certainly find it interesting), but it'd be fantastic if there was more material to imply this. As I said, the characters (English version anyway) are awfully obtuse.

Leaving us in the dark on a couple things isn't so bad. I think the realism is ruined when everything is explained.

Sure, that's partly why the game's made me think so much. It's intelligent enough that it's open to interpretation rather than being badly-thought out and forcing fans to make up random theories to fill in the blank.

The fact that the game even provokes debates such as this speaks volumes.