What is this so-called Life?

ohanateam:

leilukin:

pancakesinspace:

queenofantiva:

birkinsmith:

n7confessions:

“I hate how Mass Effect has such powerful and independent women, yet they’re still heavily stamped with sex appeal”

MAN SHEP IS A MALE MODEL 

and are you saying Kaidan has no sex appeal? Thane? GARRUS!?

Sure the chicks are hot, but they didn’t neglect the men. it’s pretty sexist to focus on one gender like that.

Sexist on OP’s account? Not from where I’m standing. 
Sexist on Bioware’s account? Yes. 

Although the problem isn’t in their attractiveness, it’s the fact that the women need to be sexy on top of being independent and powerful in order to be held in higher esteem.

They end up being written into these “sexy” archetypes in order to verify their worth. Men don’t NEED to be “sexy” to have this value e.g., 

Captain Baily
Zaeed Masani
Admiral Hackett
David Anderson
Jeff “Joker” Moreau 
Mordin Solus
Grunt

For a real life example of this dynamic, I was recently reading an article about a women who was recently appointed into the supreme court. A huge honor! The highest position you can attain as a judge here in the states.
But at least HALF the comments were about her physical appearance.
About how she was a cow. How she was ugly. You’d think there would be cases  where a women’s appearance wouldn’t matter. Where her ability wasn’t prematurely judged by her outward appearance. ESPECIALLY since she’d worked her way the supreme court.
Nope. 

I am not implying that there is something wrong with attractiveness. People are born the way they are born. But the emphasis of the importance of beauty is the problem.
That it makes the person. The idea you aren’t good enough without beauty is down right oppressive.
Which in all fairness, the burden of needing to be attractive is mostly carried by women in our society.

And yes, there are strong, wonderful, capable female characters in the series. But that’s exactly how they are presented. It’s the notion that they NEED to bring attention that they are in fact WOMEN. 
They need to bring attention to the character’s gender via clothes, hair, backstory, or even their race. (Asari) 
Like a bow on a cartoon animal. There are the male cartoon animals who are “normal” then the women, who seem to need bows and ribbon to identify what they are.

Did Bioware unnecessarily (out of context) flash the third person camera to any of the men’s asses during any of the game?
You know, a person consciously decided that it was ok to dangle Miranda there like a piece of meat. Probably a whole group of them.
Did they decide to write in any of the men with little to no clothing and/or armor? Were any of their stories focused around their gender?

—-

• Jack: I can understand the importance of showing the tattoos as a part of her character. But when her shields went down during a fire fight there is nothing to protect her. And if she did have an extra biotic field up we should have seen it.
  “It doesn’t really make sense, but she looks great. Oh and could you erase the tattoos from her face too? We don’t want her to look too freaky.”
   
• Samara: I am a firm believer in a woman being able to wear what she pleases, but I can’t see Samara’s outfit for anything but created for fanservice.
  “Hey guys! Let’s have her boobs tumble out the front even though it is entirely impractical, leaving her vital organs vulnerable, and nothing in her character writing that would imply that she would dress that way! Oh and HEELS.”
  “Sounds hot, let’s do it!”
   
• Miranda: I have less biff with Miranda’s outfit, she’s proud of her figure and her genes and dresses to show it off, which I have no problem with as she has the right to dress how she likes. (she’s stated she likes how she dresses it’s not just “sexy” for the sake of it) 
  I’m assuming the suite had super strength micro fibers or something…
  
  But this leads me to the blatant objectification of Miranda.
  You as the player are forced to look at her curvy bits over and over. It’s like an advertisement that pops up before you can watch the rest of your video, you can’t avoid it.
  Because obviously if she’s wearing that she wants you to treat her like an exhibit.
   
• Ashley: Wore regulation armor in ME1 AND 2 because she is a career soldier, and a professional through and through. That’s who she is. Why else would she go from regulation armor and hair tied back, to a faux leather mini-dress and hair falling into her scope unless someone decided to sex her up?
  As someone with a lot of hair, that hair style absolutely would NOT stay in place while she was running around with the life of her and her squad in danger.
  And to me, that doesnt fit with how Ashley would act. 
  They didn’t change Kaidan.
  So what was so wrong with Ashley that developers felt it was necessary to change her?
  Right! She wasn’t enough of a “woman”.
   
• EDI: The quote on quote “sexy robot” Who’s physical appearance often skews fans perspective on her, everything from “sexbot” to “talking vibrator”. When she is so much more than that. (not to mention the camel toe)
   
• The Asari: The whole of the Asari race is based off the age-old space opera concept of “alien babes”. 
   
• Tali: A whole facet to Tali’s story is either trying to get over or speculate what she looks like. It’s never enough that she’s a damn brilliant engineer, or later on an admiral.
   
• Krogan: For most of the series krogan women were judged soley (and off screen I might add) on their ability to bear children.
   
•  And lastly Femshep.
  *Sigh* I’ll leave this link here for Femshep. 

—-

And before you argue that Mass Effect universe’s women’s value isn’t heavily dependent on looks let me point you to another problem…

Where are the women of the other species? 

The men are all there. Why wouldn’t they put in or even mention the women too? Even in the graphic novels I really only see human woman and asari.

In the Mass Effect series unless a women’s sexuality or gender is mentioned she is often excluded or rarely seen. 
I have not seen one Turian, Volus, Hanar, Elcor, Batarian, or Vorcha woman in-game.

What does general western society accept as attractive? Hmmmmm.
Look at all of the women displayed in-game and it’ll give you a good idea of what is “acceptable” for something classified as female to look like.

And please do not tell me that the other women were not important enough to include. I have gotten that from quite a few people and that is insulting.
It is not a matter of development costs, there is a 50/50 chance you’ll be born a woman unless you are a Salarian, so the models would have been evenly used.
Salarian women are even less common than 50% and they were included, so they have no goddamn excuse. 
I would be understanding of not knowing the sex of the Elcor and the Hanar if all the ones you met weren’t addressed with male pronouns.

It’s not only that they label exclusively “sexy” women in.
They leave un-sexy women out. 

That is sexist.
That is sexist.
That is sexist. 

I’m just going to casually put this on my blog for the sake of antiva’s glorious commentary.

It’s really sad that even my favorite game series of all time (except maybe Pokémon, but that’s more like an uncontrollable compulsion than a hobby), which I loved partially due to the powerful and well-rounded female heroes (femshep, femshep, rah rah rah), still pulls that same sexist bullshit.  And it got worse over time.

Sigh.

That’s so true. I love Garrus to pieces and I think Thane is very attractive too, because we fall in love with their personality, not their looks. If you look at them - they’re aliens, and not Greek gods, either. But let’s be honest… The romanceable female Aliens look just like slightly modified humans. Specially the Asaris. WHY ON THE GALAXY A RACE WHICH HAS DEVELOPPER DURING MILLENIA BEFORE THE HUMAN RACE WAS EVEN DISCOVERED SHOULD LOOK LIKE BLUE FEMALE HUMANS? Don’t tell me a male Krogan or Elcor finds them attractive because I don’t buy it.

emedeme:

I want this in the next Thor/Avengers move. 

(Source: kris-and-jen)