Anita “not a fan of video games” Sarkeesian has come out with a new video, this time lamenting the fact that games generally lack female enemies. This comes, ironically, after years of carping not only about violence against women in games, but also about violence in general.
So how can you have female enemies in violent games and still make Anita happy? Spoiler alert: you can’t.
Simply swapping a woman into the shell of what is ostensibly another violent sexist dude character, does not a good representation make.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) August 16, 2014
In the video, Anita’s argument boils down to: Female enemies are not problematic if they are dressed in nonsexual clothing and the violence is not sexual in nature. Bioshock Infinite (a game she finds highly problematic) used female police officers in bulky inoffensive clothing, so that’s cool — but the sexy nun assassins in Hitman, are totally not cool.
The problem with this argument doesn’t come from the internal logic itself. Rather, it’s Anita’s very expansive view of sexual clothing and character models which makes it impossible for a developer to please her.
First of all, in the video she lists the “form fitting” attire in Metal Gear Solid as sexualizing the characters. But form fitting clothing isn’t always sexual, it can also be useful for athletic activities. She specifically mentions Chun-Li as a viable opponent in Street Fighter, but leaves out Cammy, whose “too sexy” leotard may be more practical in a fight but not acceptable for Anita’s puritan sensibilities.
Then there’s the butt problem. Anita hates butts and women in games that have them. If a woman is going to be killed violently in a game, her butt must be flat or covered by a baggy coat.
There is also the Ms. Male trope. Female enemies can’t just be male versions of generic bad guys. They have to be self-realized individuals with feminine, but not sexual, characteristics.
But when designing those feminine characteristics, the walk can’t be too feminine. Anita hates that. If the hips sway too much, accentuating the butt, it is very problematic.
So all developers need to do is make female enemies, with baggy clothing, that are not just female versions of male characters, but have feminine characteristics — but not too feminine to be sexualized and no nice butts! Pretty simple right?
Why a developer would decide to walk this politically correct tightrope could only be explained by their own masochism. By narrowing the parameters of what counts as a feminist portrayal of women in video games, Anita just makes it more difficult for developers to represent women. Instead of simply getting an artist to quickly design a female baddy and insert her into the game, they have to have a week of consultations with gender studies experts in order to mitigate risk of offending someone.
And Anita doesn’t even like violent video games. Maybe the only female video game enemy we need is Anita.
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