[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Hahma

I'm a 52 year old white heterosexual man. I am the devil according to some groups and some media. It's all my fault folks. Sorry for everything I have done, am doing, and will do.

Yeah, please don't do this. I'm not the stereotyped mostly imaginary 'evil Liberal' who's offended by everything and think straight white men are somehow evil. I know there are people like that, but they are in a minority among the more Liberally minded and are, unfortunately, just some of the loudest and make effective targets to convince people on the fence to rally against the entire principle. I don't think it's your fault. My issue is with the culture, not an individual person who just happens to belong to the dominant group. People from any given group are just as capable of being awesome or being asshats. I am white, and I don't feel some deep racial shame over what white people have done because, quite frankly, horrible as it is, it isn't my individual fault. I just try to be aware of those social issues.
The fact is, the culture has been, pretty much, developed _by_ straight white Christian guys for straight white Christian guys and, while I won't say that such people necessarily 'have it better' (as a conglomerate they do, but, again, considering the individual above the conglomerate that's not necessarily a fair statement - I see plenty of white homeless guys in Ludlow and Shrewsbury, no way I'd be inconsiderate or stupid enough to say they have it better than me, to take an extreme example), there certainly are a number of issues which people belonging to one or more of those dominant groups don't have to put up with and, therefore, might not fully appreciate. A number of people refer to it as white/male/straight etc. 'priviledge', and while that's the accepted term these days, I honestly hate that term - I think it conveys the wrong impression, as though such 'priviledges' are priviledges, and something you haven't earned or don't deserve. In reality, they aren't, IMO - it's just being treated with respect, as a human being, and being considered 'normal'. It isn't that straight white people don't deserve to be treated in this way - it's that everyone else does, and isn't, which is the actual tragedy. No one - unless they're an absolute bastard - is actually saying that you don't deserve to be treated this way.
I live in a small border town and dress distinctively but in no way revealingly. Regardless, I have been wolf-whistled or mildly harassed on numerous occasions, which always left me feeling exceptionally uncomfortable. What it would be like in a city, I can only imagine. Now, I'm not going to say that comics _cause_ this, but let'e be real - the art is marketed in such a way, much of the time, as to portray women not as real women but as sex objects to be ogled. It is a cultural issue, and it is damaging. Maybe a lot of women do like to wear revealing clothing, but I'm not talking about that - I'm talking about a cultural shorthand which often conveys, intentionally or otherwise, that women exist to please men.

As I said in Domino's thread:

Originally Posted by Lazy Orang

No, it's not a case of taking that right from them - actual women, and, of course, female characters, have a right to dress how they wish (as long as, in the case of female characters, it's portrayed well and respectfully) - but I still think that, given the amount of alienation, objectification and outright disrespect women receive in general, particularly in these sorts of circles but basically everywhere, that those sorts of objectifying images don't help. And I do feel like there's a difference between a female character being depicted as choosing to dress provacatively in a situation that makes sense and someone being given a random cleavage slit to sell sex and provide fanservice - the latter feels like it takes the character's agency away from them and reduces her to something for teenage boys to ogle. We can and should, as a society and, in microcosm, as a custom project, try to do better.
Please bear in mind that a lot of you probably don't know what it feels like to be marginalised and alienated like this. I bloody well do, for more reasons than one. It feels really crappy.

Originally Posted by Lazy Orang

Honestly, it's a similar thing I'm talking about here that it was with the Batwoman bio, in principal if not in execution. As a gay woman, I know what it feels like to be marginalised, alienated, ridiculed, misrepresented, objectified, in a culural sense even if not in person (and it has happened before in person, though fortunately not by people I actually know...). It feels like crap, quite frankly, and knowing what I do about how the comic industry does use objectification, this felt like an example of it to me, and made me feel uncomfortable. As I said, this objectification is the main reason I'm so hesitant to get into comics now (I've been considering it for a while, but this is one of the things that's always made me go 'nah' or 'I'll think about it - maybe another time). I don't know for certain if it's a problem here for this image and this character, but I think it's something we should bear in mind so that the female characters in this game aren't treated like sex objects and any women who want to give C3G a go (yes, both of them! ) don't feel marginalised or objectified. It's a problem media as a whole and the comic industry in particular has that really feels pretty crappy to the people it affects, and does turn people off, myself included. As Tornado said, there's no reason to be part of the problem.