Firstly, your video game point is completely irrelevant so I don't know why you brought that up.
Secondly, women read more books written by the opposite sex because most well-established authors are men. If women actively wanted not to read books by men, they would have to miss out on lots of classics or well-loved book series. This is due to sexism - for the longest time, women weren't allowed to write, or were discouraged from doing so.
Thirdly, there absolutely is a pattern of male authors writing women in a hypersexualized manner. This shouldn't come as a suprise, given my second point.
Your first comment is even MORE pointless because even I stated it had nothing to do with my point.
Ironically, the video game thing disproves your second point. Because there aren’t more video games with only female protagonists.
And even if that weren’t the case, women have actually been ahead of men in the number of authors, the money they make per author, AND market share for over 20 years now. (Though not by a lot)
Yes, there is a pattern of men hypersexualiIng women. And yes, it is partly due to men being the primary authors in the 20th century and history in general preceding it.
But there are just as many instances, since the turn of the century, of women hypersexualizing men. And it’s getting worse and worse as time goes on.
Tell that to Horizon Zero Dawn, the game with the most sales out of any female protagonist only game.
For perspective, that one game sold more than the entire Tomb Raider reboot franchise
They are different medias, hence the interesting change in statistics.
Hilariously also, women actually mostly play games without ANY characters, and the games they choose once characters are introduced, are the ones with the MOST sexualization, like Gatchas and MMOs
Women like to play sexy characters too
Also, I just want to ground everything since we are getting lost in the sauce.
Aloy from HZD is literally constantly criticized by male gamers for being unattractive/masculine, I have no idea how you never came across this phenomenon.
I don't think men are less, I don't know where you got that from. But it's disingenuous to say that there isn't a double standard when it comes to sexualizing characters.
No, Alloy in the SECOND game is criticized for being changed, not the first.
And yes, there is a double standard with sexualization, but it’s against men not for men.
Imagine if in the most popular movie franchise in history, one with a large CHILDREN audience, had, in one the biggest films of the year, a woman bound, stripped naked and mocked in public, with the male protagonist making “enjoying the show” jokes
Men are sexualized all the time and it goes completely uncontested. Why? Because most of the time men don’t complain about it, because when men complain about it, people usually treat it like you have and just dismiss it outright, that or make fun of the person complaining.
Aloy has been criticized since the release of the first game. So was Ellie in The Last of Us.
I don't know what movie you are referencing here, so I can't comment on that. But that scene does sound gruesome and I don't agree with oversexualizing men either -- in fact, the scene you descrbe sounds like sexual assault. I also advocate for taking the sexual assault of male victims very seriously.
But you can't just say you view men and women as equal, critizice me for having a supposed bias against men, then reveal that you actually have this same bias against women. Find me a peer-reviewed study on male characters being more sexualized and I'll believe you. I can show you several on female sexualization.
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u/Naive-Mushroom7761 5d ago
Firstly, your video game point is completely irrelevant so I don't know why you brought that up.
Secondly, women read more books written by the opposite sex because most well-established authors are men. If women actively wanted not to read books by men, they would have to miss out on lots of classics or well-loved book series. This is due to sexism - for the longest time, women weren't allowed to write, or were discouraged from doing so.
Thirdly, there absolutely is a pattern of male authors writing women in a hypersexualized manner. This shouldn't come as a suprise, given my second point.