My Opinion of the Little Ladies Day Event

[Usho]

The idols bore me, I'd much rather drool over Men.

Get us a Highlander an Aura and a Roe male and have them beat each other up or something while wearing swimsuits.

*High Fives Pomelo*

[FallenArisen0990]

The idols bore me, I'd much rather drool over Men.

Get us a Highlander an Aura and a Roe male and have them beat each other up or something while wearing swimsuits.

Yeeeeeeeah, I rather go kawaii for the Idols singing to bring happiness to Eorzea then to see 3 men fighting for who's dong is bigger. D:

[MoroMurasaki]

I'm going to preface this post with a statement because I know the easiest argument to it is going to be calling me some sort of sexist homophobic transphobe. I am not. I do not care about anyone's sexuality or genitals unless I want to date them and I've been happily off the market for a while now. I've got a lot of friends who fall under the LGBT umbrella and I would never want them to be censored from being who they are even if it makes some bigoted people uncomfortable.

That aside I have a premise for you to consider...

I am a girl. I wear a bunch of my boyfriend's clothes to the mall. They are all things he's bought specifically in the mens sections of stores. Lets say some jeans, work boots a tee shirt and a flannel. Other than them fitting me very poorly and being much too large no one would look twice at me.

Now it's the boyfriend's turn. He can magically fit into my sizes here. He throws on heels, a dress and a face of makeup and also goes to the mall.

Which of us is going to have people staring at us, talking about us, potentially even harrassing us? All him. I bought the clothes he's wearing in the women's sections of stores, he bought his from the men's and yet as a woman I can wear his and it's socially acceptable but if he wears mine it's a big deal.

Feminity has an exclusivity to it in today's world that masculinity has more or less lost entirely at this point. There are a number of factors in play making that happen but they're irrelevant to the question at hand.

What would a "male event" even consist of?

There is virtually nothing in the world of clothing that men have which women don't, the only one I can even think of is socially acceptable toplessness which is already in the game in spades. Any sort of traditionally masculine activity like a sporting event or even combat it's self would undoubtably draw criticism if it didn't include a female participant because we as a society care if women are excluded from literally anything ever without extending the same courtesy to men.

I am not saying I want outfits genderlocked (I don't care) and I'm not saying I'm opposed to the very concept of a male answer to the LLD event but I am saying that I think both of those things have real links to the real world and in the case of the event some real issues that would need to be sorted out in regards to sexism against women (aka the kind that gets you in PR trouble) before they make it into the game.

I know this is wordy, I'm sorry, but I think this thread is trying to drastically oversimplify a really complex set of issues that the devs would have to handle. I think this is why we don't have the ledgendary male bunny suit - it's already not in the game and people are playing, if we put it in the game and people are offended how many subs are we losing? Who knows.

It seems like in respect to the gender locks on clothing SE is erring on the side of "it ain't broke don't fix it". On the subject of a man-centric holiday I would love to see some real premises for what that event would consist of and how you would justify to offended female players why women were not included. No more throwaway answers of "buff guys wrestling in underwear" I want something that SE could conceivably shape a 2-week event around.

If you're unable to answer these then maybe stop complaining that SE hasn't done it either.

[ToasterMan]

Which of us is going to have people staring at us, talking about us, potentially even harrassing us? All him. I bought the clothes he's wearing in the women's sections of stores, he bought his from the men's and yet as a woman I can wear his and it's socially acceptable but if he wears mine it's a big deal.

Lots of accounts I've heard from transgender men and non conforming women would say otherwise. I'm not saying what you said isn't true, it certianlly is, but it's not as black and white as you think.

[Nixxa]

What would a "male event" even consist of?

Pockets, pockets everywhere. We'll call it pocket day and the outfits will have lots and lots of fully functional pockets.

[Dualblade]

Pockets, pockets everywhere. We'll call it pocket day and the outfits will have lots and lots of fully functional pockets.

Just don't let Nomura hear about it or we'll have to deal with it for the next 10 years.

[Hestzhyen]

Snip.

If you have to qualify an opinion statement with "I'm not transphobic/racist/etc., I even have friends who are trans/different ethnicities/etc., then you are probably going to stick your foot in your mouth in a spectacular way. Which is exactly what you did.

Look, this is a really minor event in a video game and OP clearly started the thread for lulz. We don't have to get super serious about this. But not wanting to include simple events to celebrate men because it might offend people is patently silly. If no one gets upset over the objectified and almost offensively pure idol girls that are featured in Lady's Day events I'm pretty sure no one would be offended if there was some male equivalent (seriously, I felt like I was playing a dating sim, and I'm 99% sure that's what SE intended). Instead of saying "you could offend someone by including it" (there will ALWAYS be someone there to take offense), think about it as "Despite the varied demographics that play this game, SE is still targeting the young heterosexual male first and foremost." Because that's what's going on with the gear situation and some events (Little Ladies Day and recently Moonfire Faire).

Clearly some people are offended that there isn't a male equivalent of Little Lady's Day, and I'm kind of sympathetic even though I don't think we need an event for guys. If SE gave people who played male characters equal treatment in the gear/appearance space, this subject probably would have been laughed off the Recent Posts page like it deserved within a few hours. As it is, SE has done damage to part of its player base so you get people taking obvious bait posts seriously.

[Hestzhyen]

Just don't let Nomura hear about it or we'll have to deal with it for the next 10 years.

And zippers. It'll be a renaissance of the early 00's for JRPG protagonist designs!

[Rokke]

On the subject of a man-centric holiday I would love to see some real premises for what that event would consist of and how you would justify to offended female players why women were not included. No more throwaway answers of "buff guys wrestling in underwear" I want something that SE could conceivably shape a 2-week event around.

If you're unable to answer these then maybe stop complaining that SE hasn't done it either.

You immediately jump to the idea that a boys event would be NO GIRLS ALLOWED..but why couldn't a male event work like the LLD? The LLD event, while centered around girls, is available for all race/gender options to participate in.

IDEAS:
A: male idols exist too (and if my twitter feed is anything to go by, they are very popular lol), just throw them on a stage
B: make an XIV version of XI's boys day (Feast of Swords). Ezpz.
C: Do the silly dating event that was an april fools dev journal post. Do you know how excited everyone was at the idea to confess to Aymeric? ;P

Our last moonfaire had us peeping on girls in bikinis. That seemed to fly by without any bad PR/ladies howling in the forums about being offended. I think we could survive an event starring male NPCs. PS. Im also a girl.

[MoroMurasaki]

Pockets, pockets everywhere. We'll call it pocket day and the outfits will have lots and lots of fully functional pockets.

This is why I steal the SO's sweatpants >.>

Lots of accounts I've heard from transgender men and non conforming women would say otherwise. I'm not saying what you said isn't true, it certianlly is, but it's not as black and white as you think.

If you're ready to dismiss someone else's anecdotal evidence as antecdotal you may want to then avoid offering up your own antecdotes as a counterpoint. I appreciate that you're trying to bring the other side of this coin into the dialog but at the same time even if it isn't black and white it is at best extremely dark grey and extremely light grey to the point that it may as well be black and white. There are parts of the US where a guy wearing a dress would be in real danger for nothing else than wearing a dress, that's not something I have to deal with in the first world as a woman in anything close to the same way.

Again I am not saying I like that this double standard exists but I am saying to ignore the way it could be influencing things in something as attached to pop culture as a video game would be silly.

snip

So in conclusion don't take a thread seriously even though there has been discussion in it and OP has not admitted to trolling and despite the fact that tone is irrelevant on the internet so even if some of the posts (OP or otherwise) were joking there is virtually no way to know that?

Oh, don't let me forget how you're disregarding the preface of my post and actually trying to use the fact that I took time to explain my sensitivity to people with other genders and sexualities against me to make it seem like I don't care about those issues. That was pretty good too.

It may be a "really minor" thing to you but the treatment of male characters in comparison to female characters has been a hot button issue lately whether you like it or not and offering some actual ideas as to why some of these issues persist instead of laughing it off because it doesn't effect me personally seemed like a better use of my time.

By all means continue acting like a child because adults are talking though, I enjoy laughing as much as the next person