Gender-locking isn't sexist

[Souljacker]

And still, SE isn't sexist, because fictional stories have nothing to do with reality.

Okay, but the reality is that this is a game that has a (presumably) cis, straight white male as the lead character (Warrior of light). The majority of guild leadership is male, and even when it isn't, the storyline usually involves the male who is supposed to be in charge but isn't for whatever reason. The reality is that the city-states have female figureheads with either a male who is working behind the scenes and is in hiding or one that actually runs the military and therefore wields the power. The reality is that there's an entire faction in the game that you are required to play through a storyline for that makes absolutely no secret of its sexism. The reality is that even the race that is supposed to be matriarchal has a storyline where you help the male become the patriarch of the clan, because the males still lead the clans apparently. The reality is that we're talking about a dev team that we had to literally take to task over genderlocking outfits, and we're still having this fight because they don't think that males should have certain outfits. If that's not sexist, I don't know what is.

And then they release hyper-sexualized female viera and hyper-masculine Hrothgar.

We're talking about a game that has a whole lot of sexism and enforced gender-roles in general that is maybe completely invisible to some of you. To the rest of us, this is just one more thing. I think it's completely fair to suggest the devs take a long look in the mirror and a long look at the overarching themes of their product.

As an aside, look at the art up at the top of this page for another example that might be completely invisible. How many male characters do you see there? What are their jobs? How many females? What job does she have?

This problem is bigger than just this one thing.

[craybest]

Not quite.
Stereotypes based on gender are just stereotypes based on gender.
Sexism is discrimination based on gender stereotypes. Giving one gender an advantage over the other, or prohibiting one gender form doing something the other gender can.

sexism
/ˈsɛksɪz(ə)m/Enviar
noun
prejudice, stereotyping, OR discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.
"sexism in language is an offensive reminder of the way the culture sees women"

[J-Reyno]

Yet, Yoshi P stated in Mr. Happy's interview "We did consider male Viera instead of adding and extra race, but we tried to take player feedback on adding a more beast like race". So there is a demand.

A lesser demand, and there is always going to be a demand for a lot of things. We can't have everything, but no matter what we get there should always be gender parity.

So do you also consider nature sexist? Because let's take for example height. The average male height is higher than the female average height. The same thing can also be seen in the average muscle mass in both genders.

There's nothing wrong with a reasonable deviation that reflects the difference in male and female form. The keyword there is reasonable. In the USA the average height for females is around 5'4". For males, its around 5'9". That's a whopping difference of 5 inches, not even half a foot. And if you're wondering the average height for men in Japan is 5'7", while for women it is 5'2". Again, a difference of 5 inches.

Some quick google searching also tells us that the average weight for men in the USA is around 195 lbs. Average weight for women in the USA is 168 lbs. For Japan the men average 146 lbs while women average 114 lbs. This is around a 30 lb difference for both regions, which is nowhere near as exaggerated as male and female Au Ra. And don't even think about pretending like the difference between female Viera and male Hrothgar is a meager 30 lbs. There is no place in the world where the men are gigantic, hulked out beasts like Hrothgar while women are are much more slender and lithe like Viera.

Yet they assume what players want is gigantic, bestial men and slender, elegant women. These extremely exaggerated, stereotypical presentations of men and women stem from societal sexism and, big surprise, people are tired of it.

[SonjaRampage]

People are reading waaaaay too much into this. Fictional characters of a fictional race in a fictional universe. Seriously pull yourselves together because it just seems ridiculous. They may even patch it in later since it seems pretty clear there were time constraints, and perhaps other details as well that we aren't aware of.

[craybest]

People are reading waaaaay too much into this. Fictional characters of a fictional race in a fictional universe. Seriously pull yourselves together because it just seems ridiculous. They may even patch it in later since it seems pretty clear there were time constraints, and perhaps other details as well that we aren't aware of.

fictional world and any form of entertainment ALWAYS reflect the real world, it's always been like that. the works of a creator always reflects his views on the world. Do you think tomorrow i could make a series about a nazi "saving" germany from the evil jews and no one would complain because it's just "fiction"? NO. of course people would get in arms for it and for good reason.
To pretend that fiction is somewhat "free" of any judgement because it's not real is wrong.

[Anvaire]

Personally the issue isn't that its Sexist. But rather that gender locking the Viera and the Hrothgar after making the design choices that they have, gives rise to a negative impression.

1 - Viera - they have been reduced to mere sex icons. This would be easily avoidable if the base Armour was something different - I get that the outfit was Fran's, but they could easily have added that as a separate piece or showcased the Viera in something that didn't make them look like sex idols.

2- Hrothgar falls into the trope of big muscle meat head. The animations, the design are such that it evokes the idea of a big meat head jock with low intellect. A far cry from the values evoked by Khimari and the Rhonso. They are goofballs, and the showcase does little to help due to the poor lighting used. We also know nothing of their lore, which further exasperates the issue.

3- On their own, as a singular race designs, they are actually not an issue. Had we had both gendered Viera alone or both Hrothgar alone the sexist overtones would probably not be as profound, though Viera would still be an issue to some degree as it is another "waifu" trope. However, juxtaposition against each other as they are they easily evoke clear stereotypical tropes, i.e women are sex objects and must only be beautiful and men are hulking muscular meatheads of little intelligence. Intended or no, this is the impression these races give in their combined design choices. And this is partially why so many people have such an issue. I think, a lot of the outcry isnt so much that bunny boys were not added, but rather than in a game that has often shown itself to exhibit values we as players can agree are modern and right, we are suddenly faced with a representation that is contrary to those very values and in turn, this is the source of peoples discomfort... Ergo... the Gender-locking is wrong, because the design makes it inherently sexist.

I am not suggesting this is intentional by the devs, and probably is a result in part of the need to be true to the FF12 Viera Design. The issue, is in some choices that take the mystery and the savage matriarchal independence of the Viera and boils it down to appearing as a sex idol. Similarly the Rhonso of X were warriors, noble, toned and lithe and while we cannot give credence to their intelligence due to their role and Khimari's reticence in X's Story, we can draw that they were proud and elegant. The Hrothgar do not elicit these values with their goofball style animations, which i think were possibly intended to play to the bestial nature of the Hrothgar, but instead comes across as comedic. (This is also my criticism of a lot of the racial tropes in XIV)

To me this is what has caused the uproar, and while i do not think it was intended, it is something the devs should learn from and the source of the "Sexist/ homophobic" remarks that have been bantered around recently.

[Greven]

A thread made by players that have what they want to try kill even the request from players that don't have what they want in order to keep them unhappy. I don't think I ever seen anything more mean in this forum ever.

[craybest]

some people really lack empathy. and think that because something isn't important to them, it shouldn't be important to anyone else.

[Anvaire]

A thread made by players that have what they want to try kill even the request from players that don't have what they want in order to keep them unhappy. I don't think I ever seen anything more mean in this forum ever.

I actually DO want Male Viera and Female Hrothgar, i think its only right that these are added. But i also feel it is unfair to blindly accuse the devs of Sexism and so i shared my thoughts on that aspect of the situation.

[Atreyu]

It's not sexist, but it is regressive and feels cheap.