Gender-locking isn't sexist

[Souljacker]

Where to start...the WoL/D is YOUR character. The dude in the trailers is a placeholder for your character. They only had 2 choices for said placeholder, so if you're offended they went with "male," I don't know what to tell you.

That said, are we going to forget the fact that all 3 heads of state of the big 3 city-states are female, the leader of the scions is female for a majority of the story, and Hydaelyn, the embodiment of the Light, is identified as female? I guess we should also forget there is a storyline where you help overthrow a jerk arrogant dude and place a humble, wise woman in his place. His main rival and leader of the other clan was also female. To boot, said jerk hits on a main female protagonist and is rejected in a most humiliating and hilarious fashion.

Respectfully, I think some people are combing through the game in search of offense. Confirmation bias is real.

Or maybe they see it because it's been their experience? You're male, and so you don't see it. Instead you see three city-states with female leadership. I see the Admiral who is in her position because the male (did you not even pay attention to her story?) doesn't want the job. I see the sultaness who can't function without Raubahn, to the point of running into his arms like a gushing child, and gosh I hope they don't stuff the rest of her story up. More likely, we won't really hear from Ul'dah anymore. That's two out of three pretty obvious "female but not really" stories.

The warrior of light is technically 'our' character, but there was nothing stopping SE from showing the WoL as something different than a human, white, stereotypical male every xpac. The Warrior of Light could have actually been one of the different races for each cover which would have signaled to the world that the warrior of light actually CAN be anyone, but it isn't, and that's a real disappointment. It means their 'idea' of the warrior of light is exactly what everyone thinks it is - a straight, cis, white, male.

So about the storyline you are referencing over in SB - yes that character is currently female, but if you listened to her story, her personality is explained away not as her just being a strong woman, it's because she was previously male. She’s actually quite firm about who she was and how her personality stems from that. It’s another example of strong female characters not really being on their own as strong female characters.

And finally, the jerk arrogant dude was overthrown temporarily as the leader of the clans, and we only helped because we were backing someone that would take our side in the end, right? That’s what we wanted, someone to take our side and that NPC happened to be it. You could actually argue that we went after the ‘weakest’ member to put on the throne because we needed their support and neither of the other two ‘stronger’ leaders were going to come support our war.

And Hydaelyn... is a crystal. That shouldn't even have to be addressed but if your argument against sexist undertones in the game is the presence of a crystal with a female voice actress... maybe take another look?

I agree that confirmation bias can be real, but I challenge you to really look deeper at the story than it sounds like you have.

So far, the only character I have come across in this entire game that I can 100% say is a strong female character without having any obvious underlying male storyline is Shantotto. And for that, I’ll be forever a Black Mage.

[Stanelis]

Bulky men beasts on one side, petite women designed as male fantasy on the other

But, nope, it isn't sexist. And then people wonder about why gender inequalities persist.

Regressive in what way? We got two new races. We're progressing in variance. This is more variance than one race with two genders would be.

At least with 2 genders for one race, there'd be some sort of choice and equality between genders.

[Physic]

Bulky men beasts on one side, petite women designed as male fantasy on the other

But, nope, it isn't sexist. And then people wonder about why gender inequalities persist.



At least with 2 genders for one race, there'd be some sort of choice and equality between genders.

how is bulky men beasts sexist, explain it to me. This really annoys me, because bulky males are not a common male fantasy in the world, they are not commonly an idealized male, and they are not extremely popular or over represented in this game.

Just feels like a lot of people hate large males existence.

we got one large male in this game before now. Rodegayn, thats it. They are often mocked, not extremely popular, bringing them up as some type of over represented commercial appeal class is complete nonsense.

the prettified slim-average low fat build male is our society's current idealized male fantasy.

[Souljacker]

how is bulky men beasts sexist, explain it to me. This really annoys me, because bulky males are not a common male fantasy in the world, they are not commonly an idealized male, and they are not extremely popular or over represented in this game.

Just feels like a lot of people hate large males existence.

we got one large male in this game before now. Rodegayn, thats it. They are often mocked, not extremely popular, bringing them up as some type of over represented commercial appeal class is complete nonsense.

the prettified slim-average low fat build male is our society's current idealized male fantasy.

Hyper-masculine is the word you're looking for here. The idea that if a race is male-only, they will always be hyper-masculine beings. That's how Galka are. That's how Roes were before my kind was reconned in (the size disparity between male and female roe is still a little awkward). And that's how Hrothgar are shaping up to be.

It doesn't even make any sense, because there would be no reason for males to grow to these extraordinary sizes considering they wouldn't be fighting one another for females. The question is, who is this for? Why is this important? Do we need this? What does this add to the game?

If they had introduced a male only race with a strong backstory that followed some interesting evolutionary development paths, I'd be on board. That's a great opportunity to explore just how a race of beings who were mono-gendered (and that gender being specifically 'male') might evolve.

This just looks like another excuse to introduce hyper-sexualized females and hyper-masculine males without really thinking about what it means to add these races to the world.

[J-Reyno]

if you believe in diversity, choice, and avoiding stereotypes, in this case its male and female hrothgar.

If you see other posts I've made even in this same thread, I've already given my opinion that they should have given us one race with both genders whether that be male/female Viera or male/female Hrothgar.

Let's be clear that both races could have avoided stereotypes, however. Females for Hrothgar and males for Viera, so it's not just one choice of race that is non-stereotypical.

They chose a third option which reinforces them the most.

As i said before, you are mixing worlds, you are conflating your contempoary american culture focused world with ffxiv/world and culture.

large superbig and powerful males are not common male fantasy, even in america, it was essentially only a thing in the late 80-90s

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-...huge-muscles-8

so, your whole concept of hyper masculine ideals dominating the culture is not current, mostly just american, and clearly not a thing in FF. the reality is that the idealized human form is always changing. The game is literally just trying to give options.

Nope. Still a thing today, and is definitely not just an American thing. It's one of the reasons I don't play certain other popular MMOs. It's something I frequently participate in discussions about and I am more than ready to hand you examples of current, popular video games that conform to the same stereotypical nonsense both in terms of race/gender and class/gender locks. So I want you to take a second to think and evaluate this position again, maybe have a look around at other games.

After doing that, you're really going to say that in 2019 there are not many games which largely adhere to these stereotypes? If so, confirm with me that you can't find any examples and I'll help you out.

if you really want to represent against idealized norms, you should be campaining for charachters with body fat, there is virtually no even slightly fat charachters in ffxiv.

but i think your prefered goal is a prettier cuter male population.

Who says I don't want more body options? Do you think any and every opinion that I have is going to be readily available and visible to you in every post that I make? I'm more than glad for body representation. But this is a discussion specifically about gender parity for the options we have been given.

I see you making an assumption about my intentions to weaken the perception of my argument. If we'd only gotten male Viera and female Hrothgar you better believe I'd be here voicing these same opinions.

[Physic]

Hyper-masculine is the word you're looking for here. The idea that if a race is male-only, they will always be hyper-masculine beings. That's how Galka are. That's how Roes were before my kind was reconned in (the size disparity between male and female roe is still a little awkward). And that's how Hrothgar are shaping up to be.

It doesn't even make any sense, because there would be no reason for males to grow to these extraordinary sizes considering they wouldn't be fighting one another for females. The question is, who is this for? Why is this important? Do we need this? What does this add to the game?

If they had introduced a male only race with a strong backstory that followed some interesting evolutionary development paths, I'd be on board. That's a great opportunity to explore just how a race of beings who were mono-gendered (and that gender being specifically 'male') might evolve.

This just looks like another excuse to introduce hyper-sexualized females and hyper-masculine males without really thinking about what it means to add these races to the world.

the race isnt male only, they cut the females because vierra makes money. The females exist, we just dont get to play them because Fans wanted vierra more. Also "hyper masculine" is a human way of looking at things. evolutionarily, large creatures exist because they have an advantage being large. They dont need to be male or female. We got large elephants, lions, rhinos, whales etc.

also, do you think "hyper masculine" males should not exist? because this isnt the only races in the game, they are introduced in the context of a bunch of races, and large stocky males were under represented, bestial races were under represented. Yes they went out of thier way to add another large male, and their first bestial race, because they were under represented, and give more options to players.

you can get mad at vierra, but to be honest they basically released vierra to make up for hrothgar, which will probavly not be that popular.

[Souljacker]

the race isnt male only, they cut the females because vierra makes money. The females exist, we just dont get to play them because Fans wanted vierra more. Also "hyper masculine" is a human way of looking at things. evolutionarily, large creatures exist because they have an advantage being large. They dont need to be male or female. We got large elephants, lions, rhinos, whales etc.

Large creatures don't exist because being large is some advantage. Humans, relatively speaking, aren't large and we rule the entire planet.

Males grow larger than females because they fight one another for mates. That's why I said it would be extremely interesting to explore a race that didn't have that sort of dynamic - because they don't have females. How cool would it be to have a race where there's no competition for mates, their reproduction is some... whatever magical excuse they come up with (reincarnation ala Galka)... and they can concentrate on really building a rich lore based on male camaraderie and friendship? I don't see that it's ever really been done.

If it is true that Hrothgar females exist but aren't playable because they aren't allowed to leave caves... Well that's pretty sexist. So is the idea that male Viera are similarly oppressed.

All of it could have been avoided by actually thinking about how this would be received by fans and thinking about how to add a race to the game that was meaningful. Adding Viera might have been a response to fan requests, but that doesn't mean they get a free pass on actually bringing the new race into the game in a meaningful way and without alienating players. Tacking on hyper-masculine cat men seems... lazy at best.

[Canadane]

If it is true that Hrothgar females exist but aren't playable because they aren't allowed to leave caves... Well that's pretty sexist.

Did we actually get lore on Hrothgar somewhere yet?

[ScarboroughFairy]

Did we actually get lore on Hrothgar somewhere yet?

Pretty sure they're just making shit up so they can be outraged.

[Alucard135]

Pretty sure they're just making shit up so they can be outraged.

Pretty much. No one bats an eye when some beast tribes or Lupin don't have the opposite genders. But if it's something in character creation then it's sexist!