Final Fantasy Sexism Part V: Women in Charge

[Raistlin]

Daniel, you're so oblivious. xD I never take you seriously as a rule, but it's getting even tougher to fake it here. "It could be argued" that Vanille's access to higher-level healing magic doesn't mean she's the best healer? Your after-the-fact, purely hypothetical rationalizations notwithstanding, I don't think there's room for debate that Vanille was a primary healer.

But to say that "oh, look, a female is the best healer, HO HO HO SEXISM SQUARE ENIX" is wrong...

How did you manage to say that right after you quoted me saying it's all about context? Unless you're not even claiming that I'm arguing that, but making a general point but trying to make it sound like I said that because you're a buttface. If it wasn't for FF's history of relegating women to healing roles, if it wasn't for FF's history of self-parodying over reliance on the Yuffie/Selphie/Rikkue "genki girl" mold, then Vanille wouldn't even be worth mentioning in a discussion on sexist portrayals of women. But given that context, those things about Vanille are worth pointing out.

In fact, the more I look at the sexism article you've presented, the more I'll happily point out that your entire article focuses on sexism towards females when every argument about a female being a resident healer in this game could just as easily be made about a male being a resident black mage. Snow is a walking stereotype, too, surely?

There are absolutely sexist portrayals of men. This series, as I stated in the beginning and have continually reiterated, was simply focused on female playable characters to demonstrate certain types of sexism. I have not even tried to argue that this series covers every sexism issue in the entire series, because it doesn't. There are a number of reasons for my narrow focus, one of which was simply length. These articles are very long and still less-than-ideally thorough even with my narrow focus. But women are also more negatively impacted by cultural sexism, and the standard RPG audience in the West (young, generally white males) still generally dismisses the issue -- as you, to be quite honest, have amply demonstrated.

[Aulayna]

But during the early game you have fixed parties and therefore the healers need to be balanced in order for them to both be effective in their respective parties.

This is a very valid point though. During the initial 20-25 hours of the game you are locked into fixed parties so the second party was obviously going to need someone initially put into the Healer role. I can't remember if this is accurate or not but I believe the only male member of the 2nd party is Sazh who you've already used before Fang and Vanille come into the picture so it wouldn't really be possible for him to subsequently get put into the Healer role and for all the players progress involving that character to be lost. Then the other thing to consider would be that if they made Vanille male which would change the Vanille/Fang dynamic considerably would that become less - or even more sexist?

In the light of context I'd say this was a game balance decision and not something inherently and deliberately sexist even if you could argue the opposite. But the fact that she can then go on to be the undisputed best Saboteur in the game kind is an immediate dispute to that. Within the contexts of your series if it was inherently sexist she surely wouldn't have any strong progression outside of the healer role, no?

[Formalhaut]

To be honest, aren't we being incredibly anal by dissecting the in-game statistics and abilities down to the finest details?

[Loony BoB]

To be honest, aren't we being incredibly anal by dissecting the in-game statistics and abilities down to the finest details?

Yeah, but the general point behind it is that saying Vanille is the best healer in the game and that such a 'fact' is sexist is misleading when she is not the best healer at endgame, is arguably forced into the healing role in the early game, inevitably has about the same overall healing 'power' as Hope when they are both in your party despite the better spells and so on... it's just misleading to point it out when there is a guy in the same boat. It's like... okay, say you have an office that has in the past traditionally been sexist and, for twenty years, always hired women in sales and never men. A few years pass and you return to that office, and there is a woman and a man in the sales department. Do you complain that it's sexist that the woman is in the sales department, and do you say "Oh, she's clearly the main sales person" when the guy outperforms her on various aspects of sales? No, you don't. You applaud the company for finally getting a guy into sales.

But women are also more negatively impacted by cultural sexism, and the standard RPG audience in the West (young, generally white males) still generally dismisses the issue -- as you, to be quite honest, have amply demonstrated.

:rolleyes2: See above and tell me what you think of the sales department analogy.

As for the male aspect, I think having five articles on women and zero on men would be a shame. People are much, much faster to dismiss male stereotypes than they are female stereotypes, so I'd be interested if you did a single article on the male side of things, just to see how it all fits in. While females do undoubtedly get more sexism targeted at them, I think we shouldn't dismiss a lesser crime as unimportant because of the bigger one.

[Jaffer]

I'm gonna have to disagree about Ashe's skirt. It's a lot worse then Tifa's.

Going more into it, throwing all the blame for troubles on Vossler is not remotely accurate. She is introduced as some in need of rescuing, due to her own plans going awfray, she is then captured strictly due to the competent of her male opponents. She refers to Vaan a 17 year old as a child when she is 19 more then once which does not help make her come over as mature. While she is captured along with Balthier, Vaan and Fran, it is Vaan and Balthier group that is allowed to take the initiative to escape. and do the rescuing.

While she is given good reasons for doing so, she is the last person to trust Basch.

And lastly, it's Ashe who the Occuria are able to emotionally manipulate using the image of her husband. Their attempts to so with Vaan were by comparison a quickly abandoned failure.

[Loony BoB]

Jaffer! And yeah, I think it's worse than Tifa's too when it comes to how gratuitious it is. Not that I'm complaining, because I do love a nice miniskirt, but... yeah. If it were my daughter wearing a skirt like that I'd be all kinds of livid.

[NeoCracker]

Raistlin here clearly lacks an understanding of fan service.

[black orb]

>>> Lol, I have always loved Lightning but for the wrong reasons (SPOILER)(dominatrix sexual fetish).. I guess this make me a sexist pig anyways.. :laughing:

[Jinx]

Raistlin here clearly lacks an understanding of fan service.

I actually thinks he understand it. Fan service may be a thing, but that doesn't mean it's not sexist and/or objectifying.

[NeoCracker]

Raistlin here clearly lacks an understanding of fan service.

I actually thinks he understand it. Fan service may be a thing, but that doesn't mean it's not sexist and/or objectifying.

I was referencing the Idea that Ashe's outfit is somehow less blatant then Tifa's.

[Night Fury]

To be honest, aren't we being incredibly anal by dissecting the in-game statistics and abilities down to the finest details?

hehehe. Anal.

[Forsaken Lover]

Raistlin, have you played Xenogears? I was curious for your views on its main female lead, Elly. She is quite divisive among fans it seems with some finding her a disgusting female stereotype.