Most of the characters are straight. The main characters of BL3 are all straight. We have a robot that you can call non-binary, but I think this is more because a joke with him being a robot (there’s no way he is non-binary! he is a robot, is created with 0s and 1s!). We dont have a really feminine woman this time, but it is part of the story, we have a military woman and another siren that reminds me an Amazon in her actitude. It’s allright, we already had previous games with more feminine woman, just not this time. In BL2 we had a gay (or bi) man (Axton), but we also had a pretty male one with Salvador. It’s pretty diverse, I really see no problem with representation in the game.
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Lol, you have 1 male character that is not gay, 1 female soldier (that says nothing about her sexuallity), and 1 robot (that sexuallity doesnt apply, so it can fit to anyone), and 1 female siren (that is a bit arrogant, like an Amazon, but is one Siren in a selection of many others we already had in previous games). Looks like you are complaining with no reason. You are mixing NPCs that are not you to your explanation about your incapability of relate to a character that you are supposed to play, but even if the entire world is gay, your characters in BL3 are all straight this time (or a robot), only in BL2 we had a gay one.
Which hilariously, Marvel realized and started to back away from, before the absolute firestorm of repudiation from ‘woke’ publications forced them to reverse on again.
Marvel were almost correct. The issue isn’t ‘diversity’. It’s diversity at the expense of all else. Making Cap a Nazi was a watershed moment for a lot of us, as well as hiring an actual black supremacist and genuinely bad person (Nehisi Coats) to write for them. DC is going through a similar experience at present.
The thing is - this ‘diversity’ thing, in the modern sense is the product of a small but extremely noisy echo-chamber in the media and Hollywood. Most people really don’t care, as long as the game/movie/comic is good.
The majority of people aren’t even aware of it, unless you start pushing it into their faces.
It’s not quite that clear-cut.
This is a kind of thinking that is all too common right now. Essentially, it relies on an axiom that society is made up of oppressed and oppressors, and that the oppressed have the right to hate, persecute and overthrow the oppressors.
Look at it through this lens and it will make sense.
Ooh, let’s dig in here.
Your first study:
Immediately runs into a chicken/egg problem, and completely ignores class and the reality of immigration, in that first and second generation immigrants are going to start off with less money and a lack of language skills.
It actually basically negates your point, as white immigrants in the article face the same problem.
Without a completely open borders world, this is simply reality. There is no evidence of systemic racism or bigotry at play here, and the article makes no effort to prove this.
Moving on to #2: I can’t access the entire paper, so I can’t really assess it. If you can link me the paper, I’d be happy to go through it with you. Looking at the abstract, this is an extremely subjective piece, as it references other extremely subjective works. This looks like a case of standard academic circularity.
Study #3 I cannot access from your link. Is it the article by Muehlau? If so - give the abstract a read and look at the countries being sampled. I think you’ll spot the problem fairly quickly.
Also - yay, sources!
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What I’m saying is that we’ve had a supreme court of 9 men, and a supreme court of 9 women sounds wonderful. What I’m saying is that fair and just isn’t an equal split. That the solution to “everything was all men, but now it’s fifty fifty” isn’t right to me. There’s a lot to be said about the subject, and there’s plenty of nuance to be had, but I really do believe a supreme court of 9 women would actually do a lot right. Men have a large absence of knowledge about women’s health, being one of my main reasons.
But what I mean most is, I don’t believe there’s a “too far the other way” in art, because we’ve had millions of stories told with the scales one way and I totally like the idea of some stories being told with the scales the other way.
You don’t get to hog the ball for 90 percent of the game, pass it a few times during the last 10, and call yourself a team player.
Humanity is full of contradictions. I am aware of that. Sometimes, equality is gonna look like a tipped scale because we’re not balancing this instance, we’re balancing an average of eternity.
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Canada is like 75% white. Where you live it may be well blended but it’s primarily White.
As it’s not actually an article but a book, I’m not sure how closely you’ve scrutinised it yet lol
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Thanks @Hattie
Kindly explain to me in which way this would be less fair than 9 males.
Hyperbole, anyone? Someone read Schopenhauer, I guess.
My logic? Darling, where did I write that? I have a habit to play through the BL games with every single character, male, female, bi, whatever. I don’t care, but:
some people obviously do. Should you find the time to read the start of the thread, it’s not the female/trans/non-binary players complaining about the lack of representation.
Regarding my field of work, white people make up 88% percent of the practitioners, 70% of which are male. So please don’t even start telling me that this mirrors the population percentages in an adequate fashion.
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These kind of messages tend to be shoved into all sorts of media nowadays. I have no problem with including a variety of characters, but I find it annoying when they shove it down your throats.
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It’s always entertaining to do research when I don’t have to, but I suspect no minds will be changed here, so I kinda regret trying.
I really hope that those who say men and white people have no advantage in the labour market are right, for my own sake and others. It’s not an argument I want to win. And of course, if and when white men are suffering and less able to get jobs because of that identity, I hope that gets rectified too.
Anyway, Zane is pretty great, can’t wait till you turn up on the Steam scene!
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The fact that you believe that a 9 Woman Supreme Court would be oppressive says everything, honestly.
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Nobody is saying that it should have 9 males. That is the difference.
We are saying that the best candidates should be selected, regardless of identity criteria.
That poster is saying that candidates should be selected on identity first, specifically because they wish to see inequality perpetuated in the other direction to ‘balance the scales’.
Cyberpunk recently removed the option to play as a binary gender due to pressure from ultra-progressive groups online.
It’s hardly hyperbole.
Paywalled. I can only access the abstract. I said that if the poster was willing to link me to the…fine, the publication I’d be happy to read it.
I’m following a chain of logic here. If that was the case, there would be no need for any focus on ‘diversity’ at all, because players can identify with the characters regardless of what race/orientation they hold.
Hah! WHAT?
The only reason that there is such a push for diversity in media is because companies get scolded if they don’t engage in it. Although now we have reached a point where even this isn’t enough.
I can link you to endless thinkpieces about this.
Good. I’ll see if I can find you a specific article that shows exactly that. I think it was the UK.
EDIT: This isn’t the exact one I wanted, but pretty much sums it up. Essentially, ‘diversity’ is focusing too extensively on identity, and not enough on class.
https://unherd.com/2018/04/diversity-debate-left-white-working-classes-behind/
I’m always willing to engage with studies and sources. It’s…pretty much what I do for a living.
Yeah, it’s beyond disingenuous to act like there aren’t plenty of straight cis male characters in the Borderlands franchise. Roland, Mordecai, Wilhelm,Salvador, Krieg, Zane, Claptrap (since apparently robot sexual preference matters) Timmy, etc.
It’s deceptive to state that there needs to be more straight hetero males for inclusivities sake.
If your masculinity is so fragile that you need a testosterone filled super-male to enjoy a vidya game, I would imagine that that is a deeper personal issue that should be explored.
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Just make brick playable in all 4 games tbh. This way white males aren’t oppressed
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Then surely we could turn that around and say that anyone who can’t identify with your super-male is equally fragile, which pretty much negates the entire diversity debate?
I’m not making the claim that either would be fair. I think that you need to read @sammantixbb’s response.
This was a question posed to a specific person. Review the response from @sammantixbb for their perspective.
I agree with you. What I wrote was trying to understand @sammantixbb’s point. See their response for context.
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You misunderstand me when I say I’d be open to and approve of a tipped other way situation. That I do not believe 50/50 by virtue of balance is a way to see it.
I’m at work and squeezing out time for this between jobs, and a lot of my nuance is being crushed by that and by the fact that I simply don’t care right now. I think certain groups would be better at being fair and listening and helping more people than other groups.
The idea that an all woman government would be unfair and awful to men tells me that you understand that a male majority government has been crap to women. That’s what my point kinda is.
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Can we please explain all of our positions in simple language for all of us plebes to uneducated to comprehend in the thread? I’d like to know what a kafkatrap is, and I’d like to be able to follow this thread that, besides a few posts, has degraded to personal attacks far more than I am comfortable with. I’d also like the world to be populated with pansexual lichens and unicorns that poop sunshine and fairy dust. You know what, don’t bother. I’ve just realized that tolerance is a pipe dream, and far too much to ask of the majority of hairless apes. Sorry to have bothered you.
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The issue is more that you want to select candidates based on gender, not merit, and that you are fine with inequalities going the other way.
That’s what people are taking issue with.
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Oh God, don’t bring up the hairstyles again, people get triggered!
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Just did a quick scan through. My initial thought was “What were the terms of the position as set out when she was initially hired”? I mean, you can easily argue that a group of individuals who share 90% of identifiable traits in common are still 10% diverse - logically and mathematically that would certainly be true.
But what if you were specifically asked to consider diversity through the lens of a larger population than that group? Then you might have to conclude that the group is most decidedly not diverse.
Now, I don’t know what the job details of “head of diversity” at Apple would be, but I suspect it has more to do with working towards an environment that more accurately reflects the surrounding population. Where I work, there are definite under-represented groups - I see it every day when I compare my surroundings on my daily commute with my workplace.
If that was your job mandate, and you say something like she said… well, the optics aren’t terribly good anyway. Not that firing a woman of colour from the position of ‘head of diversity’ looks any better…
Anyway, here’s what she said about it (from the linked article):
Yeaahh… glad I’m not in HR tbh.