(I'm really new here, if this is in the wrong place I am truly sorry)
I've only been playing magic for a few months, but already I've become disturbed by the portrayal of women. Not only do women appear on cards less frequently than males, when they do they are highly sexualized. Let's look at planeswalkers.
Excluding the distinctly non humanoid Nicol Bolas, Karn Liberated, and any form of Ajani, there are 41 planeswalkers. Out of those 41, 24 (59%) are male, 2 (5%) are gender ambiguous (Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver and Domri Rade), and 15 (36%) are women.
More important that the gap in representation of women and men is the depiction of them. While most of the men are in full armor, revealing very little skin, the women are often depicted with skin tight outfits revealing either large amounts of cleavage, like Liliana of the Veil, completely bare legs, like any number of Chandras, or Liliana of the Dark Realms, or with abnormally large breasts well outlined in the shape of armor.
The sexualization of women in MTG is not merely limited to planeswalkers. A quick scan of any set reveals cards like Treasured Find, Vampire's Bite, Barony Vampire, and a million others. Just search for vampires.
My question is, how harmful is this to the MTG community? Obviously diversity is a good thing. Do depictions of women such as these discourage women from playing MTG? Do they harm men's ideas about women? How does this compare to misogyny and sexualization of women across all of "geek culture"?
If you're interested in reading some more about the problems of gender in Geek Culture and MTG, the following articles are both very good.
Your Princess is in another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds (daily beast)
To my Someday Daughter (starcitygames)
What are your thoughts on this? How do we best go about changing this harmful portrayal of women in a game we all enjoy? Do we need to go about changing it in the first place?
You also seem not to know that being revealing and sexually provocative is Liliana's "thing". Her entire character is about doing whatever it takes to get what she wants regardless of what others think. To suggest that such a character is somehow a misogynistic representation rather than an example of well..a game character with a theme is rather absurd. Keep giving examples to prove your point while ignoring or misrepesenting the ones that counter it.
Chandra is a young pyromancer with a hard rebellious streak. Are you suggesting that you've never seen people dress in a certain way to say "I don't care about society"? Welcome to red mana.
In addition we've seen more Elspeth than any other female character, yet you ignore that. Why do you lump all the "chandra's" together and then split up the Elspeth's? It seems to me like we have 1 sexualized female, 1 potentially sexualized female, and that's it. Tamiyo, Elspeth, Vraska, and not to mention the countless other female characters in magic that don't fit your limited view of what women apparently shouldn't be portrayed as ever in any way.
Domri is also a dude. You also misused "humanoid. Ajani and Karn are humanoid in the same way Kiora and Tamiyo are.
I mean damn it. Mtg is one of the most progressive games regarding having representation of different peoples.
By Urza's eyes I hate posts like this and the near closet sexism that they express.
Edited because OP is wrong on more points than I thought.
You also seem not to know that being revealing and sexually provocative is Liliana's "thing". Her entire character is about doing whatever it takes to get what she wants regardless of what others think. To suggest that such a character is somehow a misogynistic representation rather than an example of well..a game character with a theme is rather absurd.
Also, Jiv says something very relevant here. Liliana is pretty much a person who relies on anything, including her charms.
So really, I'd say MTG is quite good at not being misogynistic. There's room for improvement, but there always is. Despite that, they've got a good track record.
Two things... first I can see a lot more female skin spending 5 minutes on Facebook than I can in an hour of digging through mtg art and that's looking at images that girls upload of themselves. That being the case I have a hard time calling card art some kind of sexist campaign, I could even argue that it's less sexualised than real life.
Secondly, while I understand the desire to see more equal representation in planeswalker numbers... I'd like to point one thing out. Most of the planeswalkers come from the stories behind the sets. The stories are created by the set designers... chances are most of those designers are male. Similar to how in general authors, especially male authors, write about main characters of the same gender, I imagine that when set designers are coming up with stories for the block they tend to think like guys and come up with male main characters. So with this in mind, either these designers have to purposefully choose to add female main characters just to satisfy some sort of quota, or to naturally get there, we need more female's working on the sets.
There are a lot of things I'd like to say in response to this, many of which I'll hold my tongue on, but may I ask you why you think that Nissa, Kiora, and Chandra are over sexualized? To me, they are no more sexualized than Garruk, Koth, or Sarkhan Vol. Showing skin doesn't automatically make something sexualized. Women tend to have larger breasts than men, and their clothing often acknowledges that fact. There isn't anything sexist about it. You may want to ask yourself if you are cherry picking evidence to prove your theory instead of looking at all the data and establishing a non-biased conclusion.
Misogyny and sexism are real, and they are prominent in geek culture. There is no denying that. I just feel like Magic isn't an offender, or at the very least, isn't a big offender.
Holy ***** this thread is going no where fast. Marxus of Keld is a straw man, it's not only an old card that doesn't represent the current art direction of Magic but he is not posed in sexually explicit manner. The argument here isn't that magic cannot respectfully represent women (as they clearly can with the prominent example of Elspeth) but rather that there is a still a gap between how the various genders are represented in this game. Yes of course there are example of heavily armored women but those are the exception not the norm. There's a Sliver in M15 that has a curvy "feminine" body type. Liliana is different I concede as her character does use her sexuality to further her agenda but that's an extreme cause and very much not the norm.
The issue here is that women are often sexualized on Magic cards and it makes some individuals feel uncomfortable in addition to creating a negative stigma for those who play the game.
Wizards is not obligated to make a 50/50 gender split, or an equal split with anything else for that matter, more than they're not obligated to make a 50/50 split between water elementals and treefolk. They are a business working on fantasy tropes with a largely predominant male base. Even with that male base it doesn't mean that they haven't been working toward equal representation on various fronts, which is so obvious that if it went any further I'd probably be annoyed by it. It's also kind of hollow to poke holes at characters like Liliana who are self-liberating and fleshed-out and not sold out to any kind of fan-service whatsoever.
I don't see what your point is. Magic has done an excellent job with diversity, not only in terms of gender but race, and has no obligation to push any further. Find some more constructive to analyze.
A) Rade is a dude
B) Some of these are a real stretch, barony vampire really?
There is some sexualization in mtg art, but its been improved a bit over time (alot of modern magic angels actually look like they have dresses or real armor and not something from Victoria's secret. Some of it is story themed (liliana is seductive, as her character), some of it is artist interpretation, and some of it is just in your head (I mean barony vampire really?).
Its only an issue if you try to make a huge deal out of some minor things. Magic actually have a fair number of heroines in the past and a quite a few weren't simply props for some guy. This already is more progressive than 90% of anything Hollywood does or ends up on best seller lists at your local bookstore.
I don't see what your point is. Magic has done an excellent job with diversity, not only in terms of gender but race, and has no obligation to push any further.
I love MtG for its honesty. Characters are heavily armored or almost naked not because of political correctness, not because of its fanbase or because sex sells, but because it works. There's no "let's represent minorities" or "keep gender ratio 1-to-1" shenaningans. Ashiok is neither male nor female just because it's cool, not of some outside reasons. Liliana looks sexy (or even casually mentions sex, see UR articles) because it fits her character.
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Wizards can start putting booster packs inside dog poo and dog owners will still complain.
It is almost as if a game designed by mostly males was being targeted to its mostly male audience. In addition, I have never heard of people buying mtg cards just for the pretty girls. You might have better luck complaining on some vanguard or spoils message boards about the over sexualized cards. Especially vanguard since it is targeted to kids.
I've only been playing magic for a few months, but already I've become disturbed by the portrayal of women. Not only do women appear on cards less frequently than males, when they do they are highly sexualized. Let's look at planeswalkers.
Excluding the distinctly non humanoid Nicol Bolas, Karn Liberated, and any form of Ajani, there are 41 planeswalkers. Out of those 41, 24 (59%) are male, 2 (5%) are gender ambiguous (Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver and Domri Rade), and 15 (36%) are women.
More important that the gap in representation of women and men is the depiction of them. While most of the men are in full armor, revealing very little skin, the women are often depicted with skin tight outfits revealing either large amounts of cleavage, like Liliana of the Veil, completely bare legs, like any number of Chandras, or Liliana of the Dark Realms, or with abnormally large breasts well outlined in the shape of armor.
In fact, the only non sexualized female planeswalkers are Vraska the Unseen, Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, Elspeth Tirel, and Elspeth, Knight Errant.
The sexualization of women in MTG is not merely limited to planeswalkers. A quick scan of any set reveals cards like Treasured Find, Vampire's Bite, Barony Vampire, and a million others. Just search for vampires.
My question is, how harmful is this to the MTG community? Obviously diversity is a good thing. Do depictions of women such as these discourage women from playing MTG? Do they harm men's ideas about women? How does this compare to misogyny and sexualization of women across all of "geek culture"?
If you're interested in reading some more about the problems of gender in Geek Culture and MTG, the following articles are both very good.
Your Princess is in another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds (daily beast)
To my Someday Daughter (starcitygames)
What are your thoughts on this? How do we best go about changing this harmful portrayal of women in a game we all enjoy? Do we need to go about changing it in the first place?
You also seem not to know that being revealing and sexually provocative is Liliana's "thing". Her entire character is about doing whatever it takes to get what she wants regardless of what others think. To suggest that such a character is somehow a misogynistic representation rather than an example of well..a game character with a theme is rather absurd. Keep giving examples to prove your point while ignoring or misrepesenting the ones that counter it.
Chandra is a young pyromancer with a hard rebellious streak. Are you suggesting that you've never seen people dress in a certain way to say "I don't care about society"? Welcome to red mana.
In addition we've seen more Elspeth than any other female character, yet you ignore that. Why do you lump all the "chandra's" together and then split up the Elspeth's? It seems to me like we have 1 sexualized female, 1 potentially sexualized female, and that's it. Tamiyo, Elspeth, Vraska, and not to mention the countless other female characters in magic that don't fit your limited view of what women apparently shouldn't be portrayed as ever in any way.
Domri is also a dude. You also misused "humanoid. Ajani and Karn are humanoid in the same way Kiora and Tamiyo are.
I mean damn it. Mtg is one of the most progressive games regarding having representation of different peoples.
By Urza's eyes I hate posts like this and the near closet sexism that they express.
Edited because OP is wrong on more points than I thought.
Anyway, I get your objections to Magic not having enough female planeswalkers. More could always be good, especially after Elspeth's sorta-death. But saying women in MTG are over-sexualized might be a bit of an exaggeration. Off the top of my head, I know Knight Exemplar, Oona, Queen of the Fae; Maralen of the Mornsong, Traveling Philosopher, Kor Hookmaster, Selvala, Explorer Returned; and Marchesa, the Black Rose aren't merely *** material. Their art portrays the personality and role of the character/creature: they're not gratuitous fanservice.
Also, Jiv says something very relevant here. Liliana is pretty much a person who relies on anything, including her charms.
So really, I'd say MTG is quite good at not being misogynistic. There's room for improvement, but there always is. Despite that, they've got a good track record.
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Club Flamingo Wins: 10
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EDH Decks
BG Vicious Varolz | RW Jor Kadeen, the Mean Machine | RG Atarka: Muh_Dragons.dec (WIP) | WU Brago, Blink Eternal (WIP)
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Secondly, while I understand the desire to see more equal representation in planeswalker numbers... I'd like to point one thing out. Most of the planeswalkers come from the stories behind the sets. The stories are created by the set designers... chances are most of those designers are male. Similar to how in general authors, especially male authors, write about main characters of the same gender, I imagine that when set designers are coming up with stories for the block they tend to think like guys and come up with male main characters. So with this in mind, either these designers have to purposefully choose to add female main characters just to satisfy some sort of quota, or to naturally get there, we need more female's working on the sets.
Misogyny and sexism are real, and they are prominent in geek culture. There is no denying that. I just feel like Magic isn't an offender, or at the very least, isn't a big offender.
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The issue here is that women are often sexualized on Magic cards and it makes some individuals feel uncomfortable in addition to creating a negative stigma for those who play the game.
Get that weak misogynistic MRA nonsense out of this thread
@Serendipitous_Hummingbird
This is huge issue in the community and the moment and I would be more than willing to discuss this with you if you had any interest.
I don't see what your point is. Magic has done an excellent job with diversity, not only in terms of gender but race, and has no obligation to push any further. Find some more constructive to analyze.
This is what we call an "echo chamber".
A) Rade is a dude
B) Some of these are a real stretch, barony vampire really?
There is some sexualization in mtg art, but its been improved a bit over time (alot of modern magic angels actually look like they have dresses or real armor and not something from Victoria's secret. Some of it is story themed (liliana is seductive, as her character), some of it is artist interpretation, and some of it is just in your head (I mean barony vampire really?).
Its only an issue if you try to make a huge deal out of some minor things. Magic actually have a fair number of heroines in the past and a quite a few weren't simply props for some guy. This already is more progressive than 90% of anything Hollywood does or ends up on best seller lists at your local bookstore.
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Can you not attribute every opinion you find distasteful/bad to one group of people? Because I'm pretty sure that's dumb.
True, but there ain't no harm in wanting more.
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Club Flamingo Wins: 10
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EDH Decks
BG Vicious Varolz | RW Jor Kadeen, the Mean Machine | RG Atarka: Muh_Dragons.dec (WIP) | WU Brago, Blink Eternal (WIP)
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