I'm a dude. I like dude stuff. I like loud explosions in my movies, hot chicks who make out with each other, and ninjitsu. I really enjoy TOR even though it only provides 2/3 of the things I enjoy about popular entertainment, because it's still pretty fun. I dig the sword fighting, the acting, and the narrative. Though one thing that has been really bumming me out lately is the slight (heavy!) undercurrent of misogyny. Sith Warrior run, your mileage may vary.

Take Vette: A sarcastic personality who is really capable in a fight. Now put a slave collar on her and shock her whenever you feel like it. Sure, you can take the collar off her later if you choose, but the fact remains, she ain't an equal. She starts on the bottom rung, and pretty much stays there for the whole run.

Thana Vesh: She's a strong Sith warrior. But she's constantly falling into traps, getting knocked out, and generally in need of a rescue. You know what I liked about her? I flirted with her constantly, and she was not having it! Strong sense of self-worth, very cool. Constantly undermined by plot devices designed to make her look bad at every available opportunity. Compare and contrast with Lord Draag, who never looked like anything less than a threat to your life.

Jaesa Williamson: There's a quest on Voss where you are given the option to force one of your companions to sacrifice a portion of their life energy to proceed to the next area. Most of your companions will give you a -1 affection for forcing them to do this. Jaesa gives you +34 affection. Do you know what she says? "I cannot resist your will, Master." I'm sorry, but that is ****ed up. This girl has all that power and is a very capable fighter magnitudes above the aforementioned Thana Vesh. So, to balance the scales, the writers turned her into a sadomasochistic sex kitten. Strong women are not like that. They have a sense of self-worth that goes beyond giving empowerment fantasies to keyboard clickers. Good god.

Darth Lachriss. She's in charge of an entire planet. You see right from her first introduction that she's a killer. She's cultured, she's intelligent. She's actually pretty cool. This one is on the player base. Because she's a romance option for any class of male players, She is immediately dragged down in general chat as a wh-re, a door knob, a skank. She kind of exposes people for what they're really like, man. It's really surprising the reactions she gets from other players. And more than a little disgusting.

Anyway, that's all I got for now. I'm all for anyone who can counter this stuff with an example of a strong woman who isn't Satele Shan, who apparently felt the need to get it on with some random guy and have a son, thus being the first Grandmaster in the Jedi order who couldn't actually live by the guidelines of the order at the time on account of being a weak female who needed a man to feel good about herself.

Jaesa Williamson: There's a quest on Voss where you are given the option to force one of your companions to sacrifice a portion of their life energy to proceed to the next area. Most of your companions will give you a -1 affection for forcing them to do this. Jaesa gives you +34 affection. Do you know what she says? "I cannot resist your will, Master." I'm sorry, but that is ****ed up. This girl has all that power and is a very capable fighter magnitudes above the aforementioned Thana Vesh. So, to balance the scales, the writers turned her into a sadomasochistic sex kitten. Strong women are not like that. They have a sense of self-worth that goes beyond giving empowerment fantasies to keyboard clickers. Good god.

 

Jaesa has two complete opposite personalities depending on whether she Light or Dark, the "sadomasochistic sex kitten" only happens if you make her go Dark. If she's Light she won't even romance you shes that independently strong.

As for the rest you are playing Empire.

Empire = All strong main characters = male = and Human for the most part.

The Empire is not a what you would call a good example of real characters. It's a very fascism based society.

The Republic has more strong and better female leads like Satele Shan and General Garza and allot more strong alien leads too.

This isn't really a SWTOR or Bioware problem so much as a dearth of legitimately strong female characters anywhere ever.

Stars Wars is a mostly sexist universe though so I'm gonna say Bioware's scoring decently.

http://www.cracked.com/video_18249_why-star-wars-secretly-terrifying-women.html

Jaesa Williamson

This.

That is all.

Anyway, that's all I got for now. I'm all for anyone who can counter this stuff with an example of a strong woman who isn't Satele Shan, who apparently felt the need to get it on with some random guy and have a son, thus being the first Grandmaster in the Jedi order who couldn't actually live by the guidelines of the order at the time on account of being a weak female who needed a man to feel good about herself.

- Kalyo. (Haven't played Agent that much so it's only by first look.)

- Lady Grathan (I guess you killed her. If you let her live, she uses you to kill her husband and becomes de-facto-leader of House Grathan, controlling her son who is officially in charge.)

- General Geselle (yes, you can break her if you force-choke her lover, but this would also break a man, I think.)

-Yadira Ban (Black Talon Padawan)

I have encountered some more with my Jedi Consular.

[...]

 

The Empire is not a what you would call a good example of real characters. It's a very fascism based society.

 

[...]

Are fascists suddenly not real people?

Are we going to pretend that fascism is misogynistic?

What the hell?

The Empire has crooked morals!

Join the Republic!

Anyway, that's all I got for now. I'm all for anyone who can counter this stuff with an example of a strong woman who isn't Satele Shan, who apparently felt the need to get it on with some random guy and have a son, thus being the first Grandmaster in the Jedi order who couldn't actually live by the guidelines of the order at the time on account of being a weak female who needed a man to feel good about herself.

Ok first Vett: Yes she is good as a dps but she is a non force using alien. In the empire it doesn't matter if it is a female or male those two items make Vett the bottom of the socety not her sex.

Next Thana Vesh: Some of what you said I have to agree with but some I must disagree with. First she is a powerful force user burning down a whole city block with the force is nothing to sneeze at but what

happens to her on Taris is suppose to make you either hate her or feel sorry for her. Lets put Thana as a man instead of a woman sith. He kills his paremts and becomes Darth Gravus appentance. Everytime you meet him he

tryes to take credit for things you have done, women flirt with him and he shuns them and everytime he tries to do things on his own he ends up locked up knocked out or tied up. He would be a weak Sith and you would either

feel sorry for him or hate him and want to kill him. Its not male or female sexism Just a weak sith.

Then there is Jaesa Williamson: The ""I cannot resist your will, Master." Is the same if you are a male or female SW so it is more the whole master/appintice thing than anything else. Plus she could be paying you lip service until the

time she decides to shove a light saber in your back.

Darth Lachriss is only being dissed by the player base so not really the writers fault on that one.

Finally Lady Grathan (I guess you killed her. If you let her live, she uses you to kill her husband and becomes de-facto-leader of House Grathan, controlling her son who is officially in charge.)

While yes she becomes a strong ruler and is then power behind her son but she also has flirt option that lets you have sex with her while Vett watches so um that a kiinda a mess up the but w/e your a sith.

This.

 

That is all.

How did I not notice that, lol.

Hello all,

We've removed a number of posts from this thread and would like to remind everyone of the rules of conduct in the forums. Particularly those dealing with inappropriate content.

We ask that you please make a strong effort to keep your discussion centered around in game story and lore. We understand that it is difficult to have a discussion such as this without bringing real life comparisons into it, but discussions of real world politics, religion and racial topics are not appropriate and inherently volatile.

Please do your best to keep the thread on topic, constructive and appropriate.

Thank you.

 

Anyway, that's all I got for now. I'm all for anyone who can counter this stuff with an example of a strong woman who isn't Satele Shan

Any of the female player characters My sith warrior is a strong woman. Also can't remember her name but the female general who directs you in the bonus quests on Belsavis (and there are comments in the dialogue about how unusual it is for a woman to be in that role, so yes, they're mysogynistic.)

As for the rest you are playing Empire.

Empire = All strong main characters = male = and Human for the most part.

The Empire is not a what you would call a good example of real characters. It's a very fascism based society.

The Republic has more strong and better female leads like Satele Shan and General Garza and allot more strong alien leads too.

sorry mate, but you dont make much sense

- General Garza - if she's married, it's definitely the husband who stays home and cooks the dinner...

- Yuon Par (ok she gets 'helpless' for a while but only in the same way far more male jedi do.)

- The Twi'lek woman overseeing the rebuilding on Taris. Very strong and determined leadership.

- Some general's daughter on Alderaan - interestingly he tries to subdue her to a weak female role but she's having none of it.

- Some other Alederaanian general's quite elderly aunt - still kicking it up deep in enemy territory despite her age.

- The Voss military woman who appears in a lot of the JK Voss story.

These all leapt to mind straight away, so I'm sure there's more.

But yeah, all Republic side. Your side is overtly xenophobic, so I'm surprised that a little misogyny is bothering you!

Vette is strong and capable, she has a shock color on because she's a SLAVE, and while you can break her if you don't remove it, you lose most interaction with her rather than gaining anything. You can not win her affection if you don't stop treating her as a slave, and you can't win her bed without commitment, she sticks to her personal ideals despite whatever situation life has placed her in, I do not see her as a fail in the female character strength department.

As for the others, your sense of female 'self worth' seems to be tied to lack of desire, or at least repression of expressing any. You think Thana is strong because she did not flirt, but you admit your character continually flirted with her, does this mean your character has no self worth?

Any of the female player characters My sith warrior is a strong woman. Also can't remember her name but the female general who directs you in the bonus quests on Belsavis (and there are comments in the dialogue about how unusual it is for a woman to be in that role, so yes, they're mysogynistic.)

There's also a very sexist Imperial officer on Quesh. My female Sith warrior appreciated that he had the guts to say a woman had no place on the battlefield to a woman who also happened to be a Sith Lord before she force choked him.

Any of the female player characters My sith warrior is a strong woman. Also can't remember her name but the female general who directs you in the bonus quests on Belsavis (and there are comments in the dialogue about how unusual it is for a woman to be in that role, so yes, they're mysogynistic.)

Canonically, the Sith Empire is an institution of humanocentric chauvinism. I don't know if Bioware did that on purpose, whether their male staff is misogynistic, whether that was inspired by similar policies practiced by the Galactic Empire in the original movies or something else.

Vette is strong and capable, she has a shock color on because she's a SLAVE, and while you can break her if you don't remove it, you lose most interaction with her rather than gaining anything. You can not win her affection if you don't stop treating her as a slave, and you can't win her bed without commitment, she sticks to her personal ideals despite whatever situation life has placed her in, I do not see her as a fail in the female character strength department.

 

As for the others, your sense of female 'self worth' seems to be tied to lack of desire, or at least repression of expressing any. You think Thana is strong because she did not flirt, but you admit your character continually flirted with her, does this mean your character has no self worth?

Actually, I think Thana is a strong person because she's very self-assertive, and focused. Vette is neither of these things. You're the one going on about 'winning beds' and 'desire' as though that were the only purpose of having female characters in the game, Freud.

You're the one going on about 'winning beds' and 'desire' as though that were the only purpose....

Again, you seem to go on the offensive only for the things involving sexual conduct in females. Fine, I would call that "very self-assertive, and focused" as you say. Take a look at the Sith Vaverene(sp), who becomes Darth Alluress in the Smuggler story line, for an example of a female with strong self-worth in the game; she expects to rule the Empire.

I think Thana is kind of weak personally; she has little ability to think rationally, rashly rushes into situations she shouldn't, betrays readily, can not accept the consequences her own actions lead her into, and blames others for her failures as well as claiming credit for victories she hasn't achieved. The storyline may toss her around a bit as you suggested, but she brings a majority of it upon herself, and it has nothing to do with whether she flirts or not.

Again, you seem to go on the offensive only for the things involving sexual conduct in females.

uh, yeah? Because it's obnoxiously prevalent?

So, you think a female character should be sexually repressed and unwilling to have sex ever?

-Now- who's being misogynistic?

There are multiple levels of misogyny that are present in writing, in life. You've displayed an excellent vision of misogyny that is rarely called upon, and that is the use of defending it but offering up an incorrect view on top of that. A strong female character doesn't have to be independent, never giving into flirts, etc. That is seen as an ideal vision by many claiming for strong characters, but that's really only one example. Going to break it down to show you why.

Vette: I haven't seen dialogue with her if the collar is left on, but without the collar her dialogue has been interesting. She knows your character is a Sith Lord, and yet she continues with the witticism, sarcastic remarks, etc. She's challenging your Sith, even though while playfully, as if she doesn't care that she could get Force Choked for no reason.

So we have a female character who is witty, sarcastic, young (I think she's only... 18?), unafraid to challenge authority and unafraid of the outcome. But she's weak because she's a slave? Then the Sith Inquisitor is weak for being a former slave! Khem Val is weak because he refers to himself repeatedly as a slave! And I think we can all agree Khem Val is by no means 'weak'.

Thana Vesh: I'm not really sure where you stood with her... but suffice to say, her incompetence wasn't because she's a woman. Her Master even explains that it had to do with the fact she was too headstrong and willful. To put it simply, she was very powerful but she overestimated her power.

She was captured and defeated so many times for the sheer fact she believed she could do things she wasn't ready to do. But hell, it shows a level of skill on her part for the fact she managed to escape her cell after I left her there in a 'time-out'.

Jaesa: So a woman isn't allowed to have sexual appetites that have her experiencing new feelings and forms of pleasure she had been formerly not been allowed to experience? She can't be willing to serve her Master faithfully by actually caring about their well being and knowing that it is more important for them to live than her? By the time we're on Voss, Jaesa realizes that she is second fiddle to the Wrath. She knows that she is important to the Wrath for her power, but that overall it is the Wrath who is the most important person amongst the group.

So she gives of herself willingly to allow the Wrath to live longer, naturally, to fulfill the more important duties in the galaxy.

Lachriss: It's comments from -players-. That's an argument killer there.

uh, yeah? Because it's obnoxiously prevalent?

Well, male characters do have more than four times the options for one night stands, as well as significantly more than that in flirting options (so much for the male characters 'self-worth' eh?), so if you want it to be less obnoxiously prevalent you could play a female character, and not be bothered by those senarios so often I guess.

I don't know about you, but my Sith Lord is a PLAYER!

... When Jaesa isn't around. I'm honestly a little scared of what would happen if she was around.

Vette is a Twi'lek . AKA a race where slavery is common sauce and their woman are portrayed more has sex object than sentient being.

Plus you're the one in charge in every story. Plus you're a frigging Sith Lord if you romance Vette. Who was treated her whole life like a second class citizen. It's just make sense lore wise.