5. Understanding That Women And Men Are Different
This is possibly controversial when stated by itself, but I don't think men and women should be drawn the same way. This is because I don't think that men and women are the same: there are gender differences between men and women, clearly genetically, but also from a societal point of view. The fact of the matter is that men and women are treated entirely differently by society. I am not saying one is for better and one is for worse, but there is certainly a difference. Societal pressures like women liking pink or liking make-up are not inherent to being female. It is just the way society expects them to act. I am not saying that women who like pink or make-up or one dimensional, but, if I bring this into the gaming world, it is a much more complicated to illustrate a multifaceted character when she is conforming to these gender based expectations. Part of understanding these issues isn't about making women the same as men because they are not. Simply changing the gender of a protagonist and keeping the same story won't exactly work because they definitely aren't the same. Although it may add a deeper subtext to the character simply because the societal expectations are immediately changed for your character. Perhaps the reason I am more connected to my female Shepard than my male Shepard in Mass Effect is because of these pressures, it explains more about who she is. She is in a military system that doesn't promote women so regularly so she has a past of being more resilient. It gives the game a gender imbued subtext that wasn't there before. It gives character aspect for her being so resistant to the Reaper invasion. I am obviously a huge supporter of equality for all, even if I understand that that doesn't mean everyone should be the identical because that is not so. qual is a very different word than the same. Society expects different things from all of us because of our gender, age and social status. Finding character that buck against those ideas make for more interesting protagonists.