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by Tade0 1502 days ago
> Most men couldn't accurately describe shopping for a pair of pants as a woman, let alone something more complex.

I can't help but wonder where this statement came from. Men have sisters, mothers, daughters, partners.

It's not some kind of a mysterious and opaque world, to which they don't have any access.
1 comments
kX4A8o4mVmX8aW 1502 days ago
Men have throughout history had the strangest ideas about women despite, as you said, having sisters and so on. I agree that is weird.

Of course a willing male game dev could research anything necessary to portraying women accurately. Or, alternately, you could hire female game devs or at least some consultants and get on with actually making the game.

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Tade0 1501 days ago
> I agree that is weird.

To be clear: I'm not agreeing with you. I don't think "most men" would fail at the task you mentioned.

I also think that men can generally tell if a female character is realistic, it's just not what they're going for in a game and the market responds to that.

Same with those romantic pulp novels people read on vacation. Regardless whether they're written by men or women, the men there are always hilariously unrealistic. This is by design.

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kX4A8o4mVmX8aW 1501 days ago
I'm not sure if we're disagreeing or just talking past each other. Most men could probably describe shopping for clothes as a woman in a literal sense, if that's what you mean. They probably couldn't connect with the experience like for example in this comedy article: https://reductress.com/post/why-i-shop-small-and-in-places-t.... If we still disagree then I'm not sure how to resolve it since it's a thought experiment anyway.

You make an interesting point about unrealistic depictions. In a way it's even harder for a man to write an unrealistic man that appeals to female readers than to just write accurately. I'm reminded of this comic: https://www.shortpacked.com/comic/false-equivalence. Of course male authors can learn to do it.

It's obvious to me that if you want to depict women accurately in art, or as you pointed out create art for women, then it would be helpful to have more women involved in the process. If anyone is seriously arguing that a typical man can write women and for women as well as a typical woman can so it's okay that most game devs are men then I'm not sure what to say. Agree to disagree.

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