Not so much "focuses" as "starts with". Quantitative analysis is good for spot-checks. If the numbers come up pretty even, odds are you've managed to eliminate bias factors pretty well, or balanced them against one another.

If the numbers come up askew, then it becomes time to ask why that is--that's a qualitative analysis. It may reveal some legitimate (or at least, external) cause for the discrepancy. Or it could highlight a previously unknown bias factor that can be addressed.

The point was that the Google test means nothing, when the results vary so absolutely with so little difference in input. You did the test and got one result. I did it and got the opposite in as extreme a manner as possible. That's pretty fundamental.

And do note that you're using books as a standard of the visual of armor. A nonvisual medium. I don't know about you, but I reckon a discussion of visual trends ought to center around media that are, y'know, visual.

In film tradition, medieval fantasy and period pieces are few and far between to begin with, and in them, while armor tends to be reasonable, female characters in that armor tend to be extremely rare in comparison to males, and thus something you have to hunt for. Most depictions of women in armor at all are in the context of games, be they card games, video games, or roleplaying games. And you bring up depictions of women in not-armor, yet if they factor in, it's only as a problem that makes it even more of a hunt; fantasy has a long-standing habit of skewing women tremendously towards the less-clad roles of mage and thief, which are outside the topic of armor but do make the hunt that much more of one, as women in armor at all are relatively scarce.

Pathfinder is above average in their depictions, yet take a look at their iconics. They have six female iconics in armor. Paladin? Fully covered. Druid? Fully covered. Barbarian? Gratuitous midriff with her innards literally protected by nothing more than a piece of string, and you can tell what color underwear she's wearing. Rogue? Gratuitous boob window. For stealth, I suppose. Inquisitor? Otherwise great character design marred by ludicrous breastplate cleavage jutting out so far that I'm not sure her breasts are attached to her body (or, alternately, that her head's attached). Gunslinger? Her armor is her little sister's leather blouse, for midriff and boobage. Yes, it's better than Seoli (who we can clearly see isn't wearing any underwear), but it's a dig for something that isn't senseless, impractical exposed flesh for no other purpose than the sexy.

And when I say it's a hunt? I mean it. My personal image collection, which I use for character images, is in excess of five thousand pieces, of varying types. I tremendously favor noncheesecake over cheesecake, and actively go searching for the type of stuff in this blog, and it's still outweighed tremendously by the cheesecake that falls in my lap where I go, "Hell, it's still a good image. I can probably get over the gratuitous cleavage. It's not that much, I guess."

V V.. ok i'm not trying to get us COZZED, but i do want to chime in her.. so here goes...

Is the hobby really "skewing women tremendously towards the less-clad roles of mage and thief"

Is that really an intentional thing? or is it simply a fact that to be a warrior type, (the class that needs the most armor) you need a lot of upper body strength, and Generally, females do not posses the same level of Upper body strength as males? ( I did say generally BTW)

SO is that intentional or just a fact of the reality of physiology.

As for barbarians, they do not tend to wear much armor (male or female) at all in my experience... (But i dont play pathfinder, so sorry if i don't know their particular style)

as for thieves, female thieves have a massive advantage in the form of that very thing you ridicule... Showing Boobs! They are a Huge distraction if your target is male! And any honest hetro guy (who isn't a bit psycho) will admit that if he were fighting a woman and her boobs were hanging out it would distract him. Rouges are not fighters and they use every thing they can to avoid straight up fights... so i see the "cleavage widow" you seem to disdain as just one more tool in her arsenal.

This is even more true with assassins. the female ninja or Kunoichi which translates to "Nine and one" ... referring to the number of orifices in the female body... the Kunoichi were expected to use there sex as a weapon.

I think the core points I'm trying to make are these...

1) Guys are guys, and until the last decade or so RPG's were primarily a Male phenomenon. (it may go back a little further, but not that much, and even today i think the demographics tend to still be largely male... i don't have any numbers on this, but if females have actually reached parity in this hobby I'd bet it's a very recent thing. (anyone know for sure?) SO... as has been he case since the beginning of time... SEX SELLS!

If they have reached parity... the "add-men" just haven't caught up yet.

2) Some of this is about simple biological differences between men and women, and the fact that historically female influence was mostly felt through sex, while male influence was mostly through violence.

You dont have to like it, and I'm sure you can find examples of the contrary, but I'm speaking in general. For most of history, the stereotypes were pretty close to:
Cleopatra (who seduced to Romans and played them off against each other)
and
Shahra Zod (who saved lives by charming, teasing, and telling stories to a king)
on the male side

Alexander (who, gay or not, conquered a huge chunk of the world),
and
Ghingas Khan (who conquered even more of it.)

Sex(female) and violence(male). it hasn't changed in thousands of years, so its not going to change overnight if at all.

Just my 2 cents.

I really think you may be reading more into this than their is.

I also think that the first company that starts making rationally armored female figures more than it makes cheesecake ones will make a fortune! (someone in one of these posts made that comment but i cant remember who.)

PS there is also the Faith angle as both a motivation and method, but i am SO not going there.

You really don't need that much. General fitness, yes, and upper body strength is a part of that, but weaponry tends to be light and well balanced, and if you are in a fight armor is always a good idea. Its not like we are looking at professional weight lifters here.


Attracting attention is not a good way to go about thievery. Getting other people to attract attention for you, yes, attracting attention no. As for distractions, that might apply in stick tag, but the whole "not dying" thing tends to occupy ones attention in combat. From what I've seen, not getting smacked and dealing with a minor bruise tends to fully occupy ones attention once the fighting actually begins with weapons that aren't sharpened and liable to kill you.

Rouges are overpowdered.

I laughed.

And to get back on topic: Sister Soritas fetish-corset Armour-with-high-heels at least tends toward complete coverage, although is mostly way more form-fitting than the Space Marine equivalent.

You still get some artists that manage to fit them into armour with a low-cut neck-line from time to time.

Doug.

Larian: The only--and I mean, the only--roguish-type who benefits from sex-appeal is the con-artist (I was once approached by a trio--two guys and a girl--doing the old brick-in-a-box scam; the girl's primary role in the scam was to bounce perkily. She was quite adept at it). Sneak-thieves, trapmeisters, hired killers, highway robbers and pickpokcets, however, all prefer to avoid notice until they are done with their work.

Also, while the "nine-and-one" origin for kunoichi is one common theory, there's at least two more--one that the term was invented whole-cloth by a Japanese mystery writer, and another that it simply is derived from the kanji for onna, the term for woman.

1) That (and the rest of your post) has absolutely nothing to do with my point that it's a hunt to find decent pictures of women warriors in reasonable armor.

2) Yes, the hobby really is.

3) In a world where heroes can get blasted point blank with dragonbreath and laugh it off, or jump off a hundred-story building, shake it off, and keep going, summon demons, beat gods to death with pointy metal sticks, and you have dwarves and zombies and mystical creatures with way to many apostrophes in their names that the author swears up and down aren't elves/fairies even though they're totally elves/fairies, and is generally, y'know, fantasy? "Men tend to have bigger muscles," doesn't exactly hold water. After all, neither men nor women can blow holes in armies by waggling their fingers and spouting off bad pseudo-Latin.

Fantasy is, in fact, fantasy. And women have fantasies of being the knight in shining armor, too.

The sleaze, it just slides off.

First of all, bull. Breasts are standard equipment on half the species. Most well-adjusted males frequently have access to breasts and know what they look like and feel like in their entirety, not just a little patch in a boob window. What's more, anyone with any real combat training is entirely capable of tuning out distractions to focus on the more important task of life-or-death battle. Declaring that one tiny hunk of skin will significantly reduce any hetero male's ability to perform in life-or-death situations is tremendously misandrist.

Second, the point of being a thief is to not be seen in the first place, and if you are seen, to give as little identifying information as possible. Having a big, bright patch of skin exposed in the middle of your chest to draw attention to you and to advertise your skin tone, sex, and bust size is a stupid idea.

Now, you're getting into the distinction between "sex exists and is a tool" versus "gratuitous cheesecake."

When using sex as a weapon, you don't jump from building to building carrying swords and shuriken whilst wearing your ninja pajamas sans bra with absolute cleavage. That's just a way to get yourself killed. No, when it's pajama time, you actually have proper support a proper disguise or camouflage and it's time for sneaking and stabbing, not for sex.

When using sex as a weapon, you present yourself as a fairly average and unassuming citizen and ingratiate yourself to your target until said target drops their guard and their trousers and you slit their throat.

What you're doing is just using history as a justification for nonsense.

"Sex sells," is a complex concept with many shades and nuances to how it must be employed in order to actually work, not an automatic and universal axiom, and sex when misused can, in fact, cost massive numbers of sales. Misuse of "sex sells" is one of the major reasons the greater geekdom is still predominantly male; misuse of "sex sells" can alienate customers and drive them away.

Women are half the human population, yet the prevailing (or perhaps loudest and most visible) culture within the greater geekdom that treats males as characters to be related to and females as object to be lusted after tends to decree quite loudly, "This is a male space. Women not welcome," limiting growth. And add to it issues like rampant, often unaddressed sexual harassment at major geek conventions (most notably GenCon, which doesn't even have a policy for dealing with it)? No, sex is losing the greater geekdom a ton of business.

You can have sex in a product without making Ivy, without reducing female characters to objects, without alienating prospective female customers. Telling half the population they're not welcome is bad business.

Old sexism is still sexism. Giving the history of sexism doesn't make it any less bad or less in need of change, nor does it justify the sexism that exists.

Well said, VV.


Ahmey from the Tower of Druaga anime.


Ethana from ToD