Misogyny Has a New Game: Bioshock
That’s right. Hiding underneath all the accolades and slick marketing lies something much more sinister within — misogyny. Unlike most nefarious games, Bioshock starts off relatively benign. Only when your character acquires new weapons; called “plasmids”, does the misogynistic world of Rapture become embarrassingly obvious. You see, every plasmid comes with a tutorial demonstrating its abilities. In each video, players are treated to watching a poor innocent woman being eviscerated by a patriarchal, plasmid-wielding woman-hater.References alluding to male privilege are laced throughout; the victim is always dressed as a housewife (misogynists love their women subservient) and overtly feminine, the male assailant is always seen with a smug grin of satisfaction as he overpowers the “uppity” woman. Even the presentation is done in a stylized 1940’s manner, referring to an era in which women were seen as property.
The poor thing. She never had a chance.Later on in the game, you’ll cross paths with Bridgette Tenenbaum, the only female character in the game. She’s given very little screen time and is quickly relinquished as a babysitter for the children of Rapture, dubbed as “Little Sisters”. It’s disappointing to see a strong woman reduced to servitude but not surprisingly unexpected.After playing Bioshock, I can only ask what kind of depraved individual could come up with such trash in today’s modern, gender-blind society? Kev Levine, Bioshock’s designer has often cited the philosophy of Objectivism as a major influence in his life and from this confession, I’ve been given the explanation for Bioshock’s sexism.
Misogynist extraordinaire, Ken LevineObjectivism, created by Ayn Rand, is an archaic philosophy with many anti-feminist overtones. Her work often promoted something she called “hero worship” which she described as “the essence of femininity is hero worship — the desire to look up to man” and that “an ideal woman is a man-worshiper, and an ideal man is the highest symbol of mankind.”Fancy words for a degrading type of relationship where women are seen as breeding stock for male pleasure. Don’t believe me? When former lover of Ayn Rand’s, Nathaniel Branden was asked to clarify hero worship he was quoted “man experiences the essence of his masculinity in the act of romantic dominance; woman experiences the essence of her femininity in the act of romantic surrender.” Male dominance? True femininity equals complete submission to a man? Need I say more?Violence against women is another recurring theme found within Objectivism. The most famous example can be found by just flicking through the pages of The Fountainhead. Written in 1943 by Rand, it contains a graphic description of a rape between the female protagonist and her male counterpart:
He had thrown her down on the bed and she felt the blood beating in her throat, in her eyes, the hatred, the helpless terror in her blood. She felt the hatred and his hands; his hands moving over her body, the hands that broke granite. She fought in a last convulsion. Then the sudden pain shot up, through her body, to her throat, and she screamed. Then she lay still.It was an act that could be performed in tenderness, as a seal of love, or in contempt, as a symbol of humiliation and conquest. It could be the act of a lover or the act of a soldier violating an enemy woman. He did it as an act of scorn. Not as love, but as defilement.
The frequent depictions of violence against women in Bioshock are no mere accident but the product of a person indoctrinated by anti-feminist rhetoric. Ken Levine may remain irreversibly ignorant but that doesn’t mean we should sit idly by. As the philosopher Edmund Burke wisely said “All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing”. It is our moral duty; an imperative requirement — for all good men and women to actively refuse and fight back against such sexism whenever it reveals its ugly head, whatever the medium.
December 14th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
yea… I hope you realize that the women are only getting hit by plasmids on 2-3 of those little videos, don’t you?
The other videos have men being attacked.
There isn’t only one women character in this game.
try counting the girls, the lady that made the Chemical wep., the mobs that attack you, and of course Tenenbaum.
If this game is “sexist” then why is there an option to SAVE the girls?
If this game is “sexist” then why are the main people that you kill are MEN?
Tenenbaum has one of the longest screen times on this game, besides the character you play as, Ryan, and Atlas. She has the same amount of screen time as Atlas does, and even more.
Also, if this game is sexist, why is it that Tenenbaum and the little sisters live and all the other male characters die? (except for the character that is saving them)
If this game is sexist then why is it that the girls end up killing the final boss instead of some man killing him?
You really should pay more attention to this game. you only got 1/4 of the game down.
This game is NOT sexist in any shape or form.
You obviously do not understand the concept of the game; therefore, you shouldn’t have even made this ‘forum’ over Bioshock being a misogynistic game, because it’s obviously not.
Think before you do.
-CSG-
January 12th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
I must first point out that, as a free thinking, liberal citizen, I am a staunch feminist and a great supporter of woman’s rights. It just so happens that I am also an objectivist. How, you must think, can this be so without some degree of hypocrisy? Simple: objectivism does not include any amount of misogyny.
I would also push you a copy of Atlas Shrugged, which it is imperative you read before throwing around your labels like an unthinking conservative.
My arguments in defense of objectivism are several.
Firstly, you pointed out that Ayn Rand was of the belief that male-worship in women is ideal. This is true. This was never, however, part of objectivist philosophy: Objectivism’s central tenets never held obedience or dependence on the part of women for men. Rand herself believed that women should have an intense admiration of men, but she never compromised the integrity of women. On the whole, she was a supporter of women’s and gay’s rights, despite personal feelings, because her philosophy strained individualism.
Indeed, objectivism’s pillars of thought are as follows: Objective reality, logic, self-interest, and capitalism. Ayn Rand was nothing more than a product of her time when it came to feminism, but objectivism was eons ahead. It is the very expression of liberalism, because it states, quite explicitly, that “You are responsible for no one but yourself,” and even though Rand herself promoted hero-worship, Atlas Shrugged (and objectivism in general) does not.
So your railings against Rand and (ironically, her boyfriend, who in your point of view seems to be able to speak for her. Self-contradiction, mayhap?) her supposed anti-feminism are at least slightly appropriate. But Bioshock’s objectivist balderdash does not ever hold anti-feminism as central. You must take note that, first of all, Bioshock is indeed art: the videos of destroying the “oppressive housewife” are simply a reflection of the atmosphere. Revisionist history is far more dangerous than anything else, and is an expression of patriarchal oppression like nothing else. Bioshock takes place in 1960, where that sort of thing was appropriate. It’s part of the atmosphere, and you have to appreciate that from an artistic point of view.
*spoiler alerts, however they are important to my argument*
Diane McClintock and Tenenbaum are but two of many vitally important characters in Bioshock. If anything Tenenbaum being the only one to gain morality and being the only friend you have in the end (alternate endings barring) should promote a pro-feminist agenda, but you callously swipe this aside in your effort to produce hate. McClintock “got over” her hero-worship of Andrew Ryan and died at the hands of Atlas, who you then kill. I will say again: if anything, Bioshock is really rather feminist. When you kill the little girls you pay for it in the conscience dearly.
The fact that you are feminist earns you points. But the fact that you squander this important position in order to just spring hate whenever you get an inkling is very dangerous methodology. You must put research and a good deal of thought into every situation when determining what is truly misogynist and what is not. A far better rant would exist if you had railed against DOA: Beach Volleyball. But I suppose you just wanted to be a mindless contrarian.
You’re giving us a bad name. Stop it.
July 19th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Feminists suck
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:03 am
Dude first of all, this game is based in the 1950-1960. Back then it was that men were in controll of everthing and women had no rights to stuff adn not all the videos envlove women being attacked. Its only a humorus joke that 2K Gmaes made for the game and shoulden’t be taken seriously by anybody.
Dumb***
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:06 am
Sorry I missed that these videos were made in the 40’s and 50’s when everything was ok in Rapture. Andrew Ryan said also in the game that it was a time when males were the dominent gender.