2. A woman must still be able to be recognizably feminine, or people will not consider her a woman.

So, in the last point, it’s pretty clear that at first glance, most of those women portray some amount of femininity that makes them recognizable as women (even Samus has a small waistline and a noticeable chestplate even under her armor). And, of course, it’s okay to have women show cleavage through armor as long as it isn’t sexualized, right?

Leona from League of Legends. Really confusing design: supposed to be strong enough to carry a massive shield with one arm, but still has model-like proportions. But more importantly, she dons the infamous BOOB PLATE, with matching, SKIN-TIGHT WAIST ARMOR!

Alright, so here’s a few secrets that maybe we didn’t talk about much in school, because sex education isn’t a thing in the states! First, not all women have breasts as big as our heads. Second, breasts don’t have to be immediately noticeable over clothing or armor. Third—and this one’s important—boobs are generally sensitive, and are not meant to be hit by things or knocked against shit in a fight.

For now, I’m gonna classify the armor that showcases a woman’s boobs front and center as sexual objects instead of something to be protected as boob platemail. So, y’see, if we had boob platemail for lady warriors in reality, that shit would hurt not only from getting hit by just about anything (nevermind a sword or a magic missile), but just by having our boobs knock against bare metal for hours, possibly days.

And, designers, think: what do most women use when they wanna go run or do sports that involve lots of movement? We use sports bras to keep boobs tight to our bodies. Sure, I’d be lying if I said wearing fitted metal bra armor wouldn’t be rad, but it’s not practical.

Widowmaker. I’m also not too sure whether or not the spider visor was a good idea? Isn’t a sniper supposed to be focused on a single target and like, not have vision all around them to distract?

So, to apply it to some real characters, let’s take a look at Overwatch’s Widowmaker, otherwise known as “fuck, why can’t I be her in real life”.

She’s got the trademark Portal boots that I assume are for movement/shock support when landing at high speeds. She’s also got this handy tool in her arm that allows her to grapple quickly onto any surface and swing away (thus, the boots). Also, she’s a grade-A sniper.

The slender suit makes sense in this regard, because she needs to be streamlined. What doesn’t make sense is that her chest is being used solely as a sexual object. Every scenario I could think to justify that deep v-neck, no-support bullshit makes no sense.

She needs air because it gets hot in that suit. (This is the future and the suits are probably temperature controlled.) The suit is meant to be form-fitting for streamlined movement. (Then why doesn’t the suit also streamline her chest by making it flatter? It would catch less air, be less painful, allow great arm movement, etc.) i wanna see her boobs tho (That’s not good critical analysis.)

This happens more than I’d care to admit with character designs. Boobs aren’t treated as organs that can hurt or be hurt: they’re treated as pure, untouchable objects that are meant to be seen, to be glorified. This ignores the fact that, by their very nature, the more boobs we see, the more they’re in danger of being hurt. That’s what makes these designs so frustrating to see all the time: not only are they not remotely practical, but even the characters themselves would find these outfits ridiculous. Leona is a strong fucking woman who can lift that massive shield and swing it at people with enough force to physically stun them; she’s not gonna care if her boobs aren’t showing under her armor. Widowmaker is a trained assassin that is so skilled at killing, she chose her suit to fulfill that express purpose; so why isn’t she concerned about her boobs getting in the way when she’s trying to make a clean getaway?

While we think on that, here are some examples of women that don’t necessarily need to showcase their anatomy to be considered women:

I’m gay and we’re dating.

Both of Impa’s forms in Skyward Sword do not cater towards modern conceptions of female-ness in order to satisfy the male-gaze. In this form, she is slender and flat because she’s meant to be swift, like a ninja. In her older form, she is slumped and cross-legged, like a wise shaman. In both designs, it’s apparent that Impa is a woman; but there aren’t any specific gendered cues to enforce that depiction. Maybe that should tell us that women don’t necessarily have to have the sexual anatomy of women to be women?

Compare these with her older designs in Ocarina of Time, and we start to see some progress.(Also, what the hell is that Ocarina of Time design. She’s like, meant to be older but I think they still wanted to sexualize her? And they created this DeviantArt-like character that was trying to occupy both being old and wise and young and spry and it was just…kinda confusing, I think.)

TF2 should consider making a character that isn’t a guy though. Pyro’s ambiguity actually kinda irks me.

Although not discussed too often, it’s clear that Valve’s intent with the Pyro was to make them a character that doesn’t occupy gender norms. That way, they could keep pre-conceived notions of masculinity without the outward display of it. I put Pyro here to demonstrate how easy it is to deny gender constructs when making a human character: baggy clothing.

Iron Tarkus. Man? Woman? Or BADASS?! Source: http://karniz.deviantart.com/art/Dark-Souls-Iron-Knight-Tarkus-297678974

While the Iron Tarkus armor from Dark Souls 1 was made for a man, I want to show that the armor sets in Dark Souls 1 were generally gender ambiguous, and were not catered towards men or women. In other words, when you put on Tarkus’ armor as a woman, it did not give you a boob platemail equivalent, it gave you Tarkus’ fucking armor. The small differences in men’s armor versus women’s armor were so minuscule that they aren’t expressly noticeable at first sight, and that’s what’s brilliant about them. Your character is immediately recognizable as being decked out and cool-looking, not sexualized and vulnerable.

And really, here’s the heart of this issue: why do we need to know what gender our characters are? Why is it a necessity to see sexualized female anatomy to understand, “Oh, we’re dealing with a woman here.” This also begs the question, “Why can’t we make more genderqueer characters? Why do we have to showcase conceptions of gender in our characters? And why does it have to be obvious what gender our characters are?”

As a final example, I wanna direct attention to a game that’s (hopefully) coming out soon: it’s called Date or Die. The character designs are absolutely wonderful, and showcase some of the elements that I’m talking about in this point. Go check it out!