[X] My Assistant

[Kai Reddtail]

I was going to post this in the "Legendary Genders" thread but it turned out to be a long post. I thought it might potentially start another debate, and I didn't wanna hijack the thread so here it is.

I'm happy with the legends having no genders.

Pokemon already does a lot of gender stuff that feels stereotypical and helps with gender barriers.

Female pokemon are usually made to look "weaker" (smaller horns, etc.) Anything pink is either 100% or majority female.
Chansey is 100% female. It's pink and it's a healer/caretaker kind of pokemon and the standard nurse pokemon.
Kanghaskhan is 100% female, because it takes care of babies.

Most of the fighting pokemon are majority/100% male.
Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan are 100% male and Lucario has a majority male percentage.



You could say,"Well, they're basing it on real life. That's the way it is in nature!"

Yeah, but it's a video game. It doesn't have to be that way. If I want real life I'm not going to play a video game, that kinda defeats the point of a video game, IMO. Besides, if that's true why doesn't pokemon imitate animals when it works in reverse?

In hyena society females are overwhelmingly dominant. Even the lowliest female outranks the highest ranking male. but Mightyena has no gender differences.

In the world of Raptors (ie Birds of Prey) the females are bigger and more aggressive, sometimes they're twice or three times the size of males. But none of the bird pokemon reflect that. You could argue that Swellow doesn't count as a bird of prey, or Pidgeot (though I think it is) but Staraptor definitely is. Thats why it has raptor in it's name. But there are no gender differences and they're all 50/50 gender ratio.

Why can't Chansey or Kanghaskhan be male too? Males can take care of babies. Men can be nurses, caretakers and healers.

Believe it or not, some men like pink too. I know one.

And girls can be fighters, so why did they make Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan 100% male?


I'm not even going to say anything about female Wobbuffet's lipstick. Good god it burns....

Don't get me wrong here, this is a friendly debate. I'm not going to go on some kind of super feminist boycott of the games until they change it. I just wondered if anyone else has noticed it, or if anyone else thinks it's a little stereotypical that way?

Discuss.

[Vade]

Agreed.
Ever since I was young, I wondered why Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee were never female.
I mean, at least give Hitmonchan some chance.
Female Wobbuffets are probably the most disturbing thing I've seen in a while, though. Ugh..

[Lummi]

I've always thought that Kangaskhan needed a male counterpart. I'm sure the only reason that they're all female is because they are always with a baby, which should be changed. My ideal is that Kangaskhan could become a fifty-fifty species with the baby being the first stage.

Anyway, I agree with you. I'd like to see more realistic gender differences. I didn't know that about the Hitmons. Machop and the other fighting pokemon can be female, why restrict them? I don't see any reason why Chansey can't be at least seventy-five-twenty-five. They could make Happiny's ponytail smaller for the male sprite.

I love my male Jigglypuffs. I've trained four over three games, and only one of them was female.

[Thornstar]

The starters need a 50/50 ratio. Definitely.

Meganium=Masculine? o.O

Eevee and its evolutions also need 50/50. Actually, most of the evolutions (and Eevee itself) acutally look really feminine to me. The only exceptions are Jolteon (which I think is masculine) and Flareon (which looks like it could be either).

Not to mention Omanyte/Omastar, Munchlax/Snorlax, Snubbull/Granbull, and Lileep/Cradily, they should all be 50/50 too.

Oh and Togepi/Togetic/Togekiss. Nintendo obviously buys a lot of beer with all that money of theirs. They make an obvious candidate for mostly female into the same gender ratio as the starters with making a female confusingly hard to get considering the way they look.

Azurill being 75% female with its evolutions being 50/50 makes no sense whatsoever either.

This post has been edited by Thornstar: May 8 2009, 11:21 PM

[PeachyMomo]

I agree, it's stupid. And I don't think animals where lipstick or like pink in nature xD

A lot of it has to do with human society. Trying to put men and women in their discriminating, stereotypical "place."

I know in the Pokemon Mystery games, what Pokemon you are is actually partially based on your sex. Like. Males can't be Eevee, Skitty, or Chikorita and females can't be Meowth, Cyndaquil, or Machop. I dislike this. A lot.

This post has been edited by PeachyMomo: May 9 2009, 02:03 AM

[Decontrolled Rai...]

I do agree. But we see that when people assign genders to legendaries they follow similar guidelines - smaller, cuter legends are usually female while the bigger, stronger legends are thought to be male. We do it ourselves.

As for the gender percentages in the games...I don't think that has anything to do with the gender roles. The fact is, females are the ones who can produce eggs. By tilting the scales so males are more likely, it prevents players from obtaining females easily, and therefore breeding more of the rarer species. It's more a measure to try and keep uncommon or rare Pokemon, well, uncommon or rare XD

[PsygnosDoraemon]

Several of the Pokémon in this series seems to stereotype just about anything, from genders to ethnic groups. It's like the entire time this wasn't really supposed to be just a "kids game." It's like Rocko's Modern Life and it's seedy nature at times.

Now we have other feminine in appearance Pokémon like Bellossum, Kirlia, Gardevoir, Roselia, Lopunny, etc., who are both male and female, and the masculine Pokémon like Gallade, and it's always male. As for the feminine just to pretty much think of it, they pretty get their love, yet in a rather sour way. There's a lot of "ecchi" and pornographic images of them all over the web, Gardevoir being the most popular because of it's humanoid appearance, and you know how fanboys are all in the rage for the usual routine of anime women, and Gardevoirs are barely human. Lopunny likely the second, because you know how the furry fetish goes... (there actually is no furry fandom. it's a fetish.)

My god, this series is just plain absurd. The fans are more absurd, and can usually be pretty unnerving.

[Focus Aipom]

Yeah it is strange how they arrange the genders. Hope they fix the azurill problem lol.
Also the starters should stay mostly male but some should have a more equal chance to be female like Chikorita which looks pretty feminine and it should at least be perhaps 50% for both genders for feminine looking pokemon like starters like Chikorita.

The mystery dungeon series is also pretty strange, I mean pokemon like Eevee being female only is really not fair.

Eevee and its evolutions also need 50/50. Actually, most of the evolutions (and Eevee itself) acutally look really feminine to me. The only exceptions are Jolteon (which I think is masculine) and Flareon (which looks like it could be either).

well it is kind of opinion of which looks more feminine or masculine. But eevees were prob made 87.5% to make them rarer to breed.

This post has been edited by Focus Aipom: May 9 2009, 07:01 PM

[Pikalover10]

I see your point, now listen to mine.

While its true that they usually try to make the females look weaker, and that the Pokemon are normally based off of animals look at it this way. Yes some animals were made to look more agressive then the males, but there are some that are the other way around. Like lions, the females don't have manes like the males, but they have to raise the young and hunt/fend for themselves and their child. Same for most other big cats.

I think they didn't make a male for Khangaskhan and Chansey because in most animals lives they don't nurse the young and that's usually the mother's job (except for oes like seahorse, etc.)

Hitmonlee+Hitmonchan I agree with you. I'm a girl and I can kick most of the guy's butts in my class. Granted I have a black belt in taikwondo, but that's not the point. They should definetly have girls of these too.

So there's my point.

[Dazmi]

Female Wobbuffets are probably the most disturbing thing I've seen in a while, though. Ugh..

I actually love the lipstick on female Wobbuffet!

I'm actually fine with legendaries having no gender.
Besides, there'd no be point in it.

[Kai Reddtail]

I do agree. But we see that when people assign genders to legendaries they follow similar guidelines - smaller, cuter legends are usually female while the bigger, stronger legends are thought to be male. We do it ourselves.

As for the gender percentages in the games...I don't think that has anything to do with the gender roles. The fact is, females are the ones who can produce eggs. By tilting the scales so males are more likely, it prevents players from obtaining females easily, and therefore breeding more of the rarer species. It's more a measure to try and keep uncommon or rare Pokemon, well, uncommon or rare XD

Yeah, people do it themselves too. I know. Thats not good either though. In fact I was tempted to make a similar sort of thread about gender barriers in people. lol.

It may serve to help with rarity, but that doesn't mean it has to be blatantly stereotypical. Why not majority male Chanseys or majority female Hitmons?


I do see what you mean. It just bugs me. XD

Yeah it is strange how they arrange the genders. Hope they fix the azurill problem lol.
Also the starters should stay mostly male but some should have a more equal chance to be female like Chikorita which looks pretty feminine and it should at least be perhaps 50% for both genders for feminine looking pokemon like starters like Chikorita.

I dunno. I'd rather they stop perpetuating the idea that something like flowers and pink=feminine myself.

It'd make me happier if something perceived as more likely to be male was majority female. Maybe a reptile like Charizard or Ferliagtr.

I see your point, now listen to mine.

While its true that they usually try to make the females look weaker, and that the Pokemon are normally based off of animals look at it this way. Yes some animals were made to look more agressive then the males, but there are some that are the other way around. Like lions, the females don't have manes like the males, but they have to raise the young and hunt/fend for themselves and their child. Same for most other big cats.

Yeah, but I already covered this. It imitates animals when males are dominant but it doesn't imitate animals when it works in reverse. (See: Hyenas and Raptors.)

I think they didn't make a male for Khangaskhan and Chansey because in most animals lives they don't nurse the young and that's usually the mother's job (except for oes like seahorse, etc.)

Yeah, but I covered this too. Males can take care of babies too. Why don't they make them majority male to help get rid of this stereotype? Or make the fighting pokemon majority female?

Our society has made us believe that females are always the caretakers of babies, but if I wanted real life I wouldn't be playing a video game.

This post has been edited by Kai Reddtail: May 9 2009, 08:11 PM

[PsygnosDoraemon]

Female Wobbuffets are probably the most disturbing thing I've seen in a while, though. Ugh..

I actually love the lipstick on female Wobbuffet!

I'm actually fine with legendaries having no gender.
Besides, there'd no be point in it.

I feel the same way for both statements.

[Dys Tuvai]

This automatically brings me to Gallade.

Don't get me wrong. I don't hate Gallade - It's a nifty little species. But for the love of desu, that thing does not have a valid right to exist. >>; It's pretty much obvious it was created for FANSERVICE because people were whining about how ONOES MALE GARDEVOIRS WEAR A DRESS.

(I'd like to see them explain why Gallade wears a Tutu. Or is that a pelvic tumor? >>;)

I do think that some of the female-only species need a male equivalent and that some of the male-only species need female equivalents - but I think that Chanseys are 100% female because they pretty much lay the eggs they carry. Otherwise Softboiled would make little sense. As for Kangaskhan, I'm yet to see a MALE marsupial with a pouch!

As for the Hitmon-whatever line - I dunno. I personally think they were domesticated from a wild species by humans and while their core genus had both genders, only the males were bred by whoever domesticated them because they were either sexist bastard martial-arts masters of the sort who actually believed in male superiority - or perhaps the females weren't aggressive enough for their tastes. Truth is, we don't know a lot about the history of some PokeMon species. >>;

The Wobbuffet thing was a joke, I'm pretty sure. Unless it's a subtle reference to Farmel of Wild Arms IV >>;

Oh, and the Azurill thing? It makes a LOT of sense considering Azurill is basically an abortion-fetus Marill. Not only it didn't develop its water type traits yet, some of them haven't had their sex hormones affect their reproductive systems yet. Hence some female Azurills change gender to male upon evolution.

This post has been edited by Dys Tuvai: May 10 2009, 03:38 PM

[PeachyMomo]

It may serve to help with rarity, but that doesn't mean it has to be blatantly stereotypical. Why not majority male Chanseys or majority female Hitmons?

I dunno. I'd rather they stop perpetuating the idea that something like flowers and pink=feminine myself.

It'd make me happier if something perceived as more likely to be male was majority female. Maybe a reptile like Charizard or Ferliagtr.

Yeah, but I covered this too. Males can take care of babies too. Why don't they make them majority male to help get rid of this stereotype? Or make the fighting pokemon majority female?

I guess I understand your idea behind these, but I don't think it's a good idea in the slightest. Nothing good comes from REVERSING stereotypes. Stereotypes don't work like math - you can't multiply two negatives and end up with a positive. If you reverse the stereotype, then the sexism will still exist, and it will become reversed as well. It would create the same negative stereotype only the sexes would be reversed. The only way to get rid of a stereotype is to abolish it altogether, not just switch it around. The only way to get rid of sexism is to destroy it. In order to get rid of the sexism in something like Pokemon, it would have to be neutral.

Not referring to the natural, logical sex selections in Pokemon, however.

This post has been edited by PeachyMomo: May 10 2009, 02:29 PM

[Kitten]

It creeps me out about how I caught a female Machoke and a female Mr. Mime on my Crystal. o.o

[Ness]

I agree with eliminating the gender stereotypes. D:
I'm a guy and I like pink... It's my favouirte colour.

I never got the Hitmonchan one. I always thought he was a girl when I first saw him, anyway. xD

I don't like gender stereotypes at all. -_-

[Kai Reddtail]

It may serve to help with rarity, but that doesn't mean it has to be blatantly stereotypical. Why not majority male Chanseys or majority female Hitmons?

I dunno. I'd rather they stop perpetuating the idea that something like flowers and pink=feminine myself.

It'd make me happier if something perceived as more likely to be male was majority female. Maybe a reptile like Charizard or Ferliagtr.

Yeah, but I covered this too. Males can take care of babies too. Why don't they make them majority male to help get rid of this stereotype? Or make the fighting pokemon majority female?

I guess I understand your idea behind these, but I don't think it's a good idea in the slightest. Nothing good comes from REVERSING stereotypes. Stereotypes don't work like math - you can't multiply two negatives and end up with a positive. If you reverse the stereotype, then the sexism will still exist, and it will become reversed as well. It would create the same negative stereotype only the sexes would be reversed. The only way to get rid of a stereotype is to abolish it altogether, not just switch it around. The only way to get rid of sexism is to destroy it. In order to get rid of the sexism in something like Pokemon, it would have to be neutral.

Not referring to the natural, logical sex selections in Pokemon, however.

Hmm. You make a very good point.

But I don't see how else it could be done in the pokemon games.

Cause if it's 50/50 all the time, then it would be easy to match up the genders and breeding would be no challenge. SO in the process of making breeding more challenging, they cater to stereotypes.

So if we can't make everything 50/50 and we don't want them to perpetuate the stereotypes, what else can they do but reverse some?

It creeps me out about how I caught a female Machoke and a female Mr. Mime on my Crystal. o.o

Why?

This automatically brings me to Gallade.

Don't get me wrong. I don't hate Gallade - It's a nifty little species. But for the love of desu, that thing does not have a valid right to exist. >>; It's pretty much obvious it was created for FANSERVICE because people were whining about how ONOES MALE GARDEVOIRS WEAR A DRESS.

I like Gallade, but I kinda wish they hadn't made him. Guys can wear dresses.

(I'd like to see them explain why Gallade wears a Tutu. Or is that a pelvic tumor? >>;)

This made me lawl.

I do think that some of the female-only species need a male equivalent and that some of the male-only species need female equivalents -

I dunno. Cause they'd just keep perpetuating the stereotypes I think. Say they make female versions of the Hitmons. What would they be like? Chances are they'd be "prettier", graceful, not as focused towards strength. Good chance they wouldn't make them look stronger than the Hitmons.

but I think that Chanseys are 100% female because they pretty much lay the eggs they carry. Otherwise Softboiled would make little sense.

You got me there. Maybe they could make male Chanseys that were unable to learn softboiled? XD
They still carry around eggs (Obviously not ones that they laid), and are still pink nurse pokemon.

As for Kangaskhan, I'm yet to see a MALE marsupial with a pouch!

It doesn't have to imitate animals in every way. The males could have a pouch to help care for the babies half the time.

They still don't imitate them when it works in reverse with the hyenas and raptors.






This post has been edited by Kai Reddtail: May 10 2009, 03:17 PM

[Focus Aipom]

I dunno. I'd rather they stop perpetuating the idea that something like flowers and pink=feminine myself.

It'd make me happier if something perceived as more likely to be male was majority female. Maybe a reptile like Charizard or Ferliagtr.

It would be different but then again awkward. Some pokemon just seem to fit into those genders made for them. Like most consider females to be gentle and be generally considered by those colours pink and stuff. It isn't fair I guess but still it seems more fitting. Pokemon like the hitmons are considered by being like Jacky Chan and Bruce lee and having a female version wouldn't really make sense. Perhaps a female fighting type should be made next gen?

This post has been edited by Focus Aipom: May 10 2009, 03:00 PM

[PeachyMomo]

It may serve to help with rarity, but that doesn't mean it has to be blatantly stereotypical. Why not majority male Chanseys or majority female Hitmons?

I dunno. I'd rather they stop perpetuating the idea that something like flowers and pink=feminine myself.

It'd make me happier if something perceived as more likely to be male was majority female. Maybe a reptile like Charizard or Ferliagtr.

Yeah, but I covered this too. Males can take care of babies too. Why don't they make them majority male to help get rid of this stereotype? Or make the fighting pokemon majority female?

I guess I understand your idea behind these, but I don't think it's a good idea in the slightest. Nothing good comes from REVERSING stereotypes. Stereotypes don't work like math - you can't multiply two negatives and end up with a positive. If you reverse the stereotype, then the sexism will still exist, and it will become reversed as well. It would create the same negative stereotype only the sexes would be reversed. The only way to get rid of a stereotype is to abolish it altogether, not just switch it around. The only way to get rid of sexism is to destroy it. In order to get rid of the sexism in something like Pokemon, it would have to be neutral.

Not referring to the natural, logical sex selections in Pokemon, however.

Hmm. You make a very good point.

But I don't see how else it could be done in the pokemon games.

Cause if it's 50/50 all the time, then it would be easy to match up the genders and breeding would be no challenge. SO in the process of making breeding more challenging, they cater to stereotypes.

So if we can't make everything 50/50 and we don't want them to perpetuate the stereotypes, what else can they do but reverse some?

Yeah, I guess that's true, for breeding's sake. But it'd be better if they chose random Pokemon to make more male of or more female of; ones that wouldn't necessarily fit either stereotype.

And some I am okay with, if they can be explained in the natural world, I guess.

[Kai Reddtail]

I dunno. I'd rather they stop perpetuating the idea that something like flowers and pink=feminine myself.

It'd make me happier if something perceived as more likely to be male was majority female. Maybe a reptile like Charizard or Ferliagtr.

It would be different but then again awkward. Some pokemon just seem to fit into those genders made for them. Like most consider females to be gentle and be generally considered by those colours pink and stuff. It isn't fair I guess but still it seems more fitting. Pokemon like the hitmons are considered by being like Jacky Chan and Bruce lee and having a female version wouldn't really make sense. Perhaps a female fighting type should be made next gen?

It feels awkward because society has ingrained these stereotypes into us. If everyone tried to get rid of these sterotypes "feminine" males (to pick an example) wouldn't get teased because there would be no "feminine" or "mascline" traits. People should just be people. Guys can wear dresses and like pink, girls can be tough fighters and play football and such. Guys wouldn't get teased for ridiculous reasons like liking the color pink.

People are just people, not guys or girls.

I guess it's not really pokemon's job to combat this sort of thing, but it would make people like me a lot happier. lol.

This post has been edited by Kai Reddtail: May 10 2009, 03:36 PM