dr-jekyl:

chronos-scribe:

inglorious-boshtet:

Does anyone else ever think about how strange it is that a galactic community ruled by

1. a monogendered race
2. an asexual race organized by matriarchal clans
3. an egalitarian race that doesn’t care if you’re male or female

supposedly came up with a very human-like misogynistic culture complete with gentlemen’s clubs and sexist comments (but only to Femshep) and rampant objectification of the asari? Like, isn’t it silly that the galaxy’s supposed culturally dominant race doesn’t actually dictate the cultural norms and instead is misunderstood and diminished for being more open about their sexuality? THAT’S NOT HOW CULTURAL IMPERIALISM WORKS GDI.

Asari attitudes towards sex (and most other things) should be the standard in Citadel space… but no, Bioware wanted sexy babes but also didn’t want to give them any actual power, so we get this weird universe with a race that’s simultaneously discriminated against while supposedly dominating in culture and philosophy. How even does that happen.

They’ve been running the galaxy for thousands of years despite having a pretty weak military. They have all the money, all the political power, and like every other culture that accumulates vast wealth, they’ve gotten pretty corrupt. People see them a certain way because less than honorable Asari learned to exploit other, less mature races with their sexuality. They even learned how to exploit themselves. Listen to Aria’s speech about how she got control of Omega… she sums it up quite nicely.

This assumption that an all female race is going to be “noble” is the real sexism at work here. People are people…good and bad irregardless of gender or race, and the bad ones tend to get an entire society labeled. Labeling goes on in our society today. Some Muslims are terrorists, therefore the rest of the world views Islam as the bogeyman… I could go on and on here about we categorize and paint entire cultures in broad brush strokes.

So of course, sexually aggressive Asari are going to get their culture painted by other races. Especially races that might see a 200 year old Asari playing head games with a 20 year old female or male of another species as slightly dubious.

So far from Bioware screwing up, they got it exactly right.

And finally, this notion that fans come up with about “Why an all female race?” well… the basic state of life is female. The Y chromosome is a mutation and it may be one that happens most often on earth but not elsewhere. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if we get out in galaxy in a few centuries and find several sentient all-female races. It may even be the galactic norm. Any race that evolves more quickly than ours is quite likely going to skip the male mutation altogether.

Besides, having the Asari the way they are, makes it possible to write gritty noir Sci-Fi.  Mass Effect 2 had by far the best setting of the 3 games. Give me dirt, grime and corruption as subjects to write about over Utopia any freaking day.

Ok, I feel like you’ve missed the point by a country mile.  It’s not that there’s an assumption that an
all-female race should be noble (quite the contrary – see how much everyone
loves Aria T’Loak).  It’s that only lip
service is given to the idea that they supposedly have all the money and all
the political power.  Supposedly, yes,
they are the cultural, economic and diplomatic powerhouses of the Council but We.
Never. See. It.

Name me one way in which it’s evident throughout the Mass
Effect games that the asari really are culturally, economically and politically
dominant?  Janiris – an asari holiday –
is celebrated across the galaxy? Yeah, so is Valentine’s Day.  Asari have Spectres?  There are more human Spectres in the game
than there are asari spectres, and most of the founding lore for the
organisation is salarian.  Asari have the
largest single ship in the fleet?  Asari
have the best, pound for pound, soldiers in the world?  It’s made repeatedly clear that they suck
compared to everyone else.  Asari are
famed for their foresight?  Of course
they’re the race who make zero preparations for the reaper war, even when it’s
obvious that they’re going to attack Thessia.  Aria T’Loak? 
Latest in a long line of dictators of various races.  Illium? 
Noveria.

No, what we see in terms of asari dominance, economically,
is the over-representation of them in front-house retail positions – positions
with low prestige in our society – or being really goddamn shady.  There is no in between.  There are no wealthy, virtuous asari.  Diplomacy? 
Humans solve every single diplomatic problem that arises in the game.  Sure, they’re on the council but they’re only
one of three – and then four.  And the
other three are male.

Culturally, we see their influence only in strip clubs and
brothels.  And, because you can’t read a
work like Mass Effect devoid of its context in our society, in which this kind
of work is largely demonised, and because
Bioware makes zero effort to challenge or even just lampshade this context, it
has to be read as being played straight, making it disempowering, not
empowering.  The closest they come to
challenging our cultural assumptions around sex work and sexuality is a scene
that has convinced half the fandom that the asari mind control men for
sex.  Which is a whoooole ‘nother level
of problematic.

And the game then reinforces this with a lot of overt and
covert sexism and disrespect throughout the rest of the games, everything from
ME1’s line from Gianna Parasini’s line about them being little more than
schoolgirls through to the whole thing with the Prothean interference (via
Javik) supposedly devaluing absolutely everything they accomplished.  The most popular piece of asari media?  Vania – which is, you guessed it, famous for
its sex scenes.  The asari holiday
celebrated everywhere?  Janiris.  Fertility. 
Sex.

And, most mind-boggling of all, in their attempts to give
the player a reason why an asari would want to bone Shepard, they virtually
criminalise normal, healthy asari sexuality. 
One would presume that asari have been fucking other asari since the
dawn of time, but, no, asari/asari is now icky, and even dangerous, because it
produces sex monsters.  Asari sexuality
can only be enjoyed by non-asari, and then most often in an exploitative
fashion that denies the asari in question agency. 

And, man, if that
isn’t fucked up.  And, equally fucked up,
mirror-reflective of how society tends to view female sexuality.

Where are the asari monuments?  The fashion? 
Why does nobody understand how asari melding and reproduction work?  Why are they referred to as ‘she’ and ‘her’
when they explicitly don’t identify as female? Where are the badass asari
heroes?  Where are the asari words
creeping into language?  Where are all
the asari cops and spectres?  Where is
the freaking cultural awareness???

Bioware, in other words, failed to show us what they told us
about the asari.  They told us they were old and powerful.  But they were in such a rush to be gritty and
subversive and sexy about this old and powerful and strange race that they
forgot to show us that they were old, powerful and strange in the first place.