Women in the Zone Thread - MISERY mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

No females in the Zone....why?

Storyline explanations:

1) Women would be quickly raped and killed.

However: what about prostitutes? Protected by armed escort and guarded at safe locations. Therefore, there must be another justification.

2) Women are far more susceptible to the ravages of blowout emissions, psy energy, background anomalous emanations and radiation. For example, their reproductive organs become cancerous very quickly.

However, what of animals in the zone? There are bitches and male dogs...why only human female susceptibility to Zonal energies?

Proposal: no female gendered animal survives in the Zone. They quickly die before successful mutation. All mutants are by default male and their aggresion is in searching for a reproductive partner that does not exisit. There is no biological reproduction in the zone...all new creatures are victims who have strayed into the Zone.

That is another reason why the Zone is MISERY...there are no females, no reproduction in the Zone. Only death and Russian/Ukrainian Playboy.

Well, it does make sence there is porn magazines when there are no females around. Every man needs to wank ocational. I guess mutants have mutated along the way and they dont reproduce. Maybe they do. I guess every living thing finds a way to reproduce itself. Eggs, parasite or mating. Well as long as there is enough to shot up in the zone I am fine

pottergreen wrote: No females in the Zone....why?

Storyline explanations:

1) Women would be quickly raped and killed.

Where does this say this? I have played every game and I have never come across this as an explanation (it's called laziness, if you didn't figure it out yet). Also are you trying to tell me an "average housewife" is going to go into the zone, possibly the most dangerous place on the Earth unprepared? Sooo....

Edited by: AssassinMonLV

I always just Thought It Would ve very much lesa common, sayimg most stalkers are noted to be criminals, rejects or down on Their luck, It just dost seam to be a place Where females Would end up as commonly end up

although, i wouldnt ve surprized to see a few here and Their, but in misery Where everyone Is doped up, half drunk It wouldnt seam Right, to mě at least
..

AssassinMonLV wrote:

pottergreen wrote: No females in the Zone....why?

Storyline explanations:

1) Women would be quickly raped and killed.

Where does this say this? I have played every game and I have never come across this as an explanation (it's called laziness, if you didn't figure it out yet). Also are you trying to tell me an "average housewife" is going to go into the zone, possibly the most dangerous place on the Earth unprepared? Sooo....

Your response is very weak. The premise is why are there no women, at all, in the Zone. Not "where in other games does it say this". The Zone.

Any able female stalker caught in the Zone by Bandits would not just be robbed and killed, but raped or worse made into a sex-slave. Even a highly trained female soldier can get injured, run out of bullets, get dosed with rads, etc. As vulnerable as a house wife. Its not like politically correct Skyrim where the Bandits look like co-ed college kids in a frat-house hazing ritual. Some men in a lawless zone facing low-odds of surviving will take what they want when they can. Sex is something that desperados want and they aint sending flowers and asking for dates.

But why isnt Beard, Owl or Sultan running a brothel? Whores can be protected; huge profits to service desperate,lonely and dying men. Hence, no-women must be an issue of survivability for female gender in Zone conditions.

Disrrgarding The point That gsc just didnt bother...

We also have That in roadside picknic The Only female characters are outside The zone

also, having a brothel dipected in these games Would just seam.... Odd?
also, most stalkers seam more or less, friendly apart from bandita...

WolveNZ wrote: Disrrgarding The point That gsc just didnt bother...

We also have That in roadside picknic The Only female characters are outside The zone

also, having a brothel dipected in these games Would just seam.... Odd?
also, most stalkers seam more or less, friendly apart from bandita...

So Roadside Picnic maintains a female-free Zone; the Tarkovsky film "Stalker" depicts men going into the Zone; the Stalker/Guide's wife begs him not to go, seeing that activity as both dangerous and an abandonment of his responsibilities. So it is a place where men go to be irresponsible and selfish.

Yes, it would seem odd to have brothels in the storyline, and there are not brothels in the Zone; Im just speculating that if there are not even brothels, I imagine it to be that female physiology reacts badly to Zone energies; for example, perpetual menstruation-blood loss, ovarian cancer.

The Misery places more bandita, more hostile. But there seems to be a Stalker code of peace and the idealism of Freedom and Duty.

Pottergreen, my point is not weak. You have gone off stereotypical views of woman as weaker to men. We are not weaker to men in any way besides physical strength (only at birth, if you body build then you'll have a good amount of strength that's what happens when you work out your muscles). Endurance, stamina, and mental fitness are all things that are conditioned through rigorous training. Soldiers are trained to be cunning. No lone soldier would dare engage a group of 4 or more hostiles unless they are withing a range greater than 75 yards, where you are able to make a hasty retreat if the attack fails. Your logic argues that ALL women will get raped and killed in the zone; therefore, there are no women in the zone. I can tell you now that any woman that is in the military would be able to survive the zone. Also, a little fun fact, woman are quicker on the trigger in the military than men so you would bet that in the zone female stalkers would be a lot more aggressive than male ones. Hey the good thing is GSC confirmed for female stalkers in STALKER 2 (not stupid 17 year old girls dressed up in skimpy clothing and giant breasts blown way out of proportion, they say it'll be a realistic woman that looks like they could do something in the zone.) Too bad they shut their doors.

Edited by: AssassinMonLV

Assassin MonLV: in any lawless zone, such as a war zone, women are raped. WOmen do not rape men; these are not stereotypes. That is the reality. Even a highly trained female soldier can get attacked by a mutant, a bloodsucker, and injured. Then discovered by bandits, who havent seen a woman in months. The problem of rape/slavery poses a special problem for all women stalkers: is it worth the risk? Call me sexist, but women are risk adverse.

GsC originally intended on including a playable female character in the original Oblivion Lost concept. She was a female secret agent called Barby, I don't know how much of her would be salvageable if anyone wanted to mod female stalkers into the game.

If we look at the role of women in third world war zones like Syria, Chechnya, Nagorno-Karabakh etc they can be seen as active combatants, but they are far less common than men to the point that they are still a rarity. It is unrealistic that there would be absolutely no women in the zone at all (not even a scientist) but I think it is realistic that, for instance, they would be hard to find. Societal attitudes in that part of Europe would see a handful of female stalkers, but not very many. Sadly, I think a far more common instance of women appearing would be in brothels run by bandits. Human trafficking and so forth. If I was a bandit leader, finding a way to bring women to the zone would make me a very very wealthy man.

Of course, women from Eastern Europe proved themselves in battle throughout the Second World War as partisans and soldiers.
None of this is saying that women are too weak to enter the zone, they just probably wouldn't unless they had to.

Another point to consider is that, given the lack of women, a "prison-like" environment has been created. It's interesting that there are no situationally-homosexual stalkers. I hate to break it to pottergreen but there's also a possibility that a male stalker could be raped. That kind of thing, in my opinion, would be more common than a female stalker.

You just have to remember the traditional stalker demographic: young, impoverished men with nothing to lose. They are the same demographic as thieves, gangsters and soldiers. Women are seldom found among those ranks.

Edited by: CosmicDwarf

pottergreen wrote: Assassin MonLV: in any lawless zone, such as a war zone, women are raped. WOmen do not rape men; these are not stereotypes. That is the reality. Even a highly trained female soldier can get attacked by a mutant, a bloodsucker, and injured. Then discovered by bandits, who havent seen a woman in months. The problem of rape/slavery poses a special problem for all women stalkers: is it worth the risk? Call me sexist, but women are risk adverse.

Ok, how about we do some reverse thinking here. Take the zone, and its men, change those men to women, woman as you see it. What would happen to a man that enters the zone populated by women? Answer that for me.

Edited by: AssassinMonLV

To correct pottergreen, women raping men is very possible and happens, just not as frequently as men raping women. Lots of sexual abuse is carried out by mothers on their children. That isn't to say though that female sexuality in general (the words "in general" being key here) may be less "aggressive" to men, which would suggest that a man entering a zone populated by women would be less likely to experience something like that.

Edited by: CosmicDwarf

CosmicDwarf wrote: To correct pottergreen, women raping men is very possible and happens, just not as frequently as men raping women. Lots of sexual abuse is carried out by mothers on their children. That isn't to say though that female sexuality in general (the words "in general" being key here) may be less "aggressive" to men, which would suggest that a man entering a zone populated by women would be less likely to experience something like that.

Thank you for your input here; however, just a minor point, women in war zones are much more suspicious, we shoot quicker than men when we feel something amiss. These woman won't be the "in general woman." They'd be either hard line criminals, or battle hardened combatants.

Edited by: AssassinMonLV

AssassinMonLV wrote:

Thank you for your input here; however, just a minor point, women in war zones are much more suspicious, we shoot quicker than men when we feel something amiss. These woman won't be the "in general woman." They'd be either hard line criminals, or battle hardened combatants.

That is very true. They would mean serious business.

I think the most dangerous fighter I could imagine right now would be a female Monolith sniper. I know it's a cliche that sniping is seen as a "feminine" role and such, (you never see women doing room clearing with a shotgun in movies) but the Monolith snipers are a force to be reckoned with, and women seem to be far more zealous as revolutionaries and religious fanatics (think of the IRA or Red Army Faction).

My speculation was that a biological condition prevents women from enduring in the Zone and that condition applies to animals as well. The Stalker series "fact" is that in all three iterations of the game, there are no women. None. Not even human trafficked.

Cosmic Dwarf suggests that as a correction, women can rape young boys. This is absurd, as my observation was that MEN (not boys) are not raped by women; children are not men, men are defined as adult. There are no children in the Zone either.

To quote Assasin "Take the zone, and its men, change those men to women, woman as you see
it. What would happen to a man that enters the zone populated by women?
Answer that for me." If the answer is that the man would be raped, how? Fear does not cause erections...how could a man penetrate a woman forcibly if they are not erect? Most woman who are tough are also bull-dykes, lesbians (eg as in female prison system). They would rape women as well, or use a prostitute.

If Misery is to capture some of the atmosphere of The Road movie, examine what the movie envosions: housewives prefer suicide to societal breakdown. The ones who survive are meat, for the belly or as a hole.

Feminism and inclusiveness depends on civilization. Take away civilization, and women are reduced to servitude as would most men. A few strong men usually emerge, on the backs of others.

AssassinMonLV: I did not realize you are female, but why should that make a difference? It does not, but I understand now your motivation. I thought you were a male with an unrealistic view of strong women, but if you are female, then your posts make more sense i.e., that as a female, females can be as gritty as men, etc. An observation from experience and not an idealized view of women. If that is your experience, I cannot contradict that reality.

Edited by: pottergreen

pottergreen wrote: So Roadside Picnic maintains a female-free Zone; the Tarkovsky film "Stalker" depicts men going into the Zone; the Stalker/Guide's wife begs him not to go, seeing that activity as both dangerous and an abandonment of his responsibilities. So it is a place where men go to be irresponsible and selfish.

Roadside picnic has a 'female free Zone' because it is a death trap in every way - it is practically a male free zone. It is not a good example to use because STALKER (the game) is not like roadside picnic. Nobody would play the game if it was like roadside picnic, because you would spend 90% of the time dead and the other 10% frozen in fear, afraid to take another step in case you walked into witches' jelly (or fell into a cobweb and died hours later). Compared to Roadside Picnic, STALKER is a joke, a child's playground.

Likewise, the film is not about the Zone. It is about human motivation, about morality and greed (like the wish granter in Picnic, which requires 'feeding' the meatgrinder).

The fact that there are no women inside the Zone in STALKER has nothing to do with gender politics or sexism. It has to do with player 'enjoyment'. The same reason you can't kill children in the majority of videogames (e.g. Skyrim, GTA) is also, I believe, the same reason you don't see women in the Zone. I have no problem shooting a (virtual) male bandit in the face. I would feel uncomfortable shooting an obviously female bandit in the face. A woman could realistically be a bandit in the Zone, but an FPS videogame audience (predominantly male, developers believe) would probably not enjoy killing women for the same reason that a man hitting a woman is not the same as a man hitting a man, societally speaking. This, plus developer constraints (facial creation, etc), prevented implementing women in the Zone.

Also, realistically speaking, you think men wouldn't be raped by men in the Zone? You think everyone would be happy with porn magazines? The 'rape argument' isn't a good one either.

Edited by: slubgob

Well the zone is a war zone. There is a lot of rapping and torture in a war zone. That's give and the argument they wouldn't make it valid. Duty would love to rape and brutally kill Freedom's girls and the oppositie, and so on. The are also the nasty bandits trying their best to screw the player over whenever possible.

But i think there's another reason. The Zone is a nasty place in which you get radiated and mutated easily. Females give birth to children. Any female after the zone would only bear mutated offspring. In the RL this would be extremely discouraging.

Secondly, men tend to be more prone to risk than the other sex, but also give and and break down easier than women. Statistics say 4 times more men tries suicide than women (4:1). This in connection with the argument above would give you quite many men in the Zone and just a few women.

BTW, that picture and the guy who posted is an idiot.

Edited by: RedBullJunkie

pottergreen wrote: My speculation was that a biological condition prevents women from enduring in the Zone and that condition applies to animals as well. The Stalker series "fact" is that in all three iterations of the game, there are no women. None. Not even human trafficked.

The "fact" is so because GsC did not bother to implement women yet. There's no big idea behind it, it was just development constraints.

Cosmic Dwarf suggests that as a correction, women can rape young boys. This is absurd, as my observation was that MEN (not boys) are not raped by women; children are not men, men are defined as adult. There are no children in the Zone either.

I apologise for not being clear enough. I was using the example of mothers sexually abusing their children (girls or boys) as an example of something that is usually associated with male sexuality actually being known among women too. An estimated 1% of rapists are female, some of them have molested men.

To quote Assasin "Take the zone, and its men, change those men to women, woman as you see
it. What would happen to a man that enters the zone populated by women?
Answer that for me." If the answer is that the man would be raped, how? Fear does not cause erections...how could a man penetrate a woman forcibly if they are not erect? Most woman who are tough are also bull-dykes, lesbians (eg as in female prison system). They would rape women as well, or use a prostitute.

Sexual assault is a better expression to use than "rape" in that case and would cover the kind of abuse that might happen (though I said it would be much less likely). The word "rape" is quite unofficial and ambiguous.

If Misery is to capture some of the atmosphere of The Road movie, examine what the movie envosions: housewives prefer suicide to societal breakdown. The ones who survive are meat, for the belly or as a hole.

Only if you believe that the collapse of civilisation, or the creation of a new kind of civilisation, reduces every single man to a beast. Not every stalker is a beast.

Feminism and inclusiveness depends on civilization. Take away civilization, and women are reduced to servitude as would most men. A few strong men usually emerge, on the backs of others.

This is true, but "the big land" still exists. Civilisation in the zone may be very different, that isn't to say though that at least 1 or 2 learned women would make it.

AssassinMonLV: I did not realize you are female, but why should that make a difference? It does not, but I understand now your motivation. I thought you were a male with an unrealistic view of strong women, but if you are female, then your posts make more sense i.e., that as a female, females can be as gritty as men, etc. An observation from experience and not an idealized view of women. If that is your experience, I cannot contradict that reality.

So... in other words she's right?

RedBullJunkie wrote: Well the zone is a war zone. There is a lot of rapping and torture in a war zone. That's give and the argument they wouldn't make it valid. Duty would love to rape and brutally kill Freedom's girls and the oppositie, and so on. The are also the nasty bandits trying their best to screw the player over whenever possible.

Somehow I can't see Duty raping and "brutally killing" Freedom's girls. Freedom and Duty aren't savages. Some of them might be so inclined, like Skull or Flint, but generally speaking they're quite upstanding guys (for the zone) who probably wouldn't go that far. Bandits might, Mercs might, Duty and Freedom no.

In any case, that isn't a reason for there to be no women in the zone because the women who'd actually end up there for that purpose probably wouldn't have had a choice in the matter.

But i think there's another reason. The Zone is a nasty place in which you get radiated and mutated easily. Females give birth to children. Any female after the zone would only bear mutated offspring. In the RL this would be extremely discouraging.

I think a woman attempting to have a baby in the zone would need her head examined.

Secondly, men tend to be more prone to risk than the other sex, but also give and and break down easier than women. Statistics say 4 times more men tries suicide than women (4:1). This in connection with the argument above would give you quite many men in the Zone and just a few women.

I agree with you there completely.

Edited by: CosmicDwarf

RedBullJunkie wrote: Well the zone is a war zone. There is a lot of rapping and torture in a war zone. That's give and the argument they wouldn't make it valid. Duty would love to rape and brutally kill Freedom's girls and the oppositie, and so on. The are also the nasty bandits trying their best to screw the player over whenever possible.

But i think there's another reason. The Zone is a nasty place in which you get radiated and mutated easily. Females give birth to children. Any female after the zone would only bear mutated offspring. In the RL this would be extremely discouraging.

Secondly, men tend to be more prone to risk than the other sex, but also give and and break down easier than women. Statistics say 4 times more men tries suicide than women (4:1). This in connection with the argument above would give you quite many men in the Zone and just a few women.

BTW, that picture and the guy who posted is an idiot.

How is the post idiotic. I believed it to be a sterotype that woman cannot cope in harsh conditions as well as men can. The OP stated that any woman that enters the zone will be quickly raped and killed. It is a stereotype that is unoriginal and/or sexist. Also the fact that you give no reasons for the "idiocy" of the post makes your argument that it is, weak. To counter pottergreen's sterotype, yes again, that the woman of the zone would be bulldykes and lesbians, I'm not a lesbian, and the many other woman I have the pleasure of serving with aren't either. The point being that just because a woman goes and does something a man does does not make her a lesbian. The hard line female criminals might be more open to doing things with the same sex, but what about the hard line male criminals? They would be equally "gay" as a hard line woman as they come from a prison setting where they may have also been raped in prison. This argument has two sides. Neither side can be right, we have our own opinions. We can all agree that woman can be as gritty as man, and that a female stalker most likely would. If there were female stalkers some would be lesbians (not all!) and vice versa with the males. Slubgob sums up this argument pretty well, however if games do not move pass the impasses of woman have to be treated like they're fragile, precious, things, women will never be an audience that is actively catered to, or considered something more than an object to be protected. It is a sad fact that female gamers put up with.

@Slubgob when you say prominently male, you do mean STALKER, correct? Not the whole gaming community?

Edited by: AssassinMonLV

I don't have any qualms about shooting a woman in a game for the same reason that Assassin gives. Not only do I not think killing a woman is any worse than killing a man, if we don't get past that kind of reluctance women will be treated like fragile, precious things that we should protect.

If there truly are no women in the STALKER world for medical reasons (interesting that generations of dogs have lived and died in the zone, how did they mate?) then I would again suggest that situational homosexuality would be commonplace.

Edited by: CosmicDwarf

CosmicDwarf wrote: I don't have any qualms about shooting a woman in a game. I don't think killing a woman is any worse than killing a man.

It is a game after all, but you won't be finding any major publishers publishing games where your character is killing woman, besides Bethesda and a handful of others. Even though Bethesda really sucks at making enthralling games I do give it to them for not caring what happens in thier games. You can kill, steal, and do all manners of socially unaccepted acts you are the controller, not them (in the means of you could do whatever you want, they still could drastically change their games).

AssassinMonLV wrote: @Slubgob when you say prominently male, you do mean STALKER, correct? Not the whole gaming community?

I think a lot of game developers for console and pc based games (especially in the FPS genre) assume their audience to be mostly male. This isn't necessarily correct, but developers pitch towards a target market. Plenty of women like playing games, but this is still viewed as something of a novelty, I think.

For example, how many famous playable videogame heroines are there? Samus Aran, Lara Croft, Alex Roivas (Eternal Darkness), Jill Valentine (Resident Evil), Chell from Portal, I guess... Help me, I'm running out?

There are so few and most are still highly sexualised for an assumed male audience. For example, the best ending in Metroid games generally has Samus wearing a swimsuit as a 'treat'. It was also a huge deal that she was a woman, most people thought Samus was a man (to be fair, the name is genderless). The latest Tomb Raider game had bad press because of that implied rape scene - the theme being 'this stuff happens but we don't talk about it.'

In theory, Major Degtyarev could be female and it would make no difference to the gameplay at all. But he's not, why? Because male characters are seen as more popular among a supposedly male dominated audience. I'm not saying it's right, I just think it has to do with demographics and masculinity, or a lack thereof. Another example: what is the stereotype regarding a man who plays a female character in an MMO? Creepy neckbeard, mostly. Or what about the 'reverse armour effect' - the less armour a woman wears, the more protected she is? High tier armour is basically a thong and string bra, especially in Japanese games.

These are very culturally ingrained memes, but they say a lot about how long it is going to take before women are taken as seriously as men.

Edited by: slubgob

slubgob wrote:

AssassinMonLV wrote: @Slubgob when you say prominently male, you do mean STALKER, correct? Not the whole gaming community?

I think a lot of game developers for console and pc based games (especially in the FPS genre) assume their audience to be mostly male. This isn't necessarily correct, but developers pitch towards a target market. Plenty of women like playing games, but this is still viewed as something of a novelty, I think.

For example, how many famous playable videogame heroines are there? Samus Aran, Lara Croft, Alex Roivas (Eternal Darkness), Jill Valentine (Resident Evil), Chell from Portal, I guess... Help me, I'm running out?

There are so few and most are still highly sexualised for an assumed male audience. For example, the best ending in Metroid games generally has Samus wearing a swimsuit as a 'treat'. The latest Tomb Raider game had bad press because of that implied rape scene - the theme being 'this stuff happens but we don't talk about it.'

In theory, Major Degtyarev could be female and it would make no difference to the gameplay at all. But he's not, why? Because male characters are seen as more popular among a supposedly male dominated audience. I'm not saying it's right, I just think it has to do with demographics.

Exactly, but what happens if games do start catering to woman. The developers will raise their sales as they gain a wider demographic. There will be less male orientated games but you will still have like 30 fps games every other year to pick from (slightly exaggeration) and woman will have more to pick from. Say woman get 5 games catered to them every like 4 years. While men get like 30 games catered to them in that time. So what if the developers made more games catered to woman, say 15 games in 4 years. And men get 20 games catered to them. You will still have a lot of games to choose from (not to mention the people who play games that are good, doesn't matter what gender the protag is) and woman will have more to pick from. Effectively netting the developers more newcomers and money. BUT as you said they still think they have a predominantly male audience, which isn't actually true. Most people estimate that the number of woman whom comprise the hardcore gaming scene are 45 percent. That's almost half! Developers do not want to take the risk to make a game that caters to the other half of gamers because they're scared of risk. So to try and get both of them happy the developers come up with the idea of a overtly sexualized woman so that the men can masturbate to a video game and woman can feel great. Guess what, woman don't want to look at a female protag with disproportionate boobs and unrealistic bubble butt. It leads many woman to believe they are just objects which we are not. We're not walking fuck toys, but we're treated like that. What if the table were turned? It's called empathy and every HUMAN being should have it.

Edited by: AssassinMonLV

AssassinMonLV wrote: Exactly, but what happens if games do start catering to woman.

But what games do women like to play (assuming we're making games for women) and how are they different from 'men's games'? Developers hear 'female gamer' and think 'casual'. I don't think they go much further than that. There isn't a lot of market research that I've heard of on the topic, though it would be interesting to find out.

AssassinMonLV wrote: Developers do not want to take the risk to make a game that caters to the other half of gamers because they're scared of risk.

Yup. Easy cash is easy. Stick to what works. Personally, I think Indie games and mods such as Misery are rapidly becoming the only things really worth playing because they can risk being original and don't usually have to pitch to risk averse publishers.

AssassinMonLV wrote: Guess what, woman don't want to look at a female protag with disproportionate boobs and unrealistic bubble butt. It leads many woman to believe they are just objects which we are not. We're not walking fuck toys, but we're treated like that. What if the table were turned? It's called empathy and every HUMAN being should have it.

Did you not like Bayonetta then? I'm kidding.

But seriously, empathy doesn't make money. The further up any corporate/political ladder you get, the more 'results focused' people are and the less empathy there is. I don't think this part has to do with sexism, I think it has to do with results (money), plain and simple.

If MDT wanted to get some great press, they would allow you to pick a gender as well as a class and change some NPC dialogue to fit. Of course, they'd have to model a face for 3rd person...

Edited by: slubgob

slubgob wrote:

pottergreen wrote: So Roadside Picnic maintains a female-free Zone; the Tarkovsky film "Stalker" depicts men going into the Zone; the Stalker/Guide's wife begs him not to go, seeing that activity as both dangerous and an abandonment of his responsibilities. So it is a place where men go to be irresponsible and selfish.

Roadside picnic has a 'female free Zone' because it is a death trap in every way - it is practically a male free zone. It is not a good example to use because STALKER (the game) is not like roadside picnic. Nobody would play the game if it was like roadside picnic, because you would spend 90% of the time dead and the other 10% frozen in fear, afraid to take another step in case you walked into witches' jelly (or fell into a cobweb and died hours later). Compared to Roadside Picnic, STALKER is a joke, a child's playground.

Likewise, the film is not about the Zone. It is about human motivation, about morality and greed (like the wish granter in Picnic, which requires 'feeding' the meatgrinder).

The fact that there are no women inside the Zone in STALKER has nothing to do with gender politics or sexism. It has to do with player 'enjoyment'. The same reason you can't kill children in the majority of videogames (e.g. Skyrim, GTA) is also, I believe, the same reason you don't see women in the Zone. I have no problem shooting a (virtual) male bandit in the face. I would feel uncomfortable shooting an obviously female bandit in the face. A woman could realistically be a bandit in the Zone, but an FPS videogame audience (predominantly male, developers believe) would probably not enjoy killing women for the same reason that a man hitting a woman is not the same as a man hitting a man, societally speaking. This, plus developer constraints (facial creation, etc), prevented implementing women in the Zone.

Also, realistically speaking, you think men wouldn't be raped by men in the Zone? You think everyone would be happy with porn magazines? The 'rape argument' isn't a good one either.

That the Zone is free of females is a trope in the Stalker series and the Roadside Picnic, Tarkenton film. Therefore, it is true to its logos to have the area free of females.
Arguments that the developers had marketing reasons or other considerations do not count. The idea is to work within the ethos of what we know or imagine about the Zone, not what we think was in some marketers head. We know there are no women..why? It is reasonable to assume that the hazard of rape and the high risk does not attract female fortune seekers. Sure, men can be raped, but it is not something that men really worry about as much as a reality for women. But insofar as hookers can be protected and housed, how can we square it? Biologically - female gender faces very high mortality issue in the Zone.

Edited by: pottergreen