A survey of League of Legends skins and classes based on gender.

musteat·1/8/2015, 12:13:18 AM·6 votes·3,526 views

A Survey of League of Legends Champions from a Gendered Perspective

This is a bit old, but regardless "The following is a statistical analysis of the League of Legends Champion’s character design from a gendered perspective. In this analysis data was collected directly from the champion profiles listed on leagueoflegends.com/champions. Data is valid as of Aug 6 2014, where I surveyed 119 champions, each having between 3-10 alternative skins."

I think it's cool to see the new champs like Rek'Sai deviate from the trend.

23 Comments

ValyrianBlade1/8/2015, 1:09:46 AM6 votes

It's kind of cool but really was done in a completely biased manner in order to achieve her desired results.

I mean, Firstly, a champion scored 0 or 1 on chests/stomach showing, 1 if anything showed on any skin, 0 only if all skins were bare. No wonder all but 2 female champions scored 1 in at least 1 category. If she counted by percentage of skins showing something it would be much different, e.g. If 2 of 5 skins including the default had a bare stomach showing the navel, it would score 0.4. It's ridiculous to score tristana the same on chest as miss fortune because of the "rocket girl skin having cleavage". I say this because it ties in to my next point - how she defined chest/stomach. A female character counted if she showed her navel for stomach and any part (top/side) of her breasts for chest. Meanwhile a male counted the same for stomach and chests were only if bare or if a deep v-neck.

I'm sorry, but I'd have to argue with her definition of chest. Firstly in that many female champions in skins where they could go to a church in that outfit without complaint were scored for chest - for example caitlyn's default skin (I admit this skin REALLY shows off legs, but nothing is wrong with her chest coverage, at least in my opinion). She's trying to be objective and counts if anything is not covered, but that's sort of impractical - it's typical for there to be some top-visibility. I'd have thought a better metric to be if they were busty, for example jinx really isn't covered much but also she has next to nothing to cover anyways...

Coming to men, women often sexualize men with clothing ON. E.g. The oft mentioned "a suit on a man is often to women what a woman in lingerie is to men.". There are almost definitely male skins which offer some sort of masculine sexual vision without baring chest or stomach, and these are blatantly ignored. I don't think any woman wants to see a male champion wearing something which covers his nipples while baring his stomach. There simply isn't male attire that would bare the stomach apart from going full shirtless (something which appears on graves as mentioned but clearly doesn't appear on any female champions for some reason? ? :p).

My point is simply that if you change the metric, the result changes. If you change it to full upper body nudity, we have 1 male champion minimum and 0 female. So you would argue that league sexualized men more.

Oliver The Fiend1/30/2015, 6:29:47 PM4 votes

If a woman is comfortable running around in a short skirt and her cleavage hanging out on the battlefield then I think she is confident in herself. She doesn't care about the way people would look at her as it's likely part of a strategy anyway.

Besides, it's just skin. We all know what humans look like naked, it's not a big deal.

makkii1/30/2015, 7:24:37 PM3 votes

on an entirely serious note there are some things that are seriously wrong with that article/survey

how we like to depict males and females in media, to me is intrinsically linked to what we are attracted to, men depict women in media as sexy, because when men look at women they look for attractiveness first and foremost, because what we find as attractive is linked to what we instinctively assume are good traits for a mother/bearer of our offspring. women on the other hand look for a protector, someone strong, who can provide for her and her offspring and protect her from harm, this is our primal nature, and I don't see anything wrong with us being depicted as our ideal selves in video games.
she has some big misconceptions about fitness, and it doesn't help her piece look any less opinionated. first of all, you don't need to work out 2 hours a day to look like graves, on the contrary, you want to get in the gym, stimulate your muscle and get out, spending too much time in the gym is calories your burning up that you could be using to build mass. as for the women, "eating less than your body needs" no that's wrong, its eating a healthy diet at a slight caloric deficit to force the body to use the stored energy (fat) to function, eating less than your body "needs" means you are starving and if you're starving, youll just panic your body into storing more fat the next time you eat. getting a toned slim physique isn't acquired by doing 2 hours of cardio a day, that burns muscle too, and will make you skinny fat, the way you get physiques like league females(although some do have slimmer than usually possible waists admittedly) to get toned bodies is through part cardio and part high intensity weight lifting aka lifting heavy shit. I would consider that a healthy way to live.
objectification, these are fictional characters, male or female, they ARE objects, why does it matter in which way they are objectified? I don't think anyone looks at Caitlyn and is like, "I totally don't take this character seriously", I think they think, "ima play Caitlyn cause I like playing Caitlyn", or "ima play Caitlyn cus shes fotm this month." who plays a moba character because they are sexy? I mean cmon, and it doesn't matter even if someone does.
the writer needs to get her social justice and patriarchy theory the hell out of league of legends.

Betty le Boop2/3/2015, 7:17:44 PM2 votes

Honestly? Kayle wasn't even known to be female ofr like the first year she was out, unless someone read her lore. They came out with "Unmasked" and they were like.. Oh! Kayle's a female, I can see that name being unisex. Diana and Leona don't show anything really. Nor does Soraka. Irelia. Ect so on. And so what if the skins are 'perverted'? They were made for people who wanted those skins. We have a character skin idea area just for that reason. Honestly, if you want to see them covered up, come up with skin ideas that people will like. I am not male, but I adore all of the skins you seem to have issues with. And honestly, in EVERY fighting game ever made, except Dead or Alive female only games, (Like Extreme Beach Volleyball) the men outweigh the women. It's culture. Men are supposed to be the ones to protect women. When you are scared as a child, who do you run to naturally? Daddy. It's also because the male gamers outweigh the female gamers. Men have been gaming far longer than women have. The women who do game, either don't care about how 'slutty' the armor or body gear is, or they pay too much attention to it and call the game designers sexist. My favorite character was Ivy. She is nothing more than an op female, wearing like.. no clothes. I loved all of it. As women, we also objectify men. We may not think we do... But let's be honest... What do you want your guy to look like? We want him to look handsome, maybe some scruff on his face, muscles, either dressed up, or dressed down, he can't just waltz about in a t-shirt and jeans, that's not good enough for us. I've even heard some female leaguers comment, "I'd @#$% Pool Party Graves.." So... Whom is the one to blame? Asking me.... No one. But really, the second he shows a bit of skin, all the women were like omg yasssss...

Boulderox1/30/2015, 10:53:55 PM2 votes

i really want to laugh at this, look at the past champions specifically female that were released (newest to oldest)

RekSai Do i even need to say anything here? she is a female void monster, 0 steriotypes

Kalista very covered, no real need to say anything here

Jinx Her base skin is a tad underdressed, but everything is covered, and double d's aren't found on her, the other skins she has (including the new one) covers her well.

Lissandra Once again , decently covered, her 2 other skins have a side hip and some clevage, but thats nothing too bad imo.

Quinn The apitimy of Armored female imo, seconded by Poppy Kayle . Oh no a toned stomach, what ever will i do.

Still has a lot more coverage than you think. Her skins are well covered, even her cop one is ok in a sense, very little chest is shown in the splash.

There 6 of the recent FEMALE champs. Do they all suffer from the steriotypres? NO THEY DO NOT very few steriotypes are here. A lot of this is going of previous hadfuls of characters that are meant to be the way they are.

Marcia1/31/2015, 3:18:02 AM2 votes

Riot has become a lot better with their approach towards female champions, at least in my opinion. I think the article has made some good points concerning the depictions of women compared to men, but there's also other factors to keep in mind. A lot of the earlier female champions may be sexualized, but many of the newer ones aren't (at least not nearly to the same degree as older ones)! I think it's okay to have some "sexy" humanoid female champions, but variety is something that should and has been welcomed! I think we'll definitely see more champions like that! :)

I do like the point brought up in the article concerning the distribution of gender amongst roles. A lot of the female champions are some variation of mage or support, so seeing some more variety in that area would be cool to see! I'd love to see a new female tank, personally.

CIamSlam1/31/2015, 4:43:36 AM1 votes

Cant forget about the current log in screen where Pantheon bares his butt for all to see.

Yulen Xoshxius1/30/2015, 6:39:54 PM1 votes

I thought a lot more men had revealing shirts like that like urgot and Ryze.

makkii1/30/2015, 6:44:46 PM1 votes

moba does not stand for massive open battle arena......

Gunpoint1/30/2015, 9:32:59 PM1 votes

We could get all this stuff, but the ladies still get Taric so I think it balances out.