It may be that attractive women face "blowback" because of their looks, but it could be that all women are liable to face blowback and remarks about looks are just the form it sometimes takes rather than a major causal factor. We wouldn't want to ignore the plight of the non-beautiful, who in general have it a lot worse than the beautiful.

I have never played Mass Effect or seen the TV program Chobot is on(?). I don't think voice actors particularly need to be gamers or have geek cred. If you do hold that view, though, you might be disappointed that a TV personality got the role. TV personalities of both sexes are strongly selected for looks, and there is at least a widespread notion that this is especially true for "gaming" TV.

Here's my 2 cents. Those of us in our 30s-ish grew up when our pursuits were pretty much our domain solely. Men played NBA basketball and thus former players and coaches were announcers and sidelines reporters. Men loved sports so men anchored SportsCenter.

When female sideline reporters, ESPN anchors and analysts first showed up it was a bit confusing. And, for better or worse, your initial thought was almost always whether or not she was qualified to do the job. I'm not saying I think that way now, but I'm copping to how my young mind worked in high school and early college. I'm positive I'm not alone. It felt like affirmative action or trying too hard to appeal to a different demographic. It just rubbed you the wrong way because you could immediately think of a bunch of talented athletes who were just as deserving of calling the action or anchoring ESPN shows.

Slowly, though, as this faded you begin to start picking out the bad male announcers and the good female announcers and hopefully at some point you just have pros who are doing their job and are either good at it or not.

I feel like the video games industry operates similarly. It's a club that was largely the domain of boys and men when we were young. Even if this isn't true, in terms of who many of us spent time with it was true. Same process. A female community manager, a female video game journalist is going to initially be suspect because you wonder to yourself why they want to be part of this club. If they're truly "one of "us, etc. I'm not saying that's right. I'm not saying I personally think that way now. But I believe that's part of where this comes from. You have a hobby, interest or even a career that's largely male and when it changes you're going to question what changed. Did women suddenly become knowledgable about basketball? Do they suddenly care about games? Are they suddenly interested in software engineering.

I think it's natural as these things shake out. Eventually that goes away and is largely replaced by whether or not the person is competent, full stop. But I don't think it's unnatural for some people to question why someone outside of a given demographic wants to join your gang.

EDIT: Oh, and I firmly believe that the earlier in this process you are the more people are suspicious. So, once again, at this point a female software engineer or sidelines reporters is a common occurrence and it just is. Gaming being a little more recent to women breaking into the industry means that you're going to have people who assume it's a gimmick or a way to get ratings. Liking a PSP provocatively is probably not a great well to dispel the notion that you got your job as a gimmick. But it doesn't mean she isn't qualified to do what she's doing.

Is she a notably crappy voice actress? If so, given the quality of Bioware's usual casting efforts, then there might be some substance to the accusation. Otherwise, if she's good, then it's probably stupid and wrong.

Well my issue with the Chobot thing is the fact that she's hosting stuff for IGN or G4 or whoever, doing interviews about ME3, as a journalist... when she's in the game! Unethical, favoritism, bias, whatever you want to call it.

It's like when Troy Aikman is the color commentator for Dallas Cowboys games. I want to call FOX and complain every single time. He's biased, and it bleeds through every game.

As for the general topic, yeah there can be some issues. Why is it always an attractive female doing the sideline reporting? Especially when a lot of those reports are focused on injuries, or interviewing players and coaches... wouldn't a former player have more insight into those things? I don't really understand the logic behind some of these things.

I think that something funny happens when we encounter a person whose attractiveness draws our interest independently of her other attributes. It puts us in the situation of forming an opinion on someone based on very limited knowledge, a process contextualized by the original impetus to go click on that Kotaku article (her attractiveness). As a result, we often do some weird calculus involving her perceived attractiveness versus her perceived worthiness of our attention and use that ratio to decide whether to idolize her or denigrate her. In effect: 'I am interested in her because of how hot she is, but should I be interested in her?' If yes, it's because she is a super cool talented person who also happens to be attractive; if not, it's because she's some kind of slut who used her attractiveness to mislead me into fixating on her despite my deeming her unworthy of fixation (because clearly it isn't my fault for allowing my hormones to think for me).

-Ooh, she's hot! I am going to watch this video!
-I didn't particularly enjoy that video.
-Then why did I click on her video and not that stocky nerd man's video? And why am I now watching twenty more of her videos?
-Because she is some kind of evil temptress! TO THE COMMENT SECTION!

So why does Felicia Day receive general praise and Jade Raymond more of a mixed response? In my (totally unfounded, pop-psychology) opinion it's because we experience Day's acting/writing in a very direct way, while Raymond's role as a producer is not so easily understood. Some people see Jade Raymond, become very interested in her, decide from what little they've learned that she is not worthy of the irrational amount of attention with which they bestowed her, and then blame her for it.

This is all informed by the usual suspects: Male privilege, misogyny, sexism, double standards and whatnot.

As to this part of your post I think that Felicia Day, while attractive, looks like a nerd. She is a non threatening woman. Jade Raymond looks sexy and intimidating.

Jade Raymond is a really good example of the misogyny the general gaming public shows towards women. From everything I've read, she's an exceptional producer and shepherded several high profile projects like Assassin's Creed to success. Now she's in charge of Ubisoft's new Toronto studio. But when Assassin's Creed was getting hyped, she was put out as the spokesperson for it and all everyone talked about was how she looked and how she must have used her looks to get where she was. There was a really nasty web comic made about that if I recall. I think that's disgusting.

The discussion Tanglebones is referring to was one that began from the announcement that Jessica Chobot had been cast in Mass Effect 3. From everything I've read about Chobot, she is someone who used her looks to get where she is. She became a host and "staff writer" for IGN, despite having no previous experience and got the gig because of a photo of her licking a PSP. Since then, she got cast in Mass Effect 3 (despite also having no voice acting experience), even though she was covering the game for IGN and G4. There's a write-up about all of that here. Now we can have a whole other discussion about the massive conflict of interest and lack of journalistic integrity that symbolises. Honestly, she might play her role in ME3 well (it isn't super hard since all the voice work in those games is super flat). That she's in it doesn't inherently bother me. What frustrates me about Chobot from a bigger perspective is that unlike Jade Raymond, she did use solely her looks to get where she is. Even that in and of itself doesn't bother me, if you have a trait about you that can get you a job you want, you should use it.

What I find ridiculous about her is that she constantly whines on panels about how no one takes her seriously and that it's because she's a hot woman. I find that hypocrisy to be really ridiculous. She's not Jade Raymond or Leigh Alexander, who actually have talent and ability and happen to be attractive. If you get into a field with no training, knowledge or expertise and almost proudly proclaim you did it because of your looks, then don't complain when people point out that's what you did. There are lots of TV and online personalities out there who trade on their appearance but most of them understand the role they've chosen and don't bemoan themselves to be some kind of misunderstood artists. She's very fortunate to have had the combination of looks and timing that got her into an industry she loves and that's good for her. But she's well aware of how she got there and faulting people for point that out is dumb.

I think gaming culture does have a big problem with how women are portrayed and often not given the respect they deserve. But I think Jessica Chobot in particular is an example of where that problem originates. Her trading solely on her looks and then complaining no one takes her seriously does nothing to help overcome the stigma that truly talented women in this industry still have to deal with. That doesn't make the problems continued existence right or any less deplorable, it just makes it all the more clear how systemic the issue is.

If nothing else, the entire community's vagina count could be boosted solely by Coldstream, me, and Mex. Sometimes I see 4 vaginas a day.

Dammit, you're a doctor, not a gamer.

First, I don't think it's fair to judge the gaming community at large by GWJ. With the exception of me, this is an alarmingly mature and thoughtful bastion of gaming culture that I don't think accurately reflects a group of people that invented dickwolves.

Parralax Abstraction made my point 100% perfectly.

I've seen at least six vaginas in real life.

I think we're showing admirable restraint here, gentleman.

Considering the topic of the thread.... *rimshot*?

Opossums have two. True story.

If I recall correctly, 'getting the job because of their looks' is true in the case of Chobot. I'm pretty sure she's the one that got the job at IGN because of a picture of her licking a PSP. If her work on podcasts is any indication, I can't imagine she got the Mass Effect job because of the strength of her voice work.