Editing Fantasy Armor

Oh boy.

The short version of it is that people involved in game designing (both traditional and video games) tend to design female armor to be more sexually attractive than functional. This topic can lead to [[skub|lively debates]].
== Categorization ==
Here's a brief run down...

* Category Zero: A Female Character is simply clad in regular armor that is identical to what male characters have and is purely functional in design. If it has any ornamentation, it is simply the sort of ornamentation that is common for that region. Some examples include chain mail shirt and a helmet, a suit of plate, gear worn by modern female soldiers in combat situations, etc.
* Category One: Armor is specifically made to be worn by women, but is still functional. Ornamentation, if present to be more feminine. Think of the difference between a man and a woman's suit. 
* Category Two: (Boobplate) Specific to plate armor, this involves a pair of boobs being hammered into a breastplate. This will direct a sword blow inward towards the heart.
* Category Three: Female armor which is really really tightly fitting, thus making it hard to put on or take off, decreasing its effectiveness as armor and making it hard to move on.
* Category Four: Armor with cleavage, mid-riffs and similar, leaving portions of the body exposed for blades, spears and arrows. Also appearing at this point are high heals, and not the kind intended for riding.
* Category Five: Chainmail and plate binikis. At this point we are not dealing with armor but rather armor themed stripper costumes.
== Ubiquity ==
Even for all it's silliness, the bigger issue is not that this stuff exists. Its that it has become effectively the norm rather than the exception. That said, there has been a bit of a backlash against this in recent years.
== Perspectives on Female Fantasy Armor ==
One the one hand you have people who are against against revealing female armor. It's self evidently badly designed for the purpose of protecting it's wearer and exists for reasons of cheap fan-service. That it has been allowed to become the norm also reflects poorly on people who like the genre, making them come off as juvenile and sexist, as well as keeping away women who might otherwise be interested.

These people would argue that it adds flavor to the setting and that it looks nice. When confronted with it's deficiency in terms of protection, some people will try to defend them by making points such as "women being unable to carry as much weight as men" (in general terms true, but mostly this has to do with upper body strength in the arms, strength in the legs and spine is more even between individuals of both genders of comparable size and build and armor is mostly carried by the shoulders), "increased mobility" (leaving aside the matter of high heels or the cumbersomeness of wearing an armored corset), or "distraction" (assuming that all men are dumb and horny enough to automatically let their guards down to stare at tits, double sexism ho!). Others, who realize that it's a bad design would bring up that A) The name of the genre is ''Fantasy'' and its defined by moving trees, animate statues and giant armored winged reptiles that can fly and spew fire out of their mouths without incinerating their tongue, so unrealistic elements are to be expected and B) in real life women seldom served as warriors during the middle ages in any case.

A third group exists which settles somewhere in between the previously mentioned groups. These are people who feel that it depends on the setting. If it's a setting where male and female fight in pike formations and phalanxes and aims for a degree of realism, have reasonable and functionally designed female armor. For more overtly fantastical stuff and stuff like Conan the Barbarian where you have guys wearing a single pauldron, a bandoleer for a sword, a kilt and a pair of boots into battle, the chainmail bikinis fit the tone and are fine.
== Female Armor in Real Life ==
As a rule of premodern warfare women did not serve on the front lines as soldiers in the middle ages and as such generally did not wear armor. There were exceptions that came up now and againen (Joan of Arc in France, Onna Bushi in Japan) and when it happened they wore armor basically identical to male armor. In modern times, many first world armies allow women to serve as soldiers, in which case they wear basically the same combat uniforms as their male comrades in arms do and are about as flattering.
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