Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

[input.jack]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

When I was in high school, I met a girl at a convention who was there in a rabbit-fur bikini and boots (not cosplaying a particular character, just running arund in a costume cause it was OK to do at a con in the 80s), and she was GORGEOUS. I mean really, really beautiful, and in phenominal shape. I was stunned. And yet somehow I got her to go out with me, and I dated her for several years (until my own stupidity caught up with me when I went away to college).

 

When I met her, she was a gamer. And a painter. And liked to bop people with training weapons in melee combat. And played Killer. And watched the same shows I did. And it was AWESOME.

 

I dont remember anyone giving Melissa any guff about not being "a real gamer girl". But man, Id sure feel sorry for anyone who did, because Im a damn good gamer, and she taught me a thing or two about the subject.

 

So no, beauty is not a reverse metric for who is or is not a "real" gamer, or a "real" geek/nerd/whatever. And this one guy does not get to decide for the rest of us who is and is not "in the club". And sometimes really, truly, exceptionally smart, funny, silly, awesome, and attractive women think gamers are COOL. Otherwise they wouldnt be friends with so many of them.

 

Some of these people even post here.

[John T]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I disagree. The right to free speech is vital and the internet is becoming (has become?) our foremost forum for public discourse. Placing it off limits to expressions of opinion is IMHO tantamount to saying that by being employed you no longer entitled to 1st Amendment rights.

1) The right to free speech shouldn't include the right to hate speech, but that's how it seems to be interpreted more and more these days. Contrary to the opinions of some very vocal ass-hats, one can express a negative opinion on a subject without verbally attacking their opponents or otherwise speaking like a complete schmuck.

2) The right to free speech doesn't guarantee the right to remain employed, if one can't publically express one's opinions in a civil manner.

[Ranxerox]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

The first amendment applies to the government. Not employing someone who makes an ass of themselves in public is not a first amendment violation.

 

Good point. However, having your employer act as the police of what you can and cannot say instead of the government is not much of an improvement.

 

It is kind of offensive that this guy thinks we need some sort of gatekeeper for who is geeky enough to cosplay. Just because an attractive woman makes a costume of a superheroine doesn't mean she's NOT a geek. Beauty is NOT an indicator of whether someone can be a geek. As long as the women are there to have fun and to not sell stuff. I don't see the problem. It takes all sorts.

 

Also something that this guy forgets(and other as well) is that some people bloom later in life. The girl in high school that everyone picked on and no one found very attractive. Can mature into a very beautiful woman. A woman who has the same geeky hobbies and interests that she had when she was younger. A woman who might see the opportunity to dress up as one of the Superheroes she worshipped as a youngster.

 

So does that guy have the right to make an ass of himself on Facebook? Yeah he does. He also has to take responsibility for what he says. He should understand that someone might be offended by his opinion and not only not buy his stuff, but complain to his employer(s). That's the only consumers can have a voice. By not supporting the artists who offend them.

 

I never said Mr. Harris's words weren't offensive. They were. That is not my point.

 

My point is that going after someones livelihood is a very severe response. Things like bankruptcy, loss of a home, and/or failure of a marriage can all follow from the loss of employment. I have had bad service, rude service and incompetent service, and I have never went out and tried to get someone fired. I've complained about specific items but I've never gone after someone's job. Because bad, rude or incompetent, I have yet to have service that warranted ruining the servers life over it.

 

As for boycotting and complaining to employers being the only voice consumers have, you are not a consumer at least not in the extent that it defines you. You are a person and you have many ways available to you voice your views. How is it that the thorough refutation of Tony Effing Harris's rant has received on the internet is not sufficient response? Why isn't it good enough that words be answered with words? Why is more blood required?

 

I'm not saying that you should buy the products of artist have offended you. I'm saying going to someone's employer over something that one of their employees did on their own time, is almost always excessive IMO.

 

 

 

1) The right to free speech shouldn't include the right to hate speech, but that's how it seems to be interpreted more and more these days. Contrary to the opinions of some very vocal ass-hats, one can express a negative opinion on a subject without verbally attacking their opponents or otherwise speaking like a complete schmuck.

2) The right to free speech doesn't guarantee the right to remain employed, if one can't publically express one's opinions in a civil manner.

 

1a) The right to free speech does not include the right to certain forms of hate speech. However, Mr. Harris did not call for the violent extermination of fake geek girls or the fire bombing of their homes, so he probably didn't cross any legal lines.

1b) Nobody gets through a full life without at some point or another being a complete schmuck.

 

2) Empty point. Nothing, not even hard work and good conduct, guarantees employment. If you want to live in a world where we have to monitor everything we say both on and off company time for fear that someone will report it to, well ... that make one of us.

[Ranxerox]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I agree as to not wanting to silence other opinions. And to the best of my knowledge neither Pattern Ghost nor John T are Mr. Harris' boss' date=' so all they're [u']really[/u] doing is exercising their own 1st Amendment rights and making their own opinions known. We're all free to agree or disagree as we wish. I seriously doubt Mr. Harris' actual bosses are going to terminate his employment and blacklist him based on a few comments on a discussion board, so there's little danger of the opinions expressed here crushing anybody's free speech beneath iron boots. I appreciate you pointing out the potential dangers, but I don't think the slope is quite that slippery.

 

I hope you are right about the slop not being that slippery.

 

That said, the right to make personal opinions known carries with it the necessity to accept the consequences if enough other people disagree with said opinions. If those consequences include loss of employment, well, the speaker should consider that possibility when choosing to share his opinion with others -- and also the way in which he shares that opinion.

 

Personally, beyond his actual opinion itself, I found Mr. Harris' word choices and overall tone on the offensive side. To me, he comes off as scornful not only of the cosplayers he rails against, but also of the "the REAL Nerds, who (they) secretly think are REALLY PATHETIC." As I read what he wrote, I couldn't shake the feeling that the "NOT Hot" cosplayers aren't the only ones thinking the "Nerds" (IOW, Mr. Harris' own customer base) are REALLY PATHETIC.

 

My impression was that Mr. Harris does find nerds pathetic but he includes himself in their numbers. Really his tirade screamed personal insecurity to me. I'm not going to claim to have him totally figured based on a single, possibly drunken Facebook posting. Still it seems obvious, he is not an emotionally healthy man, at least in some regards.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Good point. However' date=' having your employer act as the police of what you can and cannot say instead of the government is not much of an improvement.[/quote']

 

So, if you were a comic book publisher, would you hire him to draw one of your titles after this incident, and why? If not, why not?

[John T]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

1a) The right to free speech does not include the right to certain forms of hate speech. However, Mr. Harris did not call for the violent extermination of fake geek girls or the fire bombing of their homes, so he probably didn't cross any legal lines.

1b) Nobody gets through a full life without at some point or another being a complete schmuck.

 

2) Empty point. Nothing, not even hard work and good conduct, guarantees employment. If you want to live in a world where we have to monitor everything we say both on and off company time for fear that someone will report it to, well ... that make one of us.

Heh, well:

1a) I wasn't specifically referring to Mr Harris, but to the general class of mind that tries to defend the right to spew bile at an entire "class" of people (regardless of what defines the class).

1b) I have, in fact, gotten through life without doing so (being a schmuck to an entire "class" of people). I wasn't clear on that point.

2) Didn't seem like an empty point when you sorta tied the two (employment vs freedom of speech) together in the comment I quoted earlier, but I may have misconstrued your intent. Regardless, freedom of speech doesn't negate a company's right to protect its interests from negative publicity if an employee insists on abusing a swath of faceless innocents. He has a right to an opinion, sure. They have equal right to the opinion that he can get a different job.

3) Hadn't personally weighed in on this part, earlier, but no, someone shouldn't be barred from ever being employed ever again for something like this. That's just silly.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

When I was in high school, I met a girl at a convention who was there in a rabbit-fur bikini and boots (not cosplaying a particular character, just running arund in a costume cause it was OK to do at a con in the 80s), and she was GORGEOUS. I mean really, really beautiful, and in phenominal shape. I was stunned. And yet somehow I got her to go out with me, and I dated her for several years (until my own stupidity caught up with me when I went away to college).

 

When I met her, she was a gamer. And a painter. And liked to bop people with training weapons in melee combat. And played Killer. And watched the same shows I did. And it was AWESOME.

 

I dont remember anyone giving Melissa any guff about not being "a real gamer girl". But man, Id sure feel sorry for anyone who did, because Im a damn good gamer, and she taught me a thing or two about the subject.

 

So no, beauty is not a reverse metric for who is or is not a "real" gamer, or a "real" geek/nerd/whatever. And this one guy does not get to decide for the rest of us who is and is not "in the club". And sometimes really, truly, exceptionally smart, funny, silly, awesome, and attractive women think gamers are COOL. Otherwise they wouldnt be friends with so many of them.

 

Some of these people even post here.

 

Yeah, I managed to attract the attention and later affections of the hot gamer girl of our circle of acquaintances, the one who went to Dundracon every year with her SCA group to give fight demos. Being a fellow theater geek helped. Part of why I tend to scoff at a lot of the generalizations that get thrown out in some of these inane statements

[Zeropoint]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

The principle of "freedom of speech" is specifically about speech you don't want to hear. Speech that no one minds doesn't NEED protection. I agree that Mr. Harris shouldn't have said what he did, but I prefer to err on the side of freedom.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

What about the principal of not wanting to be associated with a volatile nutjob? Pretty sure we're free to exercise that one too.

[Clonus]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

The principle of "freedom of speech" is specifically about speech you don't want to hear. Speech that no one minds doesn't NEED protection. I agree that Mr. Harris shouldn't have said what he did' date=' but I prefer to err on the side of freedom.[/quote']

 

There's also "Freedom of Association" which includes the freedom not to associate with people. That being said, I'd be more worried about it if I was hiring him to be a writer.

[Tasha]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

New article

 

http://discordia.se/?p=4460

 

Why can’t I play?

 

Posted by: Åsa on Dec 12, 2012 | 2 Comments

Inspired both by a thread at a role-playing forum and by an event that took place at work yesterday (which I unfortunately can’t repeat here), I thought I’d pose some questions regarding game development and why the ever present average white heterosexual male gamer is so terrified to share screen time and text space with other presences than other average white heterosexual male gamers.*

 

I’ve discussed gaming and the way women are portrayed in games for a very long time now, and the thing that strikes me the most is the unwillingness to admit other people, not just the above mentioned grouping into the world of games.

 

 

The unwillingness consists of reluctance to give up the misogynistic, racist and ableist attitude some games** have. For instance, did you know that in Arkham City, the word “bitch” is a universal catch-all for the female characters in the game?

 

Female characters are universally referred to as “bitch,” the ambient banter between miscellaneous henchmen in respect to the game’s female characters is always sexually charged, and nasty undercurrents of sexual violence run throughout.

 

- On the Realism of Sexism, Ontological Geek

 

Any critisism is met with a “Waaai, waaai do you want to CENSOR games?” without any real reflection about what this unwillingness to change the games for the better*** actually means. Or – as the Ontological Geek post so wisely points out – the question of “realism” pops up. Considering that we’re playing games that are mostly about dungeons, dragons, comic book characters and other things I for my part do not run into in daily life even half as much as I might want to, the issue of realism is really just a cover for what’s really going on.

I’m going straight to the controversial quote here.

 

 

If it’s not a problem to you that games with a misogynistic, racist or ableist attitude shuts minorities out of gaming, you really don’t want minorities to game.

 

Please note that when I talk about minorities in this specific instance I’m talking about perceived minorities and representational minorities, not actual gamer minorities, considering the statistics below.

 

 

For me that bold question is what it boils down to, it’s as simple as that. I actually asked that very question in the forum thread I was debating in, but I never got a reply.

 

 

A question I very often get is “why aren’t more women playing games”. Well, first off, we are. About 47% of all the gamers are women. About 37% of all console gamers are women. These statistics apply to 62% of the online population, meaning people having access to the Internet, and the figures are relatively fresh (source). And just about every gamer of the female persuasion I know have a problem with the way that women are depicted in games. With depiction I’m not just talking about the way they look (often sexualised, objectified) but also about how they act (passive, helpless, background). I’m not sure about other representational minorities. I, unfortunately for me, also live in a bit of a privilege bubble, although that bubble is more of a white middle class bubble. Anyway.

 

 

Women in particular is a strong audience with a lot of buying power and not that many developers give a damn about them. That goes for both the very small market of role-playing game developers as well as the larger market of digital developers. I know for a fact that not many triple-A titles have a female target audience. I’d say no triple-A titles have a female target audience, but I’m not sure I’d be telling the truth. There might be a rare flower out there, blossoming unbeknownst to me.

 

 

So why is this? Why, dear developers, have you no interest in allowing women to get the same kicks, the same wonderful experiences that your average white heterosexual dude get when playing a game? Why do I have to, even if I love Mass Effect, stand for the game zooming in on an asari consorts butt? Or Miranda Lawson’s butt. Or whatever butt you decide that I should be interested in looking at? (Actually, there is one butt I do want to look at, and in the third installation of the game, I get to do that, so kudos****). After the second installation, Mass Effect actually got the nickname “Ass Effect”. Considering how well the game does in other areas I think it’s unfortunate that this sort of crap still happen, because that sort of crap jolts me out of my immersion and tells me, quite loudly:”YO! This game be for men!” And that’s one of the best games out there! And it still whacks me over the head on occasion, telling me “this is a man’s world, and you don’t belong. Unless you’re pretty and have a conventionally attractive ass. And like to look at women”.

 

 

In precisely the same way a table top role-playing game tells me “Hey, I’m not for you because all the women in this game? Well, first of all they have huge boobs, secondly, they all wear chainmail bikini, and to top it off they don’t actually do anything, they just look pretty”. I’m exaggerating. It can be more subtle than this. Actually, the subtle sexism can be even more harmful.

 

 

So why should you care? Why should you bother with changing the way women and other game minorities are represented in games? Because art and entertainment is part of our popular culture and popular culture both mirror and shape our societal attitudes and norms. Gary Alan Fine was the first one to come out and say it – games very rarely step outside of the cultural norms. Gamers keep to what they know. But games not only mirror, they also shape, meaning that the way women are represented and treated in games is an approval to treat women the same way in the real world, especially if they represent themselves in any way even close to how they look in the games. Booth babes, anyone? Or for that matter sexual harassment at conventions?

 

 

So the question is – do you really want to create a game that propagates sexism? Are you aware of what you’re doing as a developer? And would it really hurt to be more accepting and welcoming to minorities? (Again perceived and representational minorities.)

 

 

Let me pose a theory. I believe that gamers, no matter what walk of life they come from, play because it fulfills a couple of needs that they have. There’s even a book about the player experience of needs satisfaction (PENS for short) and a paper that you can find here (PDF) from Immersyve if you want to dig deeper.

 

 

PENS divides the needs of the player into three areas:

1. Competence – the need to feel mastery of a situation, and the competency to handle a challenge

2. Autonomy – the need to feel in control of the game and in control of his or her actions, and the need to feel in control of the choices the player character makes

3. Relatedness – the need to feel connected to others through the game, or to feel connected to the non-player characters of the game

 

 

Now PENS looks at the psychological, behavioral and emotional causes as to why some games succeed and some games do not. Unfortunately I’ve only ever seen the PENS model applied to games with the target audience of the above average white male heterosexual gamer, but that is besides the point. I’d like to expand this theory somewhat and bring in the need to fulfill desires that the player have, both the desire to feel powerful and – since sexism is very common in role-playing games – erotic desires.*****

 

 

I also believe that the idea of gaming being a subculture may have something to do with the resistance to opening up to new audiences, in particular when it comes to table top role-playing games.

 

 

From Wikipedia:

As early as 1950, David Riesman distinguished between a majority, “which passively accepted commercially provided styles and meanings, and a ‘subculture’ which actively sought a minority style … and interpreted it in accordance with subversive values”. In his 1979 book Subculture: the Measuring of Style, Dick Hebdige argued that a subculture is a subversion to normalcy. He wrote that subcultures can be perceived as negative due to their nature of criticism to the dominant societal standard. Hebdige argued that subcultures bring together like-minded individuals who feel neglected by societal standards and allow them to develop a sense of identity.

 

 

As I stated above, we all play to feel competent, to feel that we are in control of our surroundings, that we can make our own choices, and to feel some sort of connectedness. To feel that we belong somewhere. Connectedness ties into the subculture thread quite nicely.

In Gaming as Culture Kevin Schut talks about the gender roles of American men, and how men should act and react to live up to these gender roles. I believe that a part of the reluctance to let women into the games stems from this need to live up to what it means to be a man. Not being able to live up to the ideals that are expected of us can be crippling and detrimental both to our mental and our physical health. Just as I believe that women can take the demands of beauty to a level where they get sick from doing so, I also believe that men have the same kinds of pressures on them to live up to a model of maleness that isn’t always easy to negotiate, and I – and Kevin Schut with me – believe that games can be a way of experiencing that perfect fit, living up to being a Real Man. In a world that is often conflicted about what a Real Man is, and especially now that the gender roles are fluid and inconsistent and even contradictory, it’s probably very nice to sit back and relax with Uncharted or Assassins Creed. Nathan Drake will never doubt himself or the right to be who he is. He will remain an ideal of male behavior, even if it’s just one facet of what it means to be a man. And he is powerful, he has agency and the player can relate to him. Maybe not all players*****, but enough.

 

 

In addition to this, and as a part of the subculture thread, gamers and nerds in general have often been treated derisively in press and in the mainstream consciousness. Male gamers are often portrayed as social misfits, emotionally and intellectually immature in the media. It’s an attempt to de-gender and render the participants of the subculture impotent, powerless. In contrast, the games places the player in the seat of power and in a position where wishes can be fulfilled, both from a power and a sexual perspective.

 

 

Again in Gaming as Culture Michelle Nephew quotes Andrew Rilestone, and I’ll quote them both.

 

Many role-playing games are set in archaic cultures in which politically incorrect values are the norm: not only the romanticized Middle Ages but also Victorian England or the 1930s. In such societies, the roles of women and men were more sharply differentiated than they are today. Could it be that, for male gamers, this is part of the appeal? Perhaps it appeals to the same ethos as the Wild Man culture: that some men – particularly, perhaps, rather studious, unathletic “nerds” – yearn for a world of heterosexual male friendships; of hunting honor and warfare.

 

And Michelle Nephew follows up:

From this perspective, including the historical facts of sexual inequality and other discriminatory practices as part of the game setting allows male players to escape into a game world that validates their own sense of worth by making their characters physically and socially superior to others around them, whether those “others” happen to be monsters or women. The constructed pseudo-histories of many RPGs represent a purposeful blurring of reality and fiction to create this kind of androcentric game environment [...]

 

This sort of ideal state is disturbed by women barging in on the scene and all of a sudden making demands that to some may seem very threatening. We want characters we can identify with (away with the ideal man!), we want stories that aren’t based on sex and violence (a very male domain to be sure) and we want to join in in a subculture that has previously been reserved for the nerds, the underdogs – but a subculture where the nerds have been at the top of the hierarchy. Basically, what I believe that the average white heterosexual male gamer dude thinks is that all of us “newbies” (hey, what’s 25 years of gaming when you’re a girl? Certainly not real gaming!) will do is disrupt games and change them so much that they can no longer live out their fantasies in the games. The flights of fancy will become heavy socio-political identity games more related to Zolá than Jerry Bruckheimer.

A part of that disruption is of course to endow women not with big boobs but with power and privilege previously reserved for men. This power and “subjectification” of women will lead to women depicted in games becoming “real people” in the sense that they are more than just a way to get some form of sexual gratification, or to be used as a confirmation of power. Just as Nathan Drake can be said to be a fairly well rounded – if somewhat stereotypical – person a female lead would have to have the same level of detail and the same fairly well rounded personality. And a game that has a fairly well rounded female in the lead will not have a male lead, which may be seen as a loss. After all, there aren’t that many releases per year, and not all releases suit all players, so I sort of get the greed perspective.

 

 

At the same time, consider that even less releases are targeted to a female audience (again, I’d say none, but I for my part have found my niche with BioWare’s games) meaning that the female audience go without completely.

 

 

A result of the “subjectification” of women would also mean that the mirroring and shaping aspect would change. Instead of getting a sense of superiority from the games – because frankly that’s exactly what happens – dudes would most likely come away from the games seeing women as people and not as… well… women. What I mean by the superiority aspect is of course that if women are next to useless, or if they confirm stereotypes of what women are and how they should act in the games, it’s easier to treat women as useless or stereotypical. There is a number of research papers describing how human beings connect stereotypes to actual people, both from a preferential treatment and a discriminatory treatment perspective. These stereotypes even affect ourselves and how we think about ourselves, so for me it’s not that far fetched to actually believe that what I see in the game will affect how I treat people in real life.

 

 

So, my thoughts on the subject, my conclusion, is that a certain subset of male gamers have a very hard time giving up space for percieved and representational minorities because of the loss of power and identity this might mean. The protests are less about the surface stuff (realism etc) and more about a changing subculture that might come to include unwanted traits and a change to a carefully built identity that protects and supports the gamer. This subculture supports the ideal of what it is to be a man, and gives the participants a sense of power, autonomy and identity – basically that they are a part of a context.

 

 

And now, I’m at the end of this wall of text, and I have no finishing punchline apart from the fact that I, as a woman, also want to feel empowered. I also want autonomy, and identity. And I’ll be damned before I stop fighting for it.

 

___________________

 

* I’m being flippant. After twelve years of the games industry and 25 years as a game aficionado, I’ve earned the right to be a bit nasty. And of course, this is a generalisation. You may not belong to the average white heterosexual male gamer group.

 

** Not all games. Some games are racist. Some games are misogynistic. Some games are ableist. Some games are all of the above. Some games are none of the above.

 

*** I think it would be for the better. Maybe that’s just me.

 

**** I’m of course referring to Kaidan Alenko’s butt. I think the fan community have even written poetry to describe it. All I can say is that, yes, it’s nice to be recognized as a participant in the game, ogling a butt and all, but to be honest I’d rather be rid of all the other instances where a female butt is put up for male gazing than to get that brief moment of butt ogling for myself.

 

**** Come on! You did SO see this coming!

 

***** I can’t. I can’t relate to Nathan Drake, to whatever the dude is called in Assassins Creed or in Red Dead Redemption. Simply put, I have a real hard time “bonding” with male avatars, which of course limits me somewhat when playing.

[Sociotard]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Curious: Why would the B word in arkham asylum be a problem. I haven't played it myself, but it sounds like the people who use it are bad people, and the use of a socially unacceptable word reinforces their badness to the player. Are there 'good guys' in the game who use the word?

[Cygnia]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

It's the implication that being female is "weak" and "bad" and "lesser". Rather than just call someone a wimp or a coward, you instead refer to them as female genitals (see also "gay" as a derogatory slur). That anything other than the Straight CisMan ideal is abnormal and wrong.

[Sociotard]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

So we can't even show 'bad guys' thinking that women are lesser? Even if they are then immediately whupped by a woman?

[casualplayer]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I'm with Socio. If Batman in Arkham City used this term in regards to a woman, I would have a problem, refuse to purchase or play the game, and encourage others to do the same. But bad guys have to act badly otherwise you can't tell the bad guys from the good. And there is the problem, deteriorating discretion and being too complacent to teach people how to tell the good from the bad and the idea that zero tolerance policies help the situation.

[gojira]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I can certainly see some acts that would prevent me from watching a movie or playing a game, simply because I wouldn't want to participate any more. This includes repeat use of derogatory language, if its bad enough. There's certainly a point where the need for an author to say "these are bad guys" goes over the top and becomes unwatchable. Torture, rape, etc., I don't care who or why, I'm probably not going to be able to deal with it, and I'll stop participating in whatever "fun" activity it was supposed to be a part of.

 

I haven't seen the games in question so I can't comment specifically, but since I have limits as to what I feel I can take, I assume others do also. And their limits might not be the same as mine, too. I think that's fine, since different people have different experiences. Certainly in mass media, you have to keep many types of depictions of violence fairly light, or you're going to turn-off part of your audience.

 

There's nothing wrong, I think, with asking games to keep the violence/implied-violence very light, to keep the audience as broad as possible. I think that's what we're talking about here: broadening the audience and inclusiveness.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

My response:

 

I’m male and I agree with this article 100%. Well, in the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit that I enjoy good-looking women in games. I hope that doesn’t invalidate my opinions.

 

I absolutely agree that women are people and deserve to have their needs and desires addressed equally in games (and other forms of entertainment). You also hit an important point regarding how the depiction of women in media shapes people’s perceptions. There doesn’t seem to be much for me to say on that beyond, “yeah, what she said!”

 

I’d also like to add that even as a male, I experience a bit–just a little–of what you’re experiencing. Games (and other media) seem to cater to one very narrow male ideal: the badass warrior. That be what a lot of guys want to see themselves as, but me? I’m a technician/engineer. My primary asset is my intelligence, not my muscle, reflexes, tactical skills, or any other badassery-related attribute. Games basically tell me that I don’t “really matter” as a person, that the best I can hope for is fixing the real hero’s gear as he goes by.

 

Sure, some games have heroes who are said to be intelligent or technically competent . . . but those attributes aren’t what carries the game. Gordon Freeman has a PhD in theoretical physics . . . and all he does is fight stuff. Commander Shepherd can be an “engineer”, but the techiest thing he/she does is attack the enemy with a smartphone. Isaac Clarke is an engineer, but Dead Space is all about killing things in personal combat.

 

So, I can agree that it sucks to have games tell you that you’ll never be anything but an NPC.

[gojira]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I'm going to challenge one aspect of this argument: that the only trope for men is a muscle-bound gun-slinging Rambo clone. There's actually a genre that pretty much does the opposite: the JRPG. A typical protagonist is fairly androgynous, dresses like he was in the middle of a fashion district during a tornado, and while is typically a "fighter," doesn't really drip machismo the way most first-person shooters do.

 

The JRPG is also fairly popular, so I wonder if there's a connection. I.e., is that type of character easier to play for folks who don't like machismo dripped all over their RPG?

 

Then there's the opposite side of that thought: you have only to listen to a few reviews by Ben "Yahtzee" Crosshaw to know he doesn't really identify with the male leads in typical JRPGs. Well I guess that proves gender identity does matter, because Yahtzee is a reasonably avid gamer, and he doesn't like a protagonist that's too far away from his idea of "male." It seems reasonable that other folks might have a similar idea, just in a different direction.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

The only reason that JRPG heroes don't "drip machismo" is that they're dripping with Japanese machismo. In Japan, the androgynous pretty boy is just as much the narrow ideal of manhood as the musclebound Rambo type is over here, and the musclebound types are viewed as compensating for something.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Here's an anecdote for y'all, possibly apropos of nothing...

At this point anyone in this thread knows I weigh in heavy on the Feminist team. Adamantly and vocally.

I also, however, once ran one of the most historically accurate Renaissance Faire Actor's Guilds in California.

Which put me on the horns of a dilemma... how to make playing a historically accurate woman at Faire NOT suck.

I ended up giving the direction for the "Proper" women over to my costume director, and the Camp Followers (Dubh Challie "Black Wives") over to my co-guildmistress, but getting past the "But we want to really FIGHT" point was always heartbreaking. And never stopped participation at guild events, after hours, or at what I used to call out "Pagan Summer camp". Actually, designing cool looking, practical leather-wear for running around in the woods and whacking each other with wooden swords is how my business got started, because period-accurate women's clothes aren't great for such, and I was trying to find good looking, but practical outfits. Amusingly enough, a lot of my designs are compared to the costumes from Xena, because we worked up from essentially the same core principles. Eventually, we sat down and figured out good period appropriate ways to integrate the women into choreographed fights (Camp raids, for instance, rather than pitched battles), which led to some of our most gruesome effects... like the cauldron of "Boiling" soup in the face (dry ice supplied the bubbles... cold supplied the shock... the poor guy would'a done better with boiling water I think, after fighting in a full mail coat in Fresno heat...), or the lass driving off the assailant who tore her bodice-laces with sweeps from a full sized, dual sned scythe. And Brush-hooks are no joke either....

 

Honestly, playing historically accurate games may have helped us come up with ways around the social rules of the day we were portraying, rather than just ignoring them as inconvenient, as so many do.

 

Just felt like sharing that. Rum, eh?

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Women fighting in judicial duels would be historically accurate, wouldn't it? Women were also known to take a role in home defense in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, so there's some potential for participation in larger melees.

 

Actually, if you used the methods shown in the illos on this page, it could be quite amusing: http://www.aemma.org/onlineResources/trial_by_combat/combat_man_and_woman.htm

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I have a question for everyone: How much do you really identify with your character in a computer game? This comes up quite a bit in these discussions, and I wonder how prevalent it is.

 

For me, I don't generally regard my video game characters as anything more personal than chess pieces. If I put a lot of work into a character, I'll get attached to it. But I don't identify with it. When I play a game, I pick the character I play based on functionality and aesthetics. For a lot of fighting games, that means female characters, who tend to be faster and more responsive. It could as well be the more responsive on the male end of the spectrum. As long as the character responds to the controls and doesn't have hard to execute special moves, I play it. In MMOs, I pick the class and race suited for whatever I'm building, then pick the model based on the best-executed artistically. In WoW, for example, I always play female Night Elves and Humans, because the male models look ridiculous. I play only male Draenei because the female models look odd with their spinal contortions. I have both male and female of most other races, just for variety. (Typically I'll home in on a limited selection of my "favorite" body parts for each race, so playing both sexes gives some more visual variety.)

 

So, beyond function and aesthetics, the characters mean little to me. In MMOs, there is nothing resembling real roleplaying (save perhaps SWTOR, which does give you some choices, though I'm unsure of what real impact they have, since I haven't played past the starter area yet), so I don't worry about identifying with any character's story, since they're all the same. Even in single player RPGs, it doesn't seem to make much difference. Action games, are, well, action games. I don't care if I'm controlling Lara Croft or Gordon Freeman, really.

 

Now, in real RPGs, I'll tend to play male characters, and always do so in a face to face game. There's definitely more character identification, as the personalities I construct are just variations on my own. My characters may be more of a pacifist, or more socially awkward or shy, or less sane (hmm, not sure if possible) than I am, but at their core, they're still built off off me, and built for me to be easy skins to slip on, to get into character, and have fun. For the most part, that precludes female characters, but only because I doubt I could play one well enough.

 

So, where does everyone else fall on the importance of character identification?

[Tasha]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I have a question for everyone: How much do you really identify with your character in a computer game? This comes up quite a bit in these discussions, and I wonder how prevalent it is.

 

For me, I don't generally regard my video game characters as anything more personal than chess pieces. If I put a lot of work into a character, I'll get attached to it. But I don't identify with it. When I play a game, I pick the character I play based on functionality and aesthetics. For a lot of fighting games, that means female characters, who tend to be faster and more responsive. It could as well be the more responsive on the male end of the spectrum. As long as the character responds to the controls and doesn't have hard to execute special moves, I play it. In MMOs, I pick the class and race suited for whatever I'm building, then pick the model based on the best-executed artistically. In WoW, for example, I always play female Night Elves and Humans, because the male models look ridiculous. I play only male Draenei because the female models look odd with their spinal contortions. I have both male and female of most other races, just for variety. (Typically I'll home in on a limited selection of my "favorite" body parts for each race, so playing both sexes gives some more visual variety.)

 

So, beyond function and aesthetics, the characters mean little to me. In MMOs, there is nothing resembling real roleplaying (save perhaps SWTOR, which does give you some choices, though I'm unsure of what real impact they have, since I haven't played past the starter area yet), so I don't worry about identifying with any character's story, since they're all the same. Even in single player RPGs, it doesn't seem to make much difference. Action games, are, well, action games. I don't care if I'm controlling Lara Croft or Gordon Freeman, really.

 

Now, in real RPGs, I'll tend to play male characters, and always do so in a face to face game. There's definitely more character identification, as the personalities I construct are just variations on my own. My characters may be more of a pacifist, or more socially awkward or shy, or less sane (hmm, not sure if possible) than I am, but at their core, they're still built off off me, and built for me to be easy skins to slip on, to get into character, and have fun. For the most part, that precludes female characters, but only because I doubt I could play one well enough.

 

So, where does everyone else fall on the importance of character identification?

 

Yes I highly identify with my Avatars in games. They are the representation of ME online. They are the face and body that other people see when I am chatting with them. They are me as I am immersed in the storyline of the MMO. I feel a connection with all of my characters. That Connection makes the game more fun for me. So yes that's probably why portrayal of women in games bugs me more than it does other people.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Tasha, does the same level of identification apply in single player games as well?

[Matt the Bruins]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I've always been pretty equal opportunity about the gender of my characters in tabletop gaming. I guess I don't really identify with them so much as enjoy playing a cool concept regardless of its resemblance to me. Some of the most fun I've had was playing a manipulative, evil-to-the-core Wednesday Addams-type character.