More on gaming and sexism

[trinityvixen]

I don't agree with everything in the top video, but it's a pretty good start on why a lot of video game culture is alienating to women.

Worth a watch and a discussion. One thing that frustrated me from that analysis is how it makes obvious that I am a very atypical gamer "for a girl." I never got into gaming from "casual" games. One of the first games I ever played was a proto-Rock Band game for the computer. (It was an Aerosmith game where you got an electronic guitar pick to strum on a tennis racket--no, really!--and it would record the vibrations as strums on the program.) The next was Dark Forces and its sequel, Jedi Knight. (I got sucked into games through Star Wars!) Those are fairly involved video games. In fact, the latter two were first- or third-person shooters, games that I actually don't like that much now that I'm older (but will tolerate if the game story is good or if, you know, it's a Star Wars game).

So this lesson about the importance of according casual gaming more respect is worthless to me. I do concede that although I do not fit that "this is how girls get into gaming" archetype, I do still have that wary reaction to perceived boy-zone gaming areas. First person shooters, particularly those that glorify competitive playing (PENIS HATS!), are just repellant. I couldn't make it even a few levels playing cooperatively with my brother-in-law on Halo because my aversion to this type of gaming was that strong. I didn't feel comfortable with the game, and I'm acutely aware of games like Halo that feel equally as masculine-focused. (Anything about war, for example.)

It would be nice to be able to break out of that, but as I'm not sure whether the boy-zone understanding of those games preceded my dislike or if it's the other way around. There are some people who are just never going to like those kinds of games, male and female (and I know a lot you reading this feel the same way). The real adjustment that should be made to the lack of women in video games is to acknowledge that just because a woman doesn't want to play Halo (or Modern Warfare or what have you) doesn't mean she's not a gamer. Gamer elitism, in other words, disappearing would do a lot to reduce gamer sexism.

Comments

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

Could you summarize the video a little? We don't get YouTube at work.

I do find this, "We need to be more welcoming of casual gamers! For the women!" strain to be pretty annoying, but it exists because that's where the money is. Because for all we want to talk about equality, women and girls seem most drawn to games that are more or less virtual dollhouses (The Sims), or at least have those sorts of artistic/creative element (WoW remains the most female-heavy "hardcore" game, if I remember correctly). Those, casual games requiring little to no thought, and music games. In contrast, there are few women playing shooters (very few playing testosterone-laden CoD and GoW, still not that many playing the more interesting Halo and Bioshock), and almost none playing strategy games (which are for all intents and purposes gender-neutral).

So, the boys who played with guns and toy soldiers grew up to play with virtual guns and simulated armies; the girls who played with dolls and art projects grew up to play with virtual dollhouses and character creators, and occasionally they meet in the middle to tell stories in RPG-land or play music. More of the case for innate gender differences?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

More of the case for innate gender differences?

If people grow up to play the games they played as children, I think it's more proof of imposed gender differences. The idea that girls gravitate towards dolls and not toy soldiers is an impossible one to prove given that kids have no choice in the matter until they've already been exposed to gendered gifts by the time they start asking for presents on their own.

"Innate gender differences" is bunk evo psych, generally speaking. Video games are not an exception.

Oops, forgot to post this part!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Summary of the video: He breaks down the problems of gaming and gamers alienating women before they can even get near the controller as being caused by both macho-ism and elitism. In the one sense, boys already dominate the gaming market from creation to entertainment--games are made and played for and by them for the most part. Women that do manage to enjoy games often do so despite their obvious targeting to the male demographic. Women bend for those games. Men? Do not. (Disclaimer: obviously, there are exceptions, and some of the biggest fans of "girly" games I know are guys.) So the environment is a tad imposing (where it isn't overtly hostile or off-putting in some other way) before women even start playing.

Then there's the issue of female objectification and harassment once they do start playing. Having every female character be unrealistic is not inherently problematic because everyone in gaming is unrealistic. However, as with advertising, TV, and other media, male unrealistic body types tend to be healthier and less about their being gazed upon as sexual creatures first and foremost. One look at Lara Croft shows that no female character quite escapes the eye-candy-only ghetto. Lara was designed to be Indy but female but never got to that recognition popularly, and the fact that she and other game characters pop up in Playboy is not helping.

The harassment of women in male spaces is well documented in other spaces besides gaming, but there's also the elitism of gaming that the video brings up that people don't often recognize as being very off-putting--the idea that playing video games doesn't count as gaming unless it's Halo et al. So women gravitate to games that are less hostile to them to start and may love those games and not see a need to go further. Guys then still bemoan that they're not gamers when, in fact, a lot of "girly" games offer a lot of the same sort of playing issues as "macho" games do. Women would branch out more into what could charitably be called "hardcore" gaming if a) gamers were nothing but supportive (never going to happen on any FPS played online, tell you that much), and b) gamers didn't go "Well, that's not real gaming" when they say they prefer Cooking Mama or Professor Layton. Gamer dudes need to recognize that playing The Sims is like a skip and a jump from playing WoW and be happy for a girl to play that much and to make a female-friendly space ready for when she's ready to take that leap. She will!

Basically, elitism and the non-recognition of gaming carving out male-only spaces are the major impediments to more women getting involved in gaming, is his point. A lot of that will be improved with gamers being less snobbish about what makes you a "gamer" but a lot more would be done by dissolving the boys club on the development side, too. Getting more female voices out there would be a huge step.

[sols-light.livejournal.com]

As a male gamer, I still don't enjoy playing the heavily war-laden games. The only Shooting game I will play is Borderlands, because it has a completely different vibe to a normal shooter and doesn't take itself seriously.

Honestly though, the real point is there are thousands of female games just like Trinity, they're just being overlooked. In the end gamers are people first, a gender second, which is how we're allowed to be in enjoying other forms of entertainment.

I will make the point that WoW is a game that's not easily boxed, it's only as hardcore as you want to make it. If you raid with 24 other people as they bring out the new content, then it is hard and the Hard modes are a genuine challenge, if you don't do that, it's a fairly easy game. There are plenty of girls that do both, but those that raid hard have to withstand a very testosterone-fuelled competition culture, even in what is essentially a cooperative game.

The socialisation difference I find interesting inside games is whether they're cooperative (allegedly feminine) or competitive (allegedly masculine). I'm not a big fan of competitive, I don't see the need to prove my skills against otehrs, becuase it doesn't often help me learn or get better. I do that by research and cooperating with others to improve my own approaches.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The socialisation difference I find interesting inside games is whether they're cooperative (allegedly feminine) or competitive (allegedly masculine). I'm not a big fan of competitive, I don't see the need to prove my skills against otehrs, becuase it doesn't often help me learn or get better. I do that by research and cooperating with others to improve my own approaches.

I don't like competitive games because I am admittedly not good at games. My roommate said that she was surprised that I don't like those games since I took great delight it killing her in Aliens vs Predator, but I confess that that was because at the time she was worse than me. So, yeah, it's great to beat up on people who aren't as good as you. Until you're on the receiving end and it feels like shit and you're shit and the people online tell you you're shit. I just dislike playing with people generally (with few exceptions for great cooperative games).

So, really, my dislike of the war games is that they're dominated by assholes. There's also something that relates to your point about being a "gamer" first: I don't really feel Halo-centric players are really "gamers." To me, they feel like frat boys who happen to be exorcising their need to haze and call people fags online. It's boring and popular with people who otherwise don't give a shit about good games.

[lithoglyphic.livejournal.com]

I can pretty much second this post.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

Ugh, LJ just lost my long-winded comment. Basically, I'm not sure there's a problem here, except for those who want to market to women to make money, and those guys who want to date female gamers, which I guess is considered to be some kind of Holy Grail. Where are the women who are complaining that there aren't any games they want to play? It seems that there are lots of different gaming experiences out there, and if you want to play video games, you'll find the ones you like. Companies keep throwing money at making hardcore games for the Wii, but the market just isn't there and they fail. So how hard do you try to convince people to try something they think they have no interest in? Nintendo's had the best success I think with their Nintendo DS, just as they did getting adults to play video games with the Gameboy and Tetris. It's okay to satisfy a niche group while catering to the bread-and-butter masses--really! And what's a "girl game" anyway? Super Princess Peach?

Also, the woman who contributed to this piece decrying the sexualizing of the video game media has a blog called "Sexy Videogameland"? There's a mixed message!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem with the distinctions made among gamers is the inherent assumption that the casual gamer isn't a gamer. To the credit of that video, he does say that it's wrong to say that anyone who can't jump right into Call of Duty isn't a gamer. What frustrates guys who want to have girlfriends who game is that they don't play the "right" games, not that they don't play. That's something that the video didn't address. Even as he says "casual gamers are too gamers!" he doesn't force the guys still bitching about it to meet him halfway. It's sad.

I agree with you about the blog title. It's definitely not sending the message she thinks it is. It also turns out she's the one who posted the article about Bayonetta that said it was a female-positive game and took a lot of flak for it. One of her recent posts is about defending herself from accusations that she's an apologist, that she is allowing guys to feel good (or better at least) about liking sexist games because she's a woman who likes them. (It's the idea that because she's a woman she must inherently know what is sexist or not, which is itself a sexist notion, to say nothing of a stupid one.)

[equustel.livejournal.com]

That's actually a great video. I like that he points out the exceptions to his own generalizations. Pretty fair analysis for the most part. Like you, I can't help being an anomaly in this case, having skipped over causal gaming most of my life.

I really, really wish you had a PS3 for a couple weeks so you could play Uncharted 1 and 2 (just as I really, really wish I could have a 360 for a month to play Mass Effect 2. Dammitall!). They are dripping with the sort of universal appeal that can and should be the future of the industry. Amy Hennig, the writer of both, is nominated for a WGA award for her script for the sequel. She's wonderful.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Uncharted is literally the only game I'd want a PS3 for, mostly because of your ranting about it! I really would love to play it some time. Alas, no one I know is that hardcore of a gamer (or enough of an early tech adopter) to have gotten the PS3. Alas! Alas!

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

Um...hi? I have one, and I think I raved about Uncharted at one point (though I don't think I mentioned Uncharted 2, not having finished it yet). Pay more attention!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Dude, you're constantly talking about video games. Nine times out of ten, it's a game I want to play and thus I can't read your posts about it because they'd spoil me. The other time it's usually something I don't find interesting (like Modern Warfare or the Star Trek MMO) so I just skim it.

So I missed any discussion about a PS3. So sue me for not pay attention to EVERY detail :P

[sols-light.livejournal.com]

As a PS3 owner, I think you'd get addicted to LittleBigPlanet (C'mon great wackiness, good physics and Stephen Fry!) and you also might enjoy Flower, it's a great example of a differnet game and more like interactive art. There's several other things in various genres in rotation on my PS3, but most of those can be played elsewhere.

I honestly don't get the fuss about Uncharted. I've played it (or tried to) and I found the characters were a big cut above average, the story was pretty, but the emphasis on shooting everything in sight repeatedly made it feel more like Time Crisis than a story based game.

Heh, if you want Hardcore, I have finished one playthrough of Demon's Souls (See Yahtzee's review, he's not kidding about the difficulty), that was a seriously good example of brilliant level design and heavy challenge, with mooks often able to oneshot you if you're not careful.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

What is LittleBigPlanet? As it's a game for a system I don't have, I know next to nothing about it--not what kind of game it is, nothing!

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I'm a casual gamer (I play a ridiculous amount of Peggle), but I have no interest in moving into other types of games, so I don't see this gateway drug argument really.
1 - I can play Peggle for free on the computer I have. I'd need to spend hundreds of dollars for a console and even more for games.
2 - I can play Peggle while doing something else--and always do. I usually have a game going to play during ad breaks when watching the Daily Show. I don't see any other type of gaming fitting that vaguely distract me for a few minutes niche. I never sit down specifically to play Peggle, which I think is an important difference.
3 - I have really lousy skills. I think this is more of a barrier for casual to hard-core gamer than anything else. I simply am not good enough to find hard-core games any fun, and I don't have an interest in becoming good enough.

Every point they have about ghettoizing women's games and the hypersexualization of women in gaming culture is valid. (I also love that he points out that women don't care what you do about Lara Croft now--she's already a sex icon. Very true.) But as ecmyers points out--what's the goal in bringing women into the male gaming space? If it's just so guys can have chicks to date, well, that's kind of the exact problem he's pointing out about gaming culture. A more important question for a lot of these guys is why an obsession with these games seems to alienate real women, and that's a question that answers itself.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

If it's just so guys can have chicks to date, well, that's kind of the exact problem he's pointing out about gaming culture. A more important question for a lot of these guys is why an obsession with these games seems to alienate real women, and that's a question that answers itself.

Drawing women into the gaming culture for the purposes of being sex objects in real life is very off-putting. There's also the stereotypical idea that once again women are being encouraged and cajoled into joining male space versus men leaving their space to see what women are doing that's different. While I like the idea of eradicating gaming as a male space 'cause I like gaming and don't want to deal with the awkward and uncomfortable forever, yeah, getting women into gaming just so that you can find a girlfriend who now has things in common with you...not so progressive akshully.

[sols-light.livejournal.com]

I don't see getting women into gaming as trying to get them to enter male culture, I see it as allowing them to express what they want to. If they're being forced into it by the men in their lives, that's a whole different thing, but if they're talking about it as free choice, that's good and as you've said before, the sooner people realise gender theory is less important than individual personality and start marketing good games instead of games designed for a specific gender I'll be happy.

If Barbie: Horse Princess has genuinely interesting gameplay and story with some interesting choices about how to live life, I'll happily play in that pink-saturated world, until they manage to introduce some options that allow that, though, I'll stick to my Monster Hunter Craziness.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It's not about women choosing to enter male culture, that's just something that happens. Women play video games because it's fun, just like dude's do. However, as that video brought up, the space is undeniably engineered towards a male audience, so even though women get into it for pleasure, they are definitely coping with intruding on a male environment.

That is changing, thank goodness. And it will keep changing as systems like the Wii are introduced into households earlier and make gaming no longer a gendered pursuit to begin with.

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

From what I understand, the women who play almost exclusively casual games are typically at least half a generation older than you, so it's not SO surprising that you don't fit the mold. Anyone our age who grew up with video and computer games is going to more easily relate to beefier fare. They might love gaming or hate it, but they won't be "afraid" (probably too strong a word, but you know what I mean) of it. That fear of something very alien is why someone who's gotten comfortable surfing the web can play hours of Flash games but still have no idea how to even hold a controller.

Why any of this is the case more of older women than older men (who'd also be unfamiliar with the technology), I couldn't say.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. Part of what is already happening is that the first few generations of female gamers are helping to raise gamers, and the gender binary is beginning to be loosened by that. Our generation still mostly grew up with boys with consoles, girls with computers (if they had gaming at all). It just puts men at a better comfort level for gaming, though that comfort level is attained really fast. (I remember playing the XBOX 360 for the first time and being in a panic about trying to navigate the dashboard. Several updates later, I can't imagine living life without the 360.)

So you're right: our generation and younger ones will not segregate gaming as a boys-only thing, and that will go a long way towards resolving the problems of too few female gamers being about. Addressing imbalances of education and supporting more women in math and engineering and game design would go even further because more women would get into making games.