More on gaming and sexism
Jan. 15th, 2010 05:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenI 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.
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.
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Date: 2010-01-17 04:29 am (UTC)