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Gaming and Shaming: How Feminism and Gaming Can Coexist
Fuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm really loving the surge of feminist oriented discussions on the board lately, so I wanted to kind of expand on some stuff that has been bouncing around in my head for a while.
For a long time, gaming was perceived as a very off-the-norm pursuit, and gamers were definitely "othered". I mean, remember how no one ever talked about gaming in their regular life? Because it meant that you were a man/woman-child and lived in a basement eating cheetos (or something)? I really think misogyny drove this othering, because gaming and even love of technology, were perceived as highly unmasculine things to do. We tend to think of misogyny as only directed at women, but the entire gender standard is constructed around hypermasculinity and ultrafemininity. This unachievable standard drove the bullying and persecution (please, no oppression olympics) of the gaming community.
Soooooo, what was and is the typical response to patriarchal norm enforcement? They created a subculture. In LGBT circles, there is something called a queer space, which is any place where heteronormativity isn't the norm, and LGBT folks can relax. I think that gamers certainly constructed their own safe spaces, in gaming stores, hobby shops, and local meetups. When the internet blossomed, every marginalized group, including gamers, hit the websites really hard. Our forum is a testament to that!
My central thingy is: Feminism and feminist thought could do the gaming communities a lot of good. Patriarchy drives the oppression of women and gamers. A large part of feminism is devoted to deconstructing these power assumptions and getting rid of stigma. Why is the All Boy's Club still the standard and why does it show up in other "intellectually" marginalized groups like atheist communities, blogging communities, and tech groups, as well as our gaming communities? Is there such a backlash because people don't understand the goals of modern feminism or is it just a general repeat of in-group marginalization modeled after the initial marginalization by the dominant cultures?
For a long time, gaming was perceived as a very off-the-norm pursuit, and gamers were definitely "othered". I mean, remember how no one ever talked about gaming in their regular life? Because it meant that you were a man/woman-child and lived in a basement eating cheetos (or something)? I really think misogyny drove this othering, because gaming and even love of technology, were perceived as highly unmasculine things to do. We tend to think of misogyny as only directed at women, but the entire gender standard is constructed around hypermasculinity and ultrafemininity. This unachievable standard drove the bullying and persecution (please, no oppression olympics) of the gaming community.
Soooooo, what was and is the typical response to patriarchal norm enforcement? They created a subculture. In LGBT circles, there is something called a queer space, which is any place where heteronormativity isn't the norm, and LGBT folks can relax. I think that gamers certainly constructed their own safe spaces, in gaming stores, hobby shops, and local meetups. When the internet blossomed, every marginalized group, including gamers, hit the websites really hard. Our forum is a testament to that!
My central thingy is: Feminism and feminist thought could do the gaming communities a lot of good. Patriarchy drives the oppression of women and gamers. A large part of feminism is devoted to deconstructing these power assumptions and getting rid of stigma. Why is the All Boy's Club still the standard and why does it show up in other "intellectually" marginalized groups like atheist communities, blogging communities, and tech groups, as well as our gaming communities? Is there such a backlash because people don't understand the goals of modern feminism or is it just a general repeat of in-group marginalization modeled after the initial marginalization by the dominant cultures?
Fuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud on
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Feminism and feminist thought could do just about everyone some good, as it seeks to undo a lot of the horrible damage our culture has. But we need to also understand that such hatred is not a fluke and actively being fostered by powerful people who do have every vested interest in keeping the masses squabbling and divided amongst themselves. There are people who have gotten fabulously rich off of this hatred and they will fight to the death to keep their power and privilege. All Boys Club is the standard because feminism only just appeared recently on the historical scene. ;p
We're working out of the all-boys-club mentality and in some cases it just requires time for people to be exposed to the alternative enough not to default to the previous patriarchal assumptions. People may mean well, but we learn through memorization and undoing years of programming can take quite a while. My hope is that people will slowly grow to understand feminism is really the first step to everyone having personal autonomy, which would inevitably lead us into a more kind, more free society. If we could all learn this autonomy we might finally be able to get rid of a lot of this horrible system of near-total domination of public affairs by the Wealthy.
You're talking about the Rothschilds, aren't you?
Skipping the long-winded explanation, me and the people I play with most often couldn't really claim to be part of the gaming subculture anymore than we could claim to be part of a movie subculture just because we like to drag each other to see films. So when that subculture as a whole does something disappointing in the area of gratuitous sex (happens all the time) or gratuitous violence (also happens all the time, it's just more socially acceptable because of current norms), we don't really feel as though we're part of the issue. Granted, we clearly vote with our pocketbooks, and I'd like to think that we have demonstrated some degree of social responsibility towards improvement (me and a friend both agreed not to buy Sniper Elite V2 after playing the demo because it seemed like a mediocre game clinging to an amazing violence fetish), so we are involved in some extent. But that's largely to the extent in which we will badmouth aspects of films like chasing the titillation dollars or pandering to gore hounds. I've had more than a few cases where I nearly rolled my eyes out of my head with the unnecessary violence in a film, but I'd be reluctant to connect it to filmgoer subculture as a whole, since I'm not part of it. I'm just a guy who watches films. I guess it's kind of like that with gaming (even though I do play more games).
Not very useful, I'll admit. The one thing I can say is that steering the gaming subculture, naturally, would take those more deeply involved in it. To think about your example, Cloud, the LGBT community's direction represents a progression of public society as a whole. Whereas the gaming "community" is primarily concerned with entertainment and the entertainment business, as well as creativity and entertainment. I guess it's easier to divorce yourself from the later.
(And I am aware of the possible irony of me saying this at the Penny Arcade Forums, of all places.)
I'm talking about Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and hell J.P. Morgan (who just lost what, $2 billion?) They all seem to function best when the electorate makes all of its political decisions based on social issues and don't look at how both parties support similar neoliberal economic policies that all lead to the banks getting away with murder and making $TEXAS in profits. But no, it's all really the fish-men from Dantooine, because it's never like Rich and Powerful humans would ever gather together and discuss how to keep their riches and power for as long as possible! ;p
Well, few people take it well when it's their sacred cow in the hamburgers on the grill.
Is "being a gamer" really a lifestyle?
I find some of the initial premises for this comparison to be on shaky ground.
It really depends on whether you want to label spending a lot of time playing video games as a hobby or as a social dysfunction. Gaming exists as a culture primarily because other social groups consider their own version of "Too much gaming" a dysfunction. So they tend to marginalize or throw out those sorts of people; This leads them to pool together and form their own group centered around gaming, the activity they felt was more important than maintaining status in their former social group.
Before you can consider whether or not gaming a lifestyle or subculture you need to ask yourself whether you personally believe that. Because a culture is really only considered valid by our society when its members become loud and powerful enough to prevent their own marginalization. It's not based on any sort of sensible observation about whether the behaviors of that culture are actually, in fact, healthy for a human being.
You can participate in something and not be a lifestyler. Not every gamer is immersed in a gamer culture. For some people, their entire social system, interests, and mode of dress pretty much revolve around games. Once in awhile other people who are less immersed engage with them, but some people get REALLY deep into the rabbit hole.
It's just as much a subculture and lifestyle as any other defining activity. If I wake up on Saturday, put in four hours on my WoW account, take a lunch break where I listen to orchestral Final Fantasy music and read my Dragon Age novelization, go to a game store to paint some Warhammer figurines and talk about DotA strategy with strangers, then head out to meet up with my friends for a LAN party the rest of the evening... then I think it's reasonable to define myself as a gamer. If my weekly gaming consists of playing a bit of Super Smash Bros with my nephews and a couple of CoD matches, then it's not an identification... but that's not what we're talking about here.
"Conform to our way of thinking you dateless losers, and agree that you are lame"
So they respond to it the way they always do to external criticism. Which is to turn on it as a horde and fight back. The whole 'community' exists to provide them with an environment where they can feel comfortable discussing and doing things they like. When you try to insist that they must change (or even evaluate themselves), even if it is for completely different reasons than the mainstream does then you are going to get the same response.
Why do gamers and 'feminists' co-exist poorly? Because cultures always coexist poorly with people who tell them they are wrong. And it's only a certain subset of feminist thought. If I jumped up at a gaming convention and said "The glass ceiling and pay inequality are awful! Women deserve to be paid the same as men!" or "Women deserve the right to control their fertility and should be allowed free contraception!" then you'd get applause and approval I imagine. If you jumped up and said "Sexual imagery and violence pervade games and things you like. They are hurtful and exclusive. You must change them!" then you would be chased from the stage with pitchforks.
I think you'll find most "gamers", despite the out word appearance, are incredibly progressive people. Most of us abhor the Cross Assault incident. Every community or culture is going to have it's idiots who espouse terrible views. I think most of us would even agree we have a sexualization problem in video games...what we don't need is a bunch of militant feminists descending on video games as if it's the next frontier of social equality. It's entertainment, and admittedly a medium that needs to change it's stance on women...but it's still entertainment. Things like equal pay and the glass ceiling, real problems, aren't going to be solved by making video games more inclusive. It just seems like a very strange place to fight this battle, the arena of video games.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
Agreed, but that's not how the OP was framed. The OP was framed specifically in terms of "what does this mean for the broader feminist movement", which I think some of us are replying to with "Uhh, not much?"....because solving the video game gender inequality issue doesn't actually do anything to solve the real problems women are facing in the world.
I really don't think this is true anymore. Gaming as an industry rakes in more money than the movie industry, and the gender split among "gamers" is like 60/40 at this point. I think any perceived otherness is now just that- perceived.
It probably doesn't help that the main problems being cited for games and comics are collective action problems and feedback loops, yet they're being attacked as individual sexism.
If the skeptics are being principled at all about their objection, then it probably has something to do with drawing the line between describing the situation as it stands, and then somehow making that the basis for saying what ought to be (the classic Hume's Guillotine).
That's my problem, at least, since feminists advocates often have real trouble divorcing positive description from normative suggestion.
Nothing? I haven't seen any feminists descend on gaming to my knowledge yet. I thought we were discussing gaming and the larger role of feminism? I guess I was making the point that I don't really think one gains much from the other.
It started as a male hobby, so the industry is made up of the early adopters, almost all male, and women are slow to integrate into a community because gender relations tend to be tense. This might also be why you never see men joining book groups.
Yep.
There are lots and lots and lots of blogs by feminist gamers who want to not be stuck having mixed feelings about the games they enjoy, and to be able to enjoy more games.
I'm a gamer and a feminist. I'm a feminist by nature. I've been a gamer since the 80s. I used to collect GamePro magazine even though I couldn't afford a new game more than once a year, and mostly had to go to play Nintendo with my grandmother and aunt, who have a huuuuuge collection of games - their house is where I would read things like Nintendo Power magazine. I would play Metroid at the babysitter's. I was drawing my level design ideas when I was in elementary school. Today, I'm a video game tester who hangs out at a game shop 1-4 days a week, who designs RPG stuff at home, etc etc etc etc etc. I mean I try to have balance, but I'm a gamer, and nobody could hope to question that without coming off as insane. But I'm a pretty damned vocal feminist.
Lets not make this a debate about what gaming is, but suffice it to say while it may be perfectly normal to play a few rounds of Draw Something on your cellphone these days it is NOT considered normal to tell someone "Oh, can't go to the U2 concert, there's DLC coming out for Dragon Age I want to play"
Gaming is VERY big, but it isn't treated as a serious endeavor despite the money it makes. You just need to look at how oddly uncomfortable news people are when they talk about it to realize that. And while it may be 60/40 split between people who play video games, those who would consider video games a big part of their life do not have a 60/40 split. My wife probably plays more 'video games' than I do since she loves words with friends, but if you asked which one of us was the gamer she and I would both say it was me.
I don't know. I'll edit it out if you'd like, I guess in re-reading it, it was an unintended "slam".
While gaming is gaming, there is still a significant split between "core" and "casual" gaming. We're some distance from the day when Skyrim and Angry Birds are seen as the same category by the average person.
Attacking is probably a better word than militant. Telling gamers that they should change their images is probably very similar to telling a group of feminists they should stop being so militant. Hell, (and while this is a bit lame as an argument) a lot of gamers probably got into gaming so they could get away from girls telling them they were lame and instead have fun. And now you've got girls showing up telling them they shouldn't even look at the virtual women they have literally created for themselves?
This is starting to remind me of how fetishists overtook the furry community and so now the furry community is automatically associated with fetishism. It's bullshit in that community and it's bullshit in this one. Everyone is welcome to their personal fap material, but it's toxic to freak out when someone wants to desaturate the market of it.
Sorry, but that's a load of gooseshit. Any outlier group (yes, even feminists) has an initial phase where they see the break between them and the mainstream as absolute, and thus that they are somehow separate from all of the issues of the mainstream culture when they are not. Eventually, as the group matures, it is able to come to terms with its inherited flaws and address them.
Again, to use feminism as an example, the First and Second Waves, while claiming to represent all women, actually suffered the same class and racial issues as the rest of society, ultimately resulting in a movement that represented the interests of white women of middle class and above. The Third Wave occurred in part because the marginalised subgroups finally forced the movement as a whole to address their issues and the problems in the movement. Today, progress has been made, but it's been uneven (race has improved a lot, gender identity less so.) What you won't find, except in rare cases, is a denial of these flaws.
The issue isn't pressures from outside, it's an unwillingness to be introspective.
If your response to a woman telling you you're lame is to immerse yourself in virtual escapism and ignore the real world, I have no problem with the habit being criticized.
So it's reasonable to hunt the outcasts in the wilderness, so to speak?
Honestly, that is how it should be in a lot of ways. We're not counting people who have seen Svedka ads as members of sci-fi culture, and I don't think we should be counting browser games in the same category as serious games.
On the other hand, that's almost certainly various "low-brow"/general audience oriented consumer electronics like iPhones and ultrabooks. When you look at free-time-investment electronics like video games or customized desktops, there's a much higher male representation.
I wouldn't necessarily call them them outcasts and video games are definitely no longer the wilderness. Opting for escapism, which is what I would definitely call creating a virtual woman for yourself rather than dealing with the real world, is no healthy. Insisting that people not try to influence the medium away from providing you with your virtual sex toy and instead provide entertainment they too can enjoy makes them the asshole.
Your logic would seem to apply in both directions, however.