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The Female Gamer Perspective. I want to learn.
Dedwrekka
MetalHell adjacentRegistered User regular
MetalHell adjacentRegistered User regular
I'm a white, male, cisgendered, blond haired, blue eyed gamer geek. Lets just get that out of the way, and yeah it's important to the idea behind the topic. I'm somewhat saddened that my physiological (and psychological) make-up is so bland (even though I don't really want to change it, and don't view it as a problem), and as such I feel I've only had a limited life experience. I'm limited in how much experience or perspective I have on most of the issues that shape everyday life. When I look at issues, the most I can approach it from is the perspective of someone who really is almost always the target audience who is trying to look at it from the viewpoint of someone who isn't, and I understand that can often times be way off base. At best when I talk about how sexism is prevalent I can direct people to different perspectives and at worst I end up white-knighting the issue.
I've frequented Feminist Frequency, Girl Gamer, watched Anita Sarkeesian's Tropes vs Women videos, ect., but I get the impression that it's only giving me the loudest versions of a female gamer's perspective in the same way that Giant Bomb or many other game sites would only give me the loudest versions of the male gamer perspective. And hey, they're all great, interesting, I read them and will continue to read them, but I don't think you can get any more enlightened by reading the newspaper if you never walk outside your house and interact with the world.
Well, I'm kinda tired of that. So, I want to learn more about the female gamer perspective, not from mouthpieces (writers, news, ect.) but from any female gamers who are here and willing to take part in an even discussion. And yeah, I get that there isn't a consensus any more than there's a male consensus or a white consensus, but I want to learn.
I want to get an idea on what it's like to grow up a female gamer, what it's like to be a female gamer now, what you think about the current state of the industrial and social gaming culture, what kind of highs and lows are experienced by female gamers, and generally what it means to be female and a gamer.
Because this is the internet, and there are terrible people out there, if you don't want to say something on here, feel free to PM me. I would hope that others would respect a place to learn new perspectives and attain a better understanding, but the internet is the internet.
And no, trans-women aren't excluded from this, teach from your perspective.
I've frequented Feminist Frequency, Girl Gamer, watched Anita Sarkeesian's Tropes vs Women videos, ect., but I get the impression that it's only giving me the loudest versions of a female gamer's perspective in the same way that Giant Bomb or many other game sites would only give me the loudest versions of the male gamer perspective. And hey, they're all great, interesting, I read them and will continue to read them, but I don't think you can get any more enlightened by reading the newspaper if you never walk outside your house and interact with the world.
Well, I'm kinda tired of that. So, I want to learn more about the female gamer perspective, not from mouthpieces (writers, news, ect.) but from any female gamers who are here and willing to take part in an even discussion. And yeah, I get that there isn't a consensus any more than there's a male consensus or a white consensus, but I want to learn.
I want to get an idea on what it's like to grow up a female gamer, what it's like to be a female gamer now, what you think about the current state of the industrial and social gaming culture, what kind of highs and lows are experienced by female gamers, and generally what it means to be female and a gamer.
Because this is the internet, and there are terrible people out there, if you don't want to say something on here, feel free to PM me. I would hope that others would respect a place to learn new perspectives and attain a better understanding, but the internet is the internet.
And no, trans-women aren't excluded from this, teach from your perspective.
Dedwrekka on
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Kidding aside, here is an excellent article on some of the more pernicious aspects of appealing to your main demographic while ignoring others. The art of Dragon's Crown (a game I actually really like) is scrutinized with respect to females and there's some ridiculous and unacceptable double standard stuff going on.
I was born a guy and identify pretty strongly as female, though still at the early stages of transition. I can say that I hugely prioritize games that allow me to play as a female character, even if only as an option or sprite-swap. It isn't a deal-breaker, but I'm much less likely to play a game that features a male protagonist (I still haven't played the new Bioshock for that reason.) Dragon's Crown takes a lot of heat as an anti-feminist game, but for me even a game like that is many times more appealing than a game like Uncharted, simply because I can play a character that I identify with. DC even gives a choice of characters, so you can choose to be the booby sorceress or the practically clothed elf. That's huge, and even though I don't find their character designs particularly appealing, even a game like DC is (in a weird way) more welcoming than a game where I have to play as yet another gruff and grizzled dude.
I think you'll get a lot of variance in terms of what art styles and character designs female gamers like the most. Some places that discuss this issue will give the impression that all women prefer 'practical' outfits to 'sexy' ones, but in practice it varies pretty widely. I recently introduced a female friend of mine to League of Legends and so far she refuses to play anything but Janna. it just depends on the gamer and their tastes. Meanwhile, some female gamers choose to play as more conservative characters, or as monsters, or many other things. There's no one answer as to what women like, it depends on the person. The best a game can do is provide options that fit within the setting.
As far as the industry and its future, I'd personally like to see a lot more effort put into solving the in-game harassment problem. That's not only a woman problem, but I've faced more harassment when presenting openly as female, and more strong emotions from people in general. If the pressure currently directed at female character design were put on companies to find better ways to police their services, I think we'd find some real solutions, and game communities as a whole would get better.
In all seriousness you're going to hear stuff all over the place. In my group of friends Feminist Frequency counts as a hella milquetoast criticism of games, but in other groups Sarkeesian is almost a dirty word.
Also daps Squidget for dealing with the transition.
I mean I understood that notion in theory, but it was interesting to see it manifest before my eyes in practice.
Yeah, this is something that seems like a common experience, and I'm not sure why it's true to the extent that it is. If a character isn't of the gender I identify as, it instantly puts up this huge wall between me and them, and getting me to empathize with them is much harder. Meanwhile, I have no problem getting invested in characters who are different from me in other ways: black or white, rich or poor, evil or good, ect.
By all rights, it really shouldn't matter. But man, it matters a lot.
Imagine being a tall person every day of your life, despite having spent all of your developmental years shorter than all your peers. Fucks with your head if you think about it too much.
May I suggest just engaging in general discussion about gaming perspectives? I've seen enough Female/Minority Gamer panels to know that people tend to be much more at ease when just asked to share their thoughts during Q&A sessions, but get a little hesitant when they're stuck up on a pedestal and are asked to be a spokesperson for their social group (especially when many of them are not particularly outspoken on those issues, and are on those panels because they're relatively prominent in the industry and just happened to be born into that group).
If you want to go have new experiences and see life through a new set of eyes, then go do it. A person is defined by what they do, not what they physically are. If you feel you've had a "limited life experience", it's only because you're limiting yourself.
I'd like to thank you for sharing your experience and perspective.
All gamers who self identify as female (or did at one time) are welcome. I'm trying to transition away from judging based on the types or amount of games that people play, and I think that "casual" and "hardcore" gamers are nebulous ideas and probably wont be fitting for much longer.
Because as a white man I only understand racism and sexism as things that exist and can only really experience them tangentially as someone who it happens "around" or "near" and almost never "to". If you watch someone bungie jump, you don't get the same experience as doing it yourself. I look at the varied life experiences and perspectives that are shaped from those experiences and understand that my perspective is inherently limited by being catered to by society. I also think that the idea that I don't have to identify my gender is something that could be seen as insulting. I don't think that transgendered people should have a label attached to them while I'm simply considered the "base" or "normal" gender, and as I want this to be welcoming of transgendered people I feel that it's important to point out that as much as I lack the life experience of being female that I also lack the life experience of being transgendered. I'm interested in making up for that lacking by learning from others experiences.
The subtlest of changes in physiological and psychological make-up create vast changes in the way our lives are experienced, and there's some large differences between male and female life experiences. I only wish to learn more about how these experiences vary from mine in a way that isn't reactionary to an issue (as it is in many feminist websites, news stories, or blogs). I think I make a pretty bad feminist if I never ask for the female perspective, and only react on my limited world view.
I know, and I'm interested in the varied perspectives and experiences. I did point out that I don't expect there to be a single female gamer perspective in the OP, though, mostly because I understand that there isn't and that expecting one is rather insulting in some ways.
You might also want to consider what the person sharing their experience is going to get from the exchange - you've been relatively clear about what you expect to gain, but what about them?
I'd imagine trans people probably have extra issues with this - when you're trying desperately to escape even the trappings of one gender, you're going to have serious issues with identifying with someone of that gender. I've seen people who started transitioning and were hyper-femme or whatever because they needed that validation, who later in transition went "wait I don't actually need this, I am inherently a lady" and then said fuck it and slid into more androgynous stuff.
It's reeeeeeally hard to be comfortable playing a boy when huge parts of your life have been playing a boy and hating it.
(Not that cis women don't have issues identifying with men sometimes, just that being trans complicates things even further)
Why would we be, we have really unique perspectives and insights on gendered stuff >.>
Anyway, I've got to point out that you're hardly going to get a representative sample of the female gaming population here. I am sure it's better than some other places for a good sampling, but I can tell you that women who post in threads involving feminism or female issues on the D&D subforum here are going to overwhelmingly skew to a specific subpopulation of female gamers. So that is a thing to be aware of.
Also, though this is true of almost any gamer-specific space, most of the posters here are male, so it may be hard to get more than a few opinions.
Not that it can't be done! But it is tricky.
That sucks, but even if that happens, one isn't going to suddenly totally understand what it's like to be black or a woman in America, which I think is relevant here when one is wondering what.. it's like to be a woman in a certain space.
For a male equivalent, think of those ridiculously girly casual games like Diner Dash. Some of them have great design and gameplay, but most guys don't even see them, even though guys love casual games when they are skinned in a way that does not turn them off (see Plants vs Zombies)
I'm not generally offended by the sexism in games. It's mostly pretty harmless, although I do not like Bayonetta for that reason. I know someone is about to tell me that she's a powerful woman who doesn't take shit from men and ironically wears that outfit to take command of her sexuality, but frankly I don't agree.
I do like the ability to play a woman in games where you can design your character (RPGs.) I was really annoyed as a teenager when Ultima 8 removed the ability to have a female Avatar.
My problem isn't that you can't experience what others experience, it's that you're conveying that you feel being white makes you inferior. You're right, I can never, ever know what it's truly like to be a black man living in America... or Zimbabwe. I can never know what it's truly like to be an Arab woman, or a transgender Inuit. Nor will any of them know what it's like to be the other.
All of our experiences and what we're limited to is different from one another, but it's no reason to go on a white guilt trip. Feel bad that, even today, being a white male in America is easy mode? Then fucking take advantage of it, do something with it so maybe the next generation won't have to.
And honestly, I'd almost find distinguishing between "transgendered" and "cisgendered" more offensive. Let us be men and women, and not define ourselves by what we were born as.
And so on and so forth.
Now, can this work the other way, where a woman doesn't mind or even prefers to play as a man? Absolutely. But not always, maybe not even most of the time. And there's nothing inherently wrong with trying to appeal to a male audience by having the male characters be power fantasies. But usually what happens is the females become damsels or purely there for sex appeal, even if they are the main characters. It's really frustrating because every woman I know is not some helpless hyper-sexualized eye candy that needs a man to do everything for her.
Really OP, what you need to do is just expand your horizons and meet new people. Talk about things and get to know their perspective on issues. The internet is fine and all but you should really get outside your comfort zone in the real world. Find somebody who isn't like you at all and put yourself in their shoes. You don't have to adopt their position on everything, but if you learn how they feel about things you can make your own informed decisions.
God. This. I was always in the front row as a kid during pictures. Now I'm almost 6'1" and while certainly am not extremely tall by any stretch (heh) of the imagination, I have a lot of trouble with games where the height of the main character is shorter or taller than I feel is right. Duke Nukem 3D's shrink ray almost broke me.
Fortunately as I get older (I'm about to turn 32) this is less of a problem. But I would expect this to be a sort of niche issue.
I mean hell, the last post as I write this is talking about how they have a problem with someone portraying white cisgenered male as something potentially negative. Because heaven forbid we have a discussion about females in gaming without an argument about how the white dudes are offended.
I most likely won't post in this topic again, as it will become too toxic to wade into, just like all the others do.
A big thing is that so many characters are male or default male that playing strong women becomes a treat instead of just a different type of character.
Making my Saint's Row boss female still leaves most player characters in the third person crime game genre male. When your experiences or people like you just aren't as represented, it is a bigger deal to play them.
Actually I think you're pretty much dead on about all of the horrible places discussions like this usually go to. Yeah I'm a heterosexual white male so my 2 cents are worthless in this thread's currency, and I'm okay with that. I still prefer to argue on the side of "It's about time we stopped playing into the male power fantasy and stopped treating women like a helpless sex prize to be won", but I probably won't say much more in this thread just because my perspective on the issue isn't rooted in experiencing that shit first-hand.
I don't feel guilty about being white, or male, or cis and it would be ridiculous for me to be so. Understanding that my perspective is limited by those factors is a totally different concept from feeling bad about them.
If you like, think of life as an MMO where you only get certain experiences based on factors you don't choose (no, this isn't my philosophy). In this example, I'm the completionist who is happy with his play-through but is always looking and wondering what it would have been with different factors assigned to me. I cannot live someone else's life, but I can ask, listen and learn from their experiences.
Well, you just offended yourself out of the thread, that was pretty impressive o_O
As for the topic at hand. The only female gamer perspective I can speak of with some knowledge is my girlfriend. Perhaps she is a bad example, because she loves the shit out of Gears of War and the Halo series and she always want to play them. She love to shoot things up, and I don't think my girlfriend is anyone really special in that regard.
She does agree that she would like to be able to play as a female more frequently, and I coincide with that. I have 0 trouble playing as a female and I would love to see more games with female protagonists or at least the option to customize your gender.
Also, please, please, please designers, make women reasonably dressed. I understand you like tits, but having armor that is not armor and women fighting in high heels really breaks the immersion for me. YOU CAN'T RUN WITH THOSE.
The slow attrition of female posters in threads about women is both the saddest and most telling thing.
See, that's an opinion I can agree with, and if more people came into these types of discussions with that attitude then likely they could become meaningful discussions. But a lot of guys DON'T. And they don't even do it intentionally, or maliciously. They do it as default, since they consider the straight white cis males experience the baseline, and any dissenting experience, such as a womans, to be a threat to their 'normal' and argued against.
They want their power fantasy, which regulates me and any characters who I can identify with as weak, stupid, or blantant sexual objects with no individual agency. And they they argue about how I'm wrong to be offended by it or to hate games that play into it, like The Witcher or Dragons Crown.
I think it really boils down to an inability or unwillingness to actually put yourself in someone else's shoes. If the gender roles flipped and suddenly men were easily-dominated sex toys, there would be outrage the likes of which have never been seen. In fact I kind of want to make a game like that now. The problem is that even if such a game were made, it still isn't equivalent because so much of the cis white male worldview is colored by everything else being fucking awesome.
The only way I know of to illustrate this clearly is to point to insults. There are certain words a man can call a woman that are demeaning in ways that just can't compare to any insult directed at a man. I won't go into greater detail here because I think we all get it.
And it does bother me. Not because I feel obligated to "white knight" or whatever, but because there is a clear and obvious inequality here after centuries of oppressive and atrocious societal gender roles. I can't say it bothers me as much as it probably bothers you because I don't know. I've never been where you've been, and attempts to reverse the inequality so that I can feel something similar are woefully inadequate.
The reactions to Anita Sarkeesian's videos have revealed more misogyny than she has ever teased out of video game themes (though I do like to watch her videos.)
There's even historical basis for sexualized armor design. Just look at Jeanne d'Arc.
/sarcasm
Sexism in games is not harmelss at all and never will be.
While that is true of Bayonetta (you can't really not agree with it; it's pretty much fact), it still isn't ok to do; not in the atmosphere the media is in right now.
Believe me, it isn't just women.
That seems oddly specific and a little silly to suggest. Your blondness really informs your perspective on the world? And you think that's a majority viewpoint or...?
Man, that guy's got balls....
I can see'em!
--LeVar Burton
To clarify this to the mods, there is a metal cup covering a man's private bits, among other pieces of armor that would do no actual good in a combat scenario. There is no actual exposed genitalia, and I linked this image simply to illustrate the gender reversal of this particular trope (skimpy armor).
If that was all that you took away from it, then I might suggest looking again. That question is really unrelated to the conversation isn't it?
It may not be part of the target audience factors, but you could probably count the number of red headed male protagonists on one hand. While female redhead characters seem to be included, but largely in sexualized or subsidized roles.
Hair color may or may not matter, but it's also used as part of characterization for male protagonists and as a trope for female characters. I will direct you to the FemShep debacle.
I'm just going to point out that all people are welcome in all threads, full-stop. Posters do not get to filter who gets to participate in their threads.
Just putting that out there.
You'd have been better served by not posting in here to begin with.
Look, guys, these threads always turn to shit past a certain point. Right now, you are on-track to get it locked by the second page.
Do not discuss how shitty this thread is or will become.
Do not discuss the plight of the white male, or the lack of the plight of the white male.
Do not discuss whether or not you like the word "cisgendered."
Talk about girls and gaming and the intersection of the two; that is the topic here.