Eurogamer's "I am sexist" article

[Dervel]

Hello all, being a gamer myself I came across this piece, and it has articulated very well some things I agree with.

www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-06-18-editors-blog-i-am-sexist

[Dervel]

www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-06-18-editors-blog-i-am-sexist

[ChunkyPickle]

By George he's got it!

[Hazchem]

Although bit toward the end about the little bit less racist then his father is a tad depressing as really we don't have generations and generations worth of time.

[ChunkyPickle]

I actually read down to the comments, and was heartened that there were some male voices of reason among the normal dross too.

Yes, I think a lot less racist/sexist would be better to strive towards (although I haven't read the piece he's referring to)

[Hazchem]

see I skipped over the comments as they normally make me cross. It's great then it's getting through.

[DadWasHere]

There are a lot of sexist subtexts in video games but he spins his piece off one thing in particular that I saw, at the time, as a positive. While the 'Dastardly' achievement in Red Dead was only put in for sake of controversy to power sales I saw it as a step forward. It questioned an old and damaging cultural narrative that did not just keep women helpless by default, it made them dependant on a male hero whose own role was enabled by her inherent weakness.

'Dastardly' was important because the Hero did not appear to save the day in the nick of time and because the player could chose to be the villain for direct personal gain (via making Dastardly an achievement rather than just another thing to do in the game)

Villains were ugly, they could never win the hearts of the women they chose to kill in revenge for being denied that love. Thus boys of decades past chose to identify with the handsome hero who saved the girl and got her love in return (with the implied sex to boot). But a hero is incapable of making morally flawed choices. A hero believes he is not raping a woman even while doing so. Diminish the capacity of a male hero, confront the male player with evil acts made by concious choice and I think the player will think deeper about their role and choices in the wider world.

[BriarRainbowshimmer]

Don't tell us that murdering npc women/prostitutes for rewards in videogames is a step forward.
I'm going to link to FemFreq's long but important video again.
She shows that achievement for what it is - sociopathic violence against a helpless female character.

[ChunkyPickle]

errr - I really don't think that the vast majority of the people who wrote, or played that game thought about the achievement that way.

It was just the old 'tie the woman to the railtracks' trope - yet another example of women being throwaway characters just there to be horrifically assaulted and murdered as they are in many video games and TV shows.

[ChunkyPickle]

Or to put it another way, the player gets to play the (male) villain or (male) hero and murder or rescue the victim (female)

The woman is still incidental to the male narrative - she is still the one being done to rather than doing.

Same shit, different day.

[Dervel]

Actually I'd submit the possibility that in some ways things are getting worse. Taking the wider view in large parts of the world they are no better than they have ever been. A complacent attitude can be very dangerous.

Video games present what it seems to me an incredible opportunity. Accepting the fact that as an art form it is still very much in its infancy there is tremendous scope to present situations and experiences that are vastly removed from the users day to day lived experiences.

Particularly when you get to interactive narratives. However I am afraid to say a lot of the (mostly male) gamers have a lot of growing up to do. I am reminded of an incident several years ago where video game writer Jennifer Kepler (as in she writes the plot and story side), made a perfectly reasonable suggestion that seeing as in lots of games you can skip dialogue and narrative elements to get to combat sections, why not make combat skipable for players like herself who are driven primarily to experience the story.

Needless to say I expect no one here would be surprised in the least by the quite frankly obscene response she got for her troubles. When at least as far as I can see when you are talking about a medium driven by interactivity more player choice has got to be preferable to less surely?

A small article on the subject can be found here kotaku.com/5886674/bioware-writer-describes-her-gaming-tastes-angry-gamers-call-her-a-cancer

To be honest the article itself betrays a bias as it attempts to report and analyse the crux of her argument and the arguments of her opponents, when the far more important issue is to my mind is the mistreatment she received at the hands of the gaming "community", assuming you take community in this case to mean "pack of rabid screaming morons".

I love gaming, I want to see it fulfil its potential as an art form, and that can only happen when it is more inclusive to all facets of the human condition. That means we want and need more women creating, playing and writing about gaming.

[ChunkyPickle]

I think that the skip the action and just watch the plot thing was just ahead of its time - DP and others I know are now skipping playing a lot of games altogether and just watching other people play them live streaming or on youTube. DP says that he just can't be bothered these days to collect badgers noses or wander around killing zombies, and finds some of the plots really good so watching someone else play is in many ways better than playing himself as he can do something else at the same time (email, feed kids, whatever)

[CaptChaos]

The dastardly achievement is a step forward in equality in gaming?

I think I have actually seen everything now.

A new low Dadwashere

[Dervel]

Well that's the silly thing, it's not at all a bad idea is it? I tend towards getting quite immersed and if it's really good I can faff around finding everything and exploring every nook and cranny, but I wouldn't presume to tell anyone else how to enjoy it. What this woman endured was ridiculous in this day and age.

Seeing this is an area I am quite passionate about it's hard not to be aware of some glaring areas for improvement both within the industry and in gaming itself.

• The game Remember Me: the developers were told to switch the protagonist to a male and refused as the female lead what crucial to the story they were trying to tell. They had difficulty getting funding, but luckily persevered.
  

• Female characters adorn and are all too often objectified and not fleshed out. Hideo Kojima the creator of the metal gear series gave the brief to make a female character more erotic to entice cosplay and encourage figurine sales. Lara Croft of Tomb Raider is a notable example and her creator was forced to make her overly sexualised. In fact with this point there are legion examples.
  

• The industry itself much like a lot of others see's both fewer women working in it and few at the top tier driving decisions.
  

As to the community itself, whilst I am sure there are many like myself who just love the hobby there are way way too many who make it an unwelcoming environment for women.

• A licensed tournament for street fighter x tekken saw a lone female competitor quit her team, as the guy running her team kept making inappropriate remarks about her appearance, relationship status etc and basically bullied her.
  

• A rather awesome Dad upon being asked by his little girl of I think it was 3 why in the classic Donkey Kong game she liked she couldn't be the girl rescuing the guy. This prompted him to hack the cartridge to switch the sprites around for her, and uploaded the video in what in any sane world would be a sweet little awesome gesture, but no apparently not cue comments of abuse, vitriol and tomtwattery of the highest order.
  

Now all of this I would be willing to take with a pinch of salt, but gaming online I have made several friends of both genders, and I'm afraid it's clear as day. In games like world of Warcraft there is a presumption that if you are a girl you are less likely to be a skilled player, I've seen this first hand (and always challenged it). As a result of this I know of many women who won't identify their gender because they want to be taken seriously. This feeds into this misconception that girls don't play when in actual fact the cliché of gamers being mainly teenage boys is actually a misnomer they are as a demographic smaller than the number of women (of all ages) who game. It can only be sexism in my view that creates material with such a scewed bias.

[CaptChaos]

In games like world of Warcraft there is a presumption that if you are a girl you are less likely to be a skilled player, I've seen this first hand (and always challenged it). As a result of this I know of many women who won't identify their gender because they want to be taken seriously.

Imagine everyone's surprise when my sex was suddenly made known, having been regarded as the best Horde lock on the server I played on!

I agree to an extent, but this has got MUCH worse over the last couple of years, where being a skillful player has been a lot less important due to tweaks and nerfs to raids, it's all about the GS now, and teenage boys and young men have more time to waste grinding for gear than most adult women do. Most teen girls quickly become disillusioned with WoW and head off to Aion and similar where there is a much more welcoming female player base. WoW has been becoming more and more misogynistic over the last few years, most of the people on my ban list (before I gave it up as a bad job) were young adult males who stood in Org making shitty comments about female players or females in general.

[Dervel]

Yeah it's just fresh in my mind as I was levelling in my chosen mmo (I quit wow too) and had to endure a chap lowering our collective iq and yes his chosen topic was women. Needless to say we didn't get on!!

Thought this might raise a wry smile:

Assuming you've not seen it already!

[NormaStanleyFletcher]

I am not a gamer, but I quite liked the article. He wasn't even asking for a cookie.

[DontGiveAwayTheHomeworld]

This is why I like Bioware games, none of the women in it are weak. Sometimes afraid, occasionally silly, but never weak. Square Enix are pretty good for that too, but Bioware do it better.

It is getting better. Developers are now getting called on bullshit excuses for sexism, we're getting more female protagonists (or at least the option) and the gaming community as a whole is more accepting of women than it used to be. It's far from perfect, but it is getting better.

[GiantIsopod]

That's very interesting, I'm not a gamer and never have been, but have been a bit about some of the stuff my sister and her boyfriend liked, where there did seem to have quite a lot of sexist shit going on. They're both very feminist now! I think everyone is prejudiced to some point, most of us are a lot less prejudiced than others and about different things. I'm sure I am. I try my best not to be, I reassess my values and opinions on people all the time, I educate myself, but I know I still have prejudices and probably unfair opinions. I think everyone has, and the only way to reduce them is to work with that knowledge.

[IdealistAndProudOfIt]

Responding to dervel and the kepler-thing, obviously the vitriol in the responses was completely unnecessary, but to some extent there is a point. The first respondent on the article you linked had good points. If you have a japanese rpg game, which can be described as interactive stories, and you take the interaction out, what are you left with? A film. got to come back in a minute, sorry, kids.

[IdealistAndProudOfIt]

yep. To continue, not a very good film either. Yes by all means have the ability to re-watch the cutscenes if that's what people want, that doesn't deserve vitriol. But the point that someone responsible for these games saying that half of them should be skipped is not good for gaming has some validity.

I also notice that you seem to equate not liking the combat elements with feminity, which you wouldn't have meant... I know workng mum gamers don't have time to go through 100 hours of gameplay, minus the working i'm in that boat too.

We do indeed all have prejudices, its called culture. In humans half of our culture gets hardwired into our brains and it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to dig out all the elements of accepted behaviour and turn your back on it.

[TeWiSavesTheDay]

It depends what you want in a game though isn't it?

There is always a format to games and if you know there are going to be 3/4 minibattles which will take 30mins to deal with before you get to the next boss/plotpoint but you only have 30mins to play it can put you off picking up the controller to start with. Whereas if you could skip 1/2 battles you would have time for a really engaging session.

More flexibility isn't a female ideal (though plenty of gamers would like to claim it is) just a plus for anyone who is pressed for time!

[Dervel]

I can respect either position re: making combat skipable, the problem was a lot of the responses didn't really engage on points or offer an alternative position. I do note exploration and collectibles are optional, conversations and cutscenes are often skipable, in that light it's hard not to see Kepler's point of view as also valid.

Grand scheme of things I don't really have a horse in this race as I tend to do as much in a game as I can. Also down to parenting I have nowhere near the time to play as I used to, but I haven't really changed the way I do I just play fewer games and take a hell of a lot longer to finish.

I'm sorry I gave the impression I felt that skipping combat was a female thing (or even for that matter that it's a male thing to skip dialogue). Whilst there is doubtless a lot of deconstruction to be done in my own psyche on this particular issue I feel very clear on.

I suspect having been involved in gaming and geeky things and being privileged with a friendship circle of mixed genders my bias is that in whatever endeavor we as humans can engage in things are always improved by that mix and when everyone is treated well and respected.