Category Archives: Gender

What Does a Heroine Look Like?

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So in the furor over Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes vs. Women in Videogames, the content of what she’s producing has been largely overlooked. But The Mary Sue‘s Becky Chambers has a suggestion:

I want a character who makes me feel emboldened on sight. If I’m a soldier, I want to look like the rest of my squad. If I’m escaping a zombie apocalypse, I want shoes I can run in and clothes that minimize the likelihood of getting bitten. If I’m a warrior of song and legend, I want a set of plate mail that will silence a room when I walk in. None of these things require a trade-off of my sexuality or femininity. I want my character to be beautiful, but I also want her to wear what I would want to wear in her circumstances. And if I’m given a pre-designed character, I’m fine with makeup or flowing hair or a lower-cut top, so long as it feels in character. It’s a costume, after all. Creative liberties are to be expected.

I have to say, I agree. I have said before that Shepard is my favorite female protagonist. Her costume is armor (I put her in the ridiculous black dress only for the mission where I have no choice) or a uniform that is appropriate to her context (as Chambers says), and she behaves and speaks like a soldier, which she is. She looks like the others in her position, male and female (this is also true of the women in Gears of War 3 and Halo Reach, for which both games should receive credit).

But what is more important is that she doesn’t “act like a girl.” Like Chambers, I am less concerned about what a female protagonist is wearing (within reason… she does need to be wearing actual clothing that is more or less what someone in her position would be wearing) and more with what she does and says. Shepard is a great protagonist because she was written to be a male protagonist (with a few adjustments for the female version).

Chambers presents a list of things that can “break” an otherwise-positive female protagonist:

    • Women in combat roles who lament their loss of femininity or express a desire to be a “normal girl.”
    • Women who cannot act without a man to instruct and/or save them (cough, Metroid: Other M, cough).
    • The sense that the protagonist is the only woman in the game world who has ever become a hero.

That last point is perhaps the most important. If I’m playing a female protagonist, I’m keenly aware of how the other characters treat her and who the other female characters are. If my character is the only woman on the battlefield, or the only one deemed worthy of full armor, that’s a problem. The warm fuzzy feeling I get from playing a strong female protagonist dies quickly if the only other women I see are damsels or love interests (I say that as someone wholeheartedly in favor of getting laid in-game).

Shepard fits all these criteria, too. While she may be the only woman who somehow manages to do all the things she can do, the same would be true if she were a male Shepard… and those who accompany her (both companions and non-companion NPCs) are both men and women who are capable of doing the jobs that the story requires of them… not to mention the fact that the villains of the Mass Effect universe are both male and female.

But Chambers makes a final point that even Shepard can’t answer. She says that while gender-variable protagonists (like Shepard) are great and work in games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Fallout, or Fable, it is also important to have games with female-only protagonists (and male-only protagonists). It’s important for developers to be able to construct a story that requires (or limits, if you prefer) the gender of their player-character. And when it’s important for a protagonist to be female, it’s also important for her to be a female who is realistic (as much as she can be) and practical, and not only for the women who might play her, but for the men who will come to associate her with positive femininity.

I’m So Over This

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So things have been swimming along fairly nicely in the gaming community these last couple of weeks, and then Games Radar decides to make a post about Booth Babes. And my reaction is not blind rage, but, rather, the desire to drop my head onto my desk with a very loud thud.

(Booth babes, for those of you unfamiliar with the genre, are women hired by companies to dress in scantily clad outfits from their games or comics or what have you in order to attract the drooling masses to their tables. They are virtual staples of the gaming and nerd community conventions, according to some, and have been the subject of enraged feminist lambasting and stereotypical straight male geek fantasies pretty much since they were invented.)

One would think that at this juncture, with PAX and PAXEast having banned booth babes, with GDC and E3 taking fire for allowing them, and recent flame wars concerning online misogyny in the gaming community, that Games Radar would have more tact, taste, and maturity than to post an article with 106 words saying “Here are our favorite babes” and several cleavage-heavy photographs.

Perhaps worse is the fact that no one has told them that they’re being adolescent and crude. There are admittedly only three comments so far (and no, I didn’t comment as I have no desire to have my Facebook inundated with trollish comments, no matter how constructive trolls might be on their good days), so the trend might break, but the attraction to posting pictures of scantily clad breasts on gaming sites that purport to be serious about games is disappointing.

It’s also shown  me just how inured we’ve become to this sort of thing. Now booth babes are not women who have chosen to cosplay (fans who dress up in the costumes of their favorite characters, who are also often scantily clad because that’s how women’s costumes are designed, which is a whole different kettle of fish), they’re paid to fulfill a fantasy image. I don’t really have a problem with character-models being paid to emulate a videogame character (one of the coolest parts of PAXEast 2010 were the Gears of War 3 guys roaming about and taking pictures with Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite), whether scantily clad or no. What I have issue with is that articles like Games Radar’s are acceptable and expected, and that half the point of having people dressed like a character are so that they can be scantily clad. No one hires a model to dress up as Samus Aran.

What I’d like to see happen is that game companies hire all sorts of models – male, female, scantily clad, fully armored – and see game journalism sites post pictures of all of them. I’d like to see sites like Games Radar behave a bit more maturely than to cater to juvenile impulses like 106-word articles that say, in effect, “we took pictures of boobs.” If the gaming industry wants to be taken seriously, then it needs to stop acting like it just graduated from junior high.

Boyhood, Manhood, and Why I’d Like to Hit Something

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This was sent to me by a colleague’s husband, who I’m sure realizes that it’s going to end up on this blog: “A Call to Arms for Decent Men” by Ernest W. Adams. At the top of the article on its original page is this line: “Gamasutra declined to run this column, but I still consider it to be part of the Designer’s Notebook series. Contains strong language.”

My guess is that strong language is not why Gamasutra declined to run it. Despite purportedly encouraging politeness and fair play, Adams’ article is actually a prime example of misogyny at its nefarious best.

To be fair to Adams, his intentions are good. However, what he is doing falls within the same umbrella of misogyny as the behaviors he’s criticizing. For example, while he says that “boys” who engage in online harassment are immature and need to grow up, the way in which he phrases their responsibility to act as decent human beings leaves a bit to be desired on the egalitarian front:

Men have more power than women: financially, politically, and physically. What distinguishes a real man from a boy is that a man takes responsibility for his actions and does not abuse this power. If you don’t treat women with courtesy and respect –- if you’re still stuck in that “I hate girls” phase –- then no matter what age you are, you are a boy and not entitled to the privileges of adulthood.

While biology may generally dictate that women are in fact physically weaker than their male counterparts most of the time, the presumption that physical strength is tantamount to financial and political power is insulting. The entirety of the feminist movement has been spent to disabuse people of the idea that men are inherently superior and more deserving of money and power, and Adams has simply accepted that the old Victorian mores are in fact truisms.

In essence, Adams’s article panders directly to the attitude that women are inferior beings and that “real men” don’t need to abuse women just because they can. In fact, by Adams’s logic, “real men” should protect and stand up for women because they are inferior and, by extension, apparently incapable of standing up for themselves. That’s not what he’s saying, exactly, but that is the attitude he’s created here.

The statement “A grown-up man has no problem being in the company of women. He knows he’s a man” presumes the same ideological framework as the “boys” to whom Adams is writing. He defends this position, stating that he has to assume this attitude in order to reach his audience:

Some of you might think it’s sexist that I’m dumping this problem on us men. It isn’t; it’s just pragmatic. Women can not solve this problem. A boy who hates girls and women simply isn’t going to pay attention to a woman’s opinion. The only people who can ensure that boys are taught, or if necessary forced, to grow up into men are other men.

It is sexist. It’s absolutely sexist to assume that only men can teach boys to behave like responsible adults. It’s sexist to suggest that responsible adults of either gender have a specific set of behaviors coded to that gender that aren’t universal to all human beings. Men and women alike have the responsibility as human beings to treat all other people with the respect accorded them simply by virtue of being alive, regardless of gender (or age, wealth, creed, etc.). So long as we accept that “men” have different responsibilities or sets of behavior than “women,” we are perpetuating a sexist attitude in which one gender (or the other) is dominant.

Suggesting that “men” need to teach “boys” to grow up and behave treats the symptoms, not the disease. Both chivalry (in the modern and medieval sense) and sexist harassment are symptoms of the same social disease, and by attempting to eliminate only the symptoms, Adams does not recognize that his prescription is contributing to the problem. We – both men and women – have to eradicate the attitude that presumes a fiction of superiority, and the elimination of symptoms will follow.

Finally, Adams offers a list of things “real men” should do to curtail the behavior of the “boys,” and then a list of ostensible counter-arguments from those “boys,” including this sparkling gem of classist sexism:

 “Women are always getting special privileges.” Freedom from bullying is a right, not a privilege, and anyway, that’s bullshit. Males are the dominant sex in almost every single activity on the planet. The only areas that we do not rule are dirty, underpaid jobs like nursing and teaching. Do you want to swap? I didn’t think so.

This paragraph makes me want to run out of my dirty, underpaid office – in a row of offices that belong to men who are (by Adams’s logic) also apparently dirty and underpaid – and use my feminine fists to demonstrate just how “inferior” my physical strength actually is. I’m not going to, but that’s the level of frustration I’ve reached with this article, which engages in the worst sort of chivalric fantasy in which Adams, the white-clad paladin, rides in on his shining stallion to defend the honor of delicate flowers offended by the malodorous hordes of the trollish unwashed. Women don’t need men to defend their honor. Women need to be accepted as human beings, the same as all other human beings, regardless of race, gender, sex, creed, or orientation.

To be fair, Adams does close with perhaps the only truly egalitarian sentence of the piece: “Let’s stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the women we love, and work with, and game with, and say, ‘We’re with you. And we’re going to win.’” With this statement, I agree wholeheartedly, but that’s not what the article has spent most of its time saying.

Which brings me to another, more difficult point. I live in the South, but I’m from the upper Midwest and arrived here by way of Boston. I’m used to opening my own doors, to holding the door for whomever I’m with, male or female. Here, that gets me funny looks and even causes consternation among men who don’t know what to do with a woman who holds the door. My point is that women need to be willing to do the work, to get dirty, to accept that in order to achieve equality, we have to put in the same effort as men and not expect chivalry if we aren’t going to give it. And men have to let us do it.

Just when you think things are settling down…

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Recent weeks have had me thinking that perhaps all of the online (and offline) discussion of misogyny and gamer culture perhaps had led to something – some improvement in behavior, online attitude, something. And then this story hit my twitter feed: a female blogger was assaulted while attending a Minecraft-related (but not official) party during PAX Prime (the party, it should be noted, is also not affiliated with PAX in any way). She tells her story here.

In short, she was sitting by herself, was approached by a man who made small talk, then showed her pictures of breasts, then not only placed her hand on his clothed penis, but took his penis out of his pants. She left immediately after informing him that “You can’t do that!”, and attempted to tell security, whose response was “What do you expect me to do?”

She prefaces the whole post with the following:

Everyone: I’m seeing a lot of comments on twitter and elsewhere blaming PAX for this incident and the security guard’s reaction. This party was NOT held by PAX, it was not even in the same venue, hell it wasn’t even on the same street. It was not affiliated with, sponsored by or organized by PAX. The only things it had in common were being gaming related and being the same weekend in the same city.  I’m even seeing some blaming Mojang. The ONLY person who should be held accountable for what happened is the asshole himself. And if you’re going to get mad about security, blame that guard. Also this post isn’t about nerd or gamer culture or blaming those cultures at all, this could happen in any community, at any party, to anyone.

I tend to think she’s probably right about most of this. Neither Mojang nor PAX hosted the party, first of all, but even if they had, they certainly did not ask the man in question to do what he did nor did they condone such behavior.

What I find particularly interesting is that she wants to remove the incident from gamer culture in general. Guest poster Scott Madin argues the following concerning this on The Border House blog:

Perhaps predictably, I disagree with Ky that this has nothing to do with PAX or with nerd/gamer culture. She is obviously the final authority on her own experience, and just as obviously the man who attacked her is the only one who bears direct (let alone legal) responsibility for that crime. But from my perspective, one shouldn’t be too quick to discount cultural and environmental factors that make predators feel they’re free to operate in a given situation — and that make bystanders more likely to shrug, to see the warning signs of predatory behavior as “normal”.

He acknowledges the point that these things can and do happen in other situations that do not involve gamers in any way, shape, or form (the T in Boston springs to mind as one of them), but I think his point is also valid. The atmosphere of the gaming community – which is not reflective of, I would argue, most gamers, male or female – is such that it tacitly permits such behavior and produces the attitude evinced by the guard: “What do you want me to do about it?” In other words, “these are gamers, lady, they’re creeps.”

Now, the guard didn’t say that last bit and I may be projecting a little, but the woman did everything right here. She left the situation, she told him his behavior was unacceptable, and she tried to gain support from someone who should do something about it. And the security guard dismissed her, which is unacceptable under any circumstances short of ongoing homicide, natural disaster, or apocalypse.

Madin suggests that gamer culture – “booth babes,” “dickwolves,” etc. – and PAX culture permit this kind of behavior. They insinuate in a variety of non-obvious and obvious ways that women are interlopers, sex objects, and eye-candy, rather than fully-articulate agents and human beings. But, he says, they do so in such a way that people don’t even notice – “Rape culture teaches men that they’re entitled to sexual gratification from women, whether visual, verbal, or physical; hiring models to ‘mingle’ with partygoers declares the same thing explicitly.”

What really concerns Madin, and should concern all of is, is that aside from an online tongue-lashing, “there will be no lasting consequences.” In short, the culture as a whole will click its collective tongue and say – as Madin points out, like the security guard – “What do you expect me to do?”

He closes with at attitude that I’m starting to see more and more often – one that says “I don’t know anymore.” An attitude I’ve seen from victims of repeated assault, from women struggling to change current legislation only to be told they have no voice, from people talking about the fact that a Michigan senator can’t say “vagina” while discussing birth-control laws. One I’ve had myself. Something has to change, but I don’t have any easy answers for how to make that happen.

That seems like a harsh way to close, but I don’t know what else to say. A lot of people have been patient and polite about this for a great many years, and the results have been rather underwhelming. Nerd culture resists change, and perceives efforts to bring change as attacks, no matter how moderate, no matter how careful the phrasing. I think the best hope is to work to make explicit what it is the pillars of the subculture support: to label their behavior indelibly as sexism, and to finally attach some modicum of shame to behaviors that should always have been seen as shameful. Challenge harmful structures, don’t support them. Don’t let praise for misogynist companies and institutions go unquestioned. make all but the most committedly sexist nerds uncomfortable voicing their boy’s-club attitudes, and make it socially unacceptable for the majority to associate with the hardcore misogynists.

Any culture, not just nerd culture, “resists change,” and in order to make it happen we have to wage a war of attrition. Sooner or later, enough words, enough objections, enough protests will eventually make a difference. Hopefully sooner, so that incidents like this one become less commonplace.

Girl… er… Guild Wars

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I would like to start by acknowledging that I don’t play Guild Wars and have no intention of playing Guild Wars 2 - although not because of anything about to be included in this post. Today’s Border House blog makes some interesting comments from the perspective of someone who does play GW2, and I think those comments are generalizable not only to most games, but to a lot of other media, as well.

Here’s the crux of it:

Right now, I’d like to discuss the Sons of Svanir and the Flame Legion, who are the antagonist factions for the norn and the charr respectively. One thing that these two groups have in common is a “no girls allowed” sign hung outside their metaphorical clubhouses. I’m not certain how I feel about this.

If you dig into the lore, you’ll find they have pretty similar rationales for the exclusion of women. In both cases, there was a woman hundreds of years ago who stood up to them, and they decided to generalise from that woman to all women, decide that women can’t be trusted, and ostracise them thereafter.

I want to say that this is just cartoon supervillainy, with the evil turned up to 11. I want to say that it’s as if they revealed that these factions stand for punching kittens and pouring toxic waste in duck ponds. I want to say that, but I can’t, because that kind of ridiculous exclusion of women is too prevalent, still, in real life.

There are a couple of things here that I feel are worth commenting on, and one of them has nothing to do with misogyny (in or out of games). First, like Rho, I’m not really sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, misogyny is being villainized, albeit in a rather cartoonish way. If the bad guys have a sign that says “no girls allowed,” then excluding women is bad, right?

Well, not really. Yes, that level of it is there. But the legend behind the rationale in-game is that some woman way back when did something bad and so all women are therefore inferior rings rather too true with the basic biblical mythology of Adam and Eve for comfort. Sure, that could be GW2′s intention – criticize the basis of misogyny as a long-past and likely mythological origin that functions as a weak excuse. But here’s the thing… It’s so silly that it ceases to be functional. Yes, it’s better than the good guys having a “no girls allowed” sign, but a better criticism of misogyny would simply be to exclude it altogether. For instance, inDragon Age(which I’m currently replaying), there are both women and men in positions of power, both women and men in the military, and both women and men as both good and bad, smart and stupid.

In essence, while I appreciate the “effort” (a sentiment Rho ultimately agrees with), it feels a bit forced and juvenile. I want to see games that are making more mature statements than “It isn’t nice to exclude girls,” but I have to applaud the idea that someone is at least willing to say it.

My other thought – the one not related to misogyny, specifically – is with the two-dimensional nature of many videogames and fantasy narratives across media (books, tv, film), what Rho calls “cartoon supervillainy.” In essence, the kind of symbolism that comes shaped like a large club with nails sticking out of it. Like having your “bad guys” post a sign that says “No girls allowed.” That kind of bad symbolism.

Basically, I’m tired of fantasy narratives that have a clear good vs. evil dichotomy, and I’m even more tired of it being so painfully obvious. Horrid demonic brain-eating creatures make for easy, guilt-free kills in a videogame, so I understand the impulse to use them, but it doesn’t give you a very satisfying narrative development. Yes, horde-modes of wave after wave of zombies can be cathartic, but they aren’t narratively interesting, and they don’t provide much in the way of artistic or sociological merit. If your goal is catharsis, fine. But for narrative genres (and the narrative portions of games), you need more. You need to make that dichotomy more complex (as in Dragon Age: Awakening, where the mindless zombie does its best to convince you that it isn’t mindless and it really wants peace… which may very well be true) or eliminate the fallacy of dichotomies to begin with, as life isn’t dichotomous in the least. Good people do bad things and hold stupid opinions, and bad people can do good things and hold intelligent opinions. Life is complex, and art – including videogames – should not only reflect, but reflect on it.

Is this really necessary?

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So while browsing through my twitter feed yesterday, this article pops up from gameranx: “Dead or Alive Devs Went ‘Hands-On’ to Get the Breast Physics Right in Dead or Alive 5.” My first thought – “Is this really news-worthy?” – was immediately followed by “And is that really necessary?” And I’m not sure what my answer is, at the end of it all.

The article itself acknowledges that there have been reactions from both sides – the side that finds the game’s copyrighted breast-physics entertaining and the side that finds it disgusting/degrading. I’m pretty sure there’s also a sizable side that doesn’t care one way or another, but they’re the side that doesn’t speak up, so I’m not going to deal with them.

I’m torn, personally. The part of me that is a technician and (perhaps) an artist recognizes the desire for realism. If you want to have realistic physics and your physics engine is capable of rendering objects as they would appear in real life, why shouldn’t the breasts in your game have realistic physics? They should. It’s simply a part of the general realistic milieu. The part of me that’s a feminist is a little horrified, especially at the idea of the need for “hands-on” work in order to determine breast-physics. I mean, really? Do you really need “hands-on” experience? (And if the experience itself involves waterballoons or something equally innocuous, did you really need to call it “hands-on”?)

I like the idea that games are trying to approximate reality. I like the idea that they’re trying to produce realistic female bodies (although I will admit that I find it unlikely that the women in this game are going to be “realistic” in any sense of the word that I would actually condone, breast-physics aside). I’m not sure that breast-physics are really necessary, and I’m really sure that copyrighting them is absolutely unnecessary. Nor am I completely sure what that means. (Does it mean that other companies would need to write their own algorithm for realistic breast-bouncing? Or does it mean that the breasts in their games do not behave realistically?)

Either way, I’m certain that – despite the fact that I decided to devote a post to it – it shouldn’t be news-worthy, nor should it really be a selling-point for the game, although I know it is (and therefore can’t really fault them for marketing to it, since it will help the game to sell).

But I think that the fact that all the article talks about in the game is breast-physics says something about the kinds of attitudes expected of and evinced by the gaming community. Since over 40% of the community is women, I’m guessing a similar percentage also don’t really care about realistic bounce, and I think that while its fine for games to strive for verisimilitude, advertising the bounce over the gameplay is going a bit too far over the line for good taste.

Who We Play

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After having played (and re-played) both the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series, it occurs to me that a discussion of the portrayal of gender in the games themselves ought rightfully to include the gender of the player-character.

Most of the time, I play as a male avatar. But not in Mass Effect. Now, I have played through at least one game in both series (once each) with the opposite gender from my “primary” choice (ME3 as a male, DAI as a female), and while I liked my male-Shepard, he wasn’t quite “right.” Ditto with my female-Warden. Which makes me wonder – since I’m the same player – why female-Shepard works for me where a female-Warden or female-Hawke does not.

I think it’s all about setting, actually. In a quasi-medieval setting (like that of Dragon Age), the gendered stereotypes of women which accompany that “mindset,” I think, continue to pervade even in the fictionalized (and largely gender-neutral) world of the game. I find this to be the case in medievalesque fantasy worlds in general (in novels, films, and games), even when the creator(s) make a point of gender egalitarianism or even matriarchy. Women still “feel” socially inferior.

The Mass Effect universe, however, is sci fi futurism, and presumably in a time and space where gender is much lower on the list of things people worry about. Racism – which perhaps should more appropriately be called speciesism in ME – is the primary concern, as, I think, it would be in confrontations between alien cultures. We’re working toward that social place in our contemporary world, so it would make sense that a future one would have gotten things more or less sorted out.

But I think character also has a lot to do with it. The Warden in DA is silent (literally), which just “feels” more male (from a Western social perspective). Shepard is not. Of course, what Shepard has to say is almost entirely removed from gendered ideas, as the male and female versions have almost identical dialogue (almost). And, really, what Shepard says seems just as appropriate either way, but Shepard just feels like a “she.”

And female-Shepard is my most favorite female protagonist player-character precisely because she was designed as a male. Now that might seem completely counter-intuitive. Why does a male-designed Shepard make a good female character?

Because a good female character isn’t created as a female character (and especially not by a design team is almost totally male), she’s created as a character who just happens to be female. My guess is that a male-Shepard is a good female-Shepard because when a male-dominant design team makes a male character, they aren’t thinking about gender. They’re just thinking about what makes a good character. And it just so happens that the things that make a good character also make for a good female character.

But the Warden shouldn’t be any different, logically speaking. Yet, to me, he is. For some reason, the Warden feels better as a male. Perhaps it is the assumptions I bring with me about medieval worlds. Perhaps its because of the “silent and stoic” image of the male hero. Perhaps its because my general preference for fantasy protagonists is for males instead of females (and I tend to read more sci fi with female protagonists than I do fantasy with female protagonists).

But really, I think one of the reasons I like Bioware’s character designs so much is that their player-characters make for good characters in both directions. Sure, I have a preference, but I think that ultimately they work because they aren’t designed to “be” or to “be for” a specific gender (see my earlier post about gendered games). And I think that, in general, my preference for male avatars springs from my desire to play a character, not a “girl.”

So does this make me a videogame misogynist? Maybe, but I doubt it. I think that what’s happening is that I’m feeling the general discomfort that mostly-male design teams have in creating a female protagonist. After all, I loved Chell, who is a woman designed by a woman… and many players didn’t notice she was female until well into the game. And that’s what I think a player-character really should be. A character whose gender doesn’t ultimately matter (whether because, as in Bioware games, you can choose either gender or because you don’t “feel” like the gender is being imposed) – they’re just a good character.

I Play Halo on Legendary

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Yesterday a Border House article popped up on my twitter feed that sent me into fits. Gunthera1 from Border House reported on the new announcement that Borderlands 2 will have a casual mode for inexperienced players, followed up this morning by a second Border House post by Cuppycake. The story was repeated on gameranx. Great. What does this have to do with my ability to play Halo on Legendary? Because the lead designer, John Hemingway, said the following:

“The design team was looking at the concept art and thought, you know what, this is actually the cutest character we’ve ever had. I want to make, for the lack of a better term, the girlfriend skill tree. This is, I love Borderlands and I want to share it with someone, but they suck at first-person shooters. Can we make a skill tree that actually allows them to understand the game and to play the game? That’s what our attempt with the Best Friends Forever skill tree is.”

The presumption of the idea that “Easy” or “Casual” mode in a game is “Girlfriend Mode” is not only misogynistic, but both insulting and personally offensive. As a gamer – and a female – I should have the ability to choose my level of difficulty without being condemned for doing so. As a woman, I should not be relegated to the role of “girlfriend” or “wife” for playing on casual. Also, the idea that I’m not capable of playing at “Normal” or “Difficult” or “Legendary” (which, yes, I have done) is demeaning and sexist.

I have plenty of male friends who “suck” at gaming. I have plenty of female friends who also “suck” at gaming. I also have friends of both genders who do not. In fact, the group I play with most often is a set of four of us, two men, two women, and the woman I play with is perhaps more bloodthirsty than the rest of us. But that’s neither here nor there.

As Gunthera1 says,

So he used a phrase similar to Girlfriend Mode in the interview because of a ‘lack of a better term’? I disagree with Hemingway on this point. This phrase implies that women don’t play video games and therefore the easiest modes in a game exist so that they can play a game with their boyfriends or significant others. It is heteronormative and sexist in its roots. The industry keeps using the term as if its prevalence makes it okay. Whether it is used one or one thousand times, it is problematic.

She suggests “New Player mode.” Fine. There’s also “Casual,” which is common, or Deus X‘s “Tell me a story” mode. There are innumerable ways to say what they need to say without bringing in a pejorative slight on women who game. Maybe Hemingway isn’t actually sexist, but his use of “girlfriend mode” is. The fact that his term is being defended says something more about the community and the industry – it may not even realize the degree to which it is actively hostile to women (and other marginalized groups). The language, the images, the terms they use alienate us and make us feel unwelcome, even by members of the community who have no active issue with women being gamers.

In essence, we need to think about how we use our terms. Calling it “girlfriend mode,” gameranx‘s Ian Miles Cheong suggests, is both offensive and counterproductive: “The ironic thing about “girlfriend mode” is that it’s designed to make games more accessible to non-gamers. Instead, the term alienates.” Gunthera1 says:

But instead of using a term that doesn’t alienate women and paint them as the lesser players, some gamers and the industry itself continue to use “Girlfriend Mode”. Every time it is used we are putting out a sign on the clubhouse door that says “No Girls Allowed”. It is one of many subtle indicators that video games are made ONLY FOR men. If women play games they are viewed as interlopers. They are the girlfriends dragged to the media by their partners. They are not there because of their own desires and interests. They are deemed Girlfriends, not Gamers.

In short, we need to reevaluate the way we talk about games and gamers. We need to consider the sexist, racist, and homophobic terms and images we use in games and think about the atmosphere that those things create. Cheong made use of an excellent metaphor: “when terms like those go unaddressed, it allows sexist stereotypes to blossom like big smelly rafflesia flowers, stinking up the place. Have you ever smelt a rafflesia? They’re called corpse flowers, and for good reason.”

If we expected Hemingway to apologize, or his company to apologize and say “Gee, we’re sorry, that was thoughtless,” we were apparently wrong. In fact, IGN‘s Colin Moriarty published a piece decrying objections to “girlfriend mode.” Why?

Remember, Mr. Hemingway didn’t actually say anything offensive. People wanting to be offended are simply looking for anything to jump on, consequences for anyone and anything be damned. So expect to hear a lot less from developers in the future because of episodes like this, and a lot more canned responses from PR as a result.

All because Mr. Hemingway dared say “girlfriend mode.” The horror.

Mr. Moriarty, I beg to differ. The reason people are offended is because Hemingway most certainly did say something offensive. In the grand scheme of things, there are many things that are much more offensive, yes, but it was still offensive. It was also a public declaration that the industry doesn’t think about women as gamers, but as “girlfriends of gamers.” Does that mean he’s a sexist pig? Almost certainly not. But if it isn’t called “girlfriend mode” (it isn’t), then don’t call it that, especially not in public where people will be offended by it.

Mr. Moriarty, we don’t use certain terms and phrases not simply because they aren’t politically correct, but because they are demeaning. To insinuate that because I am female I must not be good at shooters (your girlfriend is not all people’s girlfriend, and yes, I managed to both obtain a PhD and become good at shooters at the same time) is a product of the same ideology that says that because I am female I must spend my life in a kitchen, not use power tools, and enjoy pink and frills. The words we use can be hurtful, but even when they aren’t (as even I would not suggest that “girlfriend mode” is “hurtful,” exactly), they can still be dangerous when they perpetuate an outmoded ideal that marginalizes or diminishes someone due to their genetics or gender.

Edit: And Brandon Sheffield from Gamasutra agrees:

I do believe that the mode is a good idea, and I also believe that Hemingway didn’t mean any offense to women. Still, simply saying something is not sexist doesn’t make it not sexist.

I’ve addressed this problem before, but the issue I find is that “girlfriend mode” made it into Hemingway’s lexicon at all. It’s not an official mode name, but it rolled off the tongue so easily. Developers don’t head into press meetups completely unprepared – he must have thought of this term before. It was said without malice, but also without really thinking about it might mean to some people. It was unconscious.

Sheffield goes on to point out that women make up at least 42% of gamers (as of a 2011 ESA survey) and therefore deserve to get more credit than they’re receiving because they make up almost half of the gaming community, and much less than half its voice, and only 10% of the industry creating it. But he also says that “the digital women’s movement” is making progress, and “growing pains” like this one are a part of that progress. Maybe so. But we still need to make sure that we don’t allow comments like Hemingway’s to be swept aside, “growing pains” or not. They’re important because they need to be recognized for what they are. /Edit

Words and images are far more important than we give them credit for most of the time. They are the foundation of our cultural understanding of people – and when we allow terms and images that are demeaning to others, we hurt our culture and society as a whole. When we use “girlfriend mode” we diminish women as inept. When our videogames contain women who wear little to no practical clothing, we assume that women’s value is based on their sex appeal. When we suggest that “rape” is akin to defeat in a game, we minimize the traumatic impact it has on a person’s life. When we call something we don’t like “gay,” we demean the LGBTQ community as deviant and shameful. Words and images matter, and it’s important to take the time to choose them carefully so that they reflect the kind of community we want to form and the society we want to become.

Girls at Play

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So one of the major questions that’s behind a lot of what I’ve been talking about here is not why are women being harassed in online and gaming communities, but why are they a minority to begin with… After all, there are slightly more women than men in this world, at about 51% globally, and is even slightly higher in Western countries (Europe, Australia, North America, and most of South America). So why are there so few women playing games and participating in online communities?

The answer, at least according to Clementine at Tiltfactor, is because of the very toxicity that the presence of women in the gaming community produces. She’s talking about a specific subset of the gaming community, admittedly, but the team-based RTS (real-time strategy) games she mentions are a microcosm for the larger issues in online (especially gaming) communities. In short, that they are insular and over-protective of their exclusivity – regardless of the gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity of the newcomer. And noobs who are not immediately skilled (which would be most of them) are harassed for causing the team to lose. However, when that newcomer has a clear “flag” that can be used as a slur against them, that “flag” becomes an easy target.

However, Clementine points out that the knowledge of someone’s gender (which is more readily apparent in voice-chat than either ethnicity or sexuality) produces an immediate hostile reaction unrelated to their gameplay abilities. And this is not exclusive to team RTSs – many women avoid using voice chat in all online play because of the sorts of treatment Clementine is discussing. Here’s the issue:

If I’m lucky they’ll just express surprise that women use the internet. Sometimes they ask for sexual favors (“MAY I TOUCH YOUR VAGINA”, said one guy. “NO PLEASE. I WILL MAKE YOU FEEL REAL GOOD”). Sometimes they just yell “Go make me a sammich” (seriously? That would also be bad for the team if I left the keyboard to prepare foodstuffs. Smart.) Or if I mess up or die even once, I am told that “This is why women shouldn’t play games.” If I don’t use voice chat, we are losing a great strategic advantage for the team. If I mute an asshole on the team, then I can’t hear what he or she might have to say, which is also a strategic disadvantage if they actually decided to use voice chat for strategic purposes.

So should women really be expected to mute harassers and, in essence, not participate fully in the gameplay experience because their teammates can’t be bothered to act like adult human beings? And, as she continues to point out, this is not a problem exclusive to gaming. It’s a problem that surfaces in any male-dominated field: science, business, academia.

The biggest concern, of course, is that a hostile environment will lead to a perpetuation of the dearth of females (or any underrepresented minority) in those fields. When women are ostracized, they become decreasingly likely to want to continue to participate in that arena. So when, as Clementine and The Border House both point out, a Launch Party for Battlefield 3 banned women, it is perpetuating rather than “solving” the problem by implicitly authorizing misogyny – saying, “make enough rude comments, and we’ll keep the girls out of your hair”:

Nothing ruins a good LAN party like uncomfortable guests or lots of tension, both of which can result from mixing immature, misogynistic male-gamers with female counterparts. Though we’ve done our best to avoid these situations in years past, we’ve certainly had our share of problems. As a result, we no longer allow women to attend this event.

The rationale behind the female ban is to “protect them from misogynistic insults”; the consequence is to permit and perpetuate the misogyny that produced them by maintaining the male-exclusive community that legitimates those comments to begin with.

Clementine has a call out to both her fellow players and to Valve:

Valve Software – Take this stuff seriously. Building a more civil community is only in your best interest. Don’t excuse sexism, racism, or homophobia, and give players better mechanisms for reporting folks who give MOBA games their bad reputation.

Players – don’t be assholes, and don’t let other people be assholes. Speak up and say it’s not okay, and definitely take advantage of reporting. We could all benefit from fewer assholes in our games.

Which comes back to something I’ve been talking about for a while – how much of this is truly Valve’s responsibility? Should they encourage a civil community? Sure. But beyond saying “play nice,” what are their responsibilities as a company? Should they take complaints from players of abuse seriously? Yes, I think they should. But they can’t monitor every game and intervene in every situation.

Personally, I think the onus here lies with the community – collective leadership is more effective than imposed, top-down autocracy. Autocratic imposition creates resentment, while collective leadership on the part of the players themselves grants more agency and solidifies community in a more productive way that can actually (eventually) create the kind of atmosphere that is currently sorely lacking.

Authenticity

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This post was inspired by several different things, including a couple of recent articles sent to me by a colleague and a post made on Google+ by a friend. The question at hand is one of authenticity – specifically, geek authenticity and what it means to be a female in a community (whether online or off) that is predominantly male-centered. I think a lot of the issues that come up in this context are relevant to any community that is one focused on male privilege, including business, academia, the sciences, athletics, and certainly gaming (digital or analog).

Much of this specific recent furor is a consequence of CNN’s coverage of Joe Peacock’s blog post, “Booth Babes Need Not Apply,” which argues against “pretty girls pretending to be geeks for attention.” Peacock doesn’t make the claim that all girls are just pretending, and he says so, but the way he says it almost makes it worse: “Now, before every single woman reading this explodes, let me disambiguate a bit. I absolutely do not believe that every girl who attends conventions and likes ‘Doctor Who’ is pretending to be a geek.” First, he knows that what he’s saying is sexist and potentially offensive, but he feels that he gets to say it anyway because of his position of privilege – whether as a male or as a “real” geek (I don’t know which, although either or both is possible). Second, the syntax makes it unclear whether he’s saying that some women are geeks or whether he’s saying that some women aren’t pretending to be geeks… although he does later say that there are female geeks, and some of them are even attractive.

His complaint is against

the girls who have no interest or history in gaming taking nearly naked photos of themselves with game controllers draped all over their body just to play at being a ‘model.’ I get sick of wannabes who couldn’t make it as car show eye candy slapping on a Batman shirt and strutting around comic book conventions instead….They’re poachers. They’re a pox on our culture. As a guy, I find it repugnant that, due to my interests in comic books, sci-fi, fantasy and role playing games, video games and toys, I am supposed to feel honored that a pretty girl is in my presence. It’s insulting.

My question is “why do you care?” Why does it matter to you whether they’re “infiltrating your culture” or not? Clearly, they have enough interest to be there, to put on the outfit, and so forth. They’re interested in some element of the culture, even if only on a surface level. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t bother going to the con, and they really wouldn’t bother to put on the outfit. If they aren’t being offensive or harassing, live and let live.

But Mr. Peacock seems to think that these women – whether they are “pretending” or just new to the culture or maybe just like dressing up like Catwoman – are tantamount to the men who engage in online harassment and misogyny: “Are guys acting this way toward women just as disgusting and base as women poaching attention from our culture, satisfying their egos by strutting around a group of guys dressed in clothing and costumes from a culture filled with men they see as beneath them? Absolutely.” And that’s where I have a really big problem.

There’s a universe of difference between cruelty and sexist harassment on the one side and putting on a costume you don’t know much about on the other. One is harmful. The other is not. There is no degradation of “geek culture” being made by women who aren’t obsessed with the minutiae of trivia behind the costume they put on because they liked the Batman movie or want to look cute for the sake of it. Would I do it? Absolutely not. But that doesn’t mean I’m offended by someone who does any more than I’m offended by someone wearing an Elizabethan outfit at a Renaissance Faire who doesn’t know as much about early modern England as I do (which is probably most of the attendees).

In response, John Scalzi’s post on Whatever argues that anyone who wants to be considered a geek should be considered so. He picks apart Peacock’s assertions of “true Geekdom” as entirely manufactured and personal – not as representative of the community at large. In short, Sclazi argues that a community, especially one like the geek or gaming community whose members are often marginalized in many ways, should be welcoming of all types, not just those who conform to a particular status quo of “hardcore geekdom,” in the same way that not all members of any community need to be supreme experts; for instance, a football fan is still a football fan even if he or she doesn’t know all the players and their stats – they can just like watching the game.

Most importantly, though, Sclazi says, “here’s a funny fact: Her geekdom is not about you. At all. It’s about her.” Which is what this all boils down to, whether we’re talking about geekdom or gaming or anything. The woman’s choice to be involved in the community or event or business is not about the men already in it. It’s about her. About what she wants to do or be or be involved in. And since it’s about her, no one else should have a say in her attempts to participate.

But Mr. Scalzi isn’t without his own issues, as mediatedlife suggests in another post. In short, while Sclazi is right that what women choose to do is their own business, mediatedlife argues that the gaming industry and geek community are in part to blame for “inauthentic” geek women “parading” about in costumes… because they have encouraged that sort of thing from the start (a point which Peacock also makes and suggests is problematic, in his defense). mediatedlife objects not to Scalzi’s point that women should be allowed to do/wear what they want, but that he is – in essence – defending the “Booth Babe” phenomenon: “We have to stop, for instance, arguing that asking women to stop reinforcing sexist standards of attractiveness and behavior is slut shaming.”

So where do we draw the line? I like mediatedlife’s point that asking women to stop promoting objectification shouldn’t be condemned. I think Scalzi is right in saying that women should be allowed to do and wear whatever they wish, to identify with or simply hang around with the geek community if they wish. I also take Peacock’s point that women who use the “Booth Babe” look for attention are probably not doing so in a healthy, empowering way, and that they can be annoying.

But I’m conflicted. I don’t like the idea that women are being excluded from the geek community for any reason, and especially because someone else has identified them as “inauthentic,” no matter the justification. I don’t like the idea that women should be told not to be sexy or wear revealing clothing if they want to (or men, for that matter). I also don’t like the kind of objectification that often happens to women at cons, especially when they’re wearing costumes. I often don’t like the costumes to begin with, given their tendency toward objectification.

I think ultimately it all comes down to respect. If you want to wear a skimpy outfit, fine. Understand that you will be stared at, possibly asked out. But even if you do wear a skimpy outfit, you have the right to be treated respectfully and not be harassed or demeaned or accused not having enough “geek cred.” In short, you have the same rights as any other man or woman in the room.