Hyewon Hong Reading response thingy ^~^

Beginning with Nick Yee, “The Proteus Paradox”, I agree with what he has to say regarding the difficulty of women joining gaming communities. In my own life, and with several of my female friends, I have heard stories about how they were harassed in online communities, hit on by creeps at gaming conventions, and had difficulty even getting into the community soley based on the fact that they were female and nothing else. To me, this is absurd. It’s 2018, and there is no freaking evidence that women are inferior to men in gaming or anything else, and yet communities still feed into it. Part of this is in the gaming community is due to the reason that Yee outlines: “video gaming is dominated by male game designers making games for male players”. This makes sense as we see it all the time in literally every genre of game. The example that springs to my mind is Chun Lee, one of the most powerful fighters in the game, and yet she is shown in an absurdly tight and short Chinese dress while her male counterparts are dressed traditionally in modern martial arts garb. The more games I play (or perhaps the older I get), the more examples of this I notice. Female characters are often given the short end of the stick; being delegated to secondary roles if not outright damsels in distress. If more female protagonist games were released, or even just games that took out the overt sexualization of women, I feel like slowly we could see a shift towards a better, more balanced community that is not so lopsided as the male dominated one we currently have.

 

Posted on by Hyewon Hong
Categories: Uncategorized

4 Responses

  1. Jeremy Mednik says:
    October 2, 2018 at 7:58 pm

    I understand where you are coming from. My female friend bought a game once and one of the gamestop employees was absolutely shocked that she picked that game. I am dissapointed in the gaming community that many male gamers use female stereotypes as a weapon for why women shouldn’t play a certain game. I also am glad you brought up the issue of women in video games being dressed up to suit the male fantasy. In one of the readings, a female gamer brought up the issue of a level 67 armor in World of Warcraft and how it was very revealing. Even though it may appear to seem harmless at first, male developers in the WOW community are making it harder for women to play video games which is a huge issue.

  2. Carson Clark says:
    October 3, 2018 at 11:48 am

    I can relate to the my female friends who gamed. Pregame lobbies, let alone the games, can result in demeaning language. Just like us, they’re there to just play, not get hit on or some other immature sexist act. By now we should be past this “phase”, but alas we are still here, even with the gap closing closer everyday. It also never helps how women are portrayed in video games too, as most are just purely unrealistic.

  3. Wogan Snyder says:
    October 3, 2018 at 1:34 pm

    I too took notice to Yee’s comment about the game industry being dominated by men with the goal of making games for men. I believe this helps to perpetuate the positive feedback loop/vicious cycle of misogyny in the game industry. By continuously attracting more males to, male influence continues to increase in games which further marginalizes female gamers. I agree with your assessment that more games that ditch over-sexualized perceptions of women are crucial to reform the industry.

  4. Alexandra Smith says:
    October 3, 2018 at 1:45 pm

    I agree! It’s 2018 and our society can do better. We talked about how the media is beyond on the way it portrays the gaming community, but based on the readings for today, it feels like the gaming community itself is behind. 47% of gamers are women. That’s about half, but the games themselves don’t portray women well and are not designed by women. This just struck me as very ironic and hypocritical.