montly.musing:girl.gamers.
Our features editor over at Destructoid, Reverend Anthony, started issuing a monthly topic for both editors and community members to write about. Last month's topic was a topic regarding the 'Good Idea, Bad Idea' take on various gaming mechanisms which successfully fueled several insightful posts. This month's topic titled "...And the gamers who play them" invited the gaming community to intelligently approach the various subcultures that have spawned from videogame culture. As you might imagine, this was my opportunity to finally voice all that internalized opinion I've had about the 'Girl Gamers' out there.
I fretted. A lot. I spent over a month revising my piece until I felt it stood on its own two feet. The issue of Girl Gamers is often met with a lot of 'Stop beating the dead horse', 'Talking about it makes it worse', and 'STFUAJPG' ( aka "Shut the F*** up and just play games). I wanted to make sure my words had clarity and purpose to them, that even those who didn't entirely agree with me would at least take a moment to think about what I had said. When I set the post live this afternoon my body felt like a Butterfly garden. was terrified to see how people would react.
Fortunately, I think the piece held together and succeeded. The comments were relatively positive and supportive (particularly given the negative nature of our community), and when some disagreed they suggested relatively well thought-out counter arguments. I feel like I did justice, and while there are still a lot of questions unanswered about the topic itself I know I did my best.
For those of you who want to check out the whole article with some NSFW-ish examples of the 'Girl Gamers' I discuss head here. For those of you who want to offer a homie a little Digg-love digg here. But if you just want to take a seat and read a lotta bit of text then here goes nothing:
For this month's musing I chose to digest the sub-culture of 'Girl Gamers' that has managed to quickly surface alongside the increased popularity of gaming in the mass media.
So to avoid any confusion, the term 'Girl Gamers'
is intended to define the populace of female gamers who identify with
said terminology and who particularly rely on the alienation of their
gender as a means of gaining attention from the larger gamer
demographic.
If one attempts to dig deep within the reserves of videogame history, it's unlikely that they'll uncover the instance of the very first woman who graced her femininity upon a console (well, aside from the Computer Space ad, that is). There are several reasons why this moment was never documented -- mostly because videogame history is predominantly about videogames (imagine that!), but partly because members of the opposite sex playing games isn't very noteworthy in the most fundamental scope of things. I play. You play. We all play, with or without va-jay-jays.
Facts are facts, however, and despite the occasional news announcement reminding the public that female gamers actually exist (apparently at 38% of gamers strong), we all know that videogames are predominantly enjoyed by a male demographic. That being said, there is also no denying the slender aura of novelty that immediately adheres itself to a woman who plays games, whether she craves the inherent attention or attempts to avoid it.This dichotomy, while not unique, is of interest to the likes of marketing gurus who determinedly pervert this gender-dissonance to their advantage. Thus, what is eventually revealed in the history of gaming media is the attractive (and often scantily clad) female gaming idol embodied by such women as Morgan Webb, Olivia Munn, and Jessica Chobot. All beautiful and consistently visual, these women and others were the few mass-displayed female figures in the gaming industry to be ravenously consumed by gaming's very own male demographic.
Sex sells, and while the rest of the female gamers remained ambivalent to gender differentiation amidst their game playing, the few esteemed faces of the beautiful rooted themselves as the visual representatives of the 'Girl Gamer'. The collective reception and praise of these visual idols by a male-dominant industry garnered an image-heavy notion of the 'Girl Gamer', a notion which to this day has yet to be the equal case for male gamers.
Galleries of E3 booth babes, "hot...naked...and blue" Cortana cosplays, and any number of chicks with joysticks establish a visual narrative for gaming women that heightens gender alienation while simultaneously muffling the significance of the woman gamer's voice. There is no doubt that Ubisoft took advantage of this exact instance by baiting the accomplished, intelligent, and most importantly attractive producer Jade Raymond to the gaming audience to steer public attention to their game Assassin's Creed. In turn, the only surface-level 'heroes' or 'icons' of the female gaming community are the beautifully unattainable likes of Munn or Webb, regarded first and foremost in this industry for their looks.
And so the standard for the 'Girl Gamer' is set and an equation for success is discovered. Take an attractive woman and pair her alongside a gaming device of some sort. Congratulations! You've captured the attention of a massive chunk of the gaming demographic. What better avenue is there to market your gaming products? Hot girls are hot, gaming boys like gaming girls, and most importantly we're all having fun with our irresponsible gender stereotypes. Nothing wrong with fun, guys!
So what, then? Structured by the mass media as a marketing device and fed by a surge of online egoism (thanks to social media sites such as MySpace and the proliferation of digital cameras), the 'Girl Gamer' specimen has, in turn, infected the masses with false promises of niche-specific fame and glory. In the same way people fantasize about becoming a celebrity, these 'Girl Gamers' seek the attention of becoming the next 'it' girl of their respective gaming community through the prolific distribution of sexually charged images and continuously capitalizing on their sex -- both of which, consequently, have relatively little to do with gaming itself.
What's to follow but the Chobot wannabes slathering their tongues across portable consoles for the camera, or the suspiciously excessive amount of 'Girl Gamer' self-portraits involving various game-related paraphernalia (or lack thereof)? Whatever neutral connotations of women gamers existed in the past are overthrown with the photographic barrage of sexually charged images brought to us by the 'Girl Gamers'. They're beautiful, they know which side is their good side, and they're comfortable enough with their sexuality to let us know they're proud of it. If you've got it, flaunt it. Right?
The women who choose to use their body to visually manifest their 'gaming experience' (by way of game-themed suggestive photographs, for example) express themselves via the avenue of the mass marketed 'Girl Gamer', a goal that is altogether vapid and mediocre in its pursuit. If anything, these girls successfully stick out as a glaring instance of the disappointing commercialization of gaming in popular culture, their antics for attention comparatively as bad as a common reality TV show contestant.Furthermore, it's one thing for females to collectively enjoy games together, but it's another for these 'Girl Gamers' to assert themselves as leading figures of the female gaming community when no one has asked them to do so (unless, of course, it's a sponsored gaming company looking for cash money). This ill-founded goal disrupts a gaming community in which gamers can agreeably interact with each other regardless of their sex by disturbing the space with sexually-oriented images that immediately derail neutrality and signify more differences than likenesses.
Gamers who prefer the absence of a gender-biased gaming community ultimately find these 'Girl Gamers' as unnecessary and obnoxious entities desperately seeking attention. For women gamers such as myself who admire the well-spoken gaming female (see Jane Pinckard, Tracey John, Leigh Alexander, and our own Colette Bennett) as opposed to the gaming beauty queens, these 'Girl Gamers' are downright irritating.
It's unlikely that the trendy alliteration of 'Girl Gamer' will fade away anytime soon or that the equivalent 'Guy Gamer' (see Mega64's Sexy64 for more information) will actually be realized. Unfortunately, a similar fate rings true with the 'Girl Gamer' herself as long as the industry continues to cater to its male demographic, and as long as there are women who fashion themselves alongside those same standards.
A more pressing urgency today is the shortage of intelligent women speakers and writers who strongly represent themselves with words as opposed to images. While women such as Jessica Chobot have made certain strides to leave their more exhibitionist pasts behind, as long as there is a constant appraisal of their attractive and more visually accessible adversaries, the battle between the pen and the larger picture continues to rage on.
Thus, the aspirations associated with the 'Girl Gamer' are damaging to both male gamers and female gamers. Gender distinguishment plays little to no part in one's ability to play or enjoy videogames, let alone define them as a gamer to begin with. And finally, let's all remember that "gamer" is an asexual term, a descriptor that belongs to everyone who plays games despite gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, and is absolutely lovely in its nascent ambiguity.
Comments
I actually thought it was one of the best things about the entire situation. I can't pretend to know how female gamers feel about a lot of these issues, but I don't know how you could have better articulated your point and I completely agree with it. I was actually working on this A to Z guide to gamers and was surprised that I had written a few things that meshed with your overall argument, although my points aren't as well fleshed out (although given the nature of it, I suppose on my end it's not totally necessary).
Very nice job with this.
Another mentionable role models include Becky "Aktrez" Young (youtube link) who if I remember correctly, started Girls Entertainment, and frequently appears on Attack of the Show as a guest. She does alot of advocating for female gamers.
I don't mean to name drop, but more over I just wanted to pump up the more positive / active side on female gaming. Just my two cents :)
We have no real way of knowing what types of people visit these sites unless they fill out largely optional fields when registering or simply tell people. I have to imagine a good deal of female gamers make no real attempt to do this and I have to imagine that a good deal of them also would rather not disclose their gender simply because of the attention it can garner. That is a problem in and of itself (and could be debated on and on as well), but it's definitely something that happens on some level.
So beyond that, you're kind of stuck searching the Internet out for these things. And I have to say that when I go to sites aimed at any bracket, there is always a significant population of women that simply do what they do because they like. And sure, some of them want to share this (see cosplay on sites like theotaku.com, where they have several picture sharing options, blogs, etc), but that's completely normal because they enjoy what they're doing. This is distinctly different from forcing "sex kitten" positions with controllers.
It's pretty clear by sheer statistics that most people who are going to bother to visit these sites are males, the ones who run these sites are males, etc. And like with anything else, there are some girls that know they can get somewhere with their looks based simply upon these concepts. And in that climate, if a girl does something like this a huge portion of males are going to react in what has been deemed the "obvious" way. These girls aren't stupid, they know they're manipulating things to a certain degree and in some senses I don't know how much I can blame them. At the same time, it obviously does a lot to discredit those women out there that don't do these things.
I'm not a woman, so I can't pretend to know every aspect of this. At the same time, I think males have to step up and take some level of accountability for these things. Maybe a majority of males don't react in the "expected" sex hungry way. I have no way to tell that one way or the other; all I know is I don't. A discussion about this sort of thing will always lead to some someone out there thinking they're helping the debate by saying it's "hotter" when a girl just likes games and doesn't flaunt like "grrl gamers" do, but that doesn't further the debate and it's simply irrelevant to the actual issue at hand.
Unfortunately, as with anything, the ones that will get attention are probably the ones that fit into the more "negative" side of the spectrum. These girls push themselves as objects because they know they'll be objectified because many males are going to react accordingly.
The problem there, to me, is that these things happen even if the girl isn't looking for it. There are female developers and PR people out there and the second they appear in a video or in a picture there's instantaneously groups that are picking out if she's attractive or not. I couldn't believe some of the comments people would post about this woman, yet I've never seen a picture of her that wasn't in pretty normal clothing with no real attempt to show off anything. Yet here we are, where posts about her comments on Assassin's Creed debased into something more suited for a Maxim chat room and fan sites popped up. Many, many places played off of this too; it's extremely difficult to find anything that doesn't reference her being "beautiful". Perhaps Ubisoft knew this in putting her out there, but I have no idea... anything beyond what I can read online is just presupposition.
So I guess is that it's a long road. I have no real point here, I'm kind of just going on and on lol.
Theses women are certainly not the majority, however they're certainly the ones who get the most attention. Of course this situation falls into a larger scope of the things you mentioned. The fact that the default user of the Internet is male, white, and straight. The fact that objectification of one's looks or body has become a means honorable of 'talent' in this consumerist society. The fact that these themes spread across all facets of the media, from Television, to Film, to sports. I'm disappointed that some of the commentors weren't open to a critical position on the matter, and their best solution was "It's already happening everywhere, so why fight it?"
I have more to say, but I'm thinking of writing an afterwards to all this sometime later this week as a follow up to a lot of the discussion that went on in my post. But thank you for the additional insight in the meantime!
Sorry about that lol. Anyway that's awesome and I look forward to your addition article on it. I'm glad to see features on gaming sites that are actually, you know, thoughtful. :P
My question for you is: what will you do now? Has this changed / improved your perspective on your original viewpoint?
Sorry tiff, but at least I didn't mention his chronic inability to connect with women or his almost guaranteed lack of sexual prowess owing to inexperience, right?
I at least win points there, huh?