Video Games are Feminist

I am having trouble with a consise definition of feminism. Wikipedia's explaination required understanding that there were three waves and a post wave at that. Each wave had a different agenda. But basically I think the main idea is that woman should be treated as being the same as men and that women and men are clearly different in many ways. That statement sounds obvious in our current context.

I find myself wanting, at this point, to enter in the phrase "back in the day . . .blah blah blah" and proceeding through my personal view and journey through the transition to equal opportunity. I will, however, resist the temptation.

When I read Sherman's (1997) article on the Perils of the Princess, I was most impressed with her reference to the monomyth, which can be summarized as a hero's adventures and personal development. This literary pattern can be seen ad nauseum everywhere you look. As soon as I could read, I made it my personal venture to read every book of fairy tales in my little town library. After reading quite a few books, I realized that there were no new fairy tales, just different countries and different names. Most of them had a similar theme, a protaganist, male or female, would overcome a certain number of obstacles and would then wed the partner of their dreams. (Insert a monomyth shadow here, heehee.) I found later that most autobiographies had a similar pattern. These two examples are only the tip of the iceberg. My point is that I think that the monomyth comes from inside humans. Specifically, I think it is something that is hardwired in the genetic code that drives humans to grow and develop. I think this is the only explanation for it's ubiquity. Others have similar viewpoints. At least one scholar, Erik Erikson defined human development as a series of stages in which individuals must overcome struggles. Thus it is no surprise that video games incorporate monomyth themes. Humans will recognize and relate to struggles over obstacles as a path to personal development.

However, I found Sherman's (1997) analysis of gender and genre to be difficult. To me it felt like she just kept giving examples and information about the game. I do not believe she adequately explained the concept of liminality and I do not know how that affects gender anyway. I think her explanation of how boys and girls play video games differently is interesting, but I am not sure that it is substantiated.

Perhaps the other thing to draw from this reading, is the reiteration that females and males are different in their preferences, responses, and perhaps in the very way they experience anything at all.

Frasca was concerned with some of the qualities of "Peach," specifically that she wore pink and was blonde, and that her attacks were named as "emotional." Perhaps this suggests that this is the way women operate, but when I questioned an experienced gamer about this, his response was "What? Peach can kick your ass. She will whomp you over the head with a frying pan or whack you with a golf club. They should play Smash Brothers." Then he added, "You want to play Smash Brothers with me?" Frasca was right to point up these "female conventions," although I am not sure how damaging they are to females. Specifically, emotional attacks continue in other video games and not necessarily related to females. For example a common, and feared attack in World of Warcraft, is "Howl of Terror." It sends everyone running away from the warlock in total disarray.

That said, I will now mount the feminism soapbox in favor of videogames.

To start, I don’t know if there is any law or directive (or government money) that requires video games to be equal opportunity for women and men. I think they fall under the umbrella of entertainment in the legal sense of the term. One driver for video game design, and certainly the most influential, is economic; i.e., designers are going to try to make games that capture their audience. A second driver for video game design is designer/company global goals for a better world. Although this is probably a minor motivation, it is still valid because ethical, equal opportunity entertainment is less likely to offend and therefore, more likely to sell.

For this week, I first read the articles on feminism to see if I could get a concise and consistent list, of “what it wants.” I reasoned that I could just rate video games on their compliance to these issues. Oh my gosh, the Wikipedia article went on and on about different variants and waves of feminism. But that is all right. I made my own choice about what is the worst problem for woman in the world, and it is violence. I also believe that the worst problem men have in the world is also violence, and not to put it down . . .it is really worse, because it is the organized and mandated as legal, violence of war.

However, this week is just going to be about feminism, so I will just keep to that. According to statistics at feminist.com , many incidents of violence and rape in the United States are not reported, and of note, 64% of those who reported being raped, assaulted, or stalked (after age 18) say it was by a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, or date. Perhaps the most hopeful thing about the situation, is that the situation in much of the rest of the world is chillingly worse for women than it is in the United States, leading me to believe that a change is possible, after all.

Third, I personally believe that video games are feminist.

To the point:

A. You don’t have to be male to play them.
B. You don’t have to have special skills to play them.
C. You don’t have to have special equipment to play them.
D. You don’t have to have special education to play them.

Most importantly, video games teach you not to accept the role of a victim. Video games teach this because no games make you just stand there and be target practice. You learn to hit back, kick back, make a killing blow, or get out of the ring. Whining and complaining about problems in video games gets you nothing.

The following video shows Ms Pac Man as a strong female protaganist.

Video games teach you that you have to pay the price to reach excellence. You can’t just do some half baked job and win. You aren’t going to get the reward if all you do is run in place watching the scoreboard. You need to gather the information and know it in your heart and hands and you need to use it.

Video games teach you not to be easily offended. Did someone just call your mother a “h…..”? So what? It is trash talk, meant to distract you. Look at the heart of the matter, size up the situation, and watch the inside games as well. If someone is wearing scanty clothing or sporting big avatar boobs, well, it is just a distraction (kinda puts the whole argument about breast enhancement to rest). Keep focused on the goal. Always.

Video games can teach you team building skills and help provide you with a lifetime team of support. One of my WoW friends is a female college teacher of Egyptology. Another one is a young woman who works in a games store and makes art. Another one is a locksmith from England who now lives in the USA and used to work in security. Once when one of his female friends was threatened in game, he found out who the man was (on the other side of the country), then he sent him a pizza with a cautionary threat within 45 minutes. (As an aside, the female didn’t even know the real name of the male who threatened her). These people may or may not be in my guild, but they are part of my team, and I am safer in the world because of them. In addition, I can be pretty assured that any time I log in to WoW (24/7) there will be someone to chat with and if I need it, help me with venting or emotional difficulties.

Finally, you learn what is really important. People really can’t hide in a video game. By the time they text you back and forth for a day and you see how they act in a team situation, you have a pretty good grip on who they really are. Sure you don’t know if they are 70 or 12, except by the way they act. It doesn’t matter what car they have, it doesn’t matter whether they are male or female, it doesn’t matter how much money they have, or any other exterior thing.

So how do video games help against violence against women? What I was trying to show was that stronger women will be less likely to be victims and that they can play video games and be stronger. The problem with this argument is that women aren’t choosing the games as much as men are. The solution is for game designers to learn how to capture the female audience as well as they have captivated the male audience. Unfortunately, this is a somewhat of a joke at the moment.

The following video is basically a joke about how some video games relegate womans roles to housekeeping, etc. It is not appropriate for children and has some graphic content, and swearing.