djpretzel
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I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "tearing down" demographics or why that's desirable.
Neither am I, but it sounded good
; in the abstract, though, I suppose it means "thinking about people less categorically" or perhaps "being cognizant of the human brain's tendency to force people into categories that greatly oversimplify their identity" - pigeonholing, more or less. I've always felt that most forms of affirmative action and assertions of white male privilege rely on it. We're fairly off-topic, but while we're here, I'll mention that I'm in favor of affirmative action, but on socioeconomic grounds only - not based on race, sex, religion, or anything else. -
Frankly and generally speaking, straight white men will always find a way to feel persecuted by or resentful toward any attempt to reverse the effects of harmful discrimination. Historically, it's been par for the course when making any actual social progress.
Quite frank, and quite general
Just going to quickly point out - straight white men... or you COULD just say white men, since what you're getting at is race and sex privilege, which can still function to the benefit of anyone in the same groups, regardless of whether they're ALSO in an additional minority that is less physically obvious. Otherwise, you have to modify it to, let's see... straight white religious conformist men, with "conformist" doing a lot of heavy lifting. Also, "historically" - really? Last I checked, the definition of "white" was actually a more modern grouping. Last I checked, Italian & Irish Americans were discriminated against quite violently before eventually being considered part of an amorphous "white" blob of enfranchised peoples. The problem with the concept of "white male privilege" is that it is rather temporal, rather subjective, rather incomplete (i.e. straight white male, young/middle-aged white male, religious white male), and is often claimed to have persisted for far longer than it meaningfully could be said to. I'm not saying that as a phenomena it can not and does not exist, presently, but to embrace the concept fully requires drawing the same types of hard lines around demographics that we should instead be trying to tear down. Right? -
The logical connection is the existence of a 'culture' among gamers & game developers, which influences people, and which is influenced by the games themselves. It's a feedback loop. "Gamer culture" is mostly dominated by men - even if there are many female gamers, the majority of marketing dollars are spent targeting men, most AAA games are made with men in mind, etc. Sites like http://fatuglyorslutty.com/ are a great example of how frequently women are treated when playing games online. Commenters on YouTube, Twitch, and so forth are quick to attack women doing game commentary or even just streaming games live. Bottom line; it's a male-dominated culture.
So many problems... Look, it's clear to me that you're so entrenched in your position that you're loathe to cede any individual point because you fear it would be construed as a holistic failure of your overall argument. That's exactly how many feminists, whose overall stance I overall agree with, end up defending positions that are so very untenable. Your entire argument boils down to "It's a feedback loop!!," providing carte blanche justification for interfering at any point in said loop. I don't know how to break this to you without coming off a little snarky, but - culturally speaking - almost everything is a feedback loop. Simply observing that it's "all connected," while a perfectly respectable epiphany in and of itself in late high school and early college years, does not really provide insight, analysis, quantification, or rationalization of any given action, inaction, etc. It's just an innate characteristic of culture. "It's a feedback loop!!" can be used to justify all sorts of positions, legislation, etc. because it conveniently dodges key aspects of both evidence & analysis, and generally assumes that whatever "feedback loop" is being discussed exists in a vacuum (or near-vacuum) condition, such that mucking with it will have no unintended consequences.
In this case, you've buttressed the "it's a feedback loop" mantra with evidence from online comments. From YouTube. If you feel that animosity towards women in online comments is truly unique to gamer culture, or especially heightened within it - as opposed to being endemic to online comments coming from adolescent males in general, which make up a large share of gamers - I'd ask that you support that claim. Why is this not instead consistent with a Venn diagram that has a certain type of male being responsible for such hostility, and a certain type of male likely to play games, and significant overlap between them, such that the behavior is not directly correlated with gaming? Do you know? I don't. I don't think you do either. However, I'm not the one brandishing a perfectly-conceived feedback loop of causality...
Culture is a feedback loop, containing many feedback loops. The characteristics of each are complex and difficult to ascertain. This observation does not, in and of itself, support or counter any particular argument. The best we can usually do, in advocating change and public policy, is to start with the quantifiable & pragmatic - in this case, with regards to sexual harassment in the workplace, also the criminal - and avoid temptations to start "further downstream" in a loop, where freedom of speech starts getting trampled on & things generally get all wishy-washy...
(I put the above in a very large font because I want people to think about it a lot)
Now, game developers do not exist in a vacuum; they are staffed by people who grew up being gamers, and probably continue to be gamers outside of work. And being mostly male, they sit squarely in the male-dominated gamer culture. I'm obviously not saying that makes them guilty of anything (unless they were out there trolling YouTube comments themselves, or being harassing jackasses), or that they have any sort of blame just for being male. However, they are certainly EXPOSED to the culture regularly, from game marketing, to art design, to seeing how shitty Kotaku commenters are, and everything in between. That DOES affect some people, on some level. To deny that would be to deny that what other people in society do has any impact on us, and I know you don't believe that.There is a critical difference between saying that an effect is likely to exist versus stating authoritatively not only that it exists, but that it is significant, and furthermore that it can and should be manipulated. Do I think that culture affects people? Why of course. Do I think that gaming culture affects gamers? To some extent, obviously, although I'm not sure how much it counteracts or truly differentiates gamers from the populous at large. Do you? No, again you don't. What's the difference? I'm not the one claiming that I know... I'm not the one invoking the intellectually bankrupt "It's a feedback loop!!" position to support my arguments.
If you're a male gamer, you grow up in a male-dominated gamer culture, and maybe participate in it. You might become a developer, and bring along whatever biases and associations you've learned over the years. On the other hand, if you're female, you've been pushed away from day 1 by marketers, game designers, artists, and fellow gamers. It's a big uphill battle to be a part of the industry, and then when you make it in, you're subject (potentially) to harassment, to conferences with lots of male eye candy (which DOES reasonably make some women uncomfortable), to lower pay, etc. Is it any wonder that it's taking a long time for more women to get involved?Harassment and equal pay are huge issues, arguably the primary focus of third-wave feminism. On some level, I actually find it very offensive that you're lumping them in with booth babes and sexual objectification in games; I suppose it helps support your "It's a feedback loop!!" argument, i.e. "It's all one BIG GIANT problem and we have to solve EVERY aspect of it!!" I'm going to again put it out there that you're unnecessarily coupling these issues, AND oversimplifying them. This is a trap that plenty fall into, so I don't think you should feel too bad, but given that feminism itself has (largely) moved on, and that I've pointed the trap out to you in several consecutive posts, I'm wondering if I'm failing in some regard.
The end point is that developers are a major part of that feedback loop. With fewer intensively male-targeted games (or fewer things like DDD boobs with jiggle physics), gamer culture will seem a little less like a male clubhouse, and more women will want to be a part of it. This then leads to more women in the industry, which leads to broader-targeted games, and so on. I think it's a pretty straightforward logical connection. When most everything from conventions to marketing to art design is oriented toward men, women are less likely to want to be part of it. The reverse is also true."Developers are a major part of that feedback loop"... Okay, what are the minor parts? What criteria are you using in your assessment? What are the point values you're assigning to each of the components - are there just minor and major parts, or are there many levels? Do the levels vary based on game genre? Country? Language? How have the levels changed over time? You seem intimately familiar with this feedback loop, and very confident & comfortable in making factual statements about it, so I'm assuming you're drawing that knowledge from somewhere, and I'm interested in hearing more.
"With fewer intensively male-targeted games (or fewer things like DDD boobs with jiggle physics), gamer culture will seem a little less like a male clubhouse, and more women will want to be a part of it".... How many fewer? What ratio are you comfortable with? My bad... you couldn't possibly be suggesting that the number of jiggle physics games be calibrated to your own PERSONAL sense of what's appropriate - you MUST be thinking of a universally agreed on "consensus ratio" that, like pi and the golden rectangle and what not, emanates from the natural world and thus cannot be questioned? And are you talking about "gamer culture" - where by your own quoted statistics, gamers are already 50% female - or game development specifically?
It all just falls apart...
You're confusing "logical connection" with "personally intuitive theory"... it seems to me that you've built a mental model of how you envision all of this being connected, and with scant evidence other than personal observation, you're now completely comfortable not only in treating this model as factual, but in advocating its employment to alter aspects of an art form we both love. I believe the intentions are good, but that using personal mental models of this nature to advocate for modifications to any art form is almost always a bad idea.
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Not to beat a dead horse, but let's look at some actual words from female developers....
"Because I get mistaken for the receptionist or day-hire marketing at trade shows. #1reasonwhy"
"Because I am not his arm candy, motherfucker. I make games. #1reasonwhy"
"The worst sexism is the "harmless" assumptions. I'm sick of being told art is the only appropriate career for a woman in games. #1reasonwhy"
"#1ReasonWhy because your studio never orders any women’s t-shirts in swag orders, and certainly not in sizes bigger than XS or S."
"#1reasonwhy because my male colleagues are allowed to occasionally be obnoxious, silly, immature, annoying, drunk. i'm not."
"None of my women developer friends will read comments on interviews they do, because the comments are so brutally nasty. #1reasonwhy"
"I've had prominent designers compliment my games, while complimenting my wife's appearance, when we develop together. #1reasonwhy"
"Because conventions, where designers are celebrated, are unsafe places for me. Really. I've been groped. #1reasonwhy"
"Because I'm sexually harassed as a games journalist, and getting it as a games designer compounds the misery. #1reasonwhy"
"My looks are often commented on long before the work I've done. #1reasonwhy"
"Being mistaken for male co-founder's assistant ...three times? four? #1reasonwhy"
"@b_1st #1reasonwhy because female devs' input get repeatedly dismissed in a studio making games "for women" (how about that one)."
"After being told she was hired to "look pretty & make the guys happy", my old boss got him to repeat this in an email to HR. #1reasonwhy"
"Because once I've been told "we don't need women in order to know what female players want from this industry" #1reasonwhy"
"Because every disclosure of harassment feels like risking never being hired again. #1reasonwhy"
"I've had guys turn to the men I hired to help at the booth for information on the game I wrote. That has my name on the cover. #1reasonwhy"
Just... search for more of these. You can argue away at any of these individual things all you want, you can call these people unreasonable or whatever, but you can't dismiss everything. It's not that people see one booth babe and call it quits. It's all of these little things adding together, which is the point of the #1reasonwhy hashtag. It's lots of assumptions, remarks, actions, comments, decisions, etc. that add up to an unwelcoming environment.
I don't dismiss ANY of it outright, although situations like not getting swag in the right sizes - surely that CAN be a pragmatic/logistical failure/oversight and not sexism or "#1reasonwhy"? Also, as you've pointed out, game developers - programmers in particular - are overwhelmingly male at this point in time. So assumptions CAN be just that - predictions based on observation and trend analysis. Making an isolated incorrect assumption can certainly offend someone, but I think the follow-through on the part of the assumer & assumee is FAR more important. Honest mistakes deserve polite but very direct & uncompromising corrections, while assumptions of bad faith just breed more of the same. Surely the fact that, as a female game developer, you are so rare that many people make incorrect assumptions about your role - often just based on their own life experience - should be a motivating force to KEEP AT IT, and not a "#1reasonwhy" you want to leave, or even that the environment is unwelcoming? If you're in a job where people are making a lot of bad assumptions about your role, you're probably doing something RIGHT. Turning a tide is difficult, but I'd agree in principle that raising awareness of these types of incidents is a really good thing.
However...
These quotes almost all have to do with one-on-one interactions, most of which are taking place in the workplace. Most of it is the same bullshit women face day-in, day-out in almost ANY workplace, though it's probably exacerbated because of the demographic inequality. Nowhere do I extrapolate from these comments that the end result - the games themselves - are a real & significant part of the puzzle. I think you're making my argument for me - it's preferable to focus on the real stuff, the day-to-day stuff, the pragmatic stuff. Don't try to tone down the sexuality in the end product or reign in the testosterone used for marketing purposes in conventions. Nothing about either is inherently evil, trying to contain or reduce either will only spur resentment, and both will probably decline (a bit) if more women are involved in the game development process. I still see the same logical disconnect, and nothing you've put forth has addressed it - you're trying to put the cart before the horse, and that approach has been & probably always will be the methodology of censors, puritans, and those who feel they can fix society by eradicating what they perceive as symptoms, without anything close to resembling a clear diagnosis.
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Speaking broadly about objectification etc... as we had talked about on IRC, right now the game industry is a particularly hostile one for women. EVEN compared to other tech industries, film, etc., there are simply fewer women in game development. When you eliminate non-development jobs like HR, marketing, etc. the percentage is even lower... something like 96% of game programmers are male, and in most studios programmers are the backbone of the team and serve on many teams (design, art, audio).
Andy, you're just stringing together ideas & observations without really analyzing the linkage/causality that you're claiming. First of all, you're vaguely mentioning "other tech industries" when what we're really talking about here is programmers - that's your 96% stat, and if you scope the analysis to programming specifically, you'll find that the phenomena doesn't begin or end with game programming:
You're assuming that there is a significant population of women who are already programmers themselves and would otherwise be game programmers, who are being turned away by sexual objectification & booth babes, without much evidence, and without consideration that there are probably several underlying factors and that this issue may be tertiary at best in explaining the numbers. You are characterizing the game industry as "hostile" towards women, but then later on in your same post suggest amelioration by reducing Ivy's bust size. I argue that sexual objectification is pervasive, that video games may in fact employ it more often - due to the current makeup of game devs - that there is nothing inherently wrong with it as it is a manifestation of human nature, and that the best way to "address" or balance things out is through the involvement of more women in the game development process. Where you and I differ, however, is that you think the game industry needs to change and tone down the boobs, etc. so that women don't feel excluded and uncomfortable, after which all of the many female game programmers waiting in the wings will suddenly sign up en masse, I suppose? I don't think that's the way the world works, and I don't think that's the way the world SHOULD work, either, and that type of attitude stems from a second-wave feminism perspective on sexuality in the media.
A symptom of the male domination of the industry is stuff like booth babes, which are of course appreciated overwhelmingly by males, and which tend to make women feel uncomfortable. After all, it's entertainment and eye candy for men, and not women, so by definition it is not inclusive. This is the kind of stuff that pushes women away from the industry. Likewise, if you're a company specializes in fighting games with scantily-clad women whose boobs bounce all over the place, it's not hard to understand why women might not want to work there - you're producing games primarily for men.I'm just going to briefly point out that you're making a LOT of assumptions about sex, gender, and sexuality all being the same. It's not hard to understand why women might not want to work at Axxe - you're producing body wash primarily for men. Any art medium should be allowed the flexibility to cater to any demographic - I thought we already covered that? If I'm a woman who chooses to write for Playboy or a man who chooses to write for Cosmo, I'm consciously making a decision to participate & contribute to media that has an explicit or implicit target audience. Nothing wrong with that, but it's odd to describe those magazines as "hostile" towards one demographic simply because they cater to another. I feel like you're recycling these points after I've made counterarguments - that I'm now more or less repeating - that should really call them into question...
I posit that this IS a problematic state of things. If we do care about games as an art form, then it stands to reason that we want a broader range of perspectives involved in game development. The current state of things is turning women away from game development despite the fact that many females of all ages ARE interested in and DO play games.I'm not aware of any art form, in the history of our species, that has successfully been censored (or "self-censored" as you mention) so as to diversify the demographics of its artists. I'm surprised this sounds like a good idea to you. I'm also surprised you think that female programmers are so skittish and impressionable that if they see 50 games and 10 have exaggerated bust sizes, they're going to avoid the games industry entirely and instead focus on enterprise business software. What's that over there? A BOOTH BABE?? That's it, I'm going back to business middleware!! This doesn't strike me as particularly plausible. It rings rather false. Historically, it's people who change industries, not the other way around, and you seem to think that a conscious industry shift towards making everything a bit more PG - or PC - would make a meaningful difference.
I think this is a very black or white view. Nobody is talking about legal censorship, certainly, but instead the self-censorship of overused tropes or practices that appeal exclusively to men. I think that games as an art form can "withstand" Ivy's boobs being a little smaller, or female armor in JRPGs actually being practical as opposed to metal bikinis. Right? Without passing moral judgment at all, and admitting that we (as men) love boobs and looking at them, it still seems like a good tradeoff for the advancement of the industry to make a little sacrifice and try to make stuff that appeals to both genders, as opposed to just one.Hardly anything in the WORLD appeals exclusively to men. I'm going to again remind you that you're oversimplifying things with your language, left and right. It's rather sexist to assume that sexual objectification of women appeals ONLY to men, or that any of these tropes appeal ONLY to men. What you're suggesting is an across-the-board neutering... it's not a question of whether games as an art form can "withstand" X or Y, it's the motivation behind making the change. You're making dozens of unfounded assumptions about potential female programmers, what they want and don't want, what they MIGHT react positively to... I'd argue such energies would be better focused at the relative scarcity & declining numbers of female programmers to begin with, although in that case as well, you should avoid making assumptions that social causes explain 100% of the statistical inequalities. At any rate, once you start tailoring your art to match someone's idea of what might be more inclusive, using motivational evidence as scant and reasoning as tenuous as yours, I think you've lost the game.
Your entire argument revolves around assumptions that these tropes and instances of objectification EXCLUSIVELY appeal to men, that female programmers aren't considering the game industry because they find their usage (and the presence of booth babes) "hostile," and that the direct causal linkage between these two phenomena can and should be manipulated. I find no ounce of it persuasive.
I'd like to see more women in game development because I think we'd see more interesting & diverse games, but I avoid falling into the second-wave feminist trap (shared by other liberal and conservative movements alike) of thinking that if we could JUST fix the art, if we could JUST tweak the media, it would all work out... better. I'd like to quote the great Capt. Malcolm Reynolds:
Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. -
This doesn't even make sense. The topic of video 1 was damsels in distress. Now that she's done with that, she's going to talk about something else. Inability to find additional damsels in distress isn't even a minor issue.
- The Fighting F#@k Toy - Video #2
- The Sexy Sidekick - Video #3
- The Sexy Villainess - Video #4
Assuming she sticks to this order, we're in for a triple-dose of objectification theory. Yay!
This is a fantastic issue because it cuts across party lines in interesting ways - you've got (primarily "second-wave" minded) liberal feminists suddenly siding with the Jesse Helms of the world that are staunchly conservative. It's damn near impossible to keep censorship out of this discussion. If anyone wants to read up in advance:
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-positive_feminist
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_Against_Pornography
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_objectification#Objectification_theory
Relatively few serious academics want to come down hard against sexual objectification. It is a thankless topic to question, mired both in politics and uncertainty. It is difficult to avoid being seen as advocating "for" sexual objectification, as opposed to simply downplaying its significance, or exploring the negative effects of trying to curtail it, or analyzing its potential innateness. This will thus be an arena where there's few folks I can cite that really summarize my views, although there's data. I'm going to go stream-of-consciousness for a bit on this, as I think that's the best way of summing things up, for me:
- Does sexual objectification occur? Yes. Is it measurable/quantifiable in a meaningful sense? Yes. Does it have negative effects on the perception of women by men, and women by other women, compared to an absence? Well... untestable. Almost certainly there are some.
- There are experiments that indicate "when you show a man a picture of a scantily clad woman, he is less likely to consider her intelligent" - that one gets a big, fat "DUH" from me, because you're triggering a drive that compromises rational evaluation. Also, this is moment-in-time, and it is nearly impossible to conduct larger-scale experiments that measure long-term exposure while controlling for cultural variables.
- There are studies that indicate "when men look at men, they see bodies/people, when they look at women, they see parts" - this is focused on the ocular, and is not surprising to me, but if anything this speaks to innateness. I don't believe this "male gaze" is socially constructed, nor do I believe it carries with it the luggage claimed.
- "Hyper-sexualized" - Uh, relative to what? You'll see this a lot... certainly with all the talk of social construction, wouldn't it be quite obvious that the baseline itself is cultural?
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Can sexual objectification be meaningfully curtailed to an extent that would produce measurable "improvement"? Ah... here's where you lose me. Sorry, but hell no. Also, trying either involves censorship or making people feel very uncomfortable about their... urges. Puritans tried this. Also, side effects of treatment are worse than the symptoms!
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Related: Can taking steps to reduce the amount of sexual objectification in the media produce measurable "improvement"? A subset of the above, more specific. Same answer.
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Thought: We have more access to information than ever before. We are bombarded with more sexualized of images of women than ever before. Women have more equality & rights than... ever before? Uh-oh? I'm reluctant to argue that women's rights have improved in Western civilization BECAUSE of sexual objectification, but I also don't think it's "in spite of" it either; I'd say it's simply compatible, i.e. that the human brain is impressive enough an organ to counter/adapt to sexual objectification, and that the free society of open information and plurality of perspectives that comes along with sexually explicit and/or objectifying content is the key to much of what we consider "freedom".
- Is it innate? C'mon. Of course it is. Ask yourself, in your heart of hearts (okay, your brain of brains), whether men ogling women is really primarily a socially constructed phenomena. Ask yourself whether recorded human history supports the position that sexually explicit (or objectifying) content is a CATALYST for the mistreatment of women, or the position that sexually explicit (or objectifying) content is an OUTLET/CATHARSIS for surplus sexual desire. Look at who we are, look at who we've been. Look at WHAT we are. This isn't an excuse or justification for sexism; we've PROVEN that we know better, and are better, and can do better as a species. But that same improvement has actually coincided with MORE sexualization, not less.
Talking about most of the rest of what Anita will likely have to say pretty much means talking about objectification; I've gotten the ball rolling, interested in what people have to say!
- The Fighting F#@k Toy - Video #2
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DJP: I'm interested in your thoughts on this. I guess I'm not sure how to ask this question in a smart way, but could you elaborate on what a more modern feminist critique of video games would look like? Structurally and content-wise, how could Anita's presentation improve?
I don't particularly agree with how Anita structured her argument because I don't completely understand precisely what she is trying to do. But on other fora, I've been completely shot down as a sexist for suggesting there's room for improvement in her presentation and methods of persuasion (or instruction, whichever she's going for). I haven't gotten good insight about how she could improve elsewhere, so I thought I'd ask you out of curiosity.
Well... to respond thoroughly is a rather tall order, and most people would (respectfully!) probably prefer I STFU and post more mixes. But I hate cop-outs, and if only ONE person reads this and follows some of my reasoning, and explores things for themselves, that's motivation enough.
I'll begin by saying that my previous posts, where I rewrote many of her statements to convey what I thought was both a more topical and more reasonable meaning, offer some examples of what I'm talking about. Let's just start with a baseline - Anita's entire analysis falls pretty squarely into the second-wave feminism camp.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-wave_feminism
Why do I say this? She operates from a position that passive female characters are inherently and unilaterally negative, and furthermore draws a straight causal line to this negativity permeating through the minds of gamers & society at large. The wiki link above mentions this briefly in terms of views on popular culture, but is unfortunately mostly a timeline of 2nd wave history, without much exposition. It's a pretty crap wiki article, really, so the more helpful partner article is perhaps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_Sex_Wars, as it explores some of the topics of dissenting opinion that helped form the resulting "third-wave" feminism. It's worth noting here that "waves" are like "generations" - trying to sum them up nicely & neatly is difficult. Also don't shit on me for using Wiki, the citations & references are there if you want to dig deeper, etc.
So let's just take this one DiD trope example for starters, although the objectification stuff is where it's going to become a LOT clearer I'm afraid. Everyone should take some time and read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-wave_feminism
Please endure some brief quotes:
If it sounds like an improvement, I'd argue that's because it is. It's no longer hung up on dichotomous us-vs-them active/passive patriarchy theory, it's about the real world, and it's grounded in real-world issues & concerns and, in layman's terms, a greater appreciation that women are diverse, that some enjoy objectification just as much as men, that sexuality can be empowering, that passivity is not inherently feminine but also not inherently negative, etc. It's less Boolean, less prone to invective, less oversimplifying, and (generally speaking) more pragmatic. Again, by necessity we're dealing in generalizations here, but it's more in line with my own perspectives, because I think people are complex, and it seems to acknowledge that complexity a lot more. Another quick quote:"Third-wave feminism is a term identified with several diverse strains of feminist activity and study, whose exact boundaries in the historiography of feminism are a subject of debate, but are often marked as beginning in the early 1990s and continuing to the present. The movement arose as a response to the perceived failures of and backlash against initiatives and movements created by Second-wave feminism during the 1960s to 1980s, and the realization that women are of "many colors, ethnicities, nationalities, religions and cultural backgrounds".[1] The third wave embraces diversity and change.[1] In this wave, as in previous ones, there is no all-encompassing single feminist idea."
So just to be clear, I'm personally NOT groovy with ALL of the above, but a lot of it resonates. Ecofeminism strikes me as very problematic and post-colonial theory strikes me as "white guilt made thesis," but I'm on board with a lot of the rest.Third-wave theory usually incorporates elements of queer theory; anti-racism and women-of-color consciousness; womanism; girl power; post-colonial theory; postmodernism; transnationalism; cyberfeminism; ecofeminism; individualist feminism; new feminist theory, transgender politics, and a rejection of the gender binary. Also considered part of the third wave is sex-positivity, a celebration of sexuality as a positive aspect of life, with broader definitions of what sex means and what oppression and empowerment may imply in the context of sex. For example, many third-wave feminists have reconsidered the opposition to pornography and sex work of the second wave, and challenge existing beliefs that participants in pornography and sex work are always being exploited.[3]Back to the task at hand, I think one of the "downsides" (I don't view it as such) of third-wave or more modern feminism is that it's simply not as polemical, not as inciting, and not as absolute, and so its rhetoric feels, well... more reasonable. In my opinion, because it is, and because it acknowledges complexity and plurality.
So how does all of that relate back to our damsel in distress? Well, there's two ways to look at this trope - one is from a more aesthetic perspective, as an aspect of craftsmanship & storytelling - is this overused? Does it resonate? Is it being employed consciously, and if not, is that lack of awareness key to the success of the work? I don't have the answers to all of those questions, but my point is that they can generally be explored without invoking feminism of ANY kind. I'd argue that in many examples, the trope is employed SPECIFICALLY to evoke the archaic - to transport the gamer not just to another time and place in general, but one that echoes fables of the past, one that seems (for better or worse) "classic" - and not much more. I'd also argue that most video game characters are one or two-dimensional at best; if Ebert (RIP) had a point about video games not being art, I think acting, characterizations, and storytelling would be central to it. I find the "art" of video games to be largely in the aggregate, personally, but I'd suggest that characters rich & deep in profound explorations of the human condition are few and far between. It is not yet a strong point of the medium. And so - purely aesthetically - I'd also contend that whether or not the trope is employed, and whether its use is conscious or afterthought, is most often NOT integral to the success of the overall work.
So that's boring. Let's get out of aesthetics and try to do what she's doing - link it up with a feminist critique/analysis, but (hopefully) using a more updated perspective.
It's misguided to demonize any & all uses of the trope as deleterious to the perception of women because SOME women may naturally be rather passive (as may some men!!) Some women may WANT to be rescued by a knight in shining armor (ditto!!) People are diverse, and they want different things. It's also not wise to go characterizing the human mind as so damn impressionable that use of such a trope will inevitably & inextricably lead to self-fulfilling prophecies. I believe it is enough to do this: 1. Point out the trope, identifying both its ubiquity and variations, so that people are simply more cognizant of it, and 2. In terms of analysis/critique, I'd actually hesitate to even go any further, but if that seems disappointing or "too minimalist," I'd shoot for something like this:
So it's not Shakespeare, but let me just point out what's different... we avoid demonizing the trope outright, across the board, and avoid the aesthetic trap of where it came from, how lazy it is, etc. which is secondary to our focus. We acknowledge that diversity of form should still allow the trope to be employed without instantaneous bad faith assumptions, but we also lay down some relatively specific recommendations that are additive - not subtractive - in nature. And last but certainly not least, we entirely avoid invoking the "potential cumulative subconscious impact" angle, and all its many QUITE unsavory repercussions."While female characters in games can & should run a wide gamut - including the occasional helpless princess that needs rescuing - more variety and empowerment would better reflect today's values. We encourage developers and writers to question assumptions about gender roles and explore the full spectrum of possibilities, including strong female leads, passive male roles, transgender characters, and everything in between."It's a single example, but it can probably scale. When digested along with my previous posts picking apart specific language she uses, what I hope to have shown here is how her arguments are of a second-wave, oversimplifying, restrictive, outdated, binary feminism, and how a more contemporary perspective MIGHT attempt to make a similar point. Far from perfect, but then again what is?
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I didn't wanna necro-bump this since it was dead for awhile after my last post, but since things have started back up again...
While this is not related to video games, I find this article quite relevant:
Along with the corresponding large-scale study it cites, which corroborated results from a previous study: http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/0022-3514.94.1.168
The relevance here is NOT "women just don't naturally like games as much" but may be tangentially related to why there are fewer women in game development. I'm citing it, however, because it criticizes "Lean In" for precisely the same reasons I take fault with Anita's videos - they are mired in an outdated, outmoded form of 1970's-era feminism that remains stuck in the dogma of that period and blind to any contradicting evidence or subsequent development. For many gamers watching Anita's videos, and on this forum, and elsewhere, this might be their first exposure to seriously dogmatic feminism. They may identify themselves as feminists because they perceive, as I do, that women have been discriminated against unfairly throughout human history. Because they revile the idea of unjust discrimination, and their hearts are in the right place, and they want to do and say whatever they can to make a difference, they assume that they must be feminists, that "mainstream feminism" must reflect their own heartfelt & earnest desire for equality, and thus that most feminist dogma is probably in line with their own thinking, and vice-versa. They also assume that Anita is espousing a modern, relevant mode of feminist critique because they probably (obviously there are exceptions!) have a limited familiarity with "what's out there" in this regard.
The problem is, she isn't. Much like Sheryl Sandberg, she's using an outdated framework. I believe that most gamers with whom Anita's videos are resonating are otherwise reasonable and believe, again as I do, that 1. sexism exists and that 2. video games are not immune from it, and can regardless be improved by deeper & wider characterizations of female characters. Nothing wild there, and rather hard to argue with in my mind. The problem is that very little of what she's talking about is related to either of those two points, and almost all of the "connective tissue" hinges on how much of 1970's-era feminism you happen to buy into. I feel this situation will only worsen as she moves into topics regarding objectification.
I hate to pick on Andy, because again I feel like his heart's in the right place, but he said to me a couple weeks ago that he was surprised that I came down on "the other side of the fence" when it comes to this topic.
Well, I wasn't aware of any fence... I wasn't aware there are only two options. This type of us-vs-them mentality ("othering" if you prefer the academic jargon!) - you're with us or you're against us - is so strange and alien to me, especially given that it's a large part of what feminism is ostensibly trying to address in the first place. I prefer to think that there are myriad positions, and I take the position that Anita's feminist dogma & framework for analysis are stale by four or five decades, and that most well-meaning, egalitarian gamers who support her work are either missing these crucial bits, or unaware that large swaths of feminism have moved on & evolved - just as Anita is arguing that video games should! This position is not incompatible with my previously stated views that #1. sexism exists and #2. video games are not immune from it, and can regardless be improved by deeper & wider characterizations of female characters. I just feel we need to be a whole lot smarter about it, and not get sucked into swallowing down outdated ideologies without a little due diligence.
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Y'all heard the man. Get your mascot images (no Squenix stuff though) and have at it as far as writing more bios!
What's the ideal size for an image to start with? Is something like this Isaac too small?
That's a good bare minimum to start with. Obviously the mascot images themselves are smaller, but it's far easier to mask at higher resolutions and then resize. I think a general guideline should be 250px minimum for either dimension.
Also, personal request... I think we should add Teddy from Persona 4.
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Dave, so good to see you still have the same sig from all those years ago, I still like it.
-Joel
OH DAMN IT'S JOEL BIRD!
Great to see you back around these parts! Looking forward to your track!
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Actually I'm cool if I just get artwork, I can do the masking/transparency stuff no problem.
Sorry in general for not being on top of things - trying to to get FF6 and V6 out the door is taking its toll on my time, but I'm psyched for new mascots.
If I can get the list & characters and artwork for each as a nice bundle, I can absolutely power my way through the Photoshop side of things & get 'er done.
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Fantastic news - congratulations!
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FoxxDragon had some beef with our FF6 kickstarter and I really wasn't happy with how we left things, but that being said, I have to chime in because today was somehow my first day seeing the art in Kyle's sig, and it looks awesome.
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I don't think these are equivalent at all. "The feminist agenda" is vague because there are many kinds of feminists with many kinds of agendas. There is no one unified agenda, period. On the other hand, when people refer to "the patriarchy", they are referring to a state of society where men generally have authority and power in various aspects of civilized life. You can debate whether or not this exists, or to what degree in a specific society, but I would say it has a pretty clear definition. "The feminist agenda" can't be defined because there isn't any one agenda.
Sorry, but I don't think so. First off, I was specifically objecting to the article -"THE patriarchy" as opposed to "patriarchy" - and your own response acknowledges the existence of multiple societies and hence multiple patriarchies. Furthermore, the word does not have as clear a definition as you would again desire. There are different models of patriarchy - the feminist model is one, but there are also other social models, biological models, religious models, and models based on evolutionary psychology too. Which you are referring to when you invoke the term is unclear; you may be describing a similar state of affairs, but the causality is radically different, and the causality is of paramount importance.
I'll happily double down - referring to "the patriarchy" left and right is vague, as is referring to "the feminist agenda". In both cases the vagueness helps to support a bogus us vs. them mentality.
I again reject the continued oversimplification, and the continued need to state things as categorically one or the other. Why should feminist arguments attempt to counter irrational categorization with.... more irrational categorization? Fighting fire with fire makes larger fires.
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Tangible examples of people using evolutionary psychology for political purposes.
A Natural History of Rape by Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer
Satoshi Kanazawa - largely now discredited but for a while was considered credible and influential.
I have yet to secure a copy of Blank Slate, but the synopses do not make it look promising.
Those might be examples of evolutionary psychology that employ faulty logic or bad science - where do you see the "political purposes"? You seem to be dismissing things in their entirety without much analysis. You seem very comfortable labeling these arguments as politically motivated or reactionary, literally comparing them to fecal matter, without much consideration of the content. In the second case, the author in question has been discredited, but not disproven outright. His claims seem highly questionable, and the majority of evolutionary psychologists have distanced themselves from him, but most of what he's claiming just seems like unfounded hypothesis that would be difficult to prove either way. In the case of A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion, I'm glad you bring this up. I'd like to know which arguments these biologists are making appear to be politically motivated, to you. It is very difficult for science to even ATTEMPT to explore topics that are heavily politicized in the first place, and to me their key point - that rape has sexual motivations - should be blatantly obvious to all. The book is attempting to refute the common feminist argument that rape is about power, NOT sex. The mistake it might be making is arguing the exact opposite, when the reality is it isn't black-and-white, and that multiple motivations and factors are at play. Still, as a debunking of the feminist mantra that rape has zero sexual motivations whatsoever, there's merit to the book. Its reception and controversy only serve to prove my point about not trying to twist the physical universe to fit your ideology.
You mention The Blank Slate synopses don't make it look "promising," but you don't explain why.
Your statements show a pattern of blanket dismissal, outright denigration, and unfounded accusations of politicization, with no actual articulation as to why, or how. You are doing EXACTLY what I've been talking about in most of my posts on this thread, and it's interesting to see so precise a reflection of my concerns.
Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies
in General Discussion
Posted · Edited by djpretzel
Well, I think these CAN be two separate ideas... If Ab wants to defend affirmative action across the board, because white men don't need to be "pacified" - well, I strongly disagree, it's a little off-topic (but still worth talking about), etc.
But NJ's idea to found a game studio and start hiring only women, or favoring women - that's not exactly the same thing as affirmative action, really, because it's not as institutionalized. The results could be fantastic - sometimes a single "poster child" CAN actually make a huge difference. Of course, it could also backfire... if the games were in any way lackluster, the level of scrutiny would be a tad higher, and it could end up sending a very different message. Color me ignorant, but - has this been done? Do we know that it hasn't? At any rate, trying to shape the form & image of a studio I think CAN be a positive thing that isn't synonymous with institutionalized affirmative action. Once you reach a certain scale, though, it becomes much harder...
Help me out, here - she's quoting from http://www.amazon.com/The-Difference-Diversity-Creates-Societies/dp/0691138540/ as it pertains to racial diversity, but that book seems to be about diversity of skills, NOT of race:
Her example about hiring Steve and Jane because COMBINED they get all the answers right doesn't speak to race, gender, or anything other than innate cognitive merit, and if wrong answers were tracked and matrixed and cross-referenced in a way that would allow this sort of ideal pairing - which would be terribly complex when you think about it - you might still end up with inequality.I suppose one argument could go something like this: 1. Diversity of skills provides better solutions & creates more effective teams than favoring only the highest scores 2. Tracking who gets what wrong and right and pairing up individuals based on complimentary skills is currently prohibitively complex, and may remain so 3. Therefore, we should have race-based and/or sex-based affirmative action to try and compensate for the optimization we know is possible, and maybe it'll all work out?
I lose you on #3 - I think it kinda makes sense on a socioeconomic basis, because that cuts across race & sex. Anything else feels quite odd.