The Feminist's Argument
Before we get into the cultural aspects, we have to look at the arguments being pushed forward. To begin we will need to understand the first argument that videogames are inherently misogynistic. Before I go on, keep in mind this part is to explain the viewpoints, and not show support.
First, we need to look at how misogyny is used in modern thought. Then we go into the argument that every game shown depicts women with contempt, and mistreatment. There are arguments against the idea. The antimisogynysts have come forward with arguments against that thought by claiming that men are not accepting their thoughts.
Before we go on, we sort of need a description of misogyny. I know in greek, that gyny means vagina, and womanhood in general. This means that miso would mean hatred. The description given by wikipedia in its history back this up with the original usage. Except that the writers seemed to be supporting women, and trying to fight against hatred toward women. One guy spent pages praising wives.
The wife in what we call ancient greek culture (only one city really lived this way) had specific duties. The wife was to stay at home, and take care of matters there. She was not to go outside unless there was a specific purpose. In counter to that, there were women who were never allowed inside the home. The fishnet stalkings of the whore meant freedom to move about the city as one chose, it could also mean owning a business, and even have sway in the senate. On the other hand, the whore was never considered equal to the wife.
This theme has been common for ages, women stayed at home, while men went out. The misogynist would be someone who disliked having women in his life. Jason of the Argonauts once told his exwife that, “If men could have children we could finally be done with women.” The fact that this woman was the reason why he survived his voyage, and was also the granddaughter of a god did not phase his mind. The children needed a proper Greek wife, and not someone from outside of the city. It ends badly for Jason.
In other words, officially speaking, women were second rate to women in Greece. The praise of wives was an attempt to show that women were needed, and a great part of the culture.
So what about modern misogyny? We need a definition for that, and perhaps some history. The best I can give is to show Feminist Theory on wikipedia. The modern term comes from these mostly academic writers. The basic claim is that women must fight against the idea that they are either whores or wives. It has been a big push to look at this subject, and show it to the world. Whole departments in colleges and universities are devoted to research on women.
It is also a dying subject. We know this based on the use of the word misogyny. In a google search, we can find how often the word was used in common parlance, and that in modern times it is losing favor.
You can actually watch the entire feminist movement with this little chart. The push for women’s suffrage in the 19th century, and into modern feminism at the 1970’s. In a few years, it will be at the same level as the 1980’s. The entire push for women’s rights within the lense of feminism is dropping, and fast.
What does this have to do with videogames? The basic argument is that videogames are misogynistic. Anita Sarkeesian is the proponent of the thought that games are based on providing entertainment for men only. She sites things as the Princess\Girlfriend\Wife being captured, and thus is the aim of the entire game. That Princess Peach is in a dress, or girls getting hurt or treated like eye candy are known things.
Women as a sex symbol isn’t just known, its old news. In the late 90’s untold amounts of players searched for a way to make the super polygonal Lara Croft appear in the nude. As graphics got better, the character of Cortana in Halo went from a blue blurred womanish figure to a nearly nude cyber babe. In Grand Theft Auto III, you could pick up whores to replenish your health, and then kill them to get your money back. There is ample evidence that there are many games that are for men, and not so much women.
The same groups are going against comics, siting sexism in comics. The big recent example has been Spiderwoman in a rather difficult revealing position.
This was found out by the rather foul mouthed Maddox. He also goes on to point out that the readership of comic books is about 47% female. Which means that women are not noticing.
The Gamer Response
The response to the statements about misogyny within videogames has been in separate forms. The first is the GamerGate group that states it is about game journalists, and whether or not games are misogynistic is beside the point. The second is to take on people like Sarkeesian head on with rebuttals. The third has been to ignore the whole thing and play some videogames. The fourth is to support the idea.
The first group, the one we mention the most, is the GamerGate response that it really has nothing to do with misogyny. In fact, the problem is that the groups promoting the idea of misogyny are going about it in an over the top and dangerous fashion. The claim is that, yes games do have problems, but the response to it has become more dangerous.
Within this commentary is that those claiming gaming is evil are acting like parents from decades before, who were afraid of Mortal Kombat or videogames in general.
Not only that, many have come forward saying the attacks on videogames have done the opposite of helping women come into gaming.
The response then goes into GamerGate itself. This chapter is not about that subject, so we will skip it for now. The next Chapter will hopefully cover it enough.
The second group responds to the comments of misogyny with rebuttals to people like Anita Sarkeesian. The best rebuttals have been in video form, so please understand if I give a link, and then a description of the rebuttal.
Thunderf00t has responded to the statement that Gaming is Dead, because of misogyny is impossible since the gaming population itself is so large. He reasons that within all of the ways gaming is made, women can find exactly what they want.
He then points out that many of the things Sarkeesian has proposed, is in fact made fun of in her own college thesis paper. She would call her own games “Men with Boobs” and that the action within it would be “Needless Violence”. Thus, a game she proposed on her youtube channel would in fact be against her own will. Not only that, no one has made said game in the year since the proposal.
Scanner Barkley speaks about games being generalized for men as a falsehood. It isn’t that gamers only play games about men, it is that most of the game makers make games about men. He has not felt weird playing a woman in games, or an electronic ghost for that matter. They are games, and thus allow you to be someone else.
He brings up a very good point, by explaining that violence against women is nothing to violence against men in gaming. Men are boiled alive, beheaded, tortured, stripped, beaten, burned, gutted, and many other horrible forms. Their lives are constantly destroyed for the sake of the game story. Strong female characters do happen, and the sales of the game are rarely based on what gender the character is.
Barkley then brings up a very good point. Lara Croft in the recent Tomb Raider is a strong female. She does horrible things to men, and is tortured constantly. Yet, we see it as a part of ourselves doing this, and not the actual gender of the character.
Before GamerGate came to the front, there had been other pushes on the same subject. For example, Tomodachi Life was complained about because it did not allow same sex marriage. I defended the game, and pointed out that a lot of the problems being brought forward were based on ideas mistranslated from Japanese culture. Expect to find that article within this book.
The third group has ignored this entire problem and played games. I sort of wish I was one of those people. Sarkeesian began her video series nearly a year ago, and so far I have been to 6 conventions. Until recently no one has brought the subject up. We were gamers, there to play games, and be with other gamers. It wasn’t hard.
Also in the same amount of time, I have played a bunch of games. Some of which were very fun. A friend let me stay at his place, and his massive collection of retro games. I did a big splurge to record as many of them as possible. Then I realized I recorded the audio wrong. Most of the games it didn’t bother me, but I really missed the music from Little Nemo.
The fourth group agreed with the ideas brought forward. They argued that the inherent problems with the games needed to be fixed, and those arguing against it were misogynists themselves.
Response to the Rebuttal
As it turns out, the 59% of the population is gamers is not quite true. Yes, there are more people that play games today than those who don’t, but the majority are not gamers. The title of Gamer stands for a specific group within gaming, and women in that group are not equally numbered. This is very true to see if you go to a convention.
Women will be 20% of the population in a convention, at best. This is only if you include women who are at work. Not just boothbabes, but regular PR folks tend to be female. PAX has a No Boothbabes policy, but many of the booths had regular dressed women who were promoting a game.
On the other hand, the small female population in gamer culture have a tendency to stand out. They are more likely to dress up as a character for the convention. Cosplayers are well known as female mostly. In fact, the majority of cosplayers for Thor at the Emerald City Comic Con were female. This is the likely reason why Marvel has created a Female Thor in their comics.
Women as volunteers are another common sight. The Portland Retro Gaming Expo had two heads over the volunteers. The one who stayed the longest, was female. Her husband ran a booth at the show, while she ran the show. The same can be said at the Arcade department itself. Within the volunteers there was one woman. She showed up to help set up, and became one of the most trusted volunteers on staff.
The response to the rebuttals of misogyny in gaming has been done in a similar vein. When Anita Sarkeesian met with Stephen Colbert, She talked about being a minority within gaming. She was a woman, which was a small group within Gamer Culture, but they were very pronounced. She talked about people yelling at her. Within that commentary, she also pushed her viewpoint that videogames are misogynistic.
She also pushed that the people within the rebuttals were terrorizing her. In fact, one of the attacks were so strong, she would be skipping a part of her speech tour.
The push by the mainstream media has been that feminists are being pushed out of gaming. In fact, that those who oppose these feminists are obvious misognynists trying to scare away their problems.
I don’t know how to fix this. I’m not much help — I’m damaged goods. I’ve got enough of my own rage to spare, and that rage is all I can fall back on when I see Gamergate hurting innocents, no matter how much I might empathize with where they’re coming from.
Newsweek writer Taylor Wofford wrote a piece stating that it was trying to deduce statistically if GamerGate was about ethics in Journalism, or harassment. His comments show that he already chose a side, before working with the data:
The claim that GamerGate is not a campaign to harass women—but rather advocacy for better journalism—has had some pull. This claim was used toharass Intel into pulling ads from popular gaming website Gamasutra after journalist Leigh Alexander wrote an essay there critiquing the gaming world. “‘Game culture’ as we know it is kind of embarrassing—it’s not even culture,” Alexander wrote in August. “It’s just buying things, spackling over memes and in-jokes repeatedly, and getting mad on the Internet.”
The push by people like Sarkeesian has been that the response has been harassment, not rebuttals. The claim that this has to do with ethics in journalism is therefore a Chewbacca Defense, or an attempt to change the subject onto a false front. Thus, the only thing that should be talked about is misogyny in videogames, and not about the ethics within journalism.
Conclusion
The feminist push that the culture has misogyny is actually slowly going away. The Height of the push was decades ago. There are still people pushing the idea, but it is not felt as strongly. People such as Anita Sarkeesian are now pushing that videogames are misogynistic. The rebuttal has been to either show that the push is not working as shown, or that there are problems within journalism. The response to the rebuttal has been to state the rebutters are harassing the feminists.
The next chapter is about how the GamerGate folks view things, and how they work. We will have the same, the main argument, the rebuttal, and then the response. Remember, I am not showing a timeline, this is about the arguments themselves. Beyond that, expect to see the underlying cultural pushes that are causing these arguments to break.
We will find out why there is such a large push that Gamer culture be more accepting. We will look at Nationalism, and how clashing Nationalisms work. We will also see how false positives are being pushed within those arguments. Is gaming Misogynistic, and thus needs to be fixed? Continue reading.
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