Erin Reynolds over at Game Instructions wrote this piece a week or so back, “Women in Gaming, and Women’s Game Conferences,” which, if a little sloppily written, deserves a few words in response. Reynolds’ main point, so it seems, is that girl gamer communities (as represented by female-oriented sites, conferences, etc.) are actually harmful to the status of gender equality in the industry because they “other” women and don’t promote gender-blind inclusion. It’s certainly an important concern, and, as Reynold’s says, there’s no easy answer.
But that’s not the end of the story. Keeping quiet, working hard and waiting for the day when equality is a reality… all that does is promote the established male system with silent consent. True, women shouldn’t separate themselves into a world of niche gaming, but we’re only human, and we need to feel welcome and comfortable in order to take part in a community - something that obviously isn’t happening in mainstream (male-dominated) circles, otherwise female-oriented events and sites wouldn’t be popping up with the speed they are. Erin, in a perfect world, no one would need to hold women’s conferences, or talk about gender issues (Though they may still want to. When did it stop being constructive to discuss the culture around us?), but this isn’t a perfect world, nor is it going to be any time soon. Fasten your seatbelt for fun…
August 14th, 2005 at 6:18 pm
The way i see things, the gaming community will eventually be split up like movies. Some made for men that a few women enjoy, some made for women that a few men enjoy and some made for both in equal parts. For now, I think that the only thing to do is to have the 2 seprate factions and slowly over time merge them until we see gamers as just that, not boy or girl gamers.
August 14th, 2005 at 7:57 pm
Which isn’t to say that the two camps are totally separate right now. I’m a girl gamer, but life would such if I were only playing “girl” games; I’m a girl gaming journalist, but I wouldn’t have a clue what was going on in the industry if I only went to girl gaming sites. And there are probably women out there who have no taste for the “girls club” at all, who are mainstream in the same boring way plenty of guys are - get all your news from IGN, play Sims, GTA and Halo, and call it a day… Sometimes guy and girl gamers even talk to each other :-).
August 15th, 2005 at 4:19 pm
Then again, I know some guys who always play as girl characters and even go as far to buy the girl harvest moon games.
I think that its mostly personal prefrence and at the end of the day its just certain people who look at certain games and call them girly. I mean, other than games like Barbie’s hourse back adventure and the likes of them, I can’t think of alot of “girl” games off the top of my head. Then again, I play Shmups almost soley. If ever there was a boys only club, its seems to be the shmup scene. Why i may never know.
i was going somewhere with this and i seemed to have lost it. SOo in closing, I’d think that there really isnt a girls club so to speak as much as just games girls seem to be quicker to play than others. Don’t look at me, I’m kind of a guy when it comes to this.
August 15th, 2005 at 6:50 pm
I think what’s meant by a “girls club,” at least what I mean, isn’t a group of games (I totally agree that the idea of “girl” and “guy” games is bogus - and Harvest Moon is not a girl’s game! :-)) but a female-oriented community, as represented by all-girl clans, girl gamer website and women’s conferences: stuff that’s pretty undeniable for the ladies.
August 17th, 2005 at 11:38 pm
Hmmm. This is a tricky topic. Everyone likes a sense of “belonging”, and identifiable gatherings or communities reflect that. But I think there is a danger in getting too focused on things that define the differences.
I’m not sure quite how to explain what I mean, but let me give an example. There are two subscription cable channels here in Canada (I imagine they exist in the US as well). One is a “woman’s” channel- I think it was called “W” for the longest time, no idea what its called now. The other is a “men’s” channel: “Spike” is what they call it now.
“W” has all sorts of discussions about women’s issues, gender equality, and the like. “Spike” has nothing like that- its all about programming that supposedly appeals to men, not shows about men’s issues: they have car shows, CSI, science fiction, and strange programs where bikini clad women run around. “W” is, from what I’ve read, dying a slow and painful death. Spike has a rapidly growing audience, with both men and women.
What am I saying here? Well, I think its important to focus on the things that appeal to women in games. Its equally important to seek out and remove things that form obstacles to women playing them, designing them, and coding them. But I also think its important to develop games that maybe appeal primarly to women, but not to women exclusively. Just like it would be a poor strategy for male-centric game developers to build games that intentionally exclude women.
Apologies if I’m not making a clear statement here- painkillers and beer make my thinking less coherent than usual ;)
August 18th, 2005 at 8:17 am
Note to Kelly: pain killers + beer = bad! It’s definitely a tricky subject, with no easy answer, but even as a girl who’s much more likely to watch “men’s” programming with half naked ladies than feel-good “women’s shows,” I’m just saying it’s not as simple as silencing women on the issue.
August 19th, 2005 at 4:40 pm
Painkillers + beer = bad…darn, and here I was thinking I’d discovered nirvana :)
I agree that saying women shouldn’t have a ‘women’s interest’ forum for games (or other things) is wrong-headed. I would never suggest silencing half the world: there are too many interesting thoughts out there in the heads of people with extra X chromosomes. I am always trying to get my wife to talk to me, to tell me what she wants and likes- trust me, not hearing that is worse than hearing it ;)
Like a lot of things in life, I think its a matter of degree or balance. The questions have to be asked: how do we make gaming a comfortable place for potential and current female gamers? How do we encourage a young woman to not only play a game, but to want to work on a game development team enough to chase that dream? Although, from the acquaintances I have who work in game development and who burn 90 hours a week coding/testing, maybe we don’t want to encourage that :)
Where the focus becomes more on “what should be done to appeal to women” and less on “what makes a good game”…at that point, I think I call out “Houston, we have a problem”. To that extent, I can see where the article you linked to is coming from. If I’d just stumbled into a whole series of conferences or forums on the topic, I might think “whoa, this is getting to be too much.” I can’t say that’s the case for me- that’s why I’m hanging around your site here, precisely *because* gender issues in games are not a topic I’ve seen discussed adequately.
August 20th, 2005 at 9:09 am
Well, I am glad you stick around :-).
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