Comments on: Who Am I? Who Are You? (Why Girls Just Can’t Shut Up)

By: all women are nuts

all women are nuts — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 05:17:59 +0000

we have differnt hormones and extra curves and lumps and bumps i like being pleasently plump ( t / n /a )

ashley nicole

By: Ian

Ian — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 23:48:48 +0000

I would say that both sexes have to assert themselves in any artistic medium for them to become acceptable. The reason you’re percieving the bias against women (in the case of 19th century novel writing, or the video gaming industry today) is because I think men more often assert themselves at the same time the media itself is being asserted. People were repulsed by gamers in general, and now male gamers have gotten the image pushed up a bit, but only for us.

I can think of examples (although not so much with western culture) where specific mediums were considered fit for females and not for males(Such as anything to do with reading and writing during the medeival ages), and only as the culture modernized and men asserted themselves in that particular medium did it become socially acceptable for them.

None of this isn’t to say that it’s always or even usually equally difficult for each sex.

By: Bonnie

Bonnie — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 18:03:01 +0000

Lots of interesting points/questions…

How can a male be empowered through his masculinity when the society around him discourages expression of it?
Because, even if the most blatant displays of masculinity are discouraged, other, less carnal incarnations of it are not. We still admire men who are strong, brave, and protective, despite the fact that the ‘fight’ response, as you say, is reviled.

And I totally agree with you that men are bound by the very society which seems to offer them more freedom. Because women exist as “outsiders” in the gaming culture, they have more of a chance to explore and defy the definition of their identities. Men, on the other hand, are restricted by standing expectations, which, in some ways empowering, are also essentially self-nullifying.

It’s a complicated situation: a dialectic of self-hood, if you will (and I will :-)).

By: Illidan

Illidan — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 22:40:30 +0000

How does this apply to males who had or have one or both parents attempting to dissuade them from involvement with games?

How can a male be empowered through his masculinity when the society around him discourages expression of it? Male attributes and the “fight” response/reflex are universely reviled by journalist, politician, and teacher alike.

If women have the opportunity to explore their true identities, then men have an identity strictly defined by their peer group, one that binds them to certain personalities, actions, and interests, conflicting with the personalities, actions, and interests demanded by the world outside of their peer group.

If women must need explore to find their identity, men are blocked by the society around them from the opportunity to search it out.