The Feminist Gamers blog is a must read for everyone who has ever picked up a controller.
Mighty Ponygirl and her squad routinely provide on point analysis to the quickie posts that populate current gaming blogs. Here are three of my current favorites:
Sony Proves the Existence of the Rare Female Gamer
Wow! Looks like the girl gamer is in fact a statistically quantifiable set of data, which appears to shock the commenters at Joystiq. I wonder how Sony can capitalize on this burgeoning number? I wonder how it was able to market a whole four to upwards of eight percent of its consoles to the sandwich- and baby-making class.
The comments on the post show that at least someone is thinking critically:
Housework and the Partnered Feminist Gamer
Ultimately, what it comes down to is: women’s housework is expected to come before leisure time, and men’s participation in housework is considered secondary to leisure time. Women’s leisure time is valued less than men’s.
I really bristle at the common “solutions” for the problem: The first, the “work strike” is unacceptable for a number of reasons. First of all, a messy/unclean house is hazardous. Dirty dishes left piling up encourage vermin and disease, and tripping over a pile of discarded crap in the middle of the night on your way to the bathroom is never fun. Oh, and, it’s passive-aggressive, and all it’s going to do is allow your anger to fester as you watch stuff pile up and your partner is zoned out in front of Assassin’s Creed. Not to mention, if “house work” also entails childrearing, then going on a work strike is basically neglect. The second solution is the “lowering of standards,” which again, is a problem. For the reason mentioned above: the cleaner a house is, generally, the safer it is. Also, I find it very patronizing that a woman is expected to lower her standards with nothing required of the partner. Having to actively ignore a problem because you’ve “lowered your standards” can be as much work (maybe even more) as just doing the chore yourself. Finally, a variation of the “work strike” is the Lysistrata gambit–or sex strike–not ‘allowing’ your partner to have sex with you until they start cleaning up is frankly so stupid I’m surprised when I ever hear it brought up (with the exception of being too exhausted from housework that you’re not in the mood). Apart from the fact that it assumes that women are the “gatekeepers” of sex, who have no initiative for it and can take no pleasure from it, it’s such a non-sequiter. It’s would be like going on a hunger strike because your partner didn’t fill up the car. There is no (nor should there be any) relationship between clean house and dirty sex. Trying to create one is just asking for trouble in the relationship.
And finally, my personal favorite…
“Shut Up and Play the Game” Isn’t a Dialog
Ms. Dean seems to be under the assumption that as long as she comports herself online in a “ladylike” way, she is entitled to respectful treatment from men, and goes out of her way to distance herself from those mean, scary feminists when she calls for women to be treated as equals in the game. What I think she fails to realize is that being a “Lady” (particularly a “Lady” as opposed to a “Feminist”) isn’t going to get you treated like an equal, it’s going to get you treated like a commodity. In fact, it’s been pretty-well documented that the recent push to encourage women to be “ladylike” is actually a movement set in motion by the antifeminists like Flannigan, Schlafley, and organizations like the CWA and IWF as a means of silencing women when they call for greater equality in their life. They do so by creating a false dichotomy between being a “woman” and being a “feminist.”
Respectful behavior should be rejoined with respectful behavior. Feminism does not, no matter what Ms. Dean has been instructed to think by the antifeminist paragons of “Ladyhood”, equate to shrill ball-busting killjoy out to spoil everyone’s fun. A feminist, Amanda may be surprised to learn, wants exactly the sort of thing she advocates in her article: women being treated as equals in the game in their own right, and not as masturbatory tools for anonymous males.
Read and enjoy.
February 21st, 2008 at 1:21 pm I’ve got a friend. Her husband stays at home and raises the kids. They own a PS3. There are 3 people who use the console– 1 woman 1 girl, and 1 man. I’d bet that Sony counts that as 1 male user, 0 female. Because if I had to bet, I’d bet that hubby signed up for the PSN and gave his own demographic information.I wonder how often that sort of thing happens? How much data isn’t being captured by the survey?
February 21st, 2008 at 1:42 pm I’m sure that’s exactly what’s happening.As our generation advances, we see that gaming is a “family” event, not just limited to one or two members of the household. Sony just hasn’t accounted for this in their data.