Before I begin, consider this quote and these disclaimers:
- "A lot of the dialogue about gender and technology mirrors this essentialist trend – girls, boys, can’t, can -- and that’s something we don’t want to take for granted, and that may not be serving us well." Justine Cassell.
- The Term '"Traditional Female" generic type' refers to the imagined target of "girl games". These are the types of women that the video game industry tries to include through "girl games" but fails to do so only because it falls victim to the socialized gender norms in the United States. However, these women are different than the women currently playing the video games created for and by men (I will get into this later). Consider evidence for this belief in Genderizing HCI from Justine Cassell or either of the From Barbie, to Mortal Kombat books. For a different perspective see Women's Games in Japan: Gendered Identity and Narrative Construction.
- To me, understanding this essentialist trend is central to correcting it. This entry is an attempt to better understand it.
- The topic of this post is that of gender. I do not touch on equally important portions of intersectionality in this post: class, race, sexual preference. I plan to at another date.
A while ago I was playing some Monster Hunter Tri. This game pits humanity against vicious looking wyverns in an ultimate battle for survival. It is a squad based game with either solo content (offline) or up to 4 player content (online). All battles pit the players against a (usually) very large, fearsome dinosaur. Players kill these wyverns and use their parts as better weapons or clothing so they can prepare to fight even bigger, more fearsome wyverns.
Before heading out into the wild to face them the players in the online mode meet in a tavern or bar (it always begins or ends in a tavern). At this tavern, the participants can arm wrestle, drink, sign up for missions, make new gear, or buy consumables (potions, bug nets, traps, etc). I was playing with a friend who challenged me to arm wrestling. I lost.
Now, this is interesting only because I lost to a woman. In real life, the embarrassment as a man under the auspices of hegemonic masculinity (subordinated masculinities) would be tremendous if there had been 2 other men watching me (as there were at the time). But in this video game, I simply accepted it and did the lament gesture while she danced a victory dance. This act is interesting for several reasons.
Another blog topic would be "no girls on the internet" meme and how it relates to this.
In a digital environment, especially in America, we often forget that reality does not confine us. Programmed reality can allow us to do anything. In addition, programmed reality can allow for all socially constructed rules of reality to be broken, or ignored entirely. An important reason for this is equity and equality among the gamers who play this game for playing video games at an early age is significant later in life due to knowledge of computer use or how computers work. Finally, playing a game with other people, online or in the same room, creates meaning for those players; that meaning is shared insomuch as each player is a part of creating it. That meaning's origin resides within the game engine whose construction is socially determined before publication. The effect of that meaning has yet to truly be determined yet remains a significant focus in the study of gender and technology.
The premise of this article is:
The creation of shared meaning in video games allow for players to create meaning separate from the intent of the developers. However, this shared meaning has limits within the confines of tools included by the developers. A powerful tool within the creation of meaning is avatars. Through gendered avatars, lack of a sex option aka "only male" limits creation of meaning to men, or female interpretation of men within those games that allow for avatar customization. Lack of a female avatar in any game like this, of any kind, for any reason, significantly limits female participation to those women who are not "traditional females" or those who fall into the feminine dichotomy. Non-participation of "traditional females" remains a stumbling block for video game participation equality. Going outside the traditional dichotomy of gendered essentiallism is necessary to fully realize the potential of the game market as well as equal representation of that dichotomy.
Video games are an interesting topic of study. They are male dominated and primarily male created enterprise that often allows for men who cannot reach the heights of the "dominant male generic type" to achieve in different ways than are usually accepted in reality. In video games, I can be a war hero. I can be a murderous killer. Or, I could be a female alien bounty hunter. I can be whatever I'd like to be given the limited choices of video game design. Yet, for all these choices, I am making a male choice.
At times game makers claim to have universal appeal in mind (universal typically means universal male appeal across all cultures (evidence - Wii marketing rhetoric).
If one were to look at the process of socialization from birth to high school graduation, you could see the means through which this idea is perpetuated. Mothers, Fathers, Teachers, Media outlets, and every other aspect of society is designed to perpetuate the idea that exploration of the technological world is for boys, girls use computers and exceed in testing against boys yet once the tests are done, girls shut the computer off. This is demonstrated by the fact that women still do not enter fields that develop technology and have only recently begun gaining in the ‘natural’ sciences.
In general, game makers do little to dispute this fact. The general response takes a variety of forms: “It is too expensive.” “Well they don’t play enough to market to them.” “Girls don’t like games like that.” “Girls see computers as tools, not as time wasters or creative tools.” So, from storefronts, character design, content, to nearly every aspect of video games have been primarily aimed at the generic male type (general idea of what a male likes) for so long that is nearly impossible to see outside of that dominance.
As Justine Cassell has noted, women who play games typically give up a portion of femininity to compete with males in their world. In short, women must change as video games will not. This creates a significant and distracting dyad. Traditional femininity and video games are difficult to bring together without marginalizing those females that are already playing video games.
How does one resolve this gap? What would the world of video games look like if men and women had equal influence over how video games are understood by society?
To begin, I need to briefly explain a social theory.
Symbolic Interactionism
In Sociology there is a branch of theory called Symbolic Interactionism (SI). This theory, named by a man by named of Herbert Blumer, outlines SI’s basic premise:
- "Humans act toward things on the basis of the meanings they ascribe to those things."
(humans act on the meaning of things)
- "The meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with others and the society."
(meaning comes out of interacting with things)
- "These meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he/she encounters."
(meanings can change given interpretation)
Basically, we give things names and those names have meanings associated with them. Those meanings are developed and changed over time from how people use and see an object. We can apply this idea to a number of things but there is always more to be gleaned behind that object than we can state.
An example of the construction and changing of shared meaning is Monster Hunter. This is a very loose interpretation and I understand it is more complicated than I am make it:
- Females and Males purchase and play Monster Hunter Tri. Men create male avatars, females create female avatars.
- Other people, Gamers, see this object and assign the meaning for women and men (however briefly) to those avatars. The game, however, does not recognize the difference and therefore the meaning is rendered obsolete.
- Meanings are modified. Male and Female lose their socially constructed gendered identity.
Effect of new meaning: Males and Females can achieve equally and are represented equally. Further, men playing women and women playing men allow for further distortion of gendered norms for sex. Typically in games like this, while there may be little computational difference, outfits fall into male fantasy representation. Monster Hunter is unique in that while some variation occurs within the individual armor sets, they are significantly similar in almost all of their design.
Certain norms come out of that shared meaning. These norms typically take a standard set of armor or weapons for a given task. It also includes things like standard builds, standard strategies, and standard behaviors in groups. How we interact in game with people we can perceive a realistic element of (voice, gender, language structures) means different things both inside and outside the game. It is controlled by game makers insomuch that formulas for damage and amount of equipment is constantly reevaluated and rebalanced. This act does not negate the meaning shared by players, but forces new interpretations of those meanings. Again, not including a means through which females or women can join into this creation of meaning in game.
This brings me to the conclusion of this article.
Shared meaning has an influence on people who in turn, influence that shared meaning through new interpretation. The example of Monster Hunter Tri is interesting only because the perceived dominant group of video game fans and players is typically seen as men. If Monster Hunter were made in America, women would probably not be included as an avatar option. See: American created video games.
A significant means through which men and women can achieve equity is through a virtual environment that does not presuppose any type of gendered difference other than body type and voice. Just as in Monster Hunter, the fact that any woman can play as a woman in a game even dominated by a primarily "masculine" behavior will be an immediate draw. The meaning those players can create standing toe-to-toe with husbands or friends or random online strangers means an incredible amount than it would if they were playing a game based on the reality of war (women not on front lines but as military intelligence, driving helicopters and troop transports as NPCs). Because it is a virtual environment, and despite the activity in game being a primarily male dominated enterprise, there should be no reason that female avatars do not exist in game.
This should be a default behavior in video game design.
