Cerise Magazine

September 2007 Issue

Features

• From the Editors
• Craft Check: Handkerchief Dice Bags
• Gaming in the Media: Reflections on Princess Peach...
• Market to Me: Feminine gamers

Interviews

• Blogger Interview: Regina Buenaobra [Acid for Blood]

Articles

• Gender & Live-Action Role Play: LARP and Social Darwinism
  Author: Samara Hayley Steele

Samara continues her series on gender and LARP.

• D&D for Girls?
  Author: John Kim

John discusses a recent incident involving gender and the official Dungeons & Dragons discussion forums, what went wrong and some ideas for making it right.

• Reclaiming Pink
  Author: Olivia Luna

Olivia takes a critical look at the some of the uses of the color pink in the world of handheld gaming.

• Sisterhood is powerful: women-oriented gaming communities
  Author: Andrea Rubenstein

Andrea brings up some of the positive aspects of women-oriented gaming communities.

• Is Gamerdom Really a Bastion of Masculinity?
  Author: Latoya Peterson

Latoya looks at the perceptions of gaming and gamers and what that means for the female gamers out there.

Gamer Stories

• The Dice of Evil
  by Robyn Fleming

Reviews

• Puzzle Quest
  by Olivia Luna
• Nocturne
  by Bonnie Moxnes
• Retro Review: Castle of Dragon
by Abby Wilson

Odds 'n Ends

• The Back Page

Want your article to appear in a future issue? Submit to Cerise today!

“Do you have Final Fantasy III for DS?”

“No, I don’t have a DS. Ever play Shadow Hearts: Covenant?”

“Nope, never heard about that one. I just got Diablo 2 - played that?”

“Naw, it’s in my Gamefly queue though.”

My coworker and I sat in my cubicle a few weeks ago trying to find common gaming ground. We eventually crossed in the later Final Fantasy series and the Kingdom Hearts franchise, but it took quite a bit of probing. Gaming - like reading, anime, film, and other hobbies - covers a large swath of ground. Everyone from the weekend, a-little-Madden-before-the-bar player to the kid with WoW tattooed on his arm to the cube-dwelling PopCap champion can claim a little piece of gamerdom.

Everyone, that is, that happens to be male.

Despite all the fanfare that has occurred about women getting into gaming, the perception of a gamer is still highly stereotypical. The realm of gaming seems to be specifically reserved for young to middle-aged white men, with small concessions made for men of color. Women gamers - of any hue - are viewed with a wary eye and rarely welcomed. It is almost as if men are saying, “Feel free to drop by the clubhouse, check out all the cool stuff we do, maybe even tap the controller. But don’t make this a habit.”

Gaming: a man’s sport?

The gaming world fights for relevancy in the face of more established mediums like film, novels, and television as another great American medium. Some would argue that gaming is an art. Others would argue that the competitive nature of gaming qualifies it as a sport.

Tanner from Gameology seems to think that gaming is a real man’s sport:

Of course, efforts have been underway for quite some time to get the U.S. more interested in competitive gaming. There are a variety of leagues, a star (Fatal1ty), and even some sporadic television coverage on cable.

Last weekend marked a pretty significant milestone, however, as the World Series of Video Games was alotted a half-hour time slot on CBS.

What interests me is why exactly it has been such a struggle to get the American audience interested in competitive gaming. I know that Korea has far better broadband penetration than the U.S. and naturally this has been successful in spreading game culture. I think one also has to consider cultural and social reasons for resistance to gaming, however.

I am thinking particularly about the American view of competition and dominant forms of masculinity which govern it.

Perhaps what keeps the U.S. from embracing gaming as a competitive pursuit worth following or venerating is that it does not fit into traditional conceptualizations of masculine sporting activity. I have been desperately seeking some studies on Asian, specifically Korean, masculinity to confirm these differences.

I have also been problematizing my own perspective given the immense popularity of poker as a form of competitive gaming. Why is poker, a similarly mental non-athletic activity, accepted as a suitably masculine pursuit and not gaming? I would assert that poker player, as opposed to the stereotypical introverted nerd gamer, is culturally associated with men’s men like cowboys and gangsters.

No mention of women gamers at all.

Tanner seems to believe that for gaming to become relevant, to become embraced by the larger society, gaming must be linked to masculinity. The popularity of games that appeal to women are often marginalized and dismissed in favor of an ever-shrinking category of games that appeal to “the hardcore.” This perception appears to be hot-glued into the mindset of society, that women just do not game seriously.

Women just aren’t taken seriously

While I rarely, if ever, have problems with men I meet in the real world understanding and acknowledging my gamer status, online and in active discussion forums it seems that men are generally more willing to challenge or dismiss my opinions - simply because I am female.

Case in point:

I recently posted a piece on Racialicious that explored the issues surrounding addressing race in public forums, with a particular focus on the gaming industry. The piece garnered a lot of interesting conversation and perspectives from the readers of the blog. A few weeks after the post was published, I received another reader comment. You can check out the exchange below:

Duane wrote:

“Sexism is rampant, particularly when you consider character design, costuming, and forced gender roles in play. Most female characters are designed for maximum sex appeal, relegated to damsel in distress roles, or physically limited and/or forced to contribute to the game in a limited capacity. Major female characters in RPGs tend to be healers or magic-users, normally devastated in battle by a few hits from a stronger male character. ”

You’ve obviously never played World of Warcraft. Male and female characters of the same race have the same starting stats.

“To illustrate the issue of racism, let’s play a little game. Off the top of your head, name 5 black video game characters. Now, exclude any characters that were not main characters. Now exclude any that appear in a sports game or hip-hop based game. Finally, exclude any characters that embody stereotypical representations of African Americans. ”
Question: Who mostly plays video games in America? Answer: White males who are between the ages of 15-35. That’s just a fact of reality. Just because there are not many black video game characters also does not imply racism. You’re simply making an issue where none exists.
Latoya Peterson wrote:

Duane -

Please see above. I am a console gamer, not an MMORPGer.

1. If you read what I write for Cerise, I explain this pretty clearly.and
2. That’s been disproved BEFORE the success of the Wii. That demographic may describe the hardcore gaming market, but the gaming industry’s bread and butter comes from blockbusters that appeal to casual players - people who buy about 4 games a year.Why do you think developers are throwing so much money at the Wii?Posted 27 Jul 2007 at 2:56 pm
   

   Duane wrote:

Yeah but you mentioned RPG games in your discussion. World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online “role-playing game.” I’m just pointing out that you shouldn’t label all video games the same way or paint them all in the same negative light. There are many newer video games today that break away from the traditional, stereotypical roles of characters based on gender.You know as well as I do that most video games players in America are white males, between the ages of 15-35. That is group who purchases the most video games.

Posted 27 Jul 2007 at 3:16 pm ¶

I did not bother responding.

Beyond the fact that this guy was not reading any of the arguments put forth in my post, it was also clear that he was more willing to hold on to an outdated reality simply because that was what he wanted to believe. Since I self-identified as a black female in the piece, he felt more than validated in dismissing my arguments. After all, what would I know?

I’m just a black girl in white man’s world.

I don’t have a place here.

That is - I don’t have a place here aside from the one I carve for myself.

And I am sharpening my blade as we speak…