Cerise Magazine

Mighty Ponygirl’s Feminist Gamers started up right around the same time as Cerise and Iris started to come together, and I’ve followed the blog with considerable interest. I asked Mighty Ponygirl if she’d do an interview with us for this month’s issue, and was thrilled when she agreed. I hope you’ll all find her responses to my questions as interesting as I did.

Robyn Fleming: Can you give a quick overview of what you cover at Feminist Gamers for our readers who aren’t familiar with the blog?

Mighty Ponygirl: Well, we try to cover a wide range of gamer topics. We focus heavily on electronic gaming, but we have some board game and tabletop gaming content. It’s a blog, so we’re free-form and post articles as we come across them, but I’ve tried to include more regular content as I can. I do cover some feminist content, but I like to think that most of my readers are already feminist-minded when they come to the blog, so I try not to lecture. I just wanted to create a space where feminists who enjoy games can think critically about the medium without being attacked by fanboi apologists, or feeling like they have to defend their enjoyment of a game from some feminists who might look at games and see nothing but Grand Theft Auto and Dead or Alive.

RF: How did Feminist Gamers come to be?

MP: I’ve been a regular poster at Pandagon (pandagon.net) for a while now, which is a very feminist progressive blog. For a long time I felt that I was a bit of a one-off because I was such an ardent feminist, yet I also liked playing video games and it felt a little lonely sometimes. About a year ago, I noticed that whenever Amanda posted a blog entry that even touched on video games there would be a flurry of responses and I was really interacting with a lot of people about a subject that people just as feminist as me felt just as passionately about. I contacted two other responders (Moira and Odanu) who seemed to enjoy games like I did and asked if they would be interested in contributing to a blog with me. Within a week the site was up.

RF: You’re the most prolific writer at Feminist Gamers, but it’s a group blog – how do you and your co-bloggers work together?

MP: Well, it’s a very laid-back blog; I’ve tried to give them the freedom to post as much or as little as they like and I feel that works fine. It can go for long periods between posting and that’s ok, because they both do really fantastic work, and they cover areas that I’m admittedly a bit blind to: I’m not much into MMORPGs, I’m not a Sony owner, and I haven’t tabletopped in a while. I might email them with some story ideas if I feel that there is a specific issue that would be better served with their opinions than with mine; but they’re not obligated to write about it. We collaborated on the Parent’s Guide recently and that turned out very well.

I wouldn’t mind having another prolific co-blogger because it would take a little pressure off of me to produce content every day, but I’m not in any hurry.

RF: Feminism is obviously a big influence in your blogging coverage. Which came first – the feminism or the gaming?

MP: That’s a very difficult call. (laughs) I remember having an Atari 2600 and a TRS-80 Model III when I was 3 years old, and playing the hell out of them. I even had my mom take pictures of my high scores to send off to those “fan clubs” in the backs of the instruction manuals. I remember being a feminist pretty early on just because I was something of a loner and a tomboy, and I rejected people telling me what I was supposed to be interested in or how I was supposed to behave just because I had to sit down to take a pee; and I don’t think it took me long at all to see that little boys weren’t being treated the same way. I think that gaming is such a natural way to connect with your sense of gender identity, or at least it used to be.

RF: And how do feminism and gaming interact for you these days?

MP: I don’t really see the two things as directly interacting for me now that I’m an adult, but I still see one side informing the other. Some things are very easy to just dismiss as stupid added-in sexism like the hoochie girls in Guitar Hero III, but I think a lot of games have much more interesting and thought-provoking themes: BioShock and Portal had such interesting gender issues going on in them that I really enjoyed playing them even if I didn’t agree 100% with whatever “message” was ultimately being conveyed to me. If the game developers can get me to think critically about something then I can forgive a lot.

But I definitely try to consider how gaming could help or hinder the next generation of feminists: gaming is a great tool to a young imagination, and I wouldn’t want to see the adventuring or scientific spirit of someone like my niece be squished because all she ever played was “Imagine: Babiez”

RF: You have a pretty solid community of regular commenters at Feminist Gamers. Have you done anything specifically to encourage the formation of that discussion group?

MP: I really enjoy my commenters and I worked very hard to get the community up-and-running; so I’m very happy with how things have shaped up. I’ve been very deliberate about including the commenter in my posts: asking them directly for their thoughts on the topic. When I see a new commenter, I try to welcome and encourage them, even if I don’t completely agree with them. On the flip side, though, I try to be very careful about trolls; especially after the chan attacks over the summer. I don’t believe that anyone can post anything on the site. If I have to choose between a shy visitor who might comment once a month but generally feels that this is a safe space, or a troll who will put lots of comments in, I’ll choose to make the site safe for the shy poster.

It’s a bit difficult sometimes because I try not to get too upset when someone attacks me or my ideas, but usually when I opt to ban someone who’s abusive to me, it’s because I’m more concerned that they’re going to turn around and be abusive to one of my commenters, and I’m not having that.

RF: Were you expecting to have to deal with trolling when you started the blog?

MP: Oh definitely. Whenever I post something about a series or a title that is very popular, I expect to get the people coming out of the woodwork to defend it and tell me “who cares? It’s just a game!” – which I’ve always felt to be such a funny thing to say. Because I’ve just said that I care, and more than that, they’ve came from some forum to troll my board because they care about the game!

I’ve spent a lot of time on different gaming forums and blogs (lurking mostly), so I know the level of discourse that they aspire to. I think that’s one of the reasons I spend so much time commenting on the stupidities of fanboi culture.

RF: One of the things I enjoy about Feminist Gamers is your Trailer Tuesdays, and the way you’re always looking ahead for what’s coming next in gaming. What games are you looking forward to most in this coming year?

MP: Well, I’m an ardent Nintendo Fangirl. So I have a LOT of Wii and DS titles: Super Smash Brothers Brawl is going to be a release-date purchase if I have to sell a kidney. But there are a fair number of PC titles that have piqued my interest. Pirates of the Burning Seas may be the first MMO I play since my old MUDding days nearly 15 years ago. Also, I just saw a game this morning called the Rise of the Argonauts which really made me prick up my ears. It looks like 2008 may be a good year for adventure games, which does my heart good.

RF: Do you have any predictions for what might go on in gaming culture this year?

MP: 2008 is an election year here in the States, and already games like Second Life and World of Warcraft have held in-game rallies for particular candidates. I think there will be more of this to come, for good or for bad. I hope that as the gamer generation matures that the culture itself will mature, but I don’t think this year will be a good year for women gamers: 2007 saw a lot of fawning media reports about how “women game too!” and a lot of companies are paying lipservice to trying to create more game for women gamers and we’re just getting a bunch more Barbie Sparkle Dating Baby Magic games for younger girls.

The chan attacks over the summer on various feminist sites and sites like gaygamer.com made me worry that the backlash had started, and the Jade Raymond debacle just cemented that fear. I suspect that talking about women gamers is going to be seen as passé, and the trolls are going to try to assert their ownership of fandom once again.