Should Gamers Embrace Femininity?
February 2008 Issue
Features
- From the Editors
- Craft Check: Make Your Own Tiara
- Gaming in the Media: “I’m Not Offended, I’m Just Bored”: Gawker Cuts to the Heart of our Apathy
- Market to Me: Marketing Consoles
Interviews
- Industry Interview: Kelley Barnes-Herrmann
- Video Interview: Gabrielle Munoz
Articles
- An Atypical Princess: Ashelia B’Nargin Dalmasca
Author: Melissa Velte
- Princess Peach: Feminist?
Author: Drew Mackie
- Should Gamers Embrace Femininity?
Author: Natalie Hill
Melissa discusses they ways in which Final Fantasy XII's Ashe overcomes negative princess stereotypes.
Drew takes a look at the portrayal of Princess Peach and analyzes her history from a feminist perspective.
Natalie makes the case that embracing femininity allows for more diversity in gaming.
Gamer Stories
Reviews
Odds 'n Ends
This past Christmas I timidly strapped on a plastic guitar. It was my first time playing Guitar Hero outside of a Best Buy and I couldn’t exactly enjoy it. I was at my partner Chris’s cousin’s house, standing in front of his extended family, about to rock out to Nirvana’s “Heart Shaped Box.” My lack of self-confidence didn’t come from the fact that I knew I wasn’t going to be the best, or because I anticipated many missed notes. Instead, it came from the fact that I knew I was going to be better than Chris’s mom, a woman who, before this, probably only touched a video game controller when straightening up her living room, yet laughed her way through “Surrender.” I was going to show Chris’s family that I had a little bit of talent and the experience that comes from years of playing games. What I dreaded was that I knew his family wouldn’t accept that I’m a gamer in my own right, separate from Chris. My gaming isn’t a compromise, a way to spend time with my boyfriend. I wouldn’t be able to explain to them that gaming is a passion I’ve had since I was five.
I’m a typical woman in a heterosexual relationship. I play games and that is not revolutionary and is in no way remarkable. Yet it’s a hobby I and many other woman gamers spend a lot of time struggling with and worrying about. One of the main reasons is simple: gaming is typically seen as a masculine pastime, right up there with sports and watching porn. Women playing games is somewhat abnormal. We’re just elbowing our way into the boys’ club. Women and their femininity muddle everything that makes gaming fun—we dry up the competition, add pink to everything, and soften the hardcore.
But embracing femininity in gaming culture is not about stereotypes. Femininity is part of a person’s identity. It is a set of actions and attitudes that are relegated by our culture to one sex, but in reality it’s not so simple, as both men and women have some combination of the traits we define as masculine and feminine. Gaming and femininity is about rolling the dice or picking up the controller to play regardless of sex or gender identity. It’s buying whatever color DS makes you salivate, even if that color happens to be pink.
It’s about not having to adopt masculine traits in order to fit in with the accepted gaming demographic. It’s about creating diversity of avatars, characters and experiences. Much of what is presented in games in terms of gender follows narrow, outdated viewpoints. Male characters are often designed as being overly muscled and emotionless, while female characters are muscle-less and hyper-emotional. Games that tap into the new and varied gaming demographic, enriched with femininity, tend to move away from the hypermasculinity that has been the traditional trademark of games that once drew only a select group of people. Once femininity is fully accepted into the gaming community, the culture of gaming can become even more inclusive. This can only help the gaming community. A new and diversified gaming demographic leads to more games purchased, making way for fresh ideas and progress for gaming culture.
