I don't develop games. In gaming, I am strictly a consumer. I have, however, been playing console games since 1991 and online games since 1997. Gaming, in its many forms, is a hobby of mine and an important element in my social life. I'm also a fan of pencil-and-paper roleplaying games and tech culture in general, two areas that share a large portion of their populations with the "gamer" culture.
In case you haven't seen the Internet for the past 24 hours, #1ReasonWhy is a massive trend in social media today discussing why women are (drastically) underrepresented in the game design industry. It started with one simple question, and has resulted in a torrent of tweets about sexism in the industry, a movement to create mentoring relationships, and many blog posts on the subject. The movement has thrown a light on some truly disturbing trends (and also a series of heartwarming stories).
However, people outside the gaming industry -- and particularly men -- may be struggling to see the relevance of this trend. As a male gamer, I have found the #1ReasonWhy trend very striking, and I'm writing this post to explain why other male gamers should care about it.
The reason is this: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, The Sith Lords.
No, really. I'm serious.
Penny Arcade Report published an editorial last week about gendered video game protagonists. It's worth reading; the basic premise is that video games starring women aren't a priority for studios are marketers. This may be something of a chicken-and-egg question, since it seems likely that a more gender-aware and balanced industry would create more high-priority games featuring women. But, regardless of the causality, there is a relative lack of quality games featuring women, and a relative lack of reach for those few games that do.
This has two negative effects on gamers. First, it negatively affects the quality of games. Second, and relatedly, it negatively affects game culture by reinforcing poor social expectations. Game culture is infected with an insidious form of sexism which I'll call masculine anti-idealism.
For 50 years (ever since the dawn of the computer game era), gaming and tech culture has been plagued by stereotypes of poor social skills. Some of this stems from self-imposed social exile stemming all the way back to the MIT hackers who pioneered early games back in the 1960s. Whatever the reason, through some combination of outside stereotyping and inside cleaving to that stereotype, gamer culture as languished under the label of being unmasculine, unathletic, uncharismatic and antisocial. Although the reappropriation of the term "geek" has blunted some of the antisocial angles, even the popularized subculture term has connotations of fringe, slightly awkward guys who embrace the image of themselves as a foil to masculine idealism.
Obviously, not all gamers are like this. Not even most gamers are like this. But the cleaving to stereotype is pervasive enough that it infects the culture.
A natural correlation to gamer culture as anti-masculine is the baseline assumption that gamer culture is male-dominated. This has in turn given rise to the bizarre concept of the "gamer girl" or "geek girl": a female steeped in gamer or geek culture. Variously used by outsiders and insiders (often to praise women and girls for their dedication to "nerdy" pursuits), the "gamer girl" moniker is both bizarre and disturbing for its latent, condescending sexism. You'll rarely, if ever, hear someone termed a "gamer boy", "gamer guy", or "gamer dude" (does anyone say "dude" anymore?) -- the male equivalent of a "gamer girl" is a "gamer".
It might not feel sexist when you say it, but the underlying sexism can't be avoided. The existence of "gamer girl" as a title relies on the underlying assumption that "gamers" are men -- which is an outgrowth of the image of geek culture as a male-dominated anti-masculine subcultural movement. Gaming icon and web media innovator Felicia Day described the phenomenon like this in a blog post about her song "Gamer Girl / Country Boy":
"I feel like most of the hatred wasn’t even directed at ME personally, it was at this general IDEA of some “Gamer Girl” type, who, in the perceived mind of these guys, disenfranchises gamers? I dunno. Clearly a segment of guys on the internet HATE “Gamer Girls”. This is the part I don’t understand, why they are so frikkin emotional about it. They hate on this type of girl who “pretends” to game for attention. This archetype they can somehow factually attribute to a few women (then paint the whole gender with the brush) that exploit them for attention, cheapens their hobby with “casualism”…who knows. The irony here is that the “Hot Gamer Girl” is there because….guys click on them/watch them more than non-hot girls. So yeah, talk about creating their own problem."(Note: If you're in too much of a hurry to read her blog post, Day refers to herself as a "gamer", and not a "gamer girl", because "you change minds by being who you are, representing, and not pointing out you’re different from anyone else".)
There's no question that Day is a cultural icon in gamer culture, and a deserving one. (Not only did she create the revolutionary MMO-themed show The Guild; she also wrote her own character into the Dragon Age universe.) She also happens to be a woman and charismatic. The idea that her femininity could diminish her role in the culture is absurd, but the idea that it could somehow poison gamer culture goes beyond absurdity.
But this, too, is a corollary of gamer culture as anti-masculine. Feminine women are a threat to the model. Gamers, according to both external stereotype and internal legend, have trouble "getting a girl" -- and if feminine women are involved in the culture, it threatens that (already sexist) idea, so their presence must be suspect. This anti-femininity ideal is encouraged even among women in gamer culture. A friend of mine once attended a party that involved Magic: the Gathering tournament, where she was accused by a fellow female attendee of not being a "real gamer" and only being there to pick up guys. The reason, apparently, was that she was wearing a dress.
So this is a lot about gamers, but not a lot about games -- and I promised I was going to talk about Knights of the Old Republic. And I am, I promise.
Gaming, to a large extent, is about escape. Games allow you, as the player, to be something you are not, whether it is a helicopter pilot, a real estate mogul, or a Jedi knight. Whether it is for wish fulfillment, catharsis, or just ordinary excitement, gaming transports you into another person and another environment.
AAA games (the industry term for the "blockbuster" titles) have tended to serve as escapism for the stereotypical gamer demographic -- men who are seen or who see themselves as uncharismatic or anti-masculine. Men -- who make up most of the protagonists of AAA games -- tend to be large, aggressive, action-hero types. They are (caricatures of) the men who are otherwise not welcomed in gamer culture, and they provide an escape for male gamers. Women tend to be unrealistic, oversexualized, and shallow. They are caricatures of the feminine women who are otherwise not welcomed in gamer culture, and they provide an escape for ... male gamers. (This is not true of every game, but it is an overwhelming trend. For more on the subject, the Penny Arcade show Extra Credits has a few episodes on gender, sex, and sexuality, which I recommend.)
I enjoy the escape that games provide. Sometimes I do want to play an archetypal badass, and, when I do, I'll pop in Arkham City (a Batman game) or Red Dead Redemption (a cowboy game). Or I can play the faceless everyman (BioShock), an Emperor (Civilization II -- none of this III through V business), or the ultimate power in creation (Universe Sandbox).
Sometimes I like to play a game as a woman. Women make up about half the world's population, and, when I am playing a game as an escape to someone who is not like me, it seems silly to immediately eliminate half the population from consideration. Mirror's Edge is a great game. Zoey is the most interesting character in Left 4 Dead; Lilith was my favorite character in Borderlands. Some games, such as the Fallout series or Dragon Age, have slightly different side content available to characters of each gender. But even aside from that, when content is not gender-locked, it is simply sometimes a fun and interesting escape to cross the gender barrier. Gender makes no gameplay difference, for instance, in Torchlight II, but I will play a female character as often as a male.
But content is often gender-locked in ways that punishes gamers for choosing women or perpetuates the unhealthy masculine-feminine dynamic in gamer culture. BioWare has gotten a lot of credit for allowing players to choose a male or female main character, but it is still full of sexist tropes -- for example, male Shepard's romances frequently involve softening up ("feminizing") the strong female characters (Williams, Jack). It's possible to play the Mount and Blade series as a female character, but it is much more difficult, and so players who have not mastered the game will probably be frustrated with it. Even in the revered Lego series (Lego Star Wars, Lego Batman), female characters are largely relegated to niche parts, and the male characters have the more interesting play.
The most insult I have ever felt at gender-locked content, however, was in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. The KotOR games allowed a male or female character to serve as the central character, a Jedi knight. (Mass Effect, in many ways, is a spiritual successor to the KotOR games, and Dragon Age uses almost the same mechanics. In fact, both were made by the same studio, BioWare, that made the first KotOR game.) Companions to the main character in your party had set identities and models. Aside from romance options, the first KotOR game played pretty much the same whether you were male or female. According to the official Star Wars canon, the main character of the original KotOR was male, and the main character of KotOR II was female. With the exception of romance options, the series seemed about as gender neutral as it could get.
KotOR II, in apparent attempt to increase replayability, had one companion character that changed based on gender. If you chose a female Jedi, you were accompanied by a male called the Disciple. If you chose a male Jedi, you were accompanied by a female called the Handmaiden. Both were potential romance options.
It was insulting and a disaster. The Disciple felt like an afterthought; he had no personality, and could not have been less interesting to have as a companion. The Handmaiden had a deeper, more interesting personal story line, and her dialogue interactions were more nuanced and challenging, and therefore much more rewarding. But the worst was this: The Handmaiden could teach you an extra ability which opened up new and more flexible combat strategies. The Disciple couldn't.
In a game where the canon story was that the main character was a female, content that deepened both the story and the gameplay was locked for male only characters. It's a game I love, and I replay often, and I recently passed it on to a friend. I had forgotten about the gender-locked ability, and I was actually embarrassed when I remembered and explained it to my friend.
How does this happen? The gamer culture is dominated by men. It is dominated by a misguided view of the gamer's relation to femininity. When a designer creates a male character that is more interesting than his female counterpart, it is "catering to his audience"; when he creates a female character who is absurdly oversexualized, it is "fan service".
But it isn't service to anyone. Fan service is acknowledging to your audience that an interesting, attractive character has a sexual side to subtly entice your audience (think Sean Maher's unnecessary shirtless scene in the final episode of Firefly). This is, at best, thoughtlessness, and at worst grotesque sexual aggression. And it serves no one. It perpetuates an unhealthy view of gamer culture, of gamers (men and women), and of gender, sex, and sexuality. It takes the worst aspects of the gamer stereotype and exploits them. It normalizes sexual condescension and aggression.
It's no coincidence that the female protagonist in KotOR II lacks the extra ability. It's no wonder that the female character in Borderlands is the agile "control" character, and the only one whose special ability is not an attack. It's no wonder that, in the Mass Effect series, there is an entire race of bisexual women, but it took until the third installment to have a same-sex option for men. It's no wonder that Big Brothers in BioShock guard Little Sisters, or that, in Fable II, the player may select the gender of Sparrow, but the sibling who is murdered in the opening scene is always a girl, Rose. On its own, any one of these things wouldn't be bothersome, but the culture is so infected by twisted gender norms that the medium becomes a reflection of that.
So it's not just that there are few women in game design and game culture. It's that there are few women in game design and game culture, and their marginalization is encouraged. The culture is encouraged to be hostile -- or at least condescending -- to femininity. That's not good for anyone. It makes for bad games. But, far more importantly, it also makes for bad relationships, uncomfortable environments, and an unhealthy culture.
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